On Thursday 10 June, PolSoc hosted a talk by Rebecca Clark (Class of 2017) on The Feminist Philosophy of Sex. After leaving Habs, Rebecca went on to study PPE at Oxford and is currently undertaking a Masters, specialising in feminist philosophy.
Her insightful talk explored the three premises of consent: competency, autonomy and information, deepening our understanding of what true consent is. She raised fascinating questions such as: ‘Is sex always okay when there is consent?’ which would seemingly be a resounding yes. However, Rebecca responded to this with some ethical and philosophical challenges, the most interesting one being that even consent itself and sex is always invalid. This is due to the radical feminist argument that sex usually occurs in the framework of the patriarchy and consent is generated under the conditions of a power imbalance.
We thoroughly enjoyed Rebecca’s talk and engaged with the subject material especially in the wake of Everyone’s Invited. Thank you for such an informative and thought-provoking presentation.
Emma Levy (Lower 6)
