On Wednesday, I wrote in Washington Examiner about how Walmart removing Cosmopolitan from its checkout lines is no victory for feminism or the #MeToo movement, but rather them buckling under pressure from conservative organizations who claim to fight sexual exploitation.
This elicited a response from Joy Pullman (whom I have enjoyed working with before) in the Federalist: “Per usual, there are lots of tangled lines in Wolfe’s argument. On the one hand, she says Walmart can do whatever it wants as a private company. After that little nod to libertarianism, however, she says Walmart should not do what its leadership very obviously wants (since they did it). Instead, Walmart should do what she wants” (emphasis in original).
Pullman claims I do a “rhetorical bait and switch,” where I essentially say, “Walmart and advocacy groups can totally do what they want, but what they want is stupid and I’m going to complain about it.”
Of course that’s true. I’m an opinion writer. I get paid to complain about political moves ranging from the slightly more trivial (where Cosmo is sold) to the incredibly serious (which schools have butchered due process in their Title IX adjudications). Many writers cover many bases and complain about stupid aspects of the world around us, and Pullman’s argument is not particularly different — she publicly lauds this specific move while presumably believing a private company should have the freedom to do what they want. She, too, is talking about her personal preference and lauding a corporation for doing something aligned with her own belief system. Our arguments are cut from the same cloth.
Putting the “per usual” shade aside, Pullman then goes on to tell me to stop playing coy: “Just come out and make the straight argument: Putting sexually explicit words and images at kids’ eye level while they’re tethered to the spot waiting in line with their moms to check out is A-okay. See, when you put it that way, it’s not such an effective argument.”
This argument is the core of this issue, and we have two distinct approaches: Pullman believes a more socially conservative world is better for her children and I believe a less sexually repressed, more libertine world is better for my (future) children. Both are well-intentioned, rooted in our respective political and moral values, and neither are worthy of ad hominem attacks.
I’m not dreaming of raising children in The Tenderloin in San Francisco, where homeless people who are down on their luck shoot up as children try to frolic outside. But I do think harm reduction and open dialogue are the best way to ensure a healthy outlook on vices and, yes, that should start at a young age. Ayelet Waldman has good thoughts on this in her 2018 book A Really Good Day ,where she talks about providing condoms and drug testing kits to her teenage children. She’s not condoning her house becoming a free-for-all teenage rave, but she does communicate to her children that they will likely experiment with drugs and sex (alcohol is, after all, a drug, just one we’ve decided is legally and morally acceptable) and that she would rather they minimize damage to themselves and others. The logic goes: The more openness we have about vices and how to make sensible choices, the better the outcomes.
Clearly, I’m not saying mothers should start reading Cosmo to their kids in place of Goodnight Moon. But there’s something to be said for a family’s values — and the healthy, loving relationship modeled by the parents — having a more lasting impact than a child being exposed to some amount of sexual imagery, whether it be in a checkout line, in a movie, or on a billboard. Sexy magazines aren’t catch-all boogeymen, solely responsible for the degradation of our society (and we can quibble over how much harm they do all day long).
Pullman’s last point is that the #MeToo movement is indicative of how women have been hurt by loosening sexual mores, but I’d caution her against believing that a return to traditional chastity is the way forward. She complains that “what’s regressive, in fact, is treating sex like it’s not special. The #MeToo conversation is a public acknowledgment that the sexual free-for-all third-wave feminists advocated is a major failure.”
She’s right, to a degree. #MeToo should serve as a cautionary tale — the blurred boundaries that come with casual sex (and drunken sex) are worth reflecting on. But there’s another aspect of #MeToo that she sells short: Men in positions of power have repeatedly overstepped boundaries and, in some cases, refused to respect explicit withdrawals of consent. This isn’t an issue with women or with loosening sexual standards; it’s an issue with men not respecting women because they’ve been able to get away with it for so long. Most proponents of family values and human decency recognize that this is an issue, too.
Moving back toward chastity might not solve these excesses as well as Pullman thinks, and it certainly won’t maximize choice or fulfillment for everyone, let alone many modern women.
Again, private companies can do what they’d like, but I do wonder whether moving toward a sexually freer society, with more open discussion about vices and healthy choices, is the best course of action.
Liz Wolfe (@lizzywol) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. She is managing editor at Young Voices.
