Notes on Feminism and the Culture Wars

Note 2: Whittier's Analytic Framework for Political "Frenemies"

June 07, 2022 Bess Season 1 Episode 3
Notes on Feminism and the Culture Wars
Note 2: Whittier's Analytic Framework for Political "Frenemies"
Show Notes

Bess summarizes Nancy Whittier's analytic framework for understanding the difference between coalition (ideological congruence) and collaborative adversarial relationships, using anti-pornography feminists and Catharine MacKinnon's novel civil legislation as an example. Spoiler: MacKinnon and anti-pornography feminists were not in coalition with anti-pornography conservatives and remained in active opposition to anti-pornography conservatives' legal goals & morality-based understandings of the harms of pornography. Feminists were known to say: Sex is not obscene!

Rethinking Coalitions: Anti-Pornography Feminists, Conservatives, and Relationships between Collaborative Adversarial Movements by Nancy Whittier. See also Whittier's longer work (yes, a book) Frenemies: Feminists, Conservatives, and Sexual Violence (2018).

REFERENCES (see also previous show notes)

recorded 5/31/2022