Sexual Correctness: The Gender-Feminist Attack on Women

by Wendy McElroy

As feminist and women-positive ideas and ideals exploded in the 1960s and 1970s, a sexual revolution was forged, allowing women a variety of lifestyle choices. Many current feminists, called “gender feminists” by some, too often are fighting to limit the sexual options of women. They view women as victims of patriarchy whom must be protected from making incorrect sexual choices, such as choosing to work in pornography or prostitution. As a movement, author McElroy believes, feminism is in danger of drifting from sexual liberation to sexual correctness. This work gives a critical overview of the ideological shift among many feminists. The issues of sexual correctness are examined in detail, showing how the changing ideology is destroying the principle of “a woman’s body, a woman’s right” and endangering women’s right to choose. On each issue, this work presents alternatives in the individualist traditions that defined the feminism movement for many years.

Genres: Politics

200 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Wendy McElroy is a Canadian individualist feminist and anarcho-capitalist.

Among feminists, she identifies herself as being sex-positive: defending the availability of pornography and condemning anti-pornography feminism campaigns. She has also voiced criticism of sexual harassment policies, particularly the zero-tolerance policies common to grade schools, which she considers to be "far too broad and vague" and lacking the sound research necessary to guide responsible policy-making decisions.

In explaining her position in regard to capitalism, she says she has a "marked personal preference for capitalism as the most productive, fair and sensible economic system on the face of the earth," but also recognizes that the free market permits other kinds of systems as well. She says what she wants for society is "not necessarily a capitalistic arrangement but a free market system in which everyone can make the peaceful choices they wish with their own bodies and labor." Therefore, she does not call herself a capitalist but someone for a "free market."

(This description is taken from Wikipedia.)

Reviews

[Lucy · Rating 1 out of 5]

McElroy criticises a lot of things that seem to be obviously in need of addressing, for example she argues that fighting sexual harassment is against men's right to freedom of speech. She is also preoccupied with the idea of modern feminism being all about 'political correctness' and not equality.

[Lauren Cherney · Rating 2 out of 5]

disagreed with a lot (maybe most) but an interesting thought exercise I suppose

[Marshall · Rating 3 out of 5]

A decent book by a dissident feminist, taking a critical look at modern feminism from a free market and individualist perspective. At the beginning it defines the terms:

Gender Feminism: the ideology that views men and women as separate and antagonistic classes. Men oppress women. They do so through the twin evils of the patriarchal state and the free-market system. The goal is not equality: it is gender (class) justice for women.

Individualist Feminism: an ideology based on the principle "a woman's body, a woman's right." It makes no distinction between civil and economic liberty, between a woman's right to pose for pornography and to act as a surrogate mother. Both are matters of contract and consent. Government--the institutionalization of force--is seen as the greatest threat to women's freedom.

Those two definitions nicely summarize the book. It focuses on the way gender feminists have been hostile to individual women's choices for the cause of class justice for womankind. Specifically, gender feminists claim that pornography, prostitution, and commercialized in-vitro fertilization and womb surrogacy, should not be made available to women because these women aren't capable of informed consent. Basically, they're in the business of telling women what they're allowed to do with their own bodies. Hence, this author's claim that gender feminism is antagonistic to the old fashioned feminist principle of "a woman's body, a woman's right."

This book makes a lot of persuasive arguments. It made a strong case for the free market. I haven't read much yet about the feminist stance on pornography and prostitution, so I found that part very interesting. The book got better and better as it progressed. The end was cool. She basically showed that the gender feminists' arguments about IVF and surrogacy collapse on its own absurdity, and that the logical conclusion of these arguments is that all of contract law would have to be tossed and that no human being has the capacity for informed consent.

What I found extremely disappointing was its gross lack of fact-checking. Between Who Stole Feminism and Ceasefire Why Women and Men Must Join Forces to Achieve True Equality, I've become spoiled by dissident feminists' relentless fact-checking. This book just doesn't even try, not even for the most man-hating claims.

The worst example of this is the claim that 1-in-4 women have been raped. All dissident feminist books debunk this with solid fact-checking. But all this book does is say, "even accepting the statistics, three out of four women will not be raped." She only seems interested in disputing the claim that all men are rapists: "If another group of radicals claimed that 'all whites/Protestants/bisexuals are sadists,' while their own statistics indicated that 75 percent of the accused group are nonsadists, no honest observer would accept their argument."

Really? You're just going to let that ridiculous number slide because it still allows for most men not being rapists? 25% is still outrageously high. It still means as many as one out of every four men are rapists (the actual number is lower due to serial rapes). Pick out 12 of your male friends and family at random, people you care about and trust. Are you really okay with a hate group accusing three of them of being rapists? It's a horrifying statistic, which is why feminists still use it, but fortunately, it's false. The claim has already been debunked. Why does this book just let it slide?

[R.. Mark Hamilton]

Terribly right-wing.