Articles by Robert Jensen
Pornography normalizes rape: An interview with Robert Jensen (in Spanish and English)
daleunavuelta.org · October, 2019
We face what I call “the paradox of pornography.” In the past three decades, the period in which I’ve been studying the issue, two trends are undoubtedly clear. First, the content of commercial heterosexual pornography has become more overtly cruel and degrading to women, and more overtly racist. Second, pornography has become more mainstream and acceptable in the culture. In a civilized society, how can a media genre move closer to the center of popular culture, and be more sexist and racist at the same time? The painful answer is that we may not be as civilized as we like to think.
Disagreeing Reasonably in a Complex World: A review of ‘The Case Against Free Speech’
Dissident Voice · October, 2019
In my last couple years of university teaching before retiring, I repeated two catch phrases as often as possible—“reasonable people can disagree” and “if two things are both true, then both are relevant.”
Radical Feminism: A Gift to Men
Voice Male magazine · September, 2019
I spent the first half of my life trying to be a “normal” guy. That project didn’t go so well. The good news is that in the second half of my life I gave up trying, and things got better.
What led me to change course? An unexpected interaction with radical feminist writings that offered a critique of patriarchy, followed by the opportunity to meet radical feminists living in a patriarchal society who were working to advance the radical feminist critique of pornography and of men’s sexual exploitation of women in patriarchy.
The Danger of Inspiration: A Review of ‘On Fire: The (Burning) Case for a Green New Deal’
CommonDreams.org · September, 2019
Naomi Klein’s new book is essential reading, but does it go far enough in confronting the grim realities we truly face?
From the Royal to the Prophetic to the Apocalyptic: The Case for a Saving Remnant
Resilience.org · August, 2019
The royal, prophetic, and apocalyptic traditions in the Hebrew and Christian bibles provide a compelling framework for understanding progressive intellectual and political work today, as we face the task not only of struggling to create a just and sustainable world but also imagining a saving remnant that will negotiate a radically different future in which both new and old skills, stories, and spaces will be necessary.
Let’s get ‘creaturely’: A new worldview can help us face ecological crises
Resilience.org · April, 2019
No farmer has ever gone out to the barn to start the day and discovered that a baby tractor had been born overnight. For farmers who work with horses, the birth of a foal would not be surprising.
That observation may seem silly, but it highlights an important contrast: Machines cannot reproduce or maintain themselves. Creatures can.
The tractor comes out of the industrial mind, while the horse is creaturely. The tractor is the product of an energy-intensive human-designed system, while the horse is the product of an information-intensive biological process that emerges from earth and sun.
Growing a Green New Deal: Agriculture’s Role in Economic Justice and Ecological Sustainability
Resilience.org · February, 2019
Propelled by the energy of progressive legislators elected in the 2018 midterms elections, a “Green New Deal” has become part of the political conversation in the United States, culminating in a resolution in the U.S. House with 67 cosponsors and a number of prominent senators lining up to join them. Decades of activism by groups working on climate change and other ecological crises, along with a surge of support in recent years for democratic socialism, has opened up new political opportunities for serious discussion of the intersection of social justice and sustainability.
Clarifying terminology crucial in transgender debate
Texas Tribune · December, 2018
As sex and gender issues simmer — and routinely boil over — at every level of government, now more than ever we need clear definitions of terms used in the transgender debate.
Compassion as cover: How transgender allies dodge debate
Feminist Current · November, 2018
Since publishing my first essay challenging the ideology of the transgender movement four years ago, I have often found myself in settings where liberal allies of that movement try to divert a difficult discussion by claiming the moral high ground of compassion. With each of these encounters, I become increasingly frustrated at this “compassion-as-cover” dodge that seems designed to give liberals a way to avoid accountability.
Nuclear Power Will Not Save Us from Climate Change
YES! Magazine · November, 2018
How the IPCC’s solutions for reversing the Earth’s warming encourage business as usual.
American Journalism’s Ideology: Why the “Liberal” Media is Fundamentalist
Brill · September, 2018
Feminist Principles and Michael Kimmel
Counterpunch · August, 2018
A week after anonymous charges of sexual harassment against sociologist Michael Kimmel surfaced, I suggested that his half-hearted “apology” was unacceptable and that the pro-feminist men’s movement’s response was inadequate. With two more weeks now past, a follow-up challenge to Kimmel—a leading figure in the feminist-influenced study of men and masculinities—is appropriate.