The Spinster and Her Enemies - Feminish

PREFACE TO 1997 EDITION
Prostitution asserts that prostitution in fact constitutes men’s
sexual violence and a violation of women’s human rights.
The history of feminist campaigns and of lesbianism forms a
vital foundation for our campaigns against male violence today
and for lesbian feminist politics. There is still plenty of work to
be done. Feminist historical research and activism are integrally
linked. The history of sexuality will continue to be a source of
controversy. When sexuality is, as Spinster suggests and as
radical feminist theorists such as Kate Millett and Catharine
MacKinnon assert, the organising force of women’s oppression,
the history of sexuality will be enlisted to justify either women’s
resistance to men’s violence and what Carole Pateman calls the
‘law of male sex-right’ or to support the male supremacist sexual
system (Millett 1972; MacKinnon 1989; Pateman 1988). I am
proud that Spinster provides no comfort for the male historians
of sexual liberalism and remain puzzled that any ‘feminist’
theorists such as Rubin and Duggan, would want to reproduce
that history and call it feminist. Women who celebrate
pornography and sadomasochism and call feminists ‘prudes’
will not have the patriarchs shaking in their shoes. Feminism is
about making trouble after all; challenging masculine ideologies
and male behaviour. It was in 1880 and it is today.
Brunswick Street, Melbourne, June 1997.
xv