Cognitive biology is an emerging science that regards natural cognition as a biological function. It is based on the theoretical assumption that every organism—whether a single cell or multicellular—is continually engaged in systematic acts of cognition coupled with intentional behaviors, i.e., a sensory-motor coupling. That is to say, if an organism can sense stimuli in its environment and
respond accordingly, it is cognitive. Any explanation of how natural
cognition may manifest in an organism is constrained by the biological
conditions in which its genes survive from one generation to the next. And since by Darwinian theory the species
of every organism is evolving from a common root, three further
elements of cognitive biology are required: (i) the study of cognition
in one species of organism is useful, through contrast and comparison,
to the study of another species' cognitive abilities; (ii) it is useful to proceed from organisms with simpler to those with more complex cognitive systems, and (iii) the greater the number and variety of species studied in this regard, the more we understand the nature of cognition.
Overview
While cognitive science endeavors to explain human thought and the conscious mind,
the work of cognitive biology is focused on the most fundamental
process of cognition for any organism. In the past several decades,
biologists have investigated cognition in organisms large and small, both plant and animal. “Mounting evidence suggests that even bacteria
grapple with problems long familiar to cognitive scientists, including:
integrating information from multiple sensory channels to marshal an
effective response to fluctuating conditions; making decisions under
conditions of uncertainty; communicating with conspecifics and others (honestly and deceptively); and coordinating collective behaviour to increase the chances of survival.” Without thinking or perceiving
as humans would have it, an act of basic cognition is arguably a simple
step-by-step process through which an organism senses a stimulus, then finds an appropriate response
in its repertoire and enacts the response. However, the biological
details of such basic cognition have neither been delineated for a great
many species nor sufficiently generalized to stimulate further
investigation. This lack of detail is due to the lack of a science
dedicated to the task of elucidating the cognitive ability common to all
biological organisms. That is to say, a science of cognitive biology has yet to be established. A prolegomena for such science was presented in 2007 and several authors have published their thoughts on the subject since the late 1970s. Yet,
as the examples in the next section suggest, there is neither consensus
on the theory nor widespread application in practice.
Although the two terms are sometimes used synonymously, cognitive biology should not be confused with the biology of cognition in the sense that it is used by adherents to the Chilean School of Biology of Cognition. Also known as the Santiago School, the biology of cognition is based on the work of Francisco Varela and Humberto Maturana, who crafted the doctrine of autopoiesis. Their work began in 1970 while the first mention of cognitive biology by Brian Goodwin (discussed below) was in 1977 from a different perspective.
History
'Cognitive biology' first appeared in the literature as a paper with that title by Brian C. Goodwin in 1977. There and in several related publications Goodwin explained the advantage of cognitive biology in the context of
his work on morphogenesis. He subsequently moved on to other issues of
structure, form, and complexity with little further mention of cognitive
biology. Without an advocate, Goodwin's concept of cognitive biology
has yet to gain widespread acceptance.
Aside from an essay regarding Goodwin's conception by Margaret Boden
in 1980, the next appearance of 'cognitive biology' as a phrase in the
literature came in 1986 from a professor of biochemistry, Ladislav Kováč.
His conception, based on natural principles grounded in bioenergetics
and molecular biology, is briefly discussed below. Kováč's continued
advocacy has had a greater influence in his homeland, Slovakia, than
elsewhere partly because several of his most important papers were
written and published only in Slovakian.
By the 1990s, breakthroughs in molecular, cell, evolutionary, and
developmental biology generated a cornucopia of data-based theory
relevant to cognition. Yet aside from the theorists already mentioned,
no one was addressing cognitive biology except for Kováč.
Kováč's cognitive biology
Ladislav
Kováč's “Introduction to cognitive biology” (Kováč, 1986a) lists ten
'Principles of Cognitive Biology.' A closely related thirty page paper
was published the following year: “Overview: Bioenergetics between
chemistry, genetics and physics.” (Kováč, 1987). Over the following
decades, Kováč elaborated, updated, and expanded these themes in
frequent publications, including "Fundamental principles of cognitive
biology" (Kováč, 2000), “Life, chemistry, and cognition” (Kováč, 2006a),
"Information and Knowledge in Biology: Time for Reappraisal” (Kováč,
2007) and "Bioenergetics: A key to brain and mind" (Kováč, 2008).
Academic usage
University seminar
The concept of cognitive biology is exemplified by this seminar description:
Cognitive science has focused
primarily on human cognitive activities. These include perceiving,
remembering and learning, evaluating and deciding, planning actions,
etc. But humans are not the only organisms that engage in these
activities. Indeed, virtually all organisms need to be able to procure
information both about their own condition and their environment and
regulate their activities in ways appropriate to this information. In
some cases species have developed distinctive ways of performing
cognitive tasks. But in many cases these mechanisms have been conserved
and modified in other species. This course will focus on a variety of
organisms not usually considered in cognitive science such as bacteria,
planaria, leeches, fruit flies, bees, birds and various rodents, asking
about the sorts of cognitive activities these organisms perform, the
mechanisms they employ to perform them, and what lessons about cognition
more generally we might acquire from studying them.
University workgroup
The University of Adelaide has established a "Cognitive Biology" workgroup using this operating concept:
Cognition is, first and foremost, a natural biological phenomenon
— regardless of how the engineering of artificial intelligence
proceeds. As such, it makes sense to approach cognition like other
biological phenomena. This means first assuming a meaningful degree of
continuity among different types of organisms—an assumption borne out
more and more by comparative biology, especially genomics—studying simple model systems (e.g., microbes, worms, flies) to understand the basics, then scaling up to more complex examples, such as mammals and primates, including humans.
Members of the group study the biological literature on simple organisms (e.g., nematode) in regard to cognitive process and look for homologues
in more complex organisms (e.g., crow) already well studied. This
comparative approach is expected to yield simple cognitive concepts
common to all organisms. “It is hoped a theoretically well-grounded
toolkit of basic cognitive concepts will facilitate the use and
discussion of research carried out in different fields to increase
understanding of two foundational issues: what cognition is and what cognition does in the biological context.” (Bold letters from original text.)
The group's choice of name, as they explain on a separate webpage, might have been 'embodied cognition' or 'biological cognitive science.' But the group chose 'cognitive biology' for the sake of (i) emphasis
and (ii) method. For the sake of emphasis, (i) “We want to keep the
focus on biology because for too long cognition was considered a
function that could be almost entirely divorced from its physical
instantiation, to the extent that whatever could be said of cognition
almost by definition had to be applicable to both organisms and
machines.” (ii) The method is to “assume (if only for the sake of
enquiry) that cognition is a biological function similar to other
biological functions—such as respiration, nutrient circulation, waste
elimination, and so on.”
The method supposes that the genesis of cognition is biological, i.e., the method is biogenic. The host of the group's website has said elsewhere that cognitive biology requires a biogenic approach, having identified ten principles of biogenesis in an earlier work. The first four biogenic principles are quoted here to illustrate the depth at which the foundations have been set at the Adelaide school of cognitive biology:
“Complex cognitive capacities have evolved from simpler forms of cognition. There is a continuous line of meaningful descent.”
“Cognition directly or indirectly modulates the physico-chemical-electrical processes that constitute an organism .”
“Cognition enables the establishment of reciprocal causal relations
with an environment, leading to exchanges of matter and energy that are
essential to the organism's continued persistence, well-being or
replication.”
“Cognition relates to the (more or less) continuous assessment of
system needs relative to prevailing circumstances, the potential for
interaction, and whether the current interaction is working or not.”
Other universities
As another example, the Department für Kognitionsbiologie at the University of Vienna declares in its mission statement a strong
commitment “to experimental evaluation of multiple, testable hypotheses”
regarding cognition in terms of evolutionary and developmental history
as well as adaptive function and mechanism, whether the mechanism is
cognitive, neural, and/or hormonal. “The approach is strongly
comparative: multiple species are studied, and compared within a
rigorous phylogenetic framework, to understand the evolutionary history and adaptive function of cognitive mechanisms ('cognitive phylogenetics').” Their website offers a sample of their work: “Social Cognition and the
Evolution of Language: Constructing Cognitive Phylogenies.”
A more restricted example can be found with the Cognitive Biology Group, Institute of Biology, Faculty of Science, Otto-von-Guericke University
(OVGU) in Magdeburg, Germany. The group offers courses titled
“Neurobiology of Consciousness” and “Cognitive Neurobiology.” Its website lists the papers generated from its lab work, focusing on
the neural correlates of perceptual consequences and visual attention.
The group's current work is aimed at detailing a dynamic known as 'multistable perception.' The phenomenon,
described in a sentence: “Certain visual displays are not perceived in a
stable way but, from time to time and seemingly spontaneously, their
appearance wavers and settles in a distinctly different form.”
A final example of university commitment to cognitive biology can be found at Comenius University
in Bratislava, Slovakia. There in the Faculty of Natural Sciences, the
Bratislava Biocenter is presented as a consortium of research teams
working in biomedical sciences. Their website lists the Center for
Cognitive Biology in the Department of Biochemistry at the top of the
page, followed by five lab groups, each at a separate department of
bioscience. The webpage for the Center for Cognitive Biology offers a link to "Foundations of Cognitive Biology," a page that simply
contains a quotation from a paper authored by Ladislav Kováč, the
site's founder. His perspective is briefly discussed below.
Cognitive biology as a category
The words 'cognitive' and 'biology' are also used together as the name of a category. The category of cognitive biology has no fixed content but, rather, the content varies with the user. If the content can only be recruited from cognitive science,
then cognitive biology would seem limited to a selection of items in
the main set of sciences included by the interdisciplinary concept—cognitive psychology, artificial intelligence, linguistics, philosophy, neuroscience, and cognitive anthropology. These six separate sciences were allied “to bridge the gap between brain and mind” with an interdisciplinary approach in the mid-1970s. Participating scientists were concerned only with human cognition. As
it gained momentum, the growth of cognitive science in subsequent
decades seemed to offer a big tent to a variety of researchers.[41]
Some, for example, considered evolutionary epistemology a
fellow-traveler. Others appropriated the keyword, as for example Donald
Griffin in 1978, when he advocated the establishment of cognitive ethology.[42]
Meanwhile, breakthroughs in molecular, cell, evolutionary, and developmental biology generated a cornucopia of data-based theory relevant to cognition. Categorical assignments were problematic. For example, the decision to append cognitive
to a body of biological research on neurons, e.g. the cognitive biology
of neuroscience, is separate from the decision to put such body of
research in a category named cognitive sciences. No less difficult a
decision needs be made—between the computational and constructivist approach to cognition, and the concomitant issue of simulated v. embodied cognitive models—before appending biology to a body of cognitive research, e.g. the cognitive science of artificial life.
One solution is to consider cognitive biology only as a subset of cognitive science. For example, a major publisher's website displays links to material in a dozen domains of major scientific
endeavor. One of which is described thus: “Cognitive science is the
study of how the mind works, addressing cognitive functions such as
perception and action, memory and learning, reasoning and problem
solving, decision-making and consciousness.” Upon its selection from the
display, the Cognitive Science page offers in nearly alphabetical order these topics: Cognitive Biology,
Computer Science, Economics, Linguistics, Psychology, Philosophy, and
Neuroscience. Linked through that list of topics, upon its selection the
Cognitive Biology page offers a selection of reviews and articles with biological content ranging from cognitive ethology through evolutionary epistemology; cognition and art; evo-devo and cognitive science; animal learning; genes and cognition; cognition and animal welfare; etc.
A different application of the cognitive biology category
is manifest in the 2009 publication of papers presented at a three-day
interdisciplinary workshop on “The New Cognitive Sciences” held at the Konrad Lorenz Institute
for Evolution and Cognition Research in 2006. The papers were listed
under four headings, each representing a different domain of requisite
cognitive ability: (i) space, (ii) qualities and objects, (iii) numbers
and probabilities, and (iv) social entities. The workshop papers
examined topics ranging from “Animals as Natural Geometers” and “Color
Generalization by Birds” through “Evolutionary Biology of Limited
Attention” and “A comparative Perspective on the Origin of Numerical
Thinking” as well as “Neuroethology of Attention in Primates” and ten
more with less colorful titles. “[O]n the last day of the workshop the
participants agreed [that] the title 'Cognitive Biology' sounded like a
potential candidate to capture the merging of the cognitive and the life
sciences that the workshop aimed at representing.” Thus the publication of Tommasi, et al. (2009), Cognitive Biology: Evolutionary and Developmental Perspectives on Mind, Brain and Behavior.
A final example of categorical use comes from an author's introduction to his 2011 publication on the subject, Cognitive Biology: Dealing with Information from Bacteria to Minds.
After discussing the differences between the cognitive and biological
sciences, as well as the value of one to the other, the author
concludes: “Thus, the object of this book should be considered as an
attempt at building a new discipline, that of cognitive biology, which endeavors to bridge these two domains.” There follows a detailed methodology illustrated by examples in biology anchored by concepts from cybernetics (e.g., self-regulatory systems) and quantum information theory
(regarding probabilistic changes of state) with an invitation "to
consider system theory together with information theory as the formal
tools that may ground biology and cognition as traditional mathematics
grounds physics.”
The feminist sex wars and lesbian sex wars, or simply the sex wars or porn wars, were acrimonious debates amongst feminists in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The sides were characterized by anti-porn and pro-sex groups with disagreements regarding sexuality, sexual representation, pornography, sadomasochism, the role of trans women in the lesbian community, and other sexual issues. The debate pitted anti-pornography feminism against sex-positive feminism, and the feminist movement was deeply divided as a result. The feminist sex wars are sometimes viewed as part of the division that led to the end of the second-wave feminist era and the beginning of third-wave feminism.
The two sides included anti-pornography feminists and
sex-positive feminists. One of the more significant clashes between the
pro-sex and anti-pornography feminists occurred at the 1982 Barnard Conference on Sexuality.
Anti-pornography feminists were excluded from the events' planning
committee, so they staged rallies outside the conference to show their
disdain.
Feminist criticism of sexual exploitation and the sex industry
Many feminists denounce industries such as the sex industry as examples of misogynistic exploitation. Important anti-sex industry feminists included Andrea Dworkin and Catharine MacKinnon. The pair wanted civil laws restricting pornography. They viewed male sexual dominance as the root of all female oppression,
and thus condemned pornography, prostitution, and other manifestations
of male sexual power. The anti-pornography movement gained ground with the creation of Women Against Violence in Pornography and Media. During the time of the sex wars, it organized marches against the creators and distributors of pornography in San Francisco and led to Women Against Pornography, Feminists Fighting Pornography, and similarly oriented organizations and efforts across the United States.
Feminist views of pornography range from condemnation of pornography as a form of violence against women,
to an embracing of some forms of pornography as a medium of feminist
expression. Feminist debate on this issue reflects larger concerns
surrounding feminist views on sexuality, and is closely related to feminist debates on prostitution, BDSM, and other issues. Pornography has been one of the most divisive issues in feminism, particularly among feminists in Anglophone countries.
Anti-pornography feminism
Radical feminist opponents of pornography—such as Andrea Dworkin, Catharine MacKinnon, Robin Morgan, Diana Russell, Alice Schwarzer, Gail Dines, and Robert Jensen—argue
that pornography is harmful to women, and constitutes strong causality
or facilitation of violence against women. Anti-pornography feminists,
notably MacKinnon, charge that the production of pornography entails
physical, psychological, and/or economic coercion
of the women who perform and model in it. This is said to be true even
when the women are being presented as enjoying themselves.
Anti-pornography feminists hold the view that pornography contributes to sexism,
arguing that in pornographic performances the actresses are reduced to
mere receptacles—objects—for sexual use and abuse by men. They argue
that the narrative is usually formed around men's pleasure as the only
goal of sexual activity, and that the women are shown in a subordinate
role. Some opponents believe pornographic films tend to show women as
being extremely passive, or that the acts which are performed on the
women are typically abusive and solely for the pleasure of their sex
partner. On-face ejaculation and anal rape are increasingly popular among men, following trends in porn. MacKinnon and Dworkin defined pornography as "the graphic sexually explicit subordination of women through pictures or words".
Anti-censorship and pro-pornography feminists
Pornography is seen as being a medium for women's sexual expression in this view. Sex-positive feminists view many radical feminist views on sexuality, including views on pornography, as being as oppressive as those of patriarchal religions and ideologies, and argue that anti-pornography feminist discourse ignores and trivializes women's sexual agency. Ellen Willis
(who coined the term "pro-sex feminism") states "As we saw it, the
claim that 'pornography is violence against women' was code for the
neo-Victorian idea that men want sex and women endure it."
Sex-positive feminists take a variety of views towards existing
pornography. Many sex-positive feminists see pornography as subverting
many traditional ideas about women that they oppose, such as ideas that
women do not like sex generally, only enjoy sex in a relational context,
or that women only enjoy vanilla sex.
They also argue that pornography sometimes shows women in sexually
dominant roles and presents women with a greater variety of body types
than are typical of mainstream entertainment and fashion.
Many feminists regardless of their views on pornography are
opposed on principle to censorship. Even many feminists who see
pornography as a sexist institution, also see censorship (including
MacKinnon's civil law approach) as an evil. In its mission statement, Feminists for Free Expression
argues that censorship has never reduced violence, but historically
been used to silence women and stifle efforts for social change. They
point to the birth control literature of Margaret Sanger, the feminist plays of Holly Hughes, and works like Our Bodies, Ourselves and The Well of Loneliness
as examples of feminist sexual speech which has been the target of
censorship. FFE further argues that the attempt to fix social problems
through censorship, "divert[s] attention from the substantive causes of
social ills and offer a cosmetic, dangerous 'quick fix.'" They argue
that instead a free and vigorous marketplace of ideas is the best assurance for achieving feminist goals in a democratic society.
Additionally, some feminists such as Wendy Kaminer,
while opposed to pornography are also opposed to legal efforts to
censor or ban pornography. In the late 1970s, Kaminer worked with Women Against Pornography, where she advocated in favor of private consciousness raising efforts and against legal efforts to censor pornography. She contributed a chapter to the anti-pornography anthology, Take Back the Night, wherein she defended First Amendment freedoms and explained the dangers of seeking legal solutions to the perceived problem of pornography. She opposed efforts by Catharine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin to define pornography as a civil rights violation, and she critiqued the pro-censorship movement in a 1992 article in The Atlantic entitled "Feminists Against the First Amendment."
Feminist pornography is pornography that is produced by and with feminist women. It is a small but growing segment of the pornography industry. According to Tristan Taormino, "Feminist porn both responds to dominant images with alternative ones and creates its own iconography."
Some pornographic actresses such as Nina Hartley, Ovidie, Madison Young, and Sasha Grey
are also self-described sex-positive feminists, and state that they do
not see themselves as victims of sexism. They defend their decision to
perform in pornography as freely chosen, and argue that much of what
they do on camera is an expression of their sexuality. It has also been
pointed out that in pornography, women generally earn more than their
male counterparts. Some porn performers such as Nina Hartley are active in the sex workers' rights movement.
The Swedish director and feminist Suzanne Osten voiced scepticism
that "feminist pornography" actually exists, referring to her belief
that pornography is inherently objectifying and that feminist
pornography would therefore constitute an oxymoron. The American radical feminist periodical off our backs has denounced feminist pornography as "pseudo-feminist" and "so-called 'feminist' pornography".
As with many issues within the feminist movement, there exists a diversity of opinions regarding prostitution.
Many of these positions can be loosely arranged into an overarching
standpoint that is generally either critical or supportive of
prostitution and sex work. Anti-prostitution feminists hold that prostitution is a form of
exploitation of women and male dominance over women, and a practice
which is the result of the existing patriarchal societal order. These
feminists argue that prostitution has a very negative effect, both on
the prostitutes themselves and on society as a whole, as it reinforces
stereotypical views about women, who are seen as sex objects which can
be used and abused by men. Other feminists hold that prostitution and
other forms of sex work
can be valid choices for women and men who choose to engage in it. In
this view, prostitution must be differentiated from forced prostitution,
and feminists should support sex worker activism
against abuses by both the sex industry and the legal system. The
disagreement between these two feminist stances has proven particularly
contentious, and may be comparable to the feminist sex wars of the late twentieth century.
These feminists argue that, in most cases, prostitution is not a
conscious and calculated choice. They say that most women who become
prostitutes do so because they were forced or coerced by a pimp or by
human trafficking, or, when it is an independent decision, it is
generally the result of extreme poverty and lack of opportunity, or of
serious underlying problems, such as drug addiction, past trauma (such
as child sexual abuse) and other unfortunate circumstances. These
feminists point out that women from the lowest socioeconomic
classes—impoverished women, women with a low level of education, women
from the most disadvantaged racial and ethnic minorities—are
overrepresented in prostitution all over the world. "If prostitution is a
free choice, why are the women with the fewest choices the ones most
often found doing it?" (MacKinnon, 1993). A large percentage of prostitutes polled in one study of 475 people
involved in prostitution reported that they were in a difficult period
of their lives and most wanted to leave the occupation. Catharine MacKinnon argues that "In prostitution, women have sex with
men they would never otherwise have sex with. The money thus acts as a
form of force, not as a measure of consent. It acts like physical force
does in rape."
Some anti-prostitution scholars hold that true consent in prostitution is not possible. Barbara Sullivan says, "In
the academic literature on prostitution there are very few authors who
argue that valid consent to prostitution is possible. Most suggest that
consent to prostitution is impossible or at least unlikely.". "(...)
most authors suggest that consent to prostitution is deeply problematic
if not impossible (...) most authors have argued that consent to
prostitution is impossible. For radical feminists this is because
prostitution is always a coercive sexual practice. Others simply suggest
that economic coercion makes the sexual consent of sex workers highly
problematic if not impossible...". Finally, abolitionists believe no person can be said to truly consent
to their own oppression and no people should have the right to consent
to the oppression of others. In the words of Kathleen Barry,
consent is not a "good divining rod as to the existence of oppression,
and consent to violation is a fact of oppression. Oppression cannot
effectively be gauged according to the degree of "consent," since even
in slavery there was some consent, if consent is defined as inability to
see, or feel any alternative."
Pro-sex work and pro-sex worker's rights feminists
Unlike
those feminists critical of prostitution, pro-sex work perspectives do
not concede that prostitution sexual acts have an inherent element of
coercion, exploitation, and domination. As such, pro-sex feminists
instead assert that sex-work can be a positive experience for women who
have employed their autonomy to make an informed decision to engage in
prostitution.
Many feminists, particularly those associated with the sex workers' rights movement or sex-positive feminism,
argue that the act of selling sex need not inherently be exploitative;
but that attempts to abolish prostitution, and the attitudes that lead
to such attempts, lead to an abusive climate for sex workers that must
be changed. In this view, prostitution, along with other forms of sex work,
can be valid choices for the women and men who engage in it. This
perspective has led to the rise since the 1970s of an international sex
workers' rights movement, comprising organizations such as COYOTE, the International Prostitutes Collective, the Sex Workers Outreach Project, and other sex worker rights groups.
An important argument advanced by pro-sex work feminists such as
Carol Queen highlights that all too often feminists who are critical of
prostitution have failed to adequately consider the viewpoints of women
who are themselves engaged in sex work, choosing instead to base their
arguments in theory and outdated experiences. Feminists who do not support the radical anti-prostitution view, argue
that there are serious problems with the anti-prostitution position, one
of which is that, according to Sarah Bromberg, "it evolves from a
political theory that is over-verbalized, generalized, and too often
uses stereotypical notions of what a prostitute is. The radical
[anti-prostitution] feminist views are ... not always delineated
sufficiently to support a credible theory that prostitution degrades all
women".
Pro-sex work feminists say that the sex industry is not a
"monolith", that it is large and varied, that people are sex workers for
many different reasons, and that it is unproductive to target
prostitution as an institution. Instead, they believe things should be
done to improve the lives of the people within the industry.
Feminism and stripping
Many feminists consider strip clubs to be insulting to women's human rights and dignity. Feminists and women's rights activists in Iceland succeeded in outlawing strip clubs in March 2010. The law officially took effect on July 31, 2010. The Icelandic feminist Siv Friðleifsdóttir was the first presenter of the bill. Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir,
Iceland's prime minister, said: "The Nordic countries are leading the
way on women's equality, recognizing women as equal citizens rather than
commodities for sale." The politician behind the bill, Kolbrún Halldórsdóttir, said: "It is not acceptable that women or people in general are a product to be sold." The vote of the Althing was praised by British radical feminist Julie Bindel, who declared Iceland to be "the world's most feminist country."
Marquee of the now defunct Seattle Lusty Lady, Thanksgiving 2005
Others feminists believe that stripping can be sexually empowering and feminist. The Lusty Lady was a peep show establishment in North Beach, San Francisco, that was established by a group of strippers who wanted to create a feminist, worker owned strip club. Additionally, some feminists believe that Pole dancing can be a feminist act. In 2009, a self-identified "feminist pole dancer" named Zahra Stardust was the Australian Sex Party's candidate in the Bradfield by-election. The concept of "feminist pole dancing" has been ridiculed and denounced
by feminists and non-feminists alike as "just plain daft" and symptomatic of "the end of feminism."
Feminist Views on BDSM vary widely from rejection to
acceptance and all points in between. As an example, the two polarizing
frameworks are being compared here. The history between feminists and BDSM
practitioners has been controversial. The two most extreme positions
are those who believe that feminism and BDSM are mutually exclusive
beliefs, and those who believe that BDSM practices are an expression of
sexual freedom.
While many radical feminists are opposed to BDSM, other feminists view S/M as an ideal feminist expression of sexual freedom
while other feminists say that BDSM, and more particularly SM,
reinforce patriarchy and that these practices are contradictory to
feminism. Additionally, some feminists are open about practicing BDSM.
Many sex-positive feminists see BDSM as a valid form of expression of female sexuality. Some lesbian feminists practice BDSM and regard it as part of their sexual identity. Jessica Wakeman wrote of her own experience with SM activities in a follow-up interview after her article First Time For Everything: Getting Spanked
was published in 2009. At the time of the interview in October, 2010,
Wakeman had been writing about feminist issues, including feminism and
media criticism, feminism and politics, and feminism and sex for about
eight years and considered herself to be a rather active feminist. Wakeman discussed how she is able to enjoy spanking play and being dominated and still be a feminist. Like other feminist BDSM practitioners, Wakeman rejects the argument
that women are taught what they enjoy and led to be submissive by a
dominant sexist power structure.
The feminist group Cell 16, founded in 1968 by Roxanne Dunbar, was known for its program of celibacy and separation from men, among other things. Considered too extreme by many mainstream feminists, the organization acted as a sort of hard leftvanguard. It has been cited as the first organization to advance the concept of separatist feminism. In No More Fun and Games,
the organization's radical feminist periodical, Cell Members Roxanne
Dunbar and Lisa Leghorn advised women to "separate from men who are not
consciously working for female liberation", but advised periods of
celibacy, rather than lesbian relationships, which they considered to be
"nothing more than a personal solution." The periodical also published Dana Densmore's article "On Celibacy"
(October 1968), which stated in part, "One hangup to liberation is a
supposed 'need' for sex. It is something that must be refuted, coped
with, demythified, or the cause of female liberation is doomed. Already
we see girls, thoroughly liberated in their own heads, understanding
their oppression with terrible clarity trying, deliberately and a trace
hysterically, to make themselves attractive to men, men for whom they
have no respect, men they may even hate, because of 'a basic
sexual-emotional need.' Sex is not essential to life, as eating is. Some
people go through their whole lives without engaging in it at all,
including fine, warm, happy people. It is a myth that this makes one
bitter, shriveled up, twisted. The big stigma of life-long virginity is
on women anyway, created by men because woman's purpose in life is
biological and if she doesn't fulfill that she's warped and unnatural
and 'must be all cobwebs inside.'"
The Feminists,
also known as Feminists—A Political Organization to Annihilate Sex
Roles, was a radical feminist group active in New York City from 1968 to
1973; it at first advocated that women practice celibacy, and later
came to advocate political lesbianism. Political lesbianism embraces the theory that sexual orientation is a choice, and advocates lesbianism as a positive alternative to heterosexuality for women. Sheila Jeffreys helped develop the concept by co-writing with other members of the Leeds Revolutionary Feminist Group a pamphlet titled Love Your Enemy?: The Debate Between Heterosexual Feminism and Political Lesbianism,
which stated, "We do think... that all feminists can and should be
lesbians. Our definition of a political lesbian is a woman-identified
woman who does not fuck men. It does not mean compulsory sexual activity
with women." Thus, some political lesbians chose to be celibate or identified as asexual.
In April 1987 the manifesto of the Southern Women's Writing Collective, titled Sex resistance in heterosexual arrangements: Manifesto of the Southern Women's Writing Collective was read in New York City at a conference called "The Sexual Liberals and the Attack on Feminism". This manifesto stated in part, "In contrast to the pro-sex movement, we
are calling ourselves Women Against Sex (WAS)...The sex resister
understands her act as a political one: her goal is not only personal
integrity for herself but political freedom for all women. She resists
on three fronts: she resists all male-constructed sexual needs, she
resists the misnaming of her act as prudery and she especially resists
the patriarchy's attempt to make its work of subordinating women easier
by consensually constructing her desire in its own oppressive image."
In 1991 feminist activist Sonia Johnson wrote in her book The Ship That Sailed into the Living Room: Sex and Intimacy Reconsidered,
"Nearly four years after I began my rebellion against
relation/sex/slave Ships, experience and my Wise Old Woman are telling
me that sex as we know it is a patriarchal construct and has no
rightful, natural place in our lives, no authentic function or ways.
Synonymous with hierarchy/control, sex is engineered as part of the
siege against our wholeness and power."
Feminist approaches to the issue of sexual orientation
widely vary. Feminist views on sexual orientation are often influenced
by the personal experiences of feminists, as expressed in the feminist
slogan "the personal is political."
Because of this, many feminists view sexual orientation is a political
issue and not merely a matter of individual sexual choice or preference.
Feminism and asexuality
A 1977 paper titled Asexual and Autoerotic Women: Two Invisible Groups,
by Myra T. Johnson, may be the first paper explicitly devoted to
asexuality in humans. In it Johnson portrays asexual women as invisible,
"oppressed by a consensus that they are nonexistent," and left behind
by both the sexual revolution and the feminist movement.[67]
A 2010 paper written by Karli June Cerankowski and Megan Milks, titled New Orientations: Asexuality and Its Implications for Theory and Practice,
states that society has deemed "[LGBT and] female sexuality as
empowered or repressed. The asexual movement challenges that assumption
by challenging many of the basic tenets of pro-sex feminism [in which it is] already defined as repressive or anti-sex sexualities."[68]
Some political lesbians identify as asexual. Political lesbianism embraces the theory that sexual orientation is a choice, and advocates lesbianism as a positive alternative to heterosexuality for women. Sheila Jeffreys helped develop the concept by co-writing with other members of the Leeds Revolutionary Feminist Group a pamphlet titled Love Your Enemy?: The Debate Between Heterosexual Feminism and Political Lesbianism
which stated, "We do think... that all feminists can and should be
lesbians. Our definition of a political lesbian is a woman-identified
woman who does not fuck men. It does not mean compulsory sexual activity
with women."
Feminism and bisexuality
The lesbian quarterly Common Lives/Lesbian Lives
had a policy that all work published in CL/LL was produced by
self-defined lesbians, and all of the project's volunteers were
lesbians. Due to this policy, a complaint was filed with the University of IowaHuman Rights Commission by a bisexual woman whose submission to the magazine was not published.
A number of women who were at one time involved in lesbian-feminist activism have since come out
as bisexual after realizing their attractions to men. A widely studied
example of lesbian-bisexual conflict within feminism was the Northampton
Pride March during the years between 1989 and 1993, where many
feminists involved debated over whether bisexuals should be included and
whether or not bisexuality was compatible with feminism. Common
lesbian-feminist critiques leveled at bisexuality were that bisexuality
was anti-feminist, that bisexuality was a form of false consciousness,
and that bisexual women who pursue relationships with men were "deluded
and desperate." However, tensions between bisexual feminists and
lesbian feminists have eased since the 1990s, as bisexual women have
become more accepted within the feminist community.
Feminism and gay men
In her 2003 book Unpacking Queer Politics: A Lesbian Feminist Perspective, Australian radical lesbian feminist Sheila Jeffreys advances the position that lesbian culture has been negatively affected by emulating the sexist influence of the gay male subculture of dominant/submissive sexuality. While she stresses that many gay men who were members of the gay liberation movement repudiated sadomasochism,
she writes that the dominant gay male perspective has promoted
sadomasochistic sexuality to the detriment of lesbians and feminist
women.
However, some gay men such as Andrea Dworkin's husband John Stoltenberg are also critical of sadomasochism and pornography
and agree with the radical feminist and lesbian feminist criticisms of
these practices. Stoltenberg wrote that sadomasochism eroticizes both
violence and powerlessness.[72] The gay pro-feminist author Christopher N. Kendall wrote the book Gay Male Pornography: An Issue Of Sex Discrimination, advancing the idea that gay male pornography involved sex discrimination and should be banned under Canada's equality laws. He uses radical feminist theory to make the case that gay male pornography reinforces misogyny and homophobia.
Feminism and heterosexuality
Some
heterosexual feminists believe that they have been unfairly excluded
from lesbian feminist organizations. The lesbian quarterly Common Lives/Lesbian Lives
had a policy that all work published in CL/LL was produced by
self-defined lesbians, and all of the project's volunteers were
lesbians. Due to this policy, a complaint was filed with the University of IowaHuman Rights Commission by a heterosexual woman who believed she was discriminated against when not hired to be an intern.
Lesbians have been active in the mainstream American feminist
movement. The first time lesbian concerns were introduced into the National Organization for Women (NOW) came in 1969, when Ivy Bottini,
an open lesbian who was then president of the New York chapter of NOW,
held a public forum titled "Is Lesbianism a Feminist Issue?". However, National Organization for Women president Betty Friedan
was against lesbian participation in the movement. In 1969 she referred
to growing lesbian visibility as a "lavender menace" and fired openly
lesbian newsletter editor Rita Mae Brown, and in 1970 she engineered the expulsion of lesbians, including Ivy Bottini, from NOW's New York chapter.In reaction, at the 1970 Congress to Unite Women, on the first evening
when all four hundred feminists were assembled in the auditorium, twenty
women wearing T-shirts that read "Lavender Menace" came to the front of
the room and faced the audience. One of the women then read their group's paper "The Woman-Identified
Woman", which was the first major lesbian feminist statement. The group, who later named themselves "Radicalesbians",
were among the first to challenge the heterosexism of heterosexual
feminists and to describe lesbian experience in positive terms. In 1971 NOW passed a resolution declaring "that a woman's right to her
own person includes the right to define and express her own sexuality
and to choose her own lifestyle," as well as a conference resolution
stating that forcing lesbian mothers to stay in marriages or to live a
secret existence in an effort to keep their children was unjust. That year NOW also committed to offering legal and moral support in a
test case involving child custody rights of lesbian mothers. In 1973 the NOW Task Force on Sexuality and Lesbianism was established. In November 1977 the National Women's Conference issued the National Plan of Action, which stated in part, "Congress, State, and local legislatures should
enact legislation to eliminate discrimination on the basis of sexual and
affectional preference in areas including, but not limited to,
employment, housing, public accommodations, credit, public facilities,
government funding, and the military. State legislatures should reform
their penal codes or repeal State laws that restrict private sexual
behavior between consenting adults. State legislatures should enact
legislation that would prohibit consideration of sexual or affectional
orientation as a factor in any judicial determination of child custody
or visitation rights. Rather, child custody cases should be evaluated
solely on the merits of which party is the better parent, without regard
to that person's sexual and affectional orientation."[82]
Lesbian feminism
is a cultural movement and political perspective, most influential in
the 1970s and early 1980s (primarily in North America and Western
Europe), that encourages women to direct their energies toward other
women rather than men, and often advocates lesbianism as the logical
result of feminism.
In the words of radical lesbian feminist Sheila Jeffreys,
"Lesbian feminism emerged as a result of two developments: lesbians
within the WLM [Women's Liberation Movement] began to create a new,
distinctively feminist lesbian politics, and lesbians in the GLF (Gay Liberation Front) left to join up with their sisters".
According to Judy Rebick, a leading Canadian journalist and political activist for feminism, lesbians were and always have been at the heart of the women's movement, while their issues were invisible in the same movement.
Lesbian separatism
is a form of separatist feminism specific to lesbians. Separatism has
been considered by lesbians as both a temporary strategy, and as a
lifelong practice.
Lesbian separatism became popular in the 1970s as some lesbians
doubted whether mainstream society or even the LGBT movement had
anything to offer them.
Lesbian women who have identified themselves as "political lesbians" include Ti-Grace Atkinson, Julie Bindel, Charlotte Bunch, Yvonne Rainer, Sheila Jeffreys. Jeffreys helped develop the concept by co-writing with other members of the Leeds Revolutionary Feminist Group a pamphlet titled Love Your Enemy?: The Debate Between Heterosexual Feminism and Political Lesbianism which argued that women should abandon heterosexuality
and choose to become lesbians as a feminist act. The pamphlet stated,
"We do think... that all feminists can and should be lesbians. Our
definition of a political lesbian is a woman-identified woman who does
not fuck men. It does not mean compulsory sexual activity with women." Thus, some political lesbians choose to be celibate or identify as asexual.
Common lesbian-feminist critiques leveled at bisexuality were that bisexuality was anti-feminist, that bisexuality was a form of false consciousness,
and that bisexual women who pursue relationships with men were "deluded
and desperate." However, tensions between bisexual feminists and
lesbian feminists have eased since the 1990s, as bisexual women have
become more accepted within the feminist community.[70] Nevertheless, some lesbian feminists such as Julie Bindel
are still critical of bisexuality. Bindel has described female
bisexuality as a "fashionable trend" being promoted due to "sexual
hedonism" and broached the question of whether bisexuality even exists. She has also made tongue-in-cheek comparisons of bisexuals to cat fanciers and devil worshippers.
Lesbian feminists initially faced discrimination in the National Organization for Women. Some heterosexual feminists such as Betty Friedan
downplayed lesbian issues as not being central to feminist activism. In
1969 Friedan referred to growing lesbian visibility as a "lavender
menace" and fired openly lesbian newsletter editor Rita Mae Brown, and in 1970 she engineered the expulsion of lesbians, including Ivy Bottini, from NOW's New York chapter. In reaction, at the 1970 Congress to Unite Women, on the first evening
when all four hundred feminists were assembled in the auditorium, twenty
women wearing T-shirts that read "Lavender Menace" came to the front of
the room and faced the audience. One of the women then read their group's paper "The Woman-Identified Woman", which was the first major lesbian feminist statement. The group, who later named themselves "Radicalesbians", were among the
first to challenge the heterosexism of heterosexual feminists and to
describe lesbian experience in positive terms. In 1971 NOW passed a resolution declaring "that a woman's right to her
own person includes the right to define and express her own sexuality
and to choose her own lifestyle," as well as a conference resolution
stating that forcing lesbian mothers to stay in marriages or to live a
secret existence in an effort to keep their children was unjust. That year NOW also committed to offering legal and moral support in a
test case involving child custody rights of lesbian mothers. In 1973 the NOW Task Force on Sexuality and Lesbianism was established. In November 1977 the National Women's Conference issued the National Plan of Action, which stated in part, "Congress, State, and local legislatures should
enact legislation to eliminate discrimination on the basis of sexual and
affectional preference in areas including, but not limited to,
employment, housing, public accommodations, credit, public facilities,
government funding, and the military. State legislatures should reform
their penal codes or repeal State laws that restrict private sexual
behavior between consenting adults. State legislatures should enact
legislation that would prohibit consideration of sexual or affectional
orientation as a factor in any judicial determination of child custody
or visitation rights. Rather, child custody cases should be evaluated
solely on the merits of which party is the better parent, without regard
to that person's sexual and affectional orientation."
Friedan eventually admitted that "the whole idea of homosexuality made me profoundly uneasy" and acknowledged that she had been very square and was uncomfortable
about lesbianism. "The women's movement was not about sex, but about equal opportunity in jobs and all the rest of it. Yes, I suppose you have to say that freedom of sexual choice is part of that, but it shouldn't be the main issue ...." She ignored lesbians in the National Organization for Women initially and objected to what she saw as demands for equal time. "'Homosexuality ... is not, in my opinion, what the women's movement is all about.'" While opposing all repression, she wrote, she refused to wear a purple armband or self-identify as a lesbian (although heterosexual) as an act of political solidarity, considering it not part of the mainstream issues of abortion and child care. In 1977, at the National Women's Conference, she seconded the lesbian
rights resolution "which everyone thought I would oppose" in order to
"preempt any debate" and move on to other issues she believed were more
important and less divisive in the effort to add the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) to the U.S. Constitution.
The American radical feminist group Redstockings were strongly opposed to lesbian separatism, seeing interpersonal relationships with men as an important arena of feminist struggle, and hence seeing separatism as escapist.
Like many radical feminists of the time, Redstockings saw lesbianism
primarily as a political identity rather than a fundamental part of
personal identity, and therefore analyzed it primarily in political
terms. Redstockings were also opposed to male homosexuality, which they saw as a deeply misogynistic rejection of women. Redstockings' line on gay men and lesbians is often criticized as homophobic.
Queer theory is a field of post-structuralistcritical theory that emerged in the early 1990s out of the fields of queer studies and women's studies. Queer theory has been heavily influenced by the work of feminists such as Gloria Anzaldúa, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, and Judith Butler. Queer theory builds both upon feminist challenges to the idea that gender is part of the essential self and upon gay/lesbian studies' close examination of the socially constructed nature of sexual acts and identities.
The theory is heavily based on the idea of de-naturalization of
identities, which means to reject the very notion of identity, whether
this be man and woman or straight and gay. It argues that these
identities are constructed throughout life through gendered
socialization, this leads to Butler's idea that what makes a man or a
woman is malleable and changes throughout time, we are merely performing
as a man or woman to conform to today's gender norms. Feminist application of queer theory
Queer theory has been greatly influenced by feminist theory and women's studies. Many works have been written on the intersection of feminism and queer theory and how both feminist perspectives can enrich LGBTQ theory and studies and how queer perspectives can enrich feminism. Books such as Feminism is Queer: The Intimate Connection Between Queer and Feminist Theory detail the intersections between queer and feminist theory and argue that feminism itself could be construed as a "queer" movement.
Feminist criticism of queer theory
Many
feminists have critiqued queer theory as either a diversion from
feminism issues or as a male-dominated backlash to feminism. Lesbian
feminists and radical feminists have been the most prominent critics of
queer theory and queer politics. Sheila Jeffreys' Unpacking Queer Politics: A Lesbian Feminist Perspective
harshly criticizes queer theory as the product of "a powerful gay male
culture" which "celebrated masculine privilege" and "enshrined a cult of
masculinity." She repudiates queer theory as anti-lesbian,
anti-feminist, and anti-women. Many feminists can be critical of the Queer Theory for many reasons,
mainly deriving from the fact that the Queer Theory is critical of
feminism. The theory argues that through the de-naturalization of some
identities feminists have naturalized others, this mainly being the idea
of natural male domination. This is argued through the idea of sex and
gender, while many feminists argue that sex and gender are different,
with gender being socially constructed, Butler argues that sex is also
part of the social construct and that separating the two gives a natural
base for the patriarchy.[99]
This idea gets criticized by many theorists for being anti-feminist and
for going against second-wave feminism. We can also see some criticism
of the Queer Theory by Nussbaum who criticizes Butler's theory for not
talking about biological differences or for her teaching that there is
no hope of changing the system, so all you can do is mock it.
Feminist sexology is an offshoot of traditional studies of sexology that focuses on the intersectionality of sex and gender in relation to the sexual lives of women. Feminist
sexology shares many principles with the overarching field of sexology;
in particular, it does not try to prescribe a certain path or
"normality" for women's sexuality, but only observe and note the
different and varied ways in which women express their sexuality. It is a
young field, but one that is growing rapidly. Notable feminist
sexologists include Anne Fausto-Sterling and Gayle Rubin.
Rape culture is a culture in which rape and sexual violence are common and in which prevalent attitudes, norms, practices, and medianormalize, excuse, tolerate, or even condone sexual violence. Examples of behaviors commonly associated with rape culture include victim blaming, slut-shaming, sexual objectification, and trivializing rape. Rape culture has been used to model behaviour within social groups, including prison systems where prison rape is common and conflict areas where war rape is used as psychological warfare. Entire countries have also been alleged to be rape cultures.
Although the concept of rape culture is a generally accepted
theory in feminist academia, disagreement still exists over what defines
a rape culture and to what degree a given society meets the criteria to
be considered a rape culture.
Rape culture has been observed to correlate with other social factors and behaviours. Research identifies correlation between rape myths, victim blaming
and trivialisation of rape with increased incidence of racism,
homophobia, ageism, classism, religious intolerance and other forms of
discrimination.
Feminists have been crucial to the development of the notion of sexual harassment and the codification of laws against sexual harassment. Catharine MacKinnon was among the first to write on the topic of sexual harassment. MacKinnon's book Sexual Harassment of Working Women: A Case of Sex Discrimination
is the eighth most-cited American legal book published since 1978,
according to a study published by Fred Shapiro in January 2000.
Some liberal feminists and individualist feminists have criticized the notion of sexual harassment. Camille Paglia
says that young girls can end up acting in such ways as to make sexual
harassment easier, such that for example, by acting "nice" they can
become a target. Paglia commented in an interview with Playboy,
"Realize the degree to which your niceness may invoke people to say
lewd and pornographic things to you—sometimes to violate your niceness.
The more you blush, the more people want to do it." Jane Gallop believes that sexual harassment laws have been abused by what she calls "victim feminists", as opposed to "power feminists" as she calls herself.
The concept of sexual objectification and, in particular, the objectification of women, is an important idea in feminist theory and psychological theories derived from feminism. Many feminists regard sexual objectification as objectionable and as playing an important role in gender inequality. Some social commentators, however, argue that some modern women objectify themselves as an expression of their empowerment over men, while others argue that increased sexual freedom for women, gay, and bisexual men has led to an increase of the objectification of men.
The "male gaze" is feminist theory that was first developed by Laura Mulvey
in 1975. The male gaze occurs when the audience, or viewer, is put into
the perspective of a heterosexual male. Mulvey stressed that the
dominant male gaze in mainstream Hollywood films
reflects and satisfies the male unconscious: most filmmakers are male,
thus the voyeuristic gaze of the camera is male; male characters in the film's narratives
make women the objects of their gaze; and inevitably, the spectator's
gaze reflects the voyeuristic male gazes of the camera and the male
actors. When feminism characterizes the "male gaze" certain themes appear such as, voyeurism, objectification, fetishism, scopophilia, and women as the object of male pleasure. Mary Anne Doane
gives an example of how voyeurism can be seen in the male gaze. "The
early silent cinema, through its insistent inscription of scenarios of
voyeurism, conceives of its spectator's viewing pleasure in terms of the
peeping tom, behind the screen, reduplicating the spectator's position
in relation to the woman on the screen."
