Wear Clean Draws  (because there’s 5 million ways to kill a ceo)

moral entrepreneurialism and fundamentalist feminism

By shag carpet bomb • Mar 10th, 2009 • Category: Feminist Fight Club, Laura Agustin, Nation State, Prostitution, Radical Feminism, Research, Sex & Sexuality, Sex Positive Politics, Sex Work, Sex at the Margins, Third World Feminism

while this is out of order, I couldn’t resist writing a bit about Agustin’s ethnographically thick description of attending a conference on prostitution, one led by what we typically call abolitionists — activists who are opposed to prostitution and want to abolish it.

Agustin calls them moral entrepreneurs, which tickled me because it’s an old term from sociologist Howard Becker, which one of my grad school mentors pointed out to me with regard to ….what I cannot recall right now.

Moral entrepreneurs are people who make a life, if not a living, by assuming a position of knowing correct behavior and constantly enforcing it through sanctioning, shunning, and shaming. She calls most of the people at the conference moral entrepreneurs because they severely censored any dissenting opinion.

She goes on to argue that it would be better to call this faction of feminists, fundamental feminists, and not abolitionists. She explains:

The desire to ‘abolish prostitution’ represents a utopian vision of how societies should be: free of gender inequity, sexual obsession, and the commodification of bodies, /there is no inherent reason for abolitionists to employ tactics of censorship, personal attacks, and disinformation, and some abolitionists maintain their utopian beliefs while also collaborating on pragmatic solutions. For this reason, I do not characterize extremist behavior as abolitionism, but as fundamentalist feminism. Elizabeth Wilson refers to secular fundamentalism when discussing the difference between understanding revolution as change and uncertainty versus understanding it as faith:


"By fundamentalism, I mean here a way of life, or a world-view or philosophy of life, which insists that the individual lives by narrowly prescribed rules and rituals: a faith that offers certainty ... The search for the \'new life\' can be exhilarating, but it can lead to extreme anxiety and personal collapse; by contrast, the prices paid for certainty is rigidity and an incomprehension and intolerance of those who do not follow the \'true way\'. Those who don\'t believe must be either destroyed or save."

Others refer to feminist fundamentalism as the idea that woman is good (or victim) and man is bad (or perpetrator). These feminists believe there are authentic roots and principles to which all feminists ought to return; they would not have been in agreement with nineteenth-century advocates of domesticity; many are vocal lesbians, believe in women’s right to abortion and advocate for equal rights for women. They feel beleaguered, betrayed and at war with other feminists who see things differently from them, which explains the frequent verbal violence Fundamentalist crusades are characterised by homogeneous, consistent, easily understood ideas.

Fundamentalists speak of ‘women’; they believe in a female essence that is violated by patriarchy everywhere; they are certain of what is male and what is female. This appealing notion erases differences amongst women, however, both within cultures and across cultural boundaries, Postcolonial feminists as well as many first-world women object to an inclusiveness that only reflects middle-class, ‘white’, heterosexual, Euramerican experiences. Criticism is especially severe of the tendency to make third-world women into ‘always, already’ victims, passive, acted upon and not acting.

Fundamentalist feminists are not worried by this criticism; they passionately evoke a spirit of Woman that needs both protecting and liberating; signs, symbols and keywords connote that spirit. Likening their campaign to the nineteenth century’s against slavery, and feeling they are at war, they respond with denunciations telling attendees at events and funders that rights activists are ‘paid by the sex industry’ or ‘known associates of traffickers’. They maintain and circulate blacklists, denounce activists to their employers and threaten loss of funding if recipients invite the wrong people to events.

ahhh. I’m tired, but more anon. Basically, I’m finding it interesting that a researcher has uncovered precisely the same dynamics that have occured in bloglandia. In observing that, I recall a dispute over the source of this consistency — the reason why fundamentalist feminists behaved as they did, online. There was one faction who wanted to just chalk it all up to assholery.

I resisted that, showing how it was related to the fundamental tenants of radical feminist theory. In this case, Agustin uses a broader brush, drawing out some of the tenants of radical feminism, but broadening them to incorporate women who don’t wholly identify with radical feminism, though they do in some part.

At any rate, this bitch is exhausted, so more anon.

4 Responses »

  1. DaisyDeadhead on March 15th, 2009 at 4:26 PM:

    Great excerpt, would like to discuss this further! Especially:

    Fundamentalists speak of ‘women’; they believe in a female essence that is violated by patriarchy everywhere; they are certain of what is male and what is female. This appealing notion erases differences amongst women, however, both within cultures and across cultural boundaries

    Absolutely true, good description of the fundie faction.

  2. shag carpet bomb on March 18th, 2009 at 6:07 PM:

    well, i’ve blogged more on what agustin said. as for the specifics, i’m too lazy to go hunt down old posts on the topic but she’s basically outlining the core of radical/cultural feminist theory but she’s leaving room for those radical feminists who, while adhering to many of the tenants, are willing to work with others, work for pragmatic solutions, etc.

    what i enjoyed about the book was that she gave wider empirical support to what we observe online, only seeing it up close and personal in the world of social movements aimed at rescuing sex workers. it turns out that the attitude she uncovers is largely the same as what’s encountered online, except that the poeple she’s studying have a direct impact on the lives of sex workers in the ways that fundamentalist feminists online do not exercise.

    they also do a lot more damage. while some fundamentalists like ann bartow engage in malicious and threatening behavior, and others makes threats and engage in outing, what Agustin observes is the exact same behavior: blacklisting, refusing to give funding to people who support anything outside the dominant framework of prostitution as pure victimization, reporting people to their employers and trying to get them fired, etc.


    elsewhere, brownfemipower argued that women of color gget really nasty when they get in arguments, go straight for the jugular. these wars over sex workers are just as vicious — not to mention that I’ve seen a lot worse than has happened in blogging lately, with people going into each other’s real lives, reporting others to their employers, making threatening phone calls, death threats, stalking, and on some occasions actual fisticuffs when people could find each other in RL.

  3. Luca on March 19th, 2009 at 6:33 AM:

    Great article. I had my first taste of funamentalist feminism two days ago! I am organising the Sex worker open university , that will take place in a couple of weeks in London and the venue that will host the events received the most incredibly defamatory email accusing us of being at the same time pimps and punters and edgy , cool, middle class hipsters, not recognising the gender inequality of the sex industry (though 12 out of 15 workshops and presentations are made by women ) and a tthe same time being sexist for the use of a bare breast woman on our flyer, denying the existence of trafficking etc …
    I didnt know they were using this kind of tactics , but its good to read some theoritical article about this kind of behaviour. It helps put things in perspective. Good work.
    Chck our event btw ;°

  4. laura agustin on March 24th, 2009 at 11:13 AM:

    I am very happy to hear that people find my ideas useful! Thanks for everything. And hey Luca

    Best, Laura

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