Fractelle you are a card - any more room in your bunker. :)

Veronika you are correct this thread seems to have got side tracked a bit.

"The answer, clearly, is no — their rights and responsibilities are exactly the same as for rest of us. Those of us who support Henson and the artists that appear in Art Monthly argue that they have not reneged on those responsibilities."

Veronika you do put forward some well reasoned and rational arguments but I disagree in part with the statement above. From what I have read in various media is that (some) artists have argued that art should be or is absolved of any of the usual hindrances or responsibilities merely for the sake of art itself. Or put another way, artistic freedoms as the 'first freedom' above all other rights,freedoms or responsibilities. Not all artists of course would hold that view.

I am a bit like Fractelle in that my arguments have been repeated in many other threads on this issue so I am now desisting so as not to sound like a broken record.

RObert
No problems. I thought that might be the case as you are generally a calm and rational male voice on these issues. You always appear to look objectively to see many things from more than one side of the debate, even if we disagree at times on some issues. :)

I'm bowing out of this thread too.

As a parting comment ... the thing that I have found sad about the thread is that hardly anyone actually addressed MTR's central argument - that is, that the Art Monthly editors were sending mixed messages about child nudity and dignity, when seen within the context of the rest of the issue.

After all ... if you are trying to give dignity to artistic portrayals of female child nudity, then it's a bit counterproductive to include features elsewhere in the same issue about artists who portray women as trussed up schoolgirls with exposed genitals. (I haven't seen the issue. I'm taking MTR's word for it.)

And R0bert...

Your contrition is noted. However, please use your trusty little truth scalpel more sparingly in future. If you can't do that, then please apply it more evenly to both sides. Your crusade seems to be more about exposing feminists who distort, rather than exposing those who distort feminism

SJF, "Your crusade seems to be more about exposing feminists who distort, rather than exposing those who distort feminism"

I'll take that observation on board. I do try to be even but I do not always succeed. With HRS marking the extreme on the anti-feminist side everybody else has a tendency to look somewhat moderate. I find it frustrating how much crap feminism in general cops from some.

As for engaging in the topic, I suspect that most are somewhat over the whole issue and MTR's take looks just like another spin on it (although the desription of the other feature sounds more like kinky porn than art).

R0bert

No one has distorted feminism in this thread. No one (well unless I missed some posts...). We are all used to being taught it's all fine and it's all harmless. It's not and we have been seeing the effects and policies over the last few years particularly. MTR is a pro-life Catholic who advised a rabid pro-censorhip senator. She conceals this in her profile. Ask yourself why.. This is extremely relevant to the article and it's intentions. No normal person would have given any of this a second thought, unless you are an ignorant philistine and then it's reasonable. But in that case it would also be reasonable and normal to be a homophobe, or a racist. Feminists who are moderate and exist in the ether of society are not relevant to the political situation, except to be used by people like MTR to support their activist (often hidden) agendas.

Steel, to some extent moderates of anything are not well represented politically. Where we make the difference is when we stop letting the extremists hold the day. When we talk across the fences (or even pull down the fences) and get some understanding of the other side of the picture.

Continued attacks on feminism hinder dialog with the moderate feminists. It reinforces perceptions of men who are concerned about issues impacting on men as being anti-female regardless of how it seems to the men involved. You may consider the moderates irrelevant, I consider them vital.

When people are under attack they generally go on the defensive rather than listening. If you have concerns with the extremes of feminism you are not going to get the moderates to trust you enough to listen and try to understand while you continue to attack feminism as a whole.

Most of the feminists on OLO do really work hard to listen and understand, most are quite up front in admitting that there are areas where men cop a raw deal. It's so easy to get trapped in a cycle of attack, where we take the worst interpretation on comments by the other side, we look for the slights and focus on the errors more than the truths. Possibly thats what I've done with SJF's comments.

MTR should declare her motivations more fully, those who've read her writing and seen the odd TV appearance over time propbably don't need that to get the picture. I doubt that many of the feminists around here consider her a voice that represents them particularly.

If you want to ensure that moderate feminists are awake up to the MTR's of the world then talk to them about concerns rather than just attacking feminism.

R0bert

oh hello.

I just had to come back to this thread because, since I left it, I got hold of a mate's Art Monthly for a squizz. I also found an excellent comment on Art Monthly here: http://artsjournalist.blogspot.com/2008/07/art-monthly-editor-plays-into-hettys.html

After having seen it and read that comment I appreciate your point SJF.

As to the rest of the comments, I'm one of the moderate feminists you talk of, and I agree that this is a forum to avoid.

MTR is an odd person. She's a pro-life feminist who emphasises the feminism rather than her religion it's more likely to appeal to young pregnant girls than Catholicism is. She's very sincere about her beliefs. I agree she should be upfront about her associations, but most people who know something about her know she staffed Harridine.

MTR has a bit of power. She can get an op-ed in The Australian and she gets invited on Lateline. But I know a lot of people who can get an op-ed in The Australian, and a couple who get invited on Lateline. She is invited to represent her particular point of view. Senator Harridine was an independent — she doesn't have the ear of government. Her agenda is primarily to eradicate abortion. That's fine, it's a free country and she exercises her rights to lobby for the end of abortion in various ways. But she's NOT going to win. The so-called moderate feminists won the abortion debate long ago, and the status quo will prevail.

Getting the message out about her agenda is important, and my feminists mates have been trying to point out MTR isn't one of us for a long time.

Steel, you are of course free to believe that feminism and the religious right have formed an unholy alliance. But I'd encourage wider research in this area. http://unbelief.org/ is a great website dedicated to opening up the religious right to scrutiny.

I've never met a feminist who things women should advance at ANY cost to men. But if they exist, I will fight them with you.