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Women Of Color In Women's Studies

Better Essays

The author’s main problem to address that some conflicts within classes about women of color in women’s studies arise as symbols of deeper problems within the field of women’s studies. The write offers a description of some of the tensions that arise in the Women of Color in the U.S. class, and attempts to contextualize such tensions, by pointing to the ways in which women of color have historically been marginalized within women’s studies and ostensibly included in more recent years through the development of classes like Women of Color in the U.S. The Women of Color in the U.S. course and courses like it is crucial to the development of a truly inclusive women’s studies. Incorporating such classes also poses significant problems, however, …show more content…

Dadabhoy intends to reflect lived realities, not to straw0man sex positivity. The attitude that we can’t ever judge anyone for consensual acts has become the de facto one among the sex-positive types she has met, read, and otherwise encountered. “I find the notion that all sex is awesome as long as there was consent to be more than a little troubling (Dadabhoy, 2).” We live in a society that pathologizes mere sexual attraction when it falls outside a very narrow set of norms, as well as de-prioritizes consent. The problem is that we should be able to express criticism of consensual acts, especially when considering their greater context, and at the very least, we should feel okay with expressing our discomfort about them. The author notes “It’s as if “sex-positivity” has become to mean “you must instantly and without criticism accept others’ sexual preferences and choices.” When exactly did sex become the one topic that’s above reproach among feminists?” Dadabhoy answers this by explaining that sex-negative is a deliberately provocative counter to the “rah rah, judge no one for nothing ever as long as they said yes before they got naked and got off” sex-positivity that is way, way more common than most feminist want to think about or admit …show more content…

In order to illustrate this, Fahs examines seven key examples where women are caught between joyous celebrations of sexual progress and disturbingly regressive attacks on their sexual empowerment: orgasm, sexual satisfaction, treatment for sexual dysfunction, rape and sexual coercion, body hair as ‘personal choice,’ same-sex eroticism, and sexual fantasy. Ultimately, Fahs argues that the sex-positive movement must advance its politics to include a more serious consideration of the freedom from as it relates to the freedom to. In addition, Fahs argues that the sex positive movement must advance its politics to include a more serious consideration of the freedom from repressive structures. By outlining several ways that the freedom from and the freedom to are currently in conversation in discourses of women’s sexuality, the author argues that the integration of these two halves could lead to a subtler and more complete understanding of the contemporary sexual politics, particularly around tensions that arose during the infamous “sex wars” of the 1980s, thus helpings to build a more cohesive and powerful feminist movement as a whole. As a vision for sex positivity, Fahs also argues that we need three broadly defined goals, each of which contributes to a larger vision that prioritizes a

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