LonerGrrrl

I’m over here now...

2008-09-02T07:47:00.000-07:00

... http://lonergrrrl.wordpress.com if you’re still interested.

R.I.P Natasha Shneider

2008-08-18T06:20:00.000-07:00

I’m coming out of blog hibernation to express my shock and sadness on hearing the news that one of my favourite female musicians, Natasha Shneider, recently died of cancer.

I’m going to assume that most people reading this aren’t familiar with Natasha’s work. Everyone knows about the Kathleen Hannas, PJ Harveys, Courtney Loves, Corin Tuckers and Kat Bjellands of the world, but not Natasha, which is why I wanted to note her passing.

Natasha was keyboardist/vocalist in the alt-rock band Eleven, and with her partner/Eleven member Alain Johannes, also collaborated with a number of other artists including two of my faves, Chris Cornell and Queens of the Stone Age, most notably on Josh Homme’s Desert Sessions projects.

She was a musician who invoked great depth, both vocally and lyrically. She could do all sorts of wonderful things with the keyboard, helping to create Eleven’s unique sound. Intelligence and substance emanated from the music she wrote, sang and performed, often with a streak of darkness, and I like that in my musicians. Her voice could kick arse. Like the band she was in, she was one of a kind.

At this point I should probably post You Tube clips or something, but besides the fact I don’t know how to do that, I don’t think they’d be much out there.

Instead I recommend you check out some Eleven albums- you won’t get find ‘em in the shops- ebay or online indie record stores are probably your best bet. Avantgarde Dog and Howling Book are must-haves. And these songs:

No Ground; Howling Book; Strands of Rain; Kill Me No More (Eleven); Nenada (from Josh Homme’s Desert Sessions project Vol 7 & 8);; and the officially- gorgeous Can’t Change Me (French version with Chris Cornell)

You can download some MP3s by going here and clicking on MP3.

R.I.P Natasha.

Memorial Fund

It’s been two years & I need a break

2008-05-12T01:06:00.000-07:00

It’s been two years since I started blogging. And I’m certainly a different feminist to the one I was in May 2006- for the better, no question. I look back at some of the things I wrote- here and elsewhere- a couple of years back and cringe. Some of it too simplistic, too gung-ho.

But it’s not as if I’ve arrived at my final feminist destination. I don’t go around, secure in the knowledge that I have ‘the’ LonerGrrrl feminist theory to fall back on. My feminism is still developing, still evolving, I’m still changing and working out what I think about certain things. New perspectives on old themes emerge that deserve consideration, a different angle always crops up that’s worth trying to integrate.

I feel comfortable calling myself a radical feminist, radical feminist principles and analysis make the most sense to me. But radical feminism isn’t a vanguard, it’s not something that’s set in stone for women to come along and pledge allegiance to and never deviate from. It needs to be flexible enough to take into account changes in the world, changes in women’s lives, it can’t stay in 1975.

Being open to differing views and analyses is important- I may not agree with the fundamental principles of (for e.g.) postmodern feminism or socialist feminism- but I’m willing to listen, listening allows you to realise that perhaps on some things coalitions could be formed to strengthen feminism overall, it can strengthen and develop your own feminism.

And while I’m a radical feminist, that doesn’t mean I’m consistent in my theory. I never will be. Something will always come along to prompt a re-think. I contradict myself, I second-guess a lot, I’m not pure in applying my principles to every day life. I denounce misogyny and the ‘masculinist’ ethos, but still listen to and love misogynistic, ‘masculinist’ rock music. I rip into pop culture, but still like to watch the soaps. Summer’s here and the hairy armpits could come out, but I’m still reluctant, still pandering to the male gaze, no matter how righteous I feel about it in my head, living it out is a different matter.

Yet, the evolution of my feminism has accelerated recently and things are starting to come to a head. I feel I’m arriving at a different destination on the journey. Not just on a theoretical level (I’ve certainly gone on about that enough here!), but on a more practical, activist level too.

A number of things have contributed to this. Some things have been niggling at me for a while in terms of the activism I’ve been involved in and reading some stuff in the blogosphere in recent weeks has made me re-consider and consolidate some of this thinking. There’s also been some fallings-out within the internet feminist community that have disconcerted me and again, led me to re-consider some stuff.

One of the main things I’ve come to realise over the past week or so is that I need to spend some time away from Internet-Feminist-Land.

On the one hand, I’ve read some great, thought-provoking stuff on certain blogs recently that have challenged my thinking and my approach to certain things.

But I’m also getting frustrated with how the internet- while being invaluable for offering a means to initially connect with other feminists- can also be detrimental to the realisation of Real-Life Feminism. Internet-Feminist-Land is incredibly insular, it excludes those who don’t have the means to log on. There’s more to feminism than that which exists on the internet, more feminists than those on the internet, the issues affecting women affect them away from the computer screen.

Sometimes I feel that the goings-on in Internet-Feminist-Land make us lose some perspective, meaning we get bogged down and subsequently divided in ‘blog-wars’ and the like, rather than discussing the more important, relevant stuff like what the fuck we’re going to do about the attack on the abortion time limit we’re currently facing.

As a result, I’m taking a break from the blogosphere for a bit. Firstly, because I need some time to think some stuff through, for myself, but also because I’m feeling drained by life in Internet-Feminist-Land and how what counts for activism within it so easily falls victim to either a) in-fighting and subsequent dissipation or b) inaction.

Taking a break now also ties in well with where I’m at in my Real Life. I need to devote more time to my studies. As you can see from my last few posts here, my studies alone have prompted me to think a lot of things through. That alone is enough for my head to handle, never mind anything else. I’m someone who thinks too much anyway and my head is crammed. I’m sat here reading the blogs and bearing witness to the minutiae of discussions and there’s a voice telling me to step away and give my head some time to clear. So that’s what I’m going to do for a bit.

I also need to sort getting a job and finding somewhere to live. So seeing as it’s all-change, I’m also treating now as an opportunity to re-consider where I want to take my feminism next. And that’s potentially to a different place, with a different focus than previously.

Over the past few months, as the result of my studies, in a way I hadn’t envisaged, my radical feminism has been consolidated. I’ve come across whole new areas of feminist theory I never knew existed and have been trying to get my head around them and reconcile them with my feminist principles and engagement with activism. Alternately, my studies have also broadened my thinking in a number of important areas.

Now that I’ve consolidated my theoretical position if you like (for now!), I need to think about how that can be followed through in the activism that I do.

I went into feminist activism all gung-ho, ‘doing anything was better than nothing’ was my approach. I still believe this to an extent, but I feel that from now on I need to give more consideration to what the actual implications of that ‘anything’ are going to be and if it’s really the best course of action.

Being rabidly anti-pornography, calling for the censorship of lad mags and other misogynist publications, is all well and good, but looking back at the activism I’ve been involved in and instigated, I recognise flaws. That doing one-off demos outside newsagents are pretty pointless if they are not part of a more cohesive, sustained, collective campaign with clear aims. I don’t regret doing these demos, while we didn’t achieve what we set out to (we couldn’t because it was an isolated event, not part of a wider campaign) they were good for raising awareness among the general public, it gave me an insight, it set me off. And I’m still anti-pornography. I still think something needs to be done about sexist publications and the attitudes towards women they endorse. It’s just I’m thinking of different tactics, different ways of dealing with this kind of stuff.

I’m thinking more long-term than short-term. Tangible and concrete. More substance less attention-seeking. I’m thinking focus on the local, the women on your doorstep, consciousness-raising, networking and action at that level. Talking to and working with women in the Real Life Every Day. Away from the internet. Use paper to communicate. To reach more women.

While I’ve been involved with local feminist activism before, I feel there wasn’t anything specifically local about most of the actions we did. We weren’t doing stuff for the benefit of local women per se, we were doing stuff at a local level with the aim of affecting wider change. But affecting wider change from a local base would stand a better chance if lots of other local activism was also taking place. But at present, there isn’t that co-ordination between regional feminist activity to make that possible.

I keep hearing there’s a resurgence of feminism. And there is. The evidence is there- the demos, the regional groups, the conferences, the media.

But I feel a dissonance between the solidarity invoked at mass demos, that ‘yeah, let’s fucking smash the patriarchy’ vibe we get going, that realisation of the resurgence of feminism and then what happens when we get home. The rhetoric we hear and the optimism we feel, at RTN rallies for e.g., is not carried through into our every day, activist feminist lives. Well, that’s my experience anyway.

While thousands of us can get together for a couple of hours in November or March to protest, getting together for anything else afterwards is a lot harder. I’m generally frustrated with the lack of action, with a lack of initiative and energy. Or should I say lack of initiative and energy when it comes to action, because when it comes to the blogosphere there’s a lot of energy- it’s just a shame that this is often used up in disagreements with each other, rather than in fighting the common enemy- patriarchy.

And when I say action, I’m not necessarily referring to thousand-strong marches or loud, shouty protests. This definition of activism is an exclusionary one, because not everyone has the time, money, means or ability to participate in action in this way.

One thing I’ve really enjoyed doing this year is volunteering at a feminist archive. And I count this- preserving and promoting feminist herstory -as activism. Doing this has been an opportunity to get involved with concrete, real life, everyday feminism. There I get to do something tangible. There I get to work alongside other women in Real Time as opposed to over the internet. That involves co-operating, organising and working alongside other women in Real Life, a fruitful and rewarding experience, and it’s certainly been something to learn from. It shows up how difficult the internet can be for organising- nothing beats the old-fashioned way of just getting together in a room, discussing stuff there and then, and dealing with issues as they arise face-to-face in a co-operative manner, with one eye on the bigger picture.

And this is where I would like to take my own feminist activism. To a place where I’m working with women in a real-life, concrete setting with the aim of doing something for the women in our communities, not necessarily in the form of anything spectacular but rather for more tangible ends.

And that means stepping out of Internet-Feminist-Land.

What’s theory? (thoughts on pomo & radical feminism part 3)

2008-04-23T00:51:00.000-07:00

“the abstract, nebulous vocabulary and cautious rhetorical structures borrowed from canonical Western philosophical discourse are revered at the expense of rhetorical strategies that stand on the margins of academic discourse and academic communities. If one is going to make trouble, must one begin with Hegel? Must writers whose language is highly poetic (such as Lorde) or non-jargon laden (such as Rich) or defiantly multilingual (such as Anzaldua) remain “low” theorists because they do challenge and question the language, structures, and ideologies of white, male, Western philosophers?” (Carol Guess, Deconstructing Me: On Being (Out) in the Academy)

So, what’s theory?

I understand theory to be more than that which is to be found in academic textbooks. It’s more than that which gets published and ends up as required reading on course book lists.

Theory doesn’t have to be
in a book or
reference male academic elites or
written in dense language.

It doesn’t have to give you a headache.

It shouldn’t only be understandable and accessible to those with higher education.

We can all do theory. We all theorise. Me, you, her & her.
We do it right here, on our blogs.
When we write to understand, explain and dissect our experiences as women in patriarchy, when we critique what’s around us, we’re doing theory.
Not so that we can end up on a bookshelf alongside the academic elites, but because we want to, we have to, we need to.
For ourselves, for other women.

All women do theory.
When we talk to our sisters.
When we talk to the women in our families- those moments when you’re together in the kitchen and he’s asleep on the couch, and you’re all, ‘what’s up with that, what’s all that about?’
When we take a step back from the bullshit and think for ourselves- those moments when you’re alone, an idea strikes, and you turn it over in your head. That’s theorising, right there.

We do theory when we take the personal and politicise it.

Theory doesn’t have to be book-bound sat on a dusty library shelf.
Theory can emanate from your thoughts and be spoken out loud right now. It counts. Theory can emanate from the perfect poem or song, if it speaks to you, if it offers new insights, if it makes your head tick. It counts.

“An error feminists make over and over is to mistake the part of a particular theoretical reading, especially a published reading, for the whole of the many forms theorizing takes: active thinking, speaking, conversation, action grounded in theory, action producing theory, action suggesting theory, drafts, letters, unpublished manuscripts, stories in writing and not, poems said and written, art events like shows, readings, enactments, zap actions such as ACT UP does: or that matter incomplete theorizing, sporadic suggestiveness, generalizations correct and incorrect, inadequate theory, images and actions inciting theoretical interventions, and so on.” (Katie King)

Theory should Move you. Inspire you. Move and Inspire you to take Action.

Radical feminist theory does that. It’s theory that can change you. It’s theory that can have a very visceral effect. Reading it, your heart quickens, something rouses in you, your muddied mind gets a little clearer in that moment. And nothing’s the same again.

The words of Andrea Dworkin Move me.
Because I read her theory and I know it came from her heart.
I read her theory and I feel that it was written openly, honestly, naturally, it moves so eloquently across the page & into my head you feel it couldn’t have come from anyone else but her, nothing in the way.
Her theory came from somewhere real, her experiences and her knowledge of other women’s experiences of suffering under patriarchy.

Theory can be sophisticated, it can stretch your intellectual capacity, it can use some big, juicy words.
But there’s that and then there’s just being intellectual for the sake of being intellectual, which makes for obscure, pointless theory.

Postmodern academic theory is intellectual for the sake of being intellectual, it’s obscure, it’s therefore pointless because it can’t Move you.

Judith Butler does not Move me. How can she when I can’t understand her?
There’s Gender Trouble a few books away from Woman Hating.
Woman Hating was a revelation, it was read front to back in a short amount of time.
Gender Trouble has been picked up, flicked through, ‘oh, where IS that bit?’, bits of it have been read, and it’s been put back down again.
I try to read it because I feel I ‘should’ but I can’t get excited by it because I don’t get it.

Isn’t it ironic how pomo which purports to break down everything, comes at us in that oldest form- in dense, heavy blocks of text, with obscure, inaccessible language?

Man-style.

I was told I should not write in short paragraphs. Er… why not? I don’t want to write in a one-paragraph-per-page way as you see in academic journals.

It’s easier to write in short paragraphs. It’s easier for you to understand me if I write in short paragraphs.

And that’s what we want right, for people to understand us?

Pomos of all people should get that, seeing as how ‘post-feminist and ‘post-colonial’ theory is supposedly concerned with all those ignored in previous theory, all those that remain unliberated.

But if you’re writing for the people, if you care, then for fuck’s sake write so they’ll understand!
Not because people outside of academia are less intelligent than you and won’t understand otherwise.
As I said, everyone can do theory.
So, why should pomo theory be what we have to read?
Why can’t the theory we all produce be taken as seriously?

If we want revolution we should write in a revolutionary way.
We should aim to Move the reader, not make them sweat it out with a thesaurus first. There isn’t time.

Those male pomo academics.
Apparently, the likes of Jacques Derrida had something important to say.
Something like, ‘there’s no woman’.
Which of course, as a man, he’d know!
So I located this text where he said this- and what?! What’s all this mean, then?
Sure his writing looked intelligent and VERY postmodern. Good for him.
But what could I take from that, as a woman, as a feminist? Zilch.

Then there’s Michel Foucault.
‘Oh, you must read Foucault; Foucault came along and everything changed for the better; you haven’t lived ‘til you’ve read Foucault; thank fuck for Foucault!’

Apparently, Foucault said stuff like power isn’t held by one group (i.e. men) and wielded over another (i.e. women).
Instead, power is nowhere and everywhere.
As you can see a REALLY useful analysis for tackling male domination of women. Why are we so indebted to Foucault again, I wonder?

But hey, I’ve got to get a good mark for this essay, so I try to find the text where he says this.
I search for that one succinct, clear quote to insert which I know will get me a better mark than if I were to quote say, Kate Millet’s theory of power.
I search and search but cannot find it, ‘Aaaargh, why can’t this man just make it clear what he’s saying?!’
I give up.
Why should I be quoting a male academic who didn’t pay all that much attention to women, anyway?
Why should I, as a feminist, be bowing down at the feet of a male intellectual instead of putting women’s- more relevant and real- theory first?

I think one of the reasons why pomo revels in obscure language, is because it’s a way of making its ideas seem more ground-breaking than they really are.

And radical feminism gets shat on in the process.

I mean, Butler wrote in 1990 about how gender is a social construct.
Well, isn’t that what Dworkin said in Woman Hating in 1974?
You pick up Gender Trouble and read the blurb-
Butler questions how “‘the masculine’ and ‘the feminine’ are not biologically fixed but culturally presupposed” and this is a “thrilling and provocative” analysis.
Talk about wiping out radical feminism.

“The discovery is, of course, that “man” and “woman” are fictions, caricatures, cultural constructs. As models they are reductive, totalitarian, inappropriate to human becoming. As roles they are static, demeaning to the female, dead-ended for male and female both. Culture as we know it legislates those fictive roles as normalcy.”

This isn’t Butler. This is Dworkin in the early 1970s.
So pomos, where’s the beloved biological essentialism of radical feminists here?
And what’s so ground-breaking about Butler again?

Now, I understand that Butler took her analysis further by saying that biological sex- not just gender- is also a cultural construct.

“We can presume then that there is a great deal about human sexuality to be discovered, and that our notion of two discrete biological sexes cannot remain intact… We are, clearly, a multi-sexed species which has its sexuality spread along a vast fluid continuum where the elements called male and female are not discrete.”

Oh, but this isn’t Butler. This is Dworkin again.
Writing in the so-called essentialist 1970s.
So pomos, where’s the beloved biological essentialism of radical feminists here?
And what’s so ground-breaking about Butler again?

So, why is Butler’s work required reading for studies in gender, and Dworkin’s not? Because Butler quotes Derrida, Foucault and Sigmund Freud- ‘proper theory’- while Dworkin didn’t?
Because Dworkin made herself clear, she Moves you, and therefore her theory is
deemed dumbed-down, dangerous theory?

It gets worse.

Butler also talked about something called the "heterosexual matrix"
which describes how feminine and masculine gender roles are formed in relation to the system of heterosexuality:

“The institution of a compulsory and naturalized heterosexuality requires and regulates gender as a binary relation in which the masculine term is differentiated from a feminine term, and this differentiation is accomplished through the practices of heterosexual desire. The act of differentiating the two oppositional moments of the binary results in a consolidation of each term, the respective internal coherence of sex, gender, and desire.”

I’m sorry, but have I not heard something like this before?

Wasn’t compulsory heterosexuality discussed by Adrienne Rich way back in 1980 in her brilliant essay, Compulsory Heterosexuality & Lesbian Existence? (Major click moments beckoning if you’ve not read before!)

Oh, and here’s Dworkin saying the same thing as Butler, 15 years earlier, a thousand times clearer & in one sentence at that:

“I have defined heterosexuality as the ritualized behavior built on polar role definition.”

And let’s bring in Catherine MacKinnon here too, who again said the same thing in her powerful essay, Sexuality (published in 1989):

“the ruling norms of sexual attraction and expression are fused with gender identity formation and affirmation, such that sexuality equals heterosexuality equals the sexuality of (male) dominance and (female) submission”

So like I said before, what’s so ground-breaking about Butler again?

And why is MacKinnon taken less seriously than Butler?
Why is she ridiculed and denounced?
Why is she seen as biologically essentialist?
‘Cause she says stuff like this perhaps?:

“To be clear: what is sexual is what gives a man an erection. Whatever it takes to make a penis shudder and stiffen with the experience of its potency is what sexuality means culturally.”

Here MacKinnon’s committed the cardinal pomo sin of referring to body parts, sexual organs at that, in a concrete, clear manner.
‘So of course she’s essentialist!’
Never mind she’s clear here and throughout her essay that sexuality is culturally and socially constructed.
Just because someone theorises and writes with reference to the real, the concrete, does not make them essentialist.

It just makes them relevant, powerful, understandable.
As a result, they Move you.

Dworkin, Rich and MacKinnon, when I read them, they Moved me.
I understood.
They made me think, ‘hey, that’s right’ or ‘ah, I get that’.
I never felt they were boxing me into my sex/gender role.
On the contrary, reading them freed me from the dictates of femininity and compulsory heterosexuality.

No pomo theorist has had that effect on me.

Which is why I do not privilege elite pomo male-imitation academic theory over other kinds of theory.
Because theory that is obscure and inert is theory that serves no purpose.
And feminism hasn’t got time for all that.
Particularly when’s it all been said (more powerfully) before.

So I privilege theory that comes from me and you and her & her.
Theory that is clear and heartfelt
Theory that’s rooted in the every day
Theory that fucks with the rules- it could be
poetic and alliterative
it may not even see itself as theory.

I want short, pithy sentences.
I want passion.
I want Gloria Steinem-style “activist writing”* where something so concrete, so recognisable is summed up in one sentence and once you’ve read it you can take it away with you and store forever.

The theory I want,
want to read and want to write,
may have a few big, juicy words in there.
It may be lengthy sometimes.

But that’s not at the expense of conveying a clear message that will Move you.

To Action.

*a phrase coined by Deborah Siegel

An old twist on a very, very old theme

2008-04-19T04:28:00.000-07:00

There’s been some discussion about the Channel 4 makeover programme How to Look Good Naked (HTLGN) over at the F-Word and I’m going to add some of my thoughts here.

I’ve seen the show a couple of times and that’s all I’ve needed to see to know that this is the kind of telly produced to piss me off.

First things first, I don’t care how it’s ‘differenttoallthoseothermakeoverprogrammes’ because it doesn’t lead its female subjects to the cosmetic surgeon’s operating table or because it’s not got some ‘female fashion toff’ telling women how to dress, but a ‘gay male style guru’.

As far as I’m concerned, any programme that strives to make women look and feel good, whether it be via liposuction or lipstick, isn’t going to have my backing, because they are all about making a woman look/feel good via her appearance, nothing more (I mean, it’s not as if these programmes talk about their female subjects’ education, jobs, politics, hobbies or other interests which could perhaps also boost their self-esteem, is it?).

And what, gay men can’t also perpetuate the sexist beauty myth? That just because a man isn’t sexually attracted to women it means gender relations are transformed? Yeah, right.

Gok Wan may be gay, but the man dominant/woman subordinate dynamic is still maintained in HTLGN. This is made most obvious when Gok says things such as, ‘this is how to look good, ladies’ and ‘this is what you should wear, girls’ as if all us ‘girls’ were just gagging for his advice so we can all be in his special, ‘hey, don’t we look fucking-fantastically-feminine’ club. Man instructing woman on how to look good? That’s a step backwards for makeover tv, not a step forward.

What I really loathe about the show though, is its relentless emphasis on getting the female subject- and the female viewer- to look ‘feminine’ (which always equates to being a ‘real woman’ in makeover tv land). I can’t stand that homogenous dictate- that for a woman to look good, to feel good, to make the most of herself, she should subscribe to that arbitrary standard, ‘femininity’. Feminine beauty standards are constructs of hetero-patriarchy, (gasp!, did I just invoke an over-simplistic, totalising concept there? Oh, well...) produced so that women can a) keep quiet, occupied and contained and b) be attractive to men.

Now, hearing anyone brandishing the femininity dictate pisses me off. But when it’s a male style guru on a makeover programme doing it, there’s something else to question.

What we have with HTLGN is a male fashion/image ‘expert’; this very concept is a subversion of stereotypical masculinity which rejects associations with obsessing over appearance, fashion and shopping etc. The man running the show can get away with crossing the gender line, he can disavow the dictates of stereotypical masculine appearance/manner.

Not so for the women who appear on the show. They have to stay very much within the gender line, they have to work at becoming a traditional feminine stereotype. The female subject cannot disavow femininity.

So, HTLGN turns out to be just like allthoseothermakeoverprogrammes. A woman’s ‘failure’ to be feminine isn’t taken as an opportunity to say, ‘well, fuck all that anyway’, it means she must work at fitting into femininity, because otherwise she ain’t good enough, she’s unacceptable.

Also, this show is about making women look good naked. It’s not a celebration or affirmation of genuinely naked women. If it was, what’s with getting the face-paint and hair extensions out all of a sudden for the naked reveal? Neither is it a celebration or affirmation of women in all their genuine shapes and sizes. If it was, what’s with hiding all the ugly bits, but making the most of the flattering bits with the ‘right’ clothing? What’s with all the emphasis on doing this, buying that, putting that on there, wearing this like that, standing like this, doing your hair like that?

So, just like allthoseothermakeoverprogrammes, HTLGN tells its female subjects/viewers how to fit the same ol' standard. It tells us we have to squeeze into the high heels, breathe in and belt up to accentuate our curves and clip in some hair extensions.

It tells us we have to fit femininity; femininity cannot be re-defined to fit us.

Clarifying my thoughts on radical feminism & postmodernism (part 2)

2008-04-12T04:01:00.000-07:00

As I stated in my previous post, I’m not completely adverse to the pomo intervention in feminism. This quote from Guess’ essay outlines how the pomo project of ‘deconstructing’ subject categories such as ‘woman’ can be a useful endeavour:

“In many respects, the move… to poststructuralism has been beneficial for feminism, because the concept of an essential subjectivity has historically been used to oppress women… During the second wave feminist movement, lesbians, women of colour, and/or poor and working-class women were often excluded by the movement’s largely heterosexual, white, middle-class focus… When minority feminists critiqued these biases, they were deconstructing the labels “feminist” and “woman,” questioning the way in which… particular subject positions were excluded by such labels...”

Deconstructing ‘woman’

A tenet of ‘second-wave’ feminism (and not a pomo revelation) was that ‘woman’ is a social construct. It’s always been (and continues to be) an important part of feminism to interrogate the meaning of ‘woman’ in order to uncover how it has been constructed to subjugate females in relation to males.

One of the earliest sustained analyses of this came from American radical feminist Shulamith Firestone, in her book The Dialectic of Sex.

Following on from Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex in which it was stated, “One is not born a woman, but rather becomes one”, Firestone argued that females’ biological capacity to bear children was used to keep ‘woman’ subordinate to ‘man’; gender roles were assigned to each sex, not on the basis of any intrinsic relation of those roles to biology, but in order to create and maintain the male dominant/female subordinate binary so beloved of patriarchy. (I like Firestone. I think her demand for “The freeing of women from the tyranny of reproduction by every means possible, and the diffusion of child-rearing to the society as a whole, to men and other children as well as women” is far more revolutionary (because it’s PRACTICAL) than pomo’s obsession with (ABSTRACT) deconstruction.)

However, a lot of early mainstream feminist theory* that was deconstructing ‘woman’ was blind to how race, class and sexuality (in particular) intersected with the category ‘woman’.

Such blindness meant that while ‘woman’ was being deconstructed to see how it kept females subordinate to males, there wasn’t much deconstructing of ‘woman’ going on in relation to which ‘woman’ was being referred to exactly. How race, class and sexuality, for e.g., intersected with the construct ‘woman’ and how that contributed to women’s different experiences of oppression- which were not always or wholly related to sex/gender- was not really drawn out. As it was white, middle-class and heterosexual women producing most of the early mainstream feminist theory, this meant that the ‘woman’ invoked in the theory was implicitly white, middle-class and heterosexual.

So pomo- following on from work by the likes of bell hooks and Adrienne Rich which called out this feminist theory for its racism and heterosexism respectively- has since led to the deconstructing of ‘woman’ along these lines. And this is useful for feminism- to an extent.

To deconstruct ‘woman’ so that it is clear which woman is speaking and which woman is being spoken about, provides a useful means by which feminists can examine their own privileges in relation to other women. Deconstructing ‘woman’ is vital if we are to recognise and deal with the differences between us, recognise that class, race, sexuality etc also intersect with the category ‘woman’ and if we are to deal with the relations of oppression that exist between us as a result.

But this is as far as my allegiance with pomo goes.

I’m all for interrogating the category ‘woman’, but pomo goes further. Having accounted for differences within subject categories, it then declares that because these subject categories are so marked by difference, so unstable, they cannot exist. Guess again:

“Recent poststructuralist thought carries such redefinitions one step further. Rather than perpetually redefining a given category in order not to exclude any potentially applicable subject position from within that category, poststructuralists express skepticism about the validity of categories themselves.”

So as ‘woman’ is not just a gendered entity, but also intersects with other categories such as race, class, dis/ability, sexuality, geographical location, age, religion, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, pomo declares, ‘how can ‘woman’ exist after all’?

Therefore pomos see the maintenance of subject categories as problematic.

But I see their dismantling as problematic, because if we want to tackle the oppression ‘women’ face, from what position can we do this, if ‘women’ are said to not exist?

Guess refers to this as “deconstructive paralysis,”, “the absolute inability to take a position… because any and every move is imperfect, fraught with potential misstep...”

I also want to quote at this point the fab Susan Bordo. Coming across Bordo’s book, Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture and the Body a few months ago, made me breathe a huge sigh of relief- here was a feminist academic informed by pomo, but who critically engaged with it, who wasn’t kissing Foucault’s arse. ‘Hey, I have someone to quote to make my arguments stand up’, I thought. A section of the book is devoted to a critique of pomo, in which she says stuff like this:

“Certainly, feminist scholarship will benefit from local, historically specific study and from theoretical projects that analyze the relations of diverse axes of identity. Too often, however, this focus has translated to the coercive, mechanical requirement that all enlightened feminist projects attend to “the intersection of race, class, and gender”… In any case, just how many axes can one include and still preserve analytical focus or argument?”

So while it’s important to acknowledge and deal with differences between women, such an endeavour in the form of pomo theorising can lead to “paralysis”.

An essay I wrote recently was criticised for not considering- get this- race AND sexuality AND class AND age AND dominant femininity and masculinity. It left me incredulous to see such a comment, not because I think it’s not important to acknowledge these factors, but how possible is it to deal with all these in one essay, really? But this is what pomo seems to demand. Which then leads to a never-ending to-ing and fro-ing and ultimately you’re not able to take a substantive position. That’s great for getting top marks, research grants and jobs in the academy, but not so great if you want to forge ahead with some practical politics.

And this is what I’m trying to reconcile, the necessity of dealing with differences between women within a framework of practical feminist action.

It’s important to acknowledge that ‘woman’ is marked by difference, that the experiences of working-class women are different to those of middle-class women, that the experiences of women in the developed world are different from those in the developing world, for example.

But I don’t think this is a call to abandon a politics which is centered around a notion of ‘woman’, because for all our differences, ‘woman’ as a gender category is still assigned, invoked, and given meaning- as the subordinate of the gender category ‘man’- across race, class etc lines. As a result, being labeled ‘woman’, being socialised into being ‘woman’, appearing as ‘woman’, can have very real, detrimental effects, materially, physically, emotionally across race, class etc lines.

And while race, class etc intersect with ‘woman’, the oppression experienced by black women, working-class women, lesbians, disabled women, elderly women etc is still likely to be different from the oppression faced by black men, working class men etc etc etc, because they are women, subordinate to those men. Which means a ‘woman’-centered politics is still imperative, in my view.

This stance does cause me to question my own privilege- am I able to advocate a woman-centered politics, a radical feminist politics, and not, say, a politics centered around race or class, because I’m white and from a middle-class background? As a result, can I ‘afford’ to advocate a woman-centered politics?

I’ve found these quotes useful when thinking about this:

From Imelda Whelehan:

“feminism’s focus might be better relocated to concentrate on the removal of oppression, rather than a concern with equality. Such a change in emphasis does not appear to me to be incompatible with a sustained focus on the ideological effects upon women of all groups, as a contribution to the erosion of patriarchal oppression, rather than risking replicating pre-existing power dynamics”

And from bell hooks:

“Black men may be vicitimized by racism, but sexism allows them to act us exploiters and oppressors of women. White women may be victimized by sexism, but racism enables them to act as exploiters and oppressors of black people. As long as these two groups or any group defines liberation as gaining social equality with ruling class men, they have a vested interest in the continued exploitation and oppression of others”

These views are reminiscent of radical feminism’s emphasis on liberation, not equality. Perhaps one way to move forward then, is with a radical feminist woman-centered politics, which is grounded in ending all forms of oppression in order to liberate all women. Anything less, and sexist, classist, racist, homophobic, ablelist, ageist etc structures will remain intact, and some women will remain unliberated. And women will remain divided.

More consequences of deconstructing ‘woman’

Not only does a dismantling of ‘woman’ leave us with no room to forge a practical feminist politics, but deconstructing ‘woman’ altogether at the present time, means that the oppression experienced by women subsequently becomes invisible.
Some points Guess makes in relation to this:

“A queer body is not a comma; a queer body, like a straight body, may be self-conscious, gleeful, AIDS-ridden, antsy, or lascivious. Gender may be a performance, but it is a fleshed performance, potentially painful or aware of its prowess.”

“Part of what distresses me about the education I’m receiving is that it distances me from the personal lives of the nonacademic (and even academic) lesbians with whom I socialize. Let me relate another anecdote, experienced at a party attended primarily by lesbians in the local community. When someone asked me what I was currently studying, I explained that I was critiquing the philosophical position that lesbian’s don’t exist. As expected, this was received with bemused laughter and summarily dismissed as “strange philosophy”. Turning to the woman beside me, I asked, “So, what have you been doing lately?” Her response: “Fighting my ex-husband to maintain custody of my son.” For this woman and for many others in the room, debating the “nonexistence” of lesbianism on philosophical grounds is a luxury, one that might seem educational until one loses a child custody case, a job, a home. Deconstructing identity does little to make the world seem safer at such moments.”

It’s all very well to deconstruct subject categories and leave the pieces on the floor of the classroom in the comfort of the ivory tower, so that you can then revel in dressing up and pissing around with ‘performativity’ in the pseudo-rebellious atmosphere of the student union of a night.

But that doesn’t really help the secretaries and cleaners who are keeping the cogs of that ivory tower going, the ones who may be feeling the very real effects of being ‘woman’, ‘black’ and/or ‘working-class’ from being paid a shitty wage in a job where they can be patronised and ignored, where they serve those students and professors who think it’s ‘radical’ to deconstruct their reality.

It doesn’t really help any woman, full stop.

If there’s no ‘woman’, then how do we deal with the very real material, physical and emotional consequences of being ‘woman’ that still exist today? Just because it’s been pronounced by pomos that subject positions don’t exist anymore doesn’t mean the lived realities of those who inhabit those subject positions have dissolved.

Now, I would love for there to be no ‘woman’- just like pomos I would love to see a gender-free utopia devoid of gender constructs and binaries. I wish we COULD deconstruct ‘woman’ and throw it away in the bin.

But we are not there yet.

Here’s what Bordo’s got to say:

“Our language, intellectual history, and social forms are gendered; there is no escape from this fact and from its consequences on our lives. Some of those consequences may be unintended, may even be fiercely resisted; our deepest desire may be to transcend gender dualities, to have our behaviour judged on its merits, not categorized as male or female. But, like it or not, in our present culture our activities are coded as male or female and will function as such under the prevailing system of gender-power relations… One cannot be gender-neutral in this culture.”

This is another reason why I do not align myself with pomo theory and instead prefer to retain a radical feminist perspective. Gender- while a construct- is a construct with very real concrete consequences for people’s lives, ‘woman’ has very real consequences for women’s lives.

To put it another way, both pomos and radical feminists want the deconstruction of gender. It’s just that pomos advocate a theory that talks like this has already happened, whereas radical feminism recognises that gender constructs still exist very concretely and as such a politics that speaks about and doesn’t silence ‘woman’ is necessary in order to combat those very gender constructs.

It’s radical feminism that offers a framework for radical change- not pomo.

*I refer to ‘early mainstream feminist theory’ and not just ‘early feminist theory’ because this is what the pomo critique of second-wave feminism is based on; texts such as Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique and Kate Millet’s Sexual Politics which are in the feminist academic canon.

Pomo’s focus on the more mainstream feminist theory means it can get away with denouncing early (radical) feminism as ‘white, middle-class and heterosexual’, whereas if it delved into the grassroots herstory of feminism it would realise such a denunciation is historically inaccurate.

Discussions around class and sexuality did take place in the early days of radical feminism; in the US at the 1970 Congress to Unite Women heated debates about lesbianism took place; also in 1970 a Class Workshop was formed by working-class radical feminists to discuss classism within the movement. In addition, the likes of Charlotte Bunch and Rita Mae Brown theorised on sexuality and class within the movement from a radical feminist perspective. But because the theory generated at conferences, consciousness-raising groups and published in movement newsletters doesn’t resemble theory in the pomo sense of the word i.e. lengthy, book-length, wordy analyses, it’s ignored.

Race wasn’t discussed as much, however pomo’s definition of ‘second-wave’ feminism as ‘white, middle-class and heterosexual’ also makes invisible the feminist activism of women of colour that took place at this time. Becky Thompson’s enlightening article Multiracial Feminism constructs a different chronology of ‘second-wave’ feminism, to include the feminist activism of women of colour; from the founding of the Third World Alliance in 1968 to the National Black Feminist Organisation (1973-1975) to the publication of writing by women of colour throughout the ‘70s which laid the groundwork for the mobilisation of feminist activism by women of colour that really took off in the ‘80s.

By pointing all this out, I’m not saying that ‘second-wave’ feminism was successful at dealing with differences between women and therefore pomo should back off from sniping at it. The mainstream theory didn’t deal with race/class/sexuality in depth and there’s still plenty feminism needs to do in acknowledging and dealing with differences between women; as I said above, pomo can help with that to an extent.

I just get pissed off when I saw pomo making ‘second-wave’ feminism out to have been all ‘white, middle-class and heterosexual’, rolling this description out so it starts to look like a subject category itself, an inaccurate one at that. And seeing as pomo don’t like subject categories, I think it would do well to do a bit more research into ‘second-wave’ feminism in order to do some deconstruction of its own of this lazy, historically inaccurate cliché.

A room of her own

2008-03-24T05:21:00.000-07:00

A few days ago, I came across this article on how happy women who live alone are. I am also a woman-who-lives-alone-and-loves-it, and I thought the article wasn’t bad by usual Daily Mail standards.

It wasn’t just the article’s endorsement of a woman’s right to lead an independent lifestyle I liked, but also its allusion to loner sentiments such as being able to slam the door shut on the world at the end of the week for some recuperative me-time and how living alone can be a chance to “relax into solitude and cultivate your creativity”. Yes! Embracing solitude shouldn’t always be equated with mental decline, but also a potentially positive, invigorating and freeing state, that can give your thoughts and ideas room to develop and space to breathe.

It harks back to that Virginia Woolf sentiment: “A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write”. The money thing is not something to be overlooked. Living alone, however much they want to, can be tough financially for women because, you know, they still on average don’t get paid as much as men. It’s one thing to have a place of your own (if you can even afford it in the first place), but we don’t all have the luxury of, “waking on a weekday morning... with time to grind the coffee beans, bathe to the sound of Bach and perhaps do a few yoga stretches before setting off for work”. We can’t all afford posh coffee or time for long baths and yoga stretches, ‘cause we’ve got to get up and go to work so as to be able to pay the bills. Certainly having to work long hours, worrying about money, and living in cheap, crappy accommodation can impinge on the pleasures of solitude.

The paper-thin walls of my flat means I’m often disrupted by the sound of my obnoxious, noisy neighbours and the draught blowing through the front door of my inadequately-heated abode means I sometimes become more focused on keeping warm than doing anything more interesting. Therefore to have your own place AND some money left over after rent can still be quite a privilege. (Of course, not all women who live alone enjoy it or even want to. Many women find themselves living alone in much worse circumstances, through no choice of their own, e.g. because of family breakdown. For the purposes of this post I’m referring to women who choose- and enjoy- living alone).

But those grumblings aside, I acknowledge that I’m lucky enough to have the choice to live alone, and indeed, I do love it.

But back to the article. Why are articles like this being written in the first place-what’s the big deal if a woman chooses and enjoys living alone? Is it because it’s still perceived as somewhat of an oddity? Because it’s still somewhat of an affront to the traditional gender order, to the maintenance of the patriarchal, nuclear family set-up?

It’s a lot more acceptable now for women to live alone, it’s acknowledged that we may WANT to live alone and it’s not just a case of us having no other choice ‘cause no man wants us enough to do his ironing for him. Single women living alone have made their way into the 21st-century popular media mainstream, and have been presented in a largely positive way, with all it’s opportunities for playing the field, making the most of female friendships, and having fun. But aside from the fact that this idea of single womanhood has mainly been portrayed in the form of middle-class, heterosexual, white women, underneath it all there’s still the sense that she is looking for The One = A Man, to eventually settle down with, to live with.

After all, where are the single women who don’t want to find A Man? Where are the women who are in a relationship but still choose to live alone?

Bridget Jones is an example. She lived alone, enjoyed the single urbanite life, but underpinning the narrative was those all-too familiar feminine neuroses, the main one being to snag A Man. Once she got him that’s where the story ended.

So even if living alone is not necessarily denigrated, it’s still not treated as an ultimate choice to make. Living alone is treated as some sort of transitory phase, part of the journey of modern womanhood, but not the final destination. The final destination is settling down with a partner, which automatically means co-habiting with them. Living alone again may be acceptable when that doesn’t work out, but there’s still an underlying expectation that she should pair up again, live with someone again. The woman-who-lives-alone may only find herself-left-alone as an elderly widow, because that’s just the ‘natural order’ of things, isn’t it?

So what’s going on here is the maintenance of the traditional assumption that a woman isn’t complete until she has A Man in her life. The woman who chooses to live alone, is happy to live alone, AND has no intention of long-term co-habitation is disrupting some still very embedded female gender stereotypes.

Isadora in Erica Jong’s novel Fear of Flying pretty much sums it up:

“It is heresy in America to embrace any way of life except as half of a couple. Solitude is un-American. It may be condoned in a man- especially if he is a “glamorous bachelor” who “dates starlets” during a brief interval between marriages. But a woman is always presumed to be alone as a result of abandonment, not choice. And she is treated that way: as a pariah. There is simply no dignified way for a woman to live alone. Her friends, her family, her fellow-workers never let her forget that her husbandlessness, her childlessness- her selfishness, in short- is a reproach to the American way of life.”

First of all, even though the woman who lives alone today isn’t mocked or disparaged as much as she has been in the past, the woman who remains alone can be somewhat pitied. Because she does not have male companionship, her living alone is seen as a half-choice, because ultimately she’s looking for Mr. Right, right?

I get this vibe off my mum. I think she sees my living alone as some kind of phase; not quite seeing it as a ‘grown-up’ choice. Her attitude will probably only change when my ‘real life’ begins i.e. when I get A Man and a ‘proper’ house and live happily ever after la-di-fucking-da.

But these days it’s the accusation of selfishness that’s most often used against women-who-live-alone; again emanating from traditional gender stereotypes.

The fact that a woman may want to remain alone, may not want to share her whole life, her space, with someone else- A Man- subverts the notion of the self-sacrificing, nurturing feminine stereotype. Stereotypically speaking, women are the less rational and more emotional sex, we rely on men for our sense of identity, we ‘need’ someone to care for and nurture, someone to be with.

So, the woman who prefers to remain alone, shuns constant male companionship, decides not to fulfil the role of wife/mother, or who does have a male partner but draws the line at living with him, is disrupting the stereotype. She’s saying, ‘I can take care of myself, my sense of identity comes from myself and what I do; while I may care for and love another it doesn’t mean I’m their subordinate only too happy to clean up after them; living by myself and being alone is important to me and even if in a relationship, I’m not willing to compromise on that.’

As a result, she gets called selfish.

Yet, traditionally it’s been okay for men to be selfish, even within their marriages. To steal away with friends, to have their own space (a study, the shed perhaps), to make a point of how annoying the ‘nagging wife’ is, how the ‘missus’ is always getting on at him, impinging on his personal time and space which is so important.

But what about the women who may not want to marry/co-habit because they couldn’t bear a man getting in their way, always expecting a conversation? Who fear that their individual lives will be compromised by setting up home with someone?

The age of women who decide to live alone is something I also want to comment on. In the article I linked to, the women who are experiencing the ‘joys of living alone’ were over 40, they’d done that long-term, married, co-habitation thing. Now they felt justified at re-discovering their independence and enjoying some time for themselves.

Research quoted in the article has found that, “women over 60 who live alone rate their lives as happier and healthier than if they cohabited”. I don’t think this is surprising. Most girls are still socialised into believing that they will partner up with A Man one day; they may have a spell at living alone, but as already mentioned there is an underlying expectation that eventually they will move in with someone. Once this happens, her married life may be full of working a job AND having children AND cooking and cleaning for her husband and kids. So no wonder when their marriages end/their kids leave home, women (who can afford to) enjoy their new-found freedom. They’ve not really had a chance to before.

Another quote from Isadora in Fear of Flying reflects on the yearning for freedom the stultifying nature of married life can bring about:

“And what about those other longings which marriage stifled? Those longings to hit the open road from time to time, to discover whether you could still live inside your own head, to discover whether you could manage to survive in a cabin in the woods without going mad, to discover, in short, whether you were still whole after so many years of being half of something else.”

This quote makes me recall that recent film Into the Wild (a fantastic film, btw). It’s about a young male college graduate who decides to go off ‘into the wild’ on a journey of self-discovery and test of personal, physical endurance, strongly declaring his desire to be alone, shrugging off the trappings of his family and modern society in general. Just before the end of the film, he decides to head back home, after having done what he felt he had to do.

The film represents- albeit in an extreme form- another gender stereotype; the one of the young male yearning for freedom and adventure. Unlike women, who are socialised into seeking companionship, men are more encouraged at a younger age to pursue independence and to do their own thing, before settling down.

Also, a song on the Into the Wild soundtrack, Hard Sun (sung by the gorgeous musical partnership of Corin Tucker & Eddie Vedder), is heard playing as the male protagonist goes off on his adventure, the ‘sun’ in the song’s lyrics personified as female, ‘her’- the sun- offering companionship and nurturance to the lone man on his travels. Here, that stereotype of woman as nurturer, the care-taker of man, is invoked.

But what about turning all this on its head?

Where are the young female protagonists going off on journeys of self-discovery and embracing solitude, shrugging off the dictates of compulsory heterosexuality and female gender stereotypes that say she should ‘really’ be settling down with A Man?

Why should women be experiencing the joys of living alone only after they’ve already co-habited, instead of enjoying it from the outset, at a younger age, for it’s own sake?

Why should women be cast as the ‘suns’, shining light on men’s solitary broodings and adventures, can’t we be the lone wanderers ourselves?

Keeping up the idea that women should eventually settle down, not only perpetuates the gender order, but also the patriarchal, heterosexual one i.e. people ‘should’ partner up with a member of the opposite sex in a monogamous, life-long partnership, live together and have children.

But whatever our sexuality, why should settling down with a partner then be seen as automatically leading to one house, one room, one bed? I love this Emma Goldman quote:

“Together with my own marital experiences they had convinced me that binding people together for life was wrong. The constant proximity in the same house, the same room, the same bed, revolted me.”

Here, here. Not that there’s anything wrong with life-long commitments, one house, one room, one bed, if that’s what the individuals in those relationships want and it works for them. As long as those individuals can retain their individuality, their own lives, and not be wholly subsumed into the other’s. Because as far as marriages go, if this isn’t the case, you can become “half of something else”, and it’s usually women who get the shitty end of the deal, because they’ve most likely been encouraged to seek their sense of identity and happiness in others, unlike men.

But what about advocating some equally acceptable alternatives to the one house, one room, one bed model? Because it’s crazy to me that all of us- despite our individual identities, sexualities, personal preferences and idiosyncrasies- are somehow expected to fit this one-size-fits-all model. What about being in a relationship but living in separate places? Or just having a separate abode to retreat to from time to time (an arrangement Mary Wollstonecraft- always ahead of her time- and her husband, William Godwin had)? Or having your own room in the house that you share with your partner? Or whatever.

Alternatives on the one house, one room, one bed model have been tried out in the past, and continue today.

But still the dominant, automatic assumption is that you should partner up, move in, and (potentially) compromise your individuality and personal space even if that goes against your very sense of self and personal desires.

This assumption needs to be knocked on the head, to allow for variations on the theme. Variations that would vanquish compulsory heterosexuality and gender stereotypes and instead make way for the right of individuals to live in a way that suits them.

Variations that would endorse the right of a woman to have a room of her own, a home of her own. For good. No live-in partner wanted.

What you get when Michelle decides crap poetry is the best way to express her thoughts

2008-03-19T01:39:00.000-07:00

It’s the little things that prove it’s still a man’s world
The everyday things, the ‘normal’ things.
Wolf-whistling, the leerings of Mr. Cab Driver
Putting you in place, makes them feel like kings.
Them up there, those boys, taking up space, beer drunk
Aggressive, brute, macho yelling.
Fulfilling a stereotype, for all to hear
Violent, flailing fists and door slamming.
Soft porn on the ‘alternative’ music websites,
Even here a woman is not free.
Sexist comments tucked into tv programme scripts
“What’s your problem; it’s only ‘comedy’”
Headline staring out- woman jailed for ‘crying rape’
But what news of all the men who rape?
Headline staring out- woman jailed for poisoning her man
But what news of the men who woman-hate?
The Man of the House says to get in ‘the real world’
Her opinions deemed not worthy.
While he waits for his shirt to be ironed by the ‘Mrs’
His world’s the ‘real’ world, you see.
It’s the little things that prove it’s still a man’s world
The everyday things, the ‘normal’ things.

Women-only space & male privilege

2008-03-01T04:05:00.000-08:00

The ‘issue’ of women-only space has been pre-occupying me lately; I’ve been involved in and bore witness to discussions about it on and off-line. Two questions in particular seem to guide these discussions; the first being ‘is women-only space conducive to the aims of feminism?’ Closely followed by, ‘oh, but what about the men?’

It’s this ‘oh, but what about the men?’ line of argument that has been pissing me off.

I’m wholly in favour of women-only space. To achieve women’s liberation it is vital that women have space to originate and articulate their demands for liberation away from the perpetuators/beneficiaries (men) of the system that oppresses/subordinates women (patriarchy).

Why?

Because it is in women-only space that a woman’s voice can be heard on her own terms. In women-only space she is free of the ‘male gaze’, free of the spectre of patriarchal judgement, that in mixed space- aka the ‘real world’- threatens to denounce, silence, talk over, appropriate, or ridicule her voice.

Women have made many important gains into previously ‘man-only’ space, most notably governmental politics, but because these gains have been made in a world where male privilege still remains, where male values continue to dominate and hold the most credibility, women’s voices are still mainly deemed subordinate. Where men’s voices and values dominate, a woman’s voice is often only given credence if she appropriates the male voice and values, if she tows the patriarchal line.

So while this continues to be the case, women-only space remains relevant because women need space free of male influence and control in order to forge our own politics on our own terms. Otherwise those dominant male voices and values will worm their way in, leaving us where we started.

Another justification for women-only space is that only women know what is best for women. Liberatory, revolutionary politics need to be originated by those seeking liberation/revolution, who experience oppression/subordination, not by those who belong to the privileged group. To put it bluntly, what do they- men in this case -know?

Discussing the importance of black women being able to articulate their politics on their own terms, without white women doing it for them*, feminist theorist Patricia Hill Collins gives this reasoning:

“Black women’s political and economic status provides them with a distinctive set of experiences that offers a different view of material reality than that available to other groups”**

What Hill Collins is saying about black women has been applied by other groups to justify dealing with the subordination/oppression they face on their own terms. So at the grassroots, disability rights activism is forged by people with disabilities without the intervention of able-bodied people; LGBT politics is not determined by ‘straights’. That’s not to say that able-bodied people cannot support disabled people’s activism, that heterosexual people cannot help to disseminate LGBT politics. It’s just that those politics, that activism needs to be determined by the oppressed group themselves. This is something Hill Collins also addresses:

“The dilemma is that Black women intellectuals must place our own experiences and consciousness at the center of any serious efforts to develop Black feminist thought yet not have that thought become separatist and exclusionary”***

As a solution, she suggests that other groups can support and disseminate the politics formulated by black women, as long as those politics have been forged by black women themselves.

This ethos can be applied to women-only space and its function within feminism more generally. Men, you can join in with the feminist revolution, help us hand out the leaflets and espouse the right for abortion on demand. Just let us (women) decide that’s what WE want first. Let us determine our demands, let us write the leaflets. Respect our need for women-only space in order for us to do that. Then we’ll give you a call, ok?

Then there’s a most basic reason for wanting women-only space. Women face masculine bullshit every day- whether at home, in the workplace, from the neighbours, in the street, out in the evening, from the media etc etc- therefore it’s good to know there’s some reprieve from this somewhere, in the form of women-only space, whether it be a private discussion group or public protest march. To leave the men behind and join the company of other women feels different, safer, empowering. Surely respecting women’s right to have this isn’t too much to ask?

Well, yes it would appear so. The very fact that people have a problem with women-only space proves the need for women-only space in my opinion. The fact that women coming together to talk to one another without male intervention, to determine a campaign without male influence, to protest without male accompaniment, raises so many questions just shows the problem women still have in wanting to be autonomous, in wanting to do something on their own terms.

Of course, it’s made out that it’s feminists with the problem. When we demand women-only space all of a sudden WE’RE the sexist ones. WE’RE the ones holding back equality. If we were true feminists, they say, really intent on securing ‘equality’ between the sexes, we’d let men into our club. Only together can we achieve ‘equality’ between the sexes, set a blueprint for a gender-free utopia.

Now, the people saying this are usually men.

Which is precisely the problem.

The fact that men- including seemingly pro-feminist ones at that- take it upon themselves to question and critique the value and importance of women-only space from their patriarchal perch- IS THE VERY REASON FOR WHY WOMEN-ONLY SPACE IS VITAL. We need spaces away from such male critique and intervention, this critique and intervention smacking of the very male privilege women-only space tries to escape.

We don’t need or want men telling us how we should conduct our politics, what is the best way to go about achieving our liberation. What do men know?! This is the very reason why women-only space is necessary!

Feminism seeks to deconstruct and do away with gender. Therefore, the demand for women-only space would appear contradictory to this feminist aim, as demanding women-only space brings gender to the fore. Yet, as mentioned before, we are not yet living in some gender-free utopia. We are living in a patriarchy, where male values dominate, where women are still treated like shit for being women. While not being able to be heard on our own terms ‘out there’, we need space where we can be heard- women-only space.

This discussion can take some other twists. For example, I mentioned above that women-only space provides room for women to be heard on their own terms, a space where they can escape patriarchal judgement. The counter-argument is, ‘but what about women who take on masculine personas, who perpetuate patriarchy themselves?’

Other challengers to women-only space, in response to women-only advocates explaining that women feel more able to talk about their experiences of male violence in spaces where men aren’t present, come back with, ‘but what about women who have experienced violence at the hands of other women and would therefore not be comfortable talking about this in women-only space?’

Then there are the arguments against women-only space that come from those who immerse themselves in the elite, academic utopia of postmodernism, bringing up questions such as, ‘but what about letting in those men who are woman-identified?’

These arguments are all thrown out to problematise the value of women-only space. And I acknowledge them. I acknowledge that some women perpetuate patriarchal values and can be as domineering as men, I’m not ignoring the fact that women abuse other women, and I can even get my head around the fact that some men define as ‘woman-identified’.

But excuse me for not being postmodern or ‘queer’ enough, but these are side-issues for me.

The majority of women are abused by men not by other women. Women’s subordinate status in relation to men means that women are more likely to feel silenced/uncomfortable or feel they should adjust their views in the presence of men. As for the men who identify as women- they may identify themselves as such, but they are perceived by others as men and therefore enjoy all the patriarchal privilege that brings.

These counter-arguments, influenced as I think they are by those trendy, ‘in’ modes of theoretical thought- poststructuralism, postmodernism and queer theory- seem to be imbued with the attitude that we have somehow already broken down gender binaries, that ‘man’ and ‘woman’ are terms that don’t mean anything anymore, that power in gender relations is hidden. Therefore, any demand for women-only space seems hopelessly retrograde, old-fashioned, too ‘radical feminist’ which in postmodernism equates to being one of those supposedly tyrannical, fascist feminists of the ‘don’t-shave-and-all-men-are-rapists’ variety. By advocating women-only space, we’re being too ‘rigid’ with gender definitions, too ‘totalitarian’ in our explanation of power relations between the sexes.

But I have a problem with this because relations between the sexes ARE still embedded within a model where men are dominant and women subordinate, and therefore where the terms ‘man’ and ‘woman’ DO still mean something, whether they should do or not.

Getting bogged down in these counter-arguments is like talking as if the revolution’s already happened. That we can now turn our attention to women-on-women violence, because the main problem- male violence- has been sorted. That we can let men into women-only space ‘cause now we’re all ‘queer’, our gender and sexual identities don’t mean anything anymore, because this is the postmodern, gender-free, party.

But this doesn’t relate to most women’s reality. And getting bogged down in these academic arguments, accounting for every subversion/fragmentation, as postmodernists like to do, prevents ACTION. It prevents women from organising because we’ve been curtailed and distracted by academics/postmodernists, who would rather sit there and denounce and ridicule feminist women for giving a shit and wanting to DO something, stalling the very revolution they purport to be striving for.

But the revolution hasn’t happened. And it won’t happen while we continue to let these arguments get in the way. But if we don’t acknowledge these arguments we then get accused of being ‘totalitarian’ and ‘exclusionary’.

Well, accuse me so. All I know is that while women-only space continues to be criticised, in a world where women are still exploited, oppressed and silenced for being women, the value and importance of women-only space remains.

*This raises other questions re. women-only space. How can women-only space deal effectively with differences between women along the lines of, for e.g., race, class, sexuality, disability, age, religion...? These are all factors that can also contribute to women’s subordination which are necessary to address. However, I don’t think acknowledging the differences between women means the value of women-only space becomes obsolete. While oppression arising from race and/or class, for e.g., may be effectively dealt with in mixed-space, such as race and class oppression also affect men, it remains that women of all races/classes also face subordination as women. And recognising and dealing with relations of domination/privilege among women- away from men in women-only space- is a worthwhile project to undertake.

**Hill Collins, P. (1989), The Social Construction of Black Feminist Thought, Signs, 14 (4), 745-773.

***Hill Collins, P. (1997), Defining Black Feminist Thought, in Nicholson, L. (ed.) The Second Wave: A Reader in Feminist Theory, London, Routledge: 241-259.

The pro-choice majority rise up!

2008-02-13T05:07:00.000-08:00

A few months back I ranted on about Abortion Rights not doing enough- well nothing visible enough- for the 40th anniversary of the Abortion Act.

It’s so easy to complain, so I want to acknowledge the great stuff they have been doing so far this year; namely this fantastic protest they organised, which saw over 400 pro-choicers protest a roadshow with Ann Widdecombe which aims to mobilise anti-choicers to support proposed anti-abortion legislation.

Similar action took place when the roadshow reached Glasgow, with more actions planned in Liverpool, Coventry and Cardiff.

Abortion Rights are working this year to fight the anti-abortion amendments of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill currently in Parliament. Hopefully the direct action will continue, with the pro-choice majority coming out to say that if you (‘you’ being anti-choicers, woman-haters, in most cases the non-wombed) want to curb women’s reproductive freedoms, you’re going to have to deal with us lot- and we are a lot- first.

A ‘click’ moment

2008-02-02T04:30:00.000-08:00

I’m reading Sarah Lucia Hoagland’s Lesbian Ethics: Toward New Value in which she makes the following point:

“statements like the following abound: “According to f.b.i. statistics, one-half to two-thirds of women who live with a man will be beaten.” We never come across statements such as: “According to f.b.i. statistics, one-half to two-thirds of all men who live with a woman will beat her”

After reading this, I had one of those moments where you realise that what you’ve just read will forever change how you read such statistics in the future. ‘Click’ moments.

Now, whenever I come across statistics such as this, I’ll be turning them around and making them face the way they should. I should also attempt to be aware of this when writing stuff like this myself. Hence, making this ‘click’ moment public here, holding myself accountable to it.

Some of this has been happening in the blogosphere recently, following the re-emergence of that awful poster that says ‘1 in 3 reported rapes happen when the woman has been drinking'. It would be more accurate to say 3 out of 3 rapes occur when the woman is in the company of a rapist (credit to Debs @ The Burning Times)

By framing these statistics in terms of the female who experiences violence, male accountability goes missing, the solution to the problem becomes invisible.

As Sarah Lucia Hoagland continues:
“I do not mean to suggest that no attention should be given to a woman who has been beaten. Rather, I mean to suggest that we understand the nature of the problem and act accordingly. Suppose that men are like cars and that, regardless of the design, two-thirds of the time when a woman gets into a car she is hurt. It is important to treat her injuries. But our attention would focus on a solution- recalling the cars and finding another means of transportation.”

Let’s rant at Tesco...

2008-01-28T02:51:00.000-08:00

... because when the opportunity arises, corporate giants like them should be brought down a peg or two.

And that opportunity has certainly come about. From Cruella-Blog, Tesco selling clothing for baby girls aged 3-6 months with the slogan, “Does my bum look big in this?”

So let’s complain. I anticipate the exchange will play out something like this:

Crazy Feminist: Hey Tesco, you corporate scum, what do you think you’re doing endorsing sexist attitudes towards girls and women, are you not content with your massive profits as they are, but want to boost them even more by selling sexism?

Corporate Giant Tesco: Oh, calm down, it’s meant to be ‘ironic’, stop taking it so seriously. It’s not as if 3-6 month old baby girls can actually read what’s on their clothes is it?

It’s still worth a try, I guess. Send your complaint to:

Tesco Customer Service
PO Box 73
Baird Avenue
Dryburgh Industrial Estate
Dundee
DD1 9NF

Update
The response from Tesco, even more insulting than anticipated:
“Thank you for contacting us about our children clothing range. We’re always pleased to receive feedback from our customers as this can help us improve our service. I’ve passed your comments to our Head Office Department and I know they’ll bear these in mind at the next review meeting. Thanks for taking the time blah, blah, blah.”

At least with my anticipated scenario, the impression is given they’d actually read my letter.

But why should men have it all?!

2008-01-17T01:41:00.000-08:00

Lisa Smosarski, editor of the celebrity weekly More magazine, said: "When it comes to grooming, there is one simple rule: men should be men. That means hair that's allowed to go bald or grey with dignity, a face that creases when it smiles, and a healthy lack of interest in anything containing a pentapeptide or antioxidant. It's impossible to find any positive outcomes of excessive male grooming."

So men are becoming more concerned with their appearance. But they can still get away with not grooming.

They can have their cake and eat it.
But could women have a slice of that cake too, please?

Dear Mr Postmodernist

2008-01-07T06:18:00.000-08:00

Dear Mr Postmodernist,

Stop telling me the body is nothing more than a ‘text’, merely ‘discursive’, nothing concrete, but fragmented, ‘engaged in performativity’.

What is that all about?
How is that helping?
What revolutionary purpose does it serve?

These insights of yours are purported to be groundbreaking, radical, cutting edge, liberating because they break down
‘binaries’,
‘dichotomies’,
‘totalities’,
all ‘essential’ and ‘universal’ notions.

Apparently I should be thankful to you for all this, kissing your arse, because these insights of yours claim to be able to free me from the shackles of the biological & embodied reality of being ‘woman’, I can now be liberated from that ‘essential’ identity category ‘woman’.

Thanks to the insights of you & your brothers, other male academic elites, fathers of the anti-radical feminist bodies of thought, postmodernism & poststructuralism, my sisters & I can now treat our identities as women as ‘discursive’, constructed of language nothing more, free-floating. So now we can play around with our sex/gender identity, because they are ‘texts’, constructed out of ‘discourse’, not blood, skin and bones.

But tell me Mr Postmodernist, up there in your ivory tower, away from reality, the reality of real women’s lives, how talking about bodies and identities as ‘texts’, is helping to liberate women?

Women’s bodies are ‘texts’? We should see ourselves as ‘texts’? We should celebrate our ‘textuality’ by playing around in ‘discursive spaces’, postmodern stylee?

No.

No, women’s bodies are not fucking ‘texts’. ‘Woman’ is not a ‘text’.

Because women, women’s bodies, women’s fleshy bodies,
skin, blood, bones & brain, heart & mind are
bruised, battered, bloodied, bludgeoned & boxed in every day,
because they are ‘woman’.
Domestic violence, rape, FGM, cosmetic surgery, eating disorders, man-made images & lies
leaving their indelible, very real mark on women, women’s bodies, women’s fleshy bodies.

Women’s bodies aren’t fucking ‘texts’ THEN.

They aren’t ‘discursive constructions’ playing postmodern games with their gender and sexuality, ‘engaged in performativity’ THEN.

Mr Postmodernist, no matter what you say, no matter how hailed you are for revolutionising the academy with your revelations about how bodies and identities are ‘discursive’- you haven’t and can’t-revolutionise women’s lives for the better.

You cannot contribute to women’s liberation.

In fact your theories, coming at us in that precious, overly-academic, inaccessible language, (even though you claim to give a shit about the ‘real people’ aka the non-academics, the poor, the oppressed), are stalling women’s liberation.

Because if we can only talk about women as ‘texts’, that means we can’t talk about women as real human beings. And if we can’t talk about women as real human beings, that means we can’t deal with what happens to women as real human beings.

Because lest you forget Mr Postmodernist, women, women’s bodies, are only too real.

A woman has a body, a real fleshy body, which she inhabits, feels and experiences as real, all too often painfully, particularly when the patriarchy gets his hands on her.

Yes, that’s right, PATRIARCHY, that big, bad, naughty word we can’t say anymore thanks to you Mr Postmodernist, up there in your ivory tower, because to talk about patriarchy is too simplistic, too ‘totalising’, too ‘universal’.

Well, fuck that.

Patriarchy exists. ‘Woman’ exists.

Listen here. Woman exists, woman’s body exists,
- when she is penetrated against her will by ‘man’-
- when her breasts are cut open & inserted with a man made substance -
- when she’s aborted because she is the female sex-
- when she starves herself to conform to the media images you postmodernists love so much-
- when she’s wolf-whistled at by man on the street for possessing a female body.

Are you really telling me, Mr Postmodernist,
That women’s bodies are texts HERE?
That patriarchy doesn’t exist HERE?

Tell me, how do these realities fit into your world of postmodern, ‘textual play’?

I’ll answer for you. They don’t.

Don’t you see? Your emphasis & preoccupation with treating bodies & identities as ‘texts’ does harm to women.

To women’s liberation.

Only men, only male, middle-class academics like you Mr Postmodernist, could come up with such bull. Because you have the privilege to, because you aren’t woman, and therefore haven’t, nor will you ever, experience the above realities.

You think, Mr Postmodernist, that you can come along & proclaim the ‘death of the subject’, of the body, of patriarchy? Well of course you fucking can because you were the ‘subject’, never the object, never the body but the ‘rational mind’, never subject to the patriarchy but its perpetuator.

So now thanks to you, radical feminist theory is ridiculed & lambasted.

Andrea Dworkin? Catherine MacKinnon? Shulamith Firestone? Kate Millet?

‘Who were they?’ proclaims Mr Postmodernist, ‘but over-simplifiers, ‘totalising’ woman and man, pointing the finger at patriarchy all the time?’

‘No’, says Mr Postmodernist, ‘here I am with the new and improved theory (even though I also proclaim the ‘death of theory’) that will do away with all that radfem crap. Now it’s all about ‘discursive identities’, ‘multiple subject positions’, and power as ‘decentred and dispersed’.’

Mr Postmodernist, they weren’t perfect, those radfem theorists, I’ll admit it. But your ‘total’ lambasting of them is uncalled for.

Because truth is, they did way more for women, real women, the women beaten, abused, oppressed & exploited, than any male, supposedly cutting edge, elite, privileged postmodern theorist like yourself.

They wrote theory that spoke the truth, that tried to uncover the truth, of women’s reality. They were bold. They were righteous. They weren’t afraid to tell it like it is, to get their hands dirty in the task of explaining women’s exploitation.

More than you, Mr Postmodernist. But then you don’t like dirt & stark realities, do you? You prefer style over substance, flowery words over plain and clear ones, medium over matter, to immerse yourself in the play of performance than the poison of pain and oppression.

No, these women were not postmodernists. They were radical feminists.

A lot easier to say. A lot easier to spell. A lot easier to understand. And a hell of a lot more relevant & useful.

They recognised woman, her fleshy body; a body that bled every month and gave birth, a body that because it belonged to a woman, meant susceptibility to rape, abuse & all the other manifestations of man bullshit.

So no, Mr Postmodernist, they didn’t see the ‘body as a text engaged in performativity’.

Because they were too concerned with the minor, trivial, unimportant stuff.

Like treating women & their bodies as real, penetrated against her will, bloodied, bruised & bullshitted to at the hands of fucked-up men with too much fucked-up power thanks to the fucked-up man-made, man-owned, man-ruled, man-controlled society woman inhabits.

These radfems’ sins according to you? They called out the patriarchy. They defined women as a collective, a potentially revolutionary collective at that.

Oh, how convenient that you came along to denounce all that, Mr Postmodernist!!

‘There is no patriarchy’, you say, ‘power is more decentred and dispersed than that. Women, you can’t go calling out male-dominated institutions for their sexist bullshit, it’s not as simplistic as that!’

‘Woman’, you say, ‘cannot be generalised, in actual fact you don’t exist, there is no ‘woman’, there are too many differences between you, so there’s no way you can organise yourselves into a revolutionary collective.’

Oh, Mr Postmodernist, how can I ever thank you? Just want I wanted, another man to come along to sort me out, tell me what’s right and wrong, to shit on women.

Of course these insights of yours are very convenient for you; to follow them through means we ignore the oppression played out on women & their bodies & resign ourselves to the fact there is no patriarchy and give up forging links with other women. Oh, how very convenient. Suits your male privilege just fine!

And they call you the radical? YOU?

But your theories- which laud individualism, style, imagery, flashy fairy lights, pretty playful sparkle, masks & make-up- fit right into the Western conservative, capitalist consumer culture.

Did you not know? Politicians & big business love you, Mr Postmodernist.

They want us to see ourselves as individuals, without stable identities, so that we won’t organise as political entities bent on change.

They want us to see ourselves as ‘texts’, so that we’ll go shopping & spend our money on fashion & things in order for us to take part in postmodern play.

Seriously, having your theories gel with conservative politics & capitalist big business is in no way radical, Mr Postmodernist.

So, to end let me tell you this.

I am a radical feminist.
I believe there is a patriarchy.
I believe there is ‘woman’.
I see & experience women’s bodies as flesh, not ‘text’.

And I think I’m in a better position than you, Mr Postmodernist to say this.

Yours in ‘embodied womanhood’,

Feminism’s futile because men just CAN’T change (apparently)

2007-12-24T04:34:00.000-08:00

I’m home for Xmas which means my favourite misogynistic Murdoch-owned broadsheet, The Sunday Times, is at hand to wind me up. The value of having a blog soon becomes clear after digesting some of the crap this newspaper spouts, particularly the way it reports on rape; you need a place to write out your frustration and to point out what is so very fucking wrong with some of the articles.

It’s India Knight’s column I want to take issue with today; A new profession: free prostitutes. Here Ms Knight shakes her head and wrings her hands over the young women who go out to the fancy, debauched parties held by over-paid, privileged footballers, to seek their attention and as a way of, “landing... a fantasy Wag lifestyle”. She calls these women, who are up for having casual sex with footballers in order to gain their attention and not for monetary gain, as “free prostitutes”.

She’s woman-blaming, basically. It’s not the male footballers’ behaviour that’s called into question here, but the women’s. Brace yourself:

“Obviously the men’s behaviour is unlovely, too. But let’s be grown up about it: most men, whether they are Premier League footballers or not, will have random sex with random people if it’s offered to them on a plate. If I were a stupid young man who’d made insane amounts of money because I was good at running about on my little legs, kicking a ball, and someone threw a party for me where the only guests were good-looking women, and it was clear that many of those good-looking women wanted to sleep with me, I wouldn’t have much of a problem with the situation. I wouldn’t bother myself about exploitation and I’d be too thick to ask myself what all these women were hoping to gain. What is far more perplexing- mind-boggling, really- is what the female guest list thought that they were doing there.”

Aaaargh, indeed!! See, according to India Knight, men are obviously just hard-wired to get pissed up, want sex with women, and act like entitled prats. I mean, what do we expect really, they are only grown men, for fuck’s sake, of course they can’t be held accountable for the exploitative and objectifying sexual behaviour that takes place at these parties! Ideas like that are a bit too radical for the likes of The Sunday Times. No, obviously, the women in attendance at these parties are to blame. If women weren’t present none of this exploitative sex would happen, so obviously it’s women’s fault. If only women reigned themselves in and were better behaved, learnt that they- and not men- were responsible for those uncontrollable male urges, then all would be right with the world.

Bullshit.

India cannot get her head around why any woman would want to attend these parties, objectify herself and make herself available for sex, particularly when- unlike a prostitute- she’s not even getting paid for it:

“Instead the girl staggers out, impoverished in every respect by her experience, but pronounces herself pleased because “they said I was a great shag”. It is extraordinary. What is the matter with this girl and with others like her?” She goes on to say that these women are, “so stupid, damaged and brainwashed by their idiot magazines that they believe that free access to their genitalia... is a surefire way to landing them a fantasy Wag lifestyle”.

This is an unduly harsh attitude towards these women, like I said before, it’s blatant woman-blaming.

On the contrary, I don’t think these young women are brainwashed or stupid. When talking about why women participate in their own objectification, I think it’s important to be careful not to make out that they are suffering from false consciousness, mindless dupes of a patriarchal system that is coercing them into objectifying themselves. This is what India Knight has done here, although conveniently leaving the patriarchy out of it and instead blaming their “idiot magazines” for seducing them into this lifestyle. Doing this also creates the impression that the person labelling those other women as ‘stupid’ is somehow superior to them- they haven’t been stupid enough to be brainwashed, so therefore get to denounce all those other women who have been. I’m the same age as some of the women going to these clubs and trying to catch the attention of rich footballers, so it makes me uncomfortable to just sit here from my feminist perch and act all superior by proclaiming they are just ‘passive victims of the patriarchy’. I don’t think it’s as simplistic as that.

These women have made the choice to go out to these parties and have decided to pursue a glamorous footballer’s wife lifestyle (although once at the parties, their participation in certain sex acts are more likely to be the result of overt male coercion). But rather than just labelling them ‘stupid’ for this, we need to look at the context in which those choices have been made, the context which has made those choices appear attractive and acceptable to them.

I recall a discussion we had in class at uni a few weeks ago, and we were talking about young girls’ participation in ‘raunch culture’ and how many aspire to be glamour models such as Jordan. The question posed was, should feminists be so outraged that a lot of girls want to be glamour models? Or can we perhaps almost understand why they might choose this career when we consider the culture they are growing up in?

Look at the role models they are surrounded with- who’s on their television screens, on their magazine covers, in their music videos- and what they tell them about what is necessary to be successful. Success for young girls, if we look at the vapid role models they have and the consumer choices on offer to them, is not equated with being smart and politically and socially conscious, but instead comes down to conforming to a narrowly-defined sex appeal. It’s presented as sexual empowerment, but still with one eye on pleasing the lads. Nevertheless, if this is what young girls are seeing around them, perhaps their decision to become a glamour model could almost be deemed not stupid, but even rational.

She can see that in order for a woman to become famous, successful, popular and wealthy she is going to have to be sexy, beautiful, keep her mouth shut and concentrate on making herself attractive to men. She hasn’t passively absorbed this- any girl or woman will tell you they have made an active decision to pursue a career as a glamour model or a footballer’s wife- and we can believe it when we consider the context in which those decisions have been made, I think.

Of course, becoming a glamour model or choosing to hang out with drunk footballers aren’t feminist choices, and certainly not liberating or empowering such as they are choices which involve pandering to entitled, contrived male desires. But to label the women who do make the choice to pursue these lifestyles as ‘stupid’ isn’t helping anybody. It won’t change anything, not while being a topless model or a footballer’s wife are continued to be presented as the means for women to become successful.

This is why we need to start talking about men’s role in all this, because then change can happen. But for the likes of India Knight, this is just too hard, too pointless, because apparently men just CAN’T change. As feminists though, we have to believe that men can change, otherwise what would be the point in doing what we do? If we just resign ourselves to the fact that all men are hard-wired to rape, be violent, exploit and discriminate against women, feminism couldn’t exist, because we need to believe we can tackle male-dominant systems and behaviours that oppress women.

So when Ms Knight implores us to be “grown-up about it”, I would like to respond by saying; yes let’s really get grown-up about it, let’s start getting fucking real and start treating men as grown-ups themselves with the capacity to control their urges and treat women with some fucking respect. Otherwise, it doesn’t matter how un-‘brainwashed’ and less ‘stupid’ women become, as long as there are men around thinking they can get away with acting like entitled pricks, throwing parties at which they objectify, parade around, and have sex with women, such behaviour will continue. Women wouldn’t be acting so ‘stupid’ if the opportunity to do so wasn’t there. And in order for the opportunity not to be there, it’s male- not female- behaviour that needs to be challenged.

India Knight’s column was sparked by the news last week that a female guest at a party held by the football team, Manchester United, reported being raped. In most coverage around this story, it’s been the behaviour of the women at these kinds of parties that has come under scrutiny and not the attitudes of the male footballers towards their female guests, despite it being the male attitudes that are the root of the problem.

But like I said earlier, holding men accountable is apparently too radical a concept for conservative media, so instead they undercut their reporting of this news with the ‘she-asked-for-it’ mantra. A separate article in The Sunday Times yesterday said that the woman who had reported being raped, had “cried rape”. Gee, make it a little more obvious you thought this woman was to blame for what happened to her why don’t you?! The same article reported on “harvesting” which is when footballers invite females who work in the designer stores in the area to their parties, so they have female flesh to parade around, gawp at, and degrade for their delectation. Of course though, it’s not the existence of “harvesting” itself that came under scrutiny, but the women’s participation in it. Because apparently, that is where the problem lies, not with men inviting these women in the first place, feeling entitled to exploit women, which precedes women’s participation in the men’s games, after all.

No, men are off the hook; in actual fact it’s the male footballers who are likely to be seen as the victims in all this. Being falsely accused of rape and all. Yet another article in The Times (I told you this newspaper was awful) on Thursday, accompanying the main report on the reported rape at the Manchester United party, paid attention to the massive number of men- all 3 of them or something- who have had their lives ruined after being falsely accused of rape. No mention of the 50,000 women whose lives are ruined after being raped in this country every year, of course. They were probably ‘asking for it’, after all.

All of this shows that once again male entitlement and privilege goes unquestioned, and any fall out from it is placed squarely on women’s shoulders. It amazes me that you can have an article on “harvesting” and “roasting” on one side, and then next to it an article which says a woman “cried” rape at a party where such “harvesting” and “roasting” took place. Hello? Doesn’t the fact that male footballers like to round women up for their sexual pleasure and perform degrading sex acts with them, make it more plausible that rape could take place at such parties, than a woman “crying” rape? With such attitudes towards women, I can wholly believe a lot of these footballers have a rape mentality, making it more likely a rape did occur at this party. I find it less plausible that a woman would cry rape, knowing full well that if she did lie about being raped, she’d be mightily attacked in the press. Hardly an incentive to cry rape is it?

But the press and the wider society would rather ignore all that, and instead say if she was raped she was asking for it and shouldn’t have been so stupid as to have got sucked into the lifestyle in the first place, or that she is only crying rape to seek attention. Either way, the woman who reported being raped is damned.

But we need to stop deploring the women who get ‘sucked into’ this lifestyle, and instead start challenging the attitudes of over-paid, over-privileged, boorish, drunken, misogynist pricks which lead to the existence of these lifestyles in the first place.

So, what’s new?

2007-12-18T07:29:00.000-08:00

“Now a generation of male British youth has been reared and weaned in full page spreads of female genitals... and of vile sadistic practices which are apparently approved of since they are in W.H.Smith.”

“Porn then is not just bought by a few inadequate men stereotyped in raincoats and lurking in Soho doorways...where then does porn exist? The ever-increasing sex shops are obvious haunts for such material, but so is the corner shop and newsagents.”

“The statistics available about sex crimes (and these are only the reported cases) show that sex crimes have increased... In that period all pornography has become more freely available.”

“... in so many reported cases of rape the behaviour of the victims is cited as provocation. She was hitchhiking (she asked for it). She was wearing a low cut dress (she asked for it). She left her door open (she asked for it). She seemed friendly in the pub...”

“Today underwear companies have tots and teens modelling ‘demure briefs’ and ‘sensuous thongs’... In popular periodicals one can find a full-page photograph of a child about eight made up to look like Marilyn Monroe, holding a Teddy Bear, with the captioned promise that Baby Soft Cosmetics will give you that ‘clean irresistible baby smell grown up enough to be sexy.’”

Sound somewhat familiar? These quotes could have been taken from some of the feminist blogs about today- but they haven’t- they were taken from conference papers written by feminists in the early 1980s.

Interesting I think, because it shows that what a lot of feminists today are occupying themselves with tackling, namely the normalisation of pornography and the entrenchment of rape myths, is nothing really all that new, and we are not the first to fight these battles. But often when we speak and write about these issues we do so in a way that makes out that they are something new.

The mainstreaming of pornography, the sexualisation of young girls, the ‘she asked for it’ myths surrounding rape, are talked about today both within and outside feminist circles ahistorically, as if these things are somehow specific to 21st-century Western culture, spontaneously emerging from patriarchy as the ‘new-and-improved’ way to ensure the oppression and exploitation of women and girls at this point in history.

I’ve been guilty of this myself. I’ve written about the normalisation of porn/raunch in the media and society at large, talking about how I perceived it to be a very 21st-century phenomenon. I knew feminists in previous years had articulated what was wrong with pornography, that it was violence against women, that it normalised our objectification and degradation and that there had been protests against it. However, my knowledge of this had come from the histories of the women’s liberation movement that I had read, which were US-centric, and therefore focused on the pickets outside sex shops in Times Square, the Take Back the Night marches along Broadway initiated by Andrea Dworkin, Susan Brownmiller and others, the expose of Playboy clubs by Gloria Steinem.

Lately though, I’ve been reading up on the women’s liberation movement in the UK and the anti-pornography movement that came about here; and it’s from reading this, a history that’s a little closer to my own, that I’ve realised what I’ve written and protested about bears similarities to what was going on in the early ‘80s.

I’ve been reading a book entitled Women Against Violence Against Women, (edited by dusty rhodes and Sandra McNeill), which brings together papers from three feminist conferences held in the early 1980s in Leeds, Manchester and London on sexual violence against women, the sexual abuse of girls and Women Against Violence Against Women (WAVAW), respectively.

The ‘revolutionary feminists’ who organised these conferences felt it pertinent to talk about the manifestations of male domination and power they perceived around them and experienced such as rape and pornography, and what should be done about them. A lot like us then. And also a lot like us they picketed local newsagents, stickered offensive billboards and magazines and organised petitions. This from Sandra McNeill particularly resonated with me:

“Again jointly with the Rape Action Group we did the first ever picket of a shop for selling porn. Beforehand we put notices in Local and National Newsletters suggesting that other women’s groups do the same that day- none did. And in spite of our brave words we went out that grey morning in some trepidation. We returned elated, bowled-over, by the positive response from women. The rest is herstory.”

I alternate between two moods when reading and reflecting on this. Part of me raises a knowing smile at how they tried to get other groups to do the same- always seems like an easy enough thing to accomplish at the planning stage, but a lot harder to pull off in reality! I also recognised those feelings Sandra had both prior to and after a protest- shitting yourself beforehand despite believing strongly in what it is you are doing, followed by a wave of positivity after your protest has gone well. So in this sense, it was good to read about activists in previous years who had done and experienced similar things. But then another part of me doesn’t feel so great about this because if we’re still protesting today, what did the earlier protests achieve? What changed? And what makes us think we can do any different?

That’s why I think it’s important to be aware of this herstory. First of all, it stops us wandering about thinking the issues we are trying to deal with are new ones, when they’re not really. It can also allow us to learn about what tactics the earlier feminists used, what worked and what didn’t, and how we can utilise that for our own activism.

Just to be clear, I know that lad mags weren’t around in the 1980s and Playboy wasn’t sold to girls and universities weren’t hosting ‘babe’ competitions and pole dancing wasn’t seen as an innocent form of exercise, and I do still feel strongly that porn pervades more areas of our lives than it did in the ‘80s. There has certainly been disturbing developments in the normalisation of porn over the past few years which deserve the feminist attention they’ve been getting and will continue to get. But that’s what I think they are- developments, not wholly new phenonemona- and that the battles we are fighting aren’t completely new. We may be fighting different things, things that are specific to our time, the lad mags and sexist uni events for example, and it’s relentless normalisation, but our activism should also be seen as a continuation of the larger battle that began years ago- the battle against the objectification, degradation and exploitation of women’s bodies in porn that maintains male dominance and female subordination.

And that’s why I’m suspicious when the notion of ‘waves’ of feminism comes about, particularly that of a ‘third wave’. Talking about feminist herstory in terms of ‘waves’ seems to me to separate each generation of feminists off from the other, instead of implying a continuation of feminist activity and herstory. I don’t see myself as part of a ‘third wave’ of feminism; for starters we haven’t finished dealing with the demands made by the ‘second wave’, and the claiming of a notion of ‘third wave’ implies to me that we should somehow break off from what went before which I don’t think is the best way to go. Instead I prefer to see feminism today as part of what has been called ‘the women’s revolution’, the 'longest revolution'. The battle against pornography being a part of that revolution.

The obligatory post-RTN post

2007-11-27T09:48:00.000-08:00

How good was Reclaim the Night (RTN) this year? The atmosphere was amazing and full of energy, fuelled by what feminists have in abundance- righteous rage and solidarity with other women. Mother Nature was on our side in staving off the rain and women from across the country, of all ages and backgrounds, descended on the capital to take to the streets to reclaim our night.

RTN gave us the chance to empower ourselves and at the same time make a statement; that women have fucking had enough of the epidemic of violence against women perpetuated by men, of the low rape conviction rates, of feeling overly-conscious of our safety when out alone at night, of the ceaseless mainstreaming of women’s bodies as commodities for men to purchase and that we’re supposed to somehow be okay with that. 30 years after the first one, RTN is still needed, now more than ever- unfortunately. Fortunately, there’s plenty of woman out there willing to carry the RTN torch until it’s no longer necessary.

At the rally, there were some poignant and inspiring moments from the speakers. The speech by Diana Nammi from the Iranian & Kurdish Women's Rights Organisation worked at reiterating the fact that the fight for women’s liberation is a global one. As was also mentioned at the rally, Western governments, not content with failing to take violence against women seriously in their own countries, then declare war- that bastion of destructive masculinity fought for the masculinist ends of profit and power- against other countries managing to set back the rights of women in those countries, despite justifying those wars on the grounds of ‘liberating’ those women. Male-dominated governments- obviously full of shit.

Jane Gregory from Bradford Rape Crisis got me choked up, as she told of how bureaucracy has got in the way of being able to help those women and girls who contact the centre. I defy anyone to dismiss feminism after hearing of how paperwork has had to take precedence over counselling a 12-year-old girl who has contacted a rape crisis centre in great distress.

I thought Kat Stark, NUS Women’s Officer, gave a brilliant speech, reminding us that we must save our anger and vitriol for the patriarchy, not our sisters. Her proposal that a critique of popular culture and education is needed was right on the mark. As was Julie Bindel’s (Guardian journalist and original radfem) assertion that we need to get back to an ethos of radicalism; Finn Mackay’s (founder, London Feminist Network) speech- brilliant as always- was enough to spur us on to do just that.

The need for RTN and a wider campaign to tackle violence against women is plain to see not only in light of the statistics telling us that every minute, the police receive a call for assistance for domestic violence*, that every week London police receive two calls reporting so-called ‘honour’ crimes** and that every year 80,000 women become victims of rape/attempted rape***, but also in light of the plethora of images and establishments that present women as sexual commodities for men to purchase.

The notion of women as nothing more than commercially-sexualised bodies that can provide men with what they want for a price is mainstream, acceptable. In such a climate, not only does the dissenting female voice have to shout louder to point out what’s wrong with it all, it also makes it much easier for people to turn a blind eye to the reality of violence against women because being surrounded by such imagery and ideas can numb us to that reality, making it harder to see women as human, as people who deserve to live their lives free of fear, of pain, of violence.

Contributing to such a climate are the obvious- the exploitative underbellies of the ‘gentlemen’s clubs’ and ‘adult-entertainment stores’ wrapped up in such euphemisms and with their glossy facades so they fit right in along the high street; also, those cards in the phone booths advertising women as sexual services- a most blatant display of women’s unjust and inhumane status in society. But also contributing to this climate are those magazines, newspapers and advertising billboards that use women’s bodies to sell their products- products which have nothing to do with women’s bodies.

But come RTN, we were able to speak back to the lap dancing clubs and sex shops on a huge, loud scale, sticker the sexist billboards and tear down those phone booth cards (yay, EM FEM Rose!).

We may have to wait for next year before we can do it all again- on that scale anyway- but what RTN does is awaken and empower you, so that each and every day until next year, we can go forward with the conviction that our feelings of unease, frustration and anger at that which we see and hear around us which has such disregard for women are completely validated and worth harnessing in the fight for women to be recognised and treated as fully human.

*Stanko, 2000
**NUT, 2005
*** British Crime Survey, 2004

A wasted opportunity

2007-11-10T04:01:00.000-08:00

The F-Word has posted excerpts of a letter written by two feminist activists, both of whom were involved in organising this year’s Feminist Fightback conference, which challenges Abortion Rights for its lack of direct, visible action to mark this year’s 40th anniversary of the Abortion Act.

I agree with the sentiments expressed in the letter. Abortion Rights undoubtedly do great work and such an organisation has a vital role to play in the feminist movement; initiating letter-writing campaigns to MPs; encouraging the spread of the pro-choice message via their annual pro-choice week of action; their strong presence and affiliation to the trade union and student union movements is also valuable in mobilising people behind the pro-choice ethos.

But for the 40th anniversary of an abortion law pro-choicers have had to continually defend, Abortion Rights could have shouted their message a lot louder, to assert the ‘pro-choice majority’s’ voice, to show that it is indeed the majority, to make it clear that 40 years on a woman’s right to choose will not be curtailed without a fight.

Instead, it was the voices of the pro-‘lifers’ that were loudest on that anniversary, who grabbed the headlines and left an impression on the public’s mind. As the letter points out, on the day of the anniversary, 1,000 anti-choicers staged a mock funeral in Parliament Square to 'commemorate' the six million ‘lives lost’ from abortion since 1967. Only two pro-choicers were there to stand up for a woman’s right to choose.

In hindsight, it’s a fucking shame that such a significant anniversary for feminists, for women, wasn’t celebrated in a more public way, to shift the attention away from the anti-choice lobby. The dominating presence of the anti-choicers and lack of a visible pro-choice majority to counter this, has left the impression that abortion is a right people aren’t bothered about defending anymore; all the talk about reducing the time-limit and restricting access to abortion would appear then to be reflecting what people want, as where’s the opposition?

But there is an opposition, the ‘pro-choice majority’. But it’s not enough just to assert that on a website. It also needs to be asserted out there, in the real world. If we want to protect a woman’s right to choose- not just protect it but even extend it, make it easier to exercise- then the pro-choice majority needs to be more visible, more vocal; it needs to get out from behind the computer screen. Every once in a while it needs to grab hold of a placard to wave in the faces of MPs instead of always settling for grabbing hold of a pen to write a polite letter to them.

Taking the message outside would show that there is opposition to all the talk about reducing the time-limit and introducing mandatory counselling for women asking for abortions. It would show that any curtailment of a woman’s right to choose cannot be introduced without a fight. It could also bring women who don’t identify as feminist and don’t access the internet, but are pro-choice, who have had abortions, and would want to join a pro-choice campaign, on side. There’s a lot of women out there- not all of them have access to or even know about or even want to be involved in the feminist mailing lists, blogs and sites where a lot of current activism is initiated. But that doesn’t mean they don’t agree with the feminist pro-choice stance and wouldn’t want to get involved. The only way to find out is to get out there and see; otherwise such an opportunity for bringing more women ‘round to the cause is lost; we then won’t have sufficient numbers for a movement big enough and strong enough to fight the anti-choice lobby and, ultimately, we'll lose.

But then the finger shouldn’t be solely pointed at Abortion Rights for the failure of a visible pro-choice presence on this 40th anniversary. As the main grassroots, pro-choice organisation in the UK, any action they proposed would perhaps have been the biggest and most successful; but what’s stopping the rest of us from doing something? ENS Women were able to get 300 people to march for abortion rights in March- they say it could have been bigger if Abortion Rights had joined them- but it was still something.

Often when it comes to activism, people look for a leader, someone who will take the reins in organising a protest, so all the rest of us have to do is turn up. Turning to Abortion Rights to mobilise us on this issue may be a manifestation of that, albeit a justified one given their profile. But still, it’s always harder to do something yourself. Pledging allegiance on a website and talking about taking action is the easy part. But when it comes down to actually seeing some of those ideas come to fruition, it can be a different story. People don’t have the time, the mundanity and demands of everyday life intervene, we don’t have the energy or strength sometimes- but most of the time we’re just waiting for our ‘leader’.

These obstacles prevent many ideas for campaigning and protest from being realised, and while attending to everyday life and taking some time out is necessary from time to time, it’s when we start waiting for someone else to take charge that our activism stagnates. To make sure we don’t waste an opportunity like the one we just have in marking 40 years since the Abortion Act, we first of all we have to want such an opportunity not to be wasted again- and then act on it.

* Just realised, the full version of the open letter to Abortion Rights can be found at the ENS Women website- scroll down to "An Open Letter to the Abortion Rights campaign".

Feminism is a lot of things, but it isn’t “boring”

2007-11-03T04:30:00.000-07:00

I recently came across- via Feminist Fire- a recent Sunday Times article about a new crop of female music artists. Go to Feminist Fire for a critique of the article itself. Here, I want to pick up on a comment Ida Maria makes in the article- that she doesn’t identify as a feminist, because feminism is “boring”.

To which I say feminism and being a feminist can be a lot of things...

... disheartening. Being a feminist means having your eyes open to the injustices and exploitation women face every day. Whether that be the very real brutality of the rape of women in Darfur or the seemingly innocent and harmless ‘alright darling’ that comes your way from some entitled shit in the street.

... frustrating. Feminism is about trying to change things- whether that be the attitudes of someone you know or greater justice for rape victims- in order to achieve liberation for women. And this quest to change things can be a tough slog. Even the campaign to close the gender pay gap, invoked as the feminist cause that could win mass support given the number of people who follow that oft-repeated phrase ‘I’m not a feminist but...’ with ‘... I believe in equal pay between the sexes’ is met with apathy (this is from my personal experience of taking part in the Fawcett Society’s Women’s No Pay Day on Tuesday where the mood amongst the public towards this issue was largely one of indifference).

... isolating. Declaring yourself a feminist and proffering ‘feminist’ opinions can set you apart from the rest, making you the object of ridicule, perhaps because you’ve come out and said that you don’t believe in marriage, that you don’t see Page 3 as a mere harmless bit of British culture, and that you don’t shave your underarm hair.

There’s positives too. Feminism can be inspiring, empowering and life-affirming. Giving you the imperative to remain true to yourself, to know and value your own mind, to use your voice, to try and make a difference in the world for the good of women.

So feminism’s a lot of things, but it sure isn’t boring.

Some cool, inspiring stuff

2007-10-17T07:55:00.000-07:00

In lieu of anything more substantial and to lift the mood of my blog a bit after the gloominess of my last post, I thought it would be good to post links to some great stuff I’ve read recently and give a round up some of the feminist events taking place over the next few months, as there’s quite a few. You’ve probably read the articles/know about this stuff already, but it feels good to throw all this stuff together- if nothing else it proves that feminism ain’t dead.

I really enjoyed reading this article by Jen Clayton at The F-Word. I thought it was a really refreshing, powerful and thought-provoking piece:

Maybe it’s time we challenged the common assumption in the women’s movement that housewives need feminism. It would be wiser if we started to see it the other way around: that feminism needs housewives. There’s more to running a happy home than being nifty with a mop: housewives are a talented, dedicated and hardworking bunch with many resources and talents to offer. By publicly forging stronger links with those who work in the domestic sphere, it is my belief that feminism can only be strengthened and the flames of this horrific backlash might finally be extinguished.

Go read.

Then there’s this article by Cath Elliot at the Guardian website. She sums up concisely why it’s wrong to sell porn-branded paraphernalia to young girls:

It's time we stopped sending out such mixed messages, protecting our children on the one hand and sexualising them on the other. Pole dancing is not just innocent fun and a good way to keep fit; it's an integral part of the sex industry and it has no place in our children's lives. The Playboy bunny is not just a fluffy designer logo; it is the no 1 icon of the porn industry.

I’d just like to add to her argument that not only is it contradictory for the (patriarchal) powers-that-be to want to protect young girls from paedophiles one minute but then have no qualms about selling them merchandise of the sex industry the next, but that it’s more than a child protection issue. All this pink bunny shit and the pseudo-empowering T-shirt slogans such as, “So many boys, so little time” socialise young girls into becoming sex objects, a role which all of a sudden becomes acceptable for them once they reach their 18th birthday. Selling them this stuff now ensures their sex object status in the future- hardly a sign that western society sees its women of tomorrow as people to be respected in their own right, but only as objects for male pleasure.

So those are the articles I wanted to link to. But if you prefer your feminist reading fodder to take a printed form, then the fourth issue of Subtext magazine is now available to buy online.

Now on to some of the feminist events taking place over the next month. From Saturday (October 20th ) it’s Abortion Rights' annual ProChoice Week-. This year’s campaign has particular significance as it coincides with the 40th anniversary of the Abortion Act.

Four decades on and organising and campaigning around a woman’s right to abortion is still essential, particularly as scientific and technological ‘advances’ see set to ‘advance’ the rights of the unborn foetus, but send backwards a woman’s right to control her own body. There’s a programme on Channel 4 this evening (October 17th) which will look at whether the time-limit on abortion should be cut back, given recent medical advances that have made it possible to sustain life at an earlier stage. Here’s hoping they recognise that a foetus isn’t just an entity in and of itself, but is actually conceived and carried by a female human being who deserves rights over her own body.

Then on October 30th, it’s Women’s No Pay Day. Organised by the Fawcett Society, it’s a day of campaigning to highlight the continuing pervasive pay gap that exists between the sexes. Why October 30th? Because the pay gap between men and women is the equivalent of men being paid until the end of the year, while women stop getting paid from October 30th. Which, as I’m sure you’ll agree, just ain’t on. There’s a petition to sign here and more information on how to get involved on the day from the Fawcett website.

Next month (November 24th ) it’s the annual Reclaim the Night (RTN) march, organised by London Feminist Network. Last year's was the biggest ever- over a thousand women and girls marched through central London to demand an end to male violence and their right to walk the streets free from fear. It would be amazing to have more women take part this year.

I also want to link here to Rebecca Heller’s article at the F-Word. One of the organisers of the recent RTN in Edinburgh which saw 250 people take part, she answers those who say RTN’s are somewhat hopeless as they are not calling for any specific legislative reform. Rebecca says that while it's true RTN's aren't lobbying for specific changes, they are still important as a means of getting women together and empowering them.

I agree- RTN’s can often be a girl/woman’s first experience of direct feminist action, empowering and spurring them on to do more. Also, the very sight of a thousand women and girls taking to the streets and raising their voices is a great consciousness-raiser and symbolic of the vibrancy and strength of the feminist movement.

On a similar note, there’s also a march planned for International Women’s Day (March 8th) next year again in London, to call an end to violence against women. More information from Million Woman Rise.

To see all this- the sexual objectification of young girls, the continuing attacks on abortion rights, the pay gap and the huge scale of male violence on women- can be a downer. But it’s not as if women are sitting around doing nothing about it- they are. And that’s enough to keep you feeling positive.

Keeping a grip on reality

2007-10-09T07:49:00.000-07:00

“I want to know how ‘multiple subject positions’ and ‘transgressing gender’ will stop men from raping babies. I want to know how ‘gender fucking’ and ‘transgressive performativity’ will stop men from bashing and slaughtering women. I want to know how the ‘lesbian phallus’ and ‘drag’ will stop the sexualisation of women, will stop women from starving themselves, will stop girls from cutting themselves, will stop men buying women for sex, will stop men from raping us, will stop men from viewing us as sex, will stop men from viewing us as whores. I want to know how post-modernism will stop men. Right now.”

I saw this quote at Women’s Space/The Margins- the original article by Allecto can be found here- and I found it particularly pertinent as it reflects some of the thinking I’ve been doing lately as I’ve re-entered academia.

To put it bluntly, throughout the first few weeks of my course I’ve come to realise that the radical feminist theory I use as the basis for my writing and activism and as a springboard from which I question women’s position in society, is passé in the academy.

Now it’s all about ‘postmodernism’. Postmodernism says no theory can claim to explain social relations, people cannot be categorised but should instead be seen as having multiple identities, that power doesn’t come from one central location, but is dispersed throughout. Radical feminism then- which does offer a theory for explaining social, specifically gender relations, which does categorise people into the ‘sex class’ they belong to, and sees patriarchy as a centre of power that oppresses women- just isn’t applicable any more.

The postmodern charges laid at radical feminism’s door is that it treats women as a homogenous group who are mere passive victims of an all-powerful patriarchy, which doesn’t take into account other forms of identity e.g. class, race and sexuality that may contribute to women’s oppression, that doesn’t see women as having ‘agency’ to resist their domination.

On the contrary, radical feminism does advocate the airing of diverse female voices. Yes, it says women are subordinated and exploited by a male-dominant society, but it doesn’t see them as ‘passive’ victims. Radical feminism at its essence is about resistance, searching for and advocating change to that male-dominant structure.

And yes, it does point the finger at a system of power- patriarchy- to explain relations between men and women. And it’s the charge against this aspect of radical feminism that troubles me the most about postmodernism and its rejection of original feminist theory.

It troubles me because- to echo Allecto somewhat- postmodernism does not explain to me why there are still very real inequalities and injustices faced by women. Talking about women being able to utlilise their ‘agency’ to subvert beauty norms and that men are subject to beauty practices too doesn’t explain why it is still largely women who are expected to subscribe to beauty norms and why even if men are now also expected to remove their body hair, it’s largely women’s blood, not men’s, that’s being spilt in the search for cosmetic perfection.

Advocating the ‘de-centering of power’ doesn’t help to explain and tackle the fact that men are raping and beating women on a frightening and unjustifiable scale. If we are all supposed to have ‘agency’, this doesn’t help to understand and combat the fact that some women are able to have more agency than others.

This all suggests power is operating from somewhere and is having an adverse effect on a specific set of people- namely women. Postmodernism in its home of the academy may dismiss this, but radical feminism based in reality cannot.

And this is the crux of the issue for me. I love academia and I love immersing myself in theory. But equally I want to remain immersed in the ‘real world’. Bridging the two, forming connections between theory and practice, is what I think is important, and this is what radical feminism did and still does. In the consciousness-raising groups of the second-wave, explanations and theories on women’s situation were first articulated, grounded in real women’s experiences, which led to action.

By contrast, postmodernism has emerged from the ivory towers, its leading thinkers men. Everything’s a text- there’s little conception of reality, a reality that has women exploited and abused every day. This is perhaps why it doesn’t acknowledge the continuing importance of feminist theory- because it doesn’t acknowledge real women’s experiences and situation.

All the postmodern theorising in the world doesn’t change the fact that outside of the ivory tower, women are still paid less than men, raped by men in huge numbers, represented in derogatory ways for men’s pleasure. This may not be the ‘in’ thing to say in the academy, but it’s sure as hell women’s reality.

First (feminist) impressions

2007-09-22T04:34:00.000-07:00

I am now officially a student again; just started an MA, and only a week in and I’ve slipped back into the student lifestyle very easily. Being able to spend the time with my nose in a book and not having to get up at 6am to catch the train to work is much more preferable to me than the ‘real world’.

Two things in particular have caught my attention over the first few days. Firstly, the nature of some of the club nights being promoted to Freshers. One range of nights in particular likes its, “sexy tub girls”, “bikini babes competition”, “sexy vodka podium dancers” and is advertising for “strippers”. The flyers being handed out are full of women in bikinis. There’s also a billboard just up the road from me advertising the “I (heart) S.E.X (Student Entertainment Xperience)” club night emblazoned with a picture of a bikini, bunny-eared clad woman.

But none of this is sexist! Because look there’s also a “Wet Boxer” competition and a picture of a half-naked beach ‘hunk’ on the flyer! Before all you feminists start complaining, can’t you see men are being objectified here too? (Even if for one picture of a beach ‘hunk’ in which we can actually see his face, there’s a twice the number of female arse and cleavage shots, and where’s the ‘sexy tub boys’?)

I am also, according to the student newspaper, living right near a park which is notorious for rape, and which you are advised not to, “explore... on your own at night.” I know there have been attacks on students in the park over the past couple of years, but these have been perpetuated by and on men.

But it’s only female students being given free personal alarms. And if walking through the park with that in her hand doesn’t cement her status as object than the “I (heart) S.E.X” billboard poster across the road from said park, most likely will.

Some feminist herstory

2007-09-09T10:46:00.000-07:00

I want to write about this book I’ve been reading, Rebel Girls: Their Fight for the Vote, by Jill Liddington.

It’s a new history of the British suffrage movement that turns the attention away from the Pankhursts et al, to instead focus on the Yorkshire region and the suffrage campaigners there.

Until recently, little was known about the suffrage movement in this part of England and the women who drove it. However historian Jill Liddington has unearthed memoirs, letters, meeting notes and newspaper articles and pieced them together to tell a new, vibrant and vital suffrage story that until now had been untold.

It tells the individual stories of a small group of young suffragettes- the ‘rebel girls’- who as members of the Pankhurst-founded Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) took direct and increasingly more militant action to secure the vote for women.

They include Adela Pankhurst and Mary Gawthorpe, tireless and devoted WSPU organisers and speakers who played a crucial role in attracting many ordinary, working women to the suffrage cause; Lavena Saltonstall and Dora Thewlis who took part in demonstrations outside Parliament and were subsequently arrested and sent to prison, the latter only 16 years-old; Lilian Lenton who burnt empty buildings and vowed to continue to do so until the government granted women the vote. Then there was Leonora Cohen who took part in window-smashing raids and in an individual act of protest smashed a glass display case at the Tower of London.

The book also focuses on the key suffragists in the region- Isabella Ford, Florence Lockwood, Dr Mary Murdoch, members of Millicent Fawcett’s National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) - who preferred to protest within the law, but whose actions were equally attention-grabbing. They held marches involving thousands of women and toured the region on ‘pilgrimages’ to take the suffrage message out to women in the farthest corners.

I’ve enjoyed reading this particular history of the suffrage movement and the stories of these women for a number of reasons.

Firstly, because I’ve always liked reading and studying history. However, it’s only in the past couple of years or so that I’ve realised that most of the history I’ve studied has been that of men- ‘history’ in the most literal sense of the word. I’ve passed exams which required me to know about the 1832 and 1867 Reform Acts which gave the vote to middle-class and some working-class men respectively, and while I got a lot from this, it didn’t register with me at the time that this particular aspect of history, men’s fight for the vote, isn’t my history, not really. These men, these reforms acts didn’t give me the vote. Instead, it was women who campaigned for women to have the vote, but I didn’t learn about this women’s history, this history that does have something to do with me. So reading books like Rebel Girls now rectifies this.

It’s also been really interesting to gain an insight into the lives and minds of the individual suffrage campaigners, their backgrounds, how they got involved with the movement, how it changed their lives, as much of this resonated with me.

Most of these ‘rebel girls’ were born and raised in working-class communities and had to earn a living from a young age, as tailoresses, pupil teachers, weavers. However, being a wife and mother was deemed the natural role for women in these Edwardian times, and such as they didn’t have the vote, they were not encouraged to develop an interest in politics or much else outside the confines of their communities:

“As a tailoress many people think it is my bounden duty to make trousers and vests... I am supposed to make myself generally useless by ignoring things that matter- literature, music, art, history, economics, the lives of the people round me and the evils of my day. They think I ought to concern myself over clean doorsteps and side-board covers... things that don’t matter so much.” (Lavena Saltonstall)

These women wanted something more than this. They saw how hard they and their mothers worked, both inside and outside the home, and what an injustice it was they didn’t have the vote. They rebelled against the notion that women were simply not interested- or capable of being interested- in political matters. They were ambitious and determined to do something more:

“Women, as a sex, are still... taught that the broader race-life, or welfare of future generations, does not concern them; that a strict confinement to home life or self-preservation should be their only goal... Small wonder it is then that, living a life of such utter dependence, she fails to acquire that ‘perfect sense of justice’ which we are to believe all men possess... Woman as a law-abiding subject must be made a self-respecting citizen, with a direct voice in the affairs of the world...” (Mary Gawthorpe)

And once they got involved with the suffrage movement, not only were they changing the world around them, but also themselves:

“From a shy, melancholy girl I became, before I was nineteen, a self-confident woman who could hold crowds of thousands...” (Adela Pankhurst)

Now I say the stories of these young, burgeoning suffragettes resonated with me; I didn’t have go to work in a textile mill at the age of 14, but I do still recognise something in the voices of these suffragettes.

I recognise that sense of feeling stifled by the family and community values you grow up with, that feeling of wanting to do more than the small town and patriarchal nuclear family model you were raised in would expect of you. And while these women were talking about the average Edwardian woman’s situation, what they had to say still sounds relevant to women today.

Women can now receive a higher education, they can go out into the world and become something more, it’s not expected they should only concern themselves with the home. But there is still the deeply-held assumption that men should concern themselves with matters of the world that little bit more, their careers and interests are not hampered by family demands in the way that women’s careers and interests still are. It’s still assumed that women are more interested in shopping and celebrities than ‘hard’ politics.

And I also recognise that feeling of personal growth you get as a result of getting involved with an activist movement as Adela Pankhurst articulated. Getting involved with feminism has made me more self-confident, more able to raise my voice and less willing to take shit. Although I could never imagine myself rallying a crowd of thousands in the open-air as Adela did, the experiences of these young suffragettes are still compelling and inspiring to read. This women’s history, these women’s voices, should be sat alongside all that male history that makes up the school curriculum.

What’s also been really interesting and eye-opening about this book is learning about what their campaigning and activism actually involved and their devotion to the cause called Votes for Women.

The marches and rallies they held were superbly co-ordinated and presented with eye-catching banners, slogans and co-ordinated colours. Then there were the numbers these kinds of marches and gatherings attracted. A NUWSS march in 1908 involved between 10,000 and 15,000 women, forming a two mile procession.

Members of local branches of the WSPU and NUWSS would tour their areas rallying women to the cause. On hearing the Home Secretary was due to speak in their town, or a by-election was coming up, they were right on it, organising themselves to make their protest.

Then there was the militant tactics. The window-smashing, the setting fire to post boxes and empty buildings, being sent to prison and going on hunger strike.

It makes you wonder- as an activist- what you can take from this. You can marvel at the sheer scale of the things they did, the militant action they took and their organisational ability, but also at the commitment and passion these women had to the cause.

Women had to campaign for decades before the vote was won. To continue for so long, they must have truly believed in their cause, that women would one day get the vote. Many of the women in this book were not much older than 30 and yet they were willing to go to prison and even risk their life for the cause. Older women, married with children and sometimes jobs, were also organising for the movement in their hometowns and committed to the cause. These women- despite having to perform the family role and pull in a wage- still had time for activism.

Many of these women weren’t well-off, they didn’t necessarily have a lot of time on their hands, but they still travelled for protests and for meetings, they were committed and made time for the suffrage campaign. Lavena Saltonstall even quit her job before heading for a demonstration in London knowing it likely she’d end up in prison.

Reading this book and taking all this in, it does make you question your own commitment to your activism, how much time your're willing to devote to it, how far you would be willing to go.

Of course, we now longer have to fight for the vote. But there’s plenty women still have to fight for. Ending- or even just reducing- rape and domestic violence and making sure women receive equal pay for work of equal value being two massive ones.

The issue of equal pay has received a lot of attention in the media over the last week following a report from the Chartered Management Institute which revealed that while women are reaching the boardroom quicker than men, once there they are getting paid a lot less than men in the same jobs.

But the media seems to be the place where any debate about what to do about this will remain. Despite years of equal pay legislation, it’s still not secured women their right to equal pay. If any issue could rally huge numbers of women together it would be equal pay, but we’re living in a different time, a different culture to the one the women of the suffrage movement inhabited, when they were able to bring masses of women together around a single, significant cause.*

I doubt we could rouse similar passion and commitment on the issue of equal pay today, as while I don’t doubt people’s interest or concern for issues such as this, I also think people are less willing to give their time, money and energy to a cause these days, and I think that’s symptomatic of the culture we live in, where people lead more comfortable lives and therefore don’t think there’s much to fight for.

But then the suffrage movement rose from a culture that held very firm ideas of what women should be, and still some women broke through that. And books like Rebel Girls and the history it tells, makes you wonder what we can take from that to continue the fight for women’s rights today.

* The Fawcett Society are organising a day of action around the issue of equal pay for women on October 30th, called Women’s No Pay Day. Go here for more details and to get involved.

A landmark in the normalisation of raunch- pole-dancing at village summer festivals!

2007-08-31T07:11:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, my local newspaper reported on a local village’s summer festival. The town in which I live and the surrounding villages are small, rural, traditional and Conservative, and this village festival had all the features typical of events put on in the area. So you had a sheepdog show, Morris dancing, brass bands, children’s entertainment, vintage car displays and a local farmer providing “an expert display of shepherding a paddle of ducks with his dogs.”

Oh, and it also had a pole-dancing demonstration.

The newspaper treated this with some trepidation, labelling it “unusual” and making clear that the demonstration showed pole-dancing as a form of exercise. One of the organisers of the festival was quoted:

“The pole-dancing display was unusual because it’s not the sort of thing you see on a village green but the company run it as a form of exercise and agility and it was an amazing demonstration. I haven’t had a negative reaction and the girls were thrilled with the performance.”

I’m not quite sure who the “girls” being referred to here are- the girls who did the demonstration or the girls in the audience? And why was their no “negative reaction”-has pole-dancing and the image of young women parading around as sex objects really become that normalised, that even at an event attended mainly by elderly people and young families, it’s just accepted?

Isn’t that kind of worrying? When despite all protestations that this pole-dancing is a “form of exercise”, it’s still pole-dancing, not only increasingly normalised via its use as a form of exercise but also via its normalisation in nightclubs and magazines for what it is- a way of turning women into sex objects for men.

Whatever, I think a line has been crossed here, when even village festivals are embracing and furthering the normalisation of raunch, the normalisation of women as sex objects.

What next? A young girl winning the fancy-dress competition for dressing as a Playboy bunny? And that being labelled “cute”, ‘cause after all it’s just a bunny, like pole-dancing is just a “form of exercise”, even though both Playboy and pole-dancing are still embedded in the porn and sex industries that subjugate women?

In response to some of those non-wombed, pro-‘life’ zealots

2007-08-30T10:01:00.000-07:00

As you may be aware, Amnesty International recently moved away from its ‘neutral’ stance on abortion and now:
“... aims to support the decriminalisation of abortion, to ensure women have access to health care when complications arise from abortion and to defend women's access to abortion -within reasonable gestational limits - when their health or life are in danger.”

In addition, they support women’s access to abortion if they become pregnant as a result of rape.

While it’s better than their previous stance, Amnesty still makes it clear that its new policy on abortion, “does not promote abortion as a universal right and the organization remains silent on the rights or wrongs of abortion.”

Yet, this moderate pro-choice stance still hasn’t stopped- unsurprisingly, I suppose-zealous pro-‘lifers’, mainly those associated with the Catholic Church, from denouncing Amnesty over the past couple of weeks.

First of all, the Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone spoke out against Amnesty’s support for abortion for women who’ve been raped by saying: “We cannot ever destroy life, we must always save life even if it is the fruit of violence.”

Then Cardinal Keith O’Brien (Head of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland) left Amnesty International because of the new abortion policy, saying it contravenes the “basic human right to life.”

Bishop Michael Evans takes similar issue: “Sadly now Amnesty International seems to be placing itself at the forefront of a campaign for a universal right to abortion in contravention to that basic right to human life.”

Okay, so it’s not surprising to hear those in the Catholic Church condemning abortion and those who support it. But others are spilling similar inaccurate rhetoric.

Mairtin O’Maolruaidh in a letter to the Independent newspaper says: “Abortion is not a human right, it is a human wrong, because it is the direct and deliberate taking of an innocent, defenceless human life.” He then goes on to label Amnesty’s new abortion policy as “pro-death.”

Then Erik Whittington, director of Rock for Life*, denounced Amnesty not only for its new abortion stance, but also because he believes a recent CD released by Amnesty to raise funds for Darfur features artists who are pro-life and have therefore been duped by the organisation into appearing on a CD they may not otherwise have wanted to appear on. He says: “... using this tragic abuse of human rights (Darfur) to raise money for a pro-abortion organisation is hypocritical and beyond belief.”

What really fucks me off about these arguments (aside from the fact that they have all been made by that half of the species without wombs) is that they seem to lack any acknowledgement that Amnesty still only supports abortion in a limited set of circumstances- including when a woman’s life is at risk from pregnancy- and therefore still have a way to go before being labelled a ‘pro-choice’ organisation. Such a refusal to recognise these facts, means the arguments of these zealous pro-‘lifers’ are inaccurate, hyperbolic and just downright hypocritical.

Amnesty now advocates abortion when pregnancy poses a risk to a woman’s life. Therefore the arguments of Cardinal Brien et al and the labelling of Amnesty’s policy as “pro-death” are inaccurate and hypocritical.

They keep mentioning the “basic human right to life” but it would seem they only believe this applies to the unborn, not to the women whose lives may be in danger from continuing with a pregnancy that could kill them.

They don’t seem to realise that by advocating the right to life for the unborn and denying access to abortion, consequently it is women’s right to life which is taken away because without access to safe, legal abortion they then turn to illegal, unhygienic and dangerous back-street abortions that could kill them.

So who’s really “pro-death” here? Who are the hypocrites? The only way you could say the views of these non-wombed pro-‘life’ zealots are pro-'life’ is if you place the life of the unborn above that of a live, female human being, which makes them not only “pro-death” but also anti-woman.

I must also nit-pick at the way Bishop Michael Evans and Erik Whittington have described Amnesty’s abortion policy. Bishop Michael Evans seems to think Amnesty International are at the “forefront of a campaign for a universal right to abortion,” while Erik Whittington now seems to think Amnesty are a “pro-abortion organisation.”

Amnesty International have made it quite clear- as can be seen in the quote at the beginning of this post- that they do not promote abortion as a universal right and instead only in limited circumstances. So can I suggest that before making hypocritical and hyperbolic claims on abortion, pro-‘life’ zealots at least try and get their facts straight?

* Rock for Life is a US-based alliance of pro-life bands, who put on benefit concerts, release compilation CDs and distribute leaflets at shows all for the pro-life cause. They also seem to spend a lot of time attacking pro-choice bands; their tactics and arguments border on lunacy. Here’s an example of that lunacy- Rock for Life calling on people not to purchase Pearl Jam records because they “pay for abortions”, (Erik Whittington again).

They say action speaks louder than words...

2007-08-22T09:27:00.000-07:00

... although I prefer to think that when the two work together, when one leads to the other, just as much- if not more- impact can be made.

How many times have I blogged about the injustice female rape victims in the UK currently face? Lots, I know, because it’s a real concern for feminists- and it should be a real concern for every decent human being.

If it’s not disgusting enough that less than 5.8 per cent of reported rapes in the UK result in a conviction*, the myths surrounding rape are truly appalling and expose the popular idea that we are living in ‘post-feminist’ times for what it is- bullshit.

Feminism still has a lot to do in a society in which whenever it hears a woman has been raped, immediately puts her on trial. What was she wearing? What was she doing? Where was she, and what time was it? It’s all used to make the female victim look and feel like she was ‘asking for it’, and in the midst of all this woman-blaming, the accountability of the male perpetrator gets lost, is not questioned.

Feminism still has a lot to do when it’s the case that on the rare occasion a woman falsely accuses a man of rape- and it should be noted that false accusations of rape are no higher than those for other crimes**-it’s that which forms the front page news, not the news that men rape and attempt to rape over 80,000 women every year ***. Instead, this information gets relegated to the women’s sections of newspapers and as such is viewed only as a ‘women’s issue’. (Not that there’s anything wrong with the issue of rape being highlighted in women’s sections of the media; it’s vital there is space for issues concerning women to be communicated; but news of this rape crisis needs to be on the front page too.)

And feminists have been doing something. We’ve been blogging about it, talking about it, writing about it for feminist and other publications. Feminists have been in the process of articulating awareness of the rape crisis and what it all means, what needs to be tackled. And that’s important.

But words alone are not enough here. They are the starting point, the impetus for action.

And now feminists are taking action. Go here & watch this.

This video shows The Purple Resistance- a group of feminists from across the UK- taking to the streets of central London to demand justice for rape victims. We’re taking those words, that anger and energy and transforming it into action. We’re taking those words we’ve been writing and talking amongst ourselves with, and shouting them out into the ears and minds of the general public.

It’s about raising consciousness, demanding change and justice for female rape victims, using what every woman has the right to use- her voice and right to protest.

And it’s good to be blogging about this, about feminist action, after all the depressing and frustrating posts I’ve made about the rape crisis, the facts and myths it’s made up of and the government, police and media’s less than satisfactory role in dealing with it all.

It’s good to write about all that, but it’s good to be taking it to the streets too.

*Office for Criminal Justice Reform, 2006
** Kelly, Lovett & Regan, 2005
*** British Crime Survey, 2004

Tagged for a meme

2007-08-11T10:11:00.000-07:00

I think I’ve been tagged twice for this one, the one where you give eight random facts about yourself. Mwezzi just tagged me, while Amy did so a while ago now. The reason for taking so long to do this can be the first fact...

1. I have somewhat of an aversion to talking about myself, being the centre of attention, standing up and talking about myself. I’m doing this tag now, because I have time to think of eight facts about myself and can communicate them via the written word, my preferred mode of communication. If I had to come up with eight facts about myself, on the spot, in front of a group of people, I’d be shitting myself about now.
2. I’m currently reading Charlotte Bronte’s, Jane Eyre
3. I’ve been wearing glasses since I was two years old, after a bout of measles left me with a lazy left eye.
4. I detest pigeons. I hate how they dawdle right in front of you, they can see you coming, but they leave it until you’re practically treading on them before they decide to fly away, right in front of you. I hate that!
5. The last film I saw was High Fidelity which was on telly the other night. I raised a knowing smile at the record collecting geekery of its characters; browsing independent record stores is- along with book shopping- the only kind of shopping I can tolerate.
6.My favourite album is Soundgarden’s Superunknown.
7. I prefer the winter to summer, night to day. I think that’s because in the dark and when it’s raining outside, it’s easier to contemplate and hide and keep to yourself, which suits my introspective nature.
8. I recently left the admin assistant job I’ve been doing for the past two years, and will be going to uni to study for an MA in September. A post on the shitty way admin assistants are treated is in the works.

If you want to be tagged for this, consider yourself now tagged.

Oh, but what about the men?

2007-08-05T10:25:00.000-07:00

A recent article in The Times newspaper expressed concern for how television advertising is increasingly patronising and belittling men, making them out to be losers, dorks and just plain hopeless. It argued that men are now subject to the same level of sex stereotyping and objectification that women have had to put up with for years. I’m not going to critique the article here now- I’ll bore myself by doing so. Here's the article if you’re interested.

However, the pull-out article by Dan Bell that accompanied this piece- and can be found towards the bottom of the page linked to above- does warrant some attention, because some pertinent parallels can be drawn between the concerns its male author reports on about representations of men in advertising today and the current concerns feminists have about representations of women.

The article begins by describing an American advertisement for Trojan condoms which came under attack because it portrayed men as pigs. The advert is described as thus:

“In a smart bar... single women sip cocktails and contemplate potential mates. The prospects do not look good... for the men in the bar (are)... pigs... The punchline came when one pig trotted off to the gents, bought himself one of its products (a condom) and was transformed back into Homo sapiens.”

The equating of men to pigs in this advert is the kind of thing that’s leading to, “an increasingly strident protest at the way that men are portrayed in the media”. Two people leading this protest- Paul Nathanson and Katharine Young- believe the advert, “exemplifies the growing phenomenon of misandry: hatred of men,” and that, “men are now routinely defined by a limited set of negative stereotypes: the man as fool, slob or irrelevance.”

As someone who reaches for the remote control as a matter of course when an ad break comes on, I can’t really draw on any concrete examples to back up this theory. I know I have seen men in television adverts acting like bumbling fools, but then I can’t recollect any instances of women being much better off either. While adverts have come a long way from the days when women were represented as vacant, docile housewives, I am aware that women are still stereotyped negatively in advertising. Advertisers have co-opted feminism, so while an advert wouldn’t blatantly say a woman’s place is the home, it still says her sense of ‘empowerment’ and womanhood is dependant on her using the ‘right’ toilet cleaner. Or wearing mascara. Or choosing scented sanitary towels with wings. Men may be the hapless idiots; but women are the pseudo-empowered; empowered only in relation to their consuming products that still keep them in their place.

The article continues by quoting Paul Nathanson’s concerns about what all this negative stereotyping of men in advertising may lead to: “... left unchallenged... these images take on the patina of truth that will seep into the minds of those who implement laws and develop policy.”

We can tell men are affected here can’t we? That the voice of dissent is coming from men? Because all of a sudden we start mentioning the “law” and “policy” and how it will affect men. Men are negatively affected by something = time to get serious! Funny that when women protest that their sex is being encouraged to embrace their inner bunny, beautify and adorn themselves to unleash and promote their inner bunny- a la the current mainstreaming of Playboy- our concerns are dismissed because the bunny is ‘just a logo’ that doesn’t mean anything. But when men are turned into pigs it’s a problem that will affect the laws of the land.

Okay, so men = pig is a negative stereotype, while women = bunny is meant to be positive- except it’s not really. Equating women to bunnies is demeaning and used to subjugate women, keep them inferior to men. At least with the Trojan advert the message is clear- man as pig is bad. With the Playboy thing, women are encouraged to see their bunny ears as a sign of fun liberation.

Another advert is then mentioned in the article; this time one for Verizon which appeared on American television screens in 2004, but was pulled following 3,000 complaints.

The advert, “showed a father trying to help his daughter with her maths homework only to be humiliated by her and her mother.”

Glenn Sacks, an American journalist, led the charge in protesting this advert and its portrayal of man. His objection against the advert was not due to the fact that, “it shows the man being an idiot, because we see that all the time,” but because we see, “the man portrayed as an idiot in front of his daughter and ridiculed by her mother in front of his daughter”.

In other words, this advert is bad because it shows a man being made a fool out of by the female of the species. Do advertisers not know that a man, a father, is the head of the family?! That as a result, he should be immune from criticism and ridicule from his female subordinates who live with him?! It’s never nice to be mocked of course, but I really do think the strength of opposition to this advert lay in the still deep-rooted, patriarchal idea that men reign supreme in the home and that supremacy should be protected.

Following 3,000 complaints, this advert got pulled for the very reasons outlined by Glenn Sacks above. Or put more succinctly, it got pulled because it was deemed sexist and demeaning to men.

Compare this to how complaints against representations of women in advertising are treated. Now the Verizon advert was subject to American advertising regulations, which no doubt differ from those of the the UK regulatory body, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA). However, I shall point out that a recent advert for Rustlers’ burgers in the UK received considerable complaints due to its treatment of women. This link to the ASA’s adjunction on the advert has a full description, but briefly the advert showed a woman and man returning home from a date; the woman sits on a sofa while the man puts his Rustler burger in the microwave. After switching the microwave on, the viewer sees the sofa in which the woman was sat begin to rotate. Once the microwave ‘pings’, the sofa stops spinning and the viewer sees the woman still on the sofa, but this time in her underwear. The punchline, “If only everything was as quick as Rustlers.”

As stated on the ASA website, the majority of complainants were concerned with the fact that the adverts were offensive to women, treating women as sex objects for male pleasure and equating them to pieces of meat. Some complainants felt the advert had undertones of sexual abuse. Complaints were also made that this advert was shown in the ad breaks between television programmes aimed at children, and was unsuitable for children’s viewing. These complaints were fewer in number than the ones about concerns for the sexual objectification/abuse of women, yet the advert was only upheld on the matter of child protection, not the ones concerning women which had received the most complaints! As a result, Rustlers were told to take more care in scheduling their adverts, but not in normalising and making jokes about the sexual objectification/abuse of women!

Men complain about their sex being ridiculed- ‘we can’t be having any of that!’- so an advert is pulled. But complaints- I’m sure the bulk of them from women- about the normalisation and trivialising of the sexual objectification/abuse of women? ‘Well, we can ignore that’.

Like I said, the Verizon and Rustlers adverts were shown in different countries and subject to separate advertising regulations, but I think UK and USA media culture and the attitudes emanating towards the sexes from this are pretty synonymous. Taking this into account then, I think we can glean from this that men- even if they are increasingly negatively portrayed in the media- still hold the power as the privileged sex class in being able to draw attention to and tackle those negative representations. Yet, women are still ignored and dismissed when they attempt to make their voices heard about negative representations of their sex.

The article ends by voicing the concerns of Katharine Young for the effect this wave of misandric advertising will have on young boys: “If you just have a bunch of negative images, how are boys ever going to develop a positive image of themselves?”

Glenn Sacks has similar concerns: “... he doesn’t believe that these stereotypes stay locked harmlessly inside the TV. After a sex education class at school, his son complained, ‘It’s always the boys who are wrong; boys who are trying to put one over on the girls’...” He implores that young boys, “just get fed a steady diet of this.”

Undoubtedly, media stereotyping does have an effect on the socialisation of children and has a part to play in how they come to learn their gender roles. And the foolish, pathetic, bumbling representations of men being fretted over here could have a detrimental impact on young male viewers. But media stereotyping is also having a detrimental impact on young girls. The images of women on television and in other media are still largely unrealistic, unattainable and one-dimensional. Young women are subject to very powerful messages about what it means to look and act like a woman from advertising and the media, and in the 21st-century those messages often say that women should be sex objects. Men may be the fools, but women are still being told to be the sex objects for them. A recent report by the American Psychological Association discussed the negative effects this culture of commercial over-sexualisation is having on girls' self-esteem and development.

But despite this research, we don’t see many adverts being pulled that showed women in a detrimental light or newspaper articles deploring this state we’ve got our young girls into, on a par with the one I’m discussing here that focuses on young boys.

Any media commentary that does express concern for what the marketing of Bratz dolls, Playboy and pole-dancing kits to young girls means, base their concern on the fact that these products and brands are over-sexualising under-age girls. It’s framed as a child protection issue. While this is of course part of the problem, it’s not discussed what this marketing of a one-dimensional sexuality and femininity means in the development of these girls into women. It doesn’t mention how these products and brands are normalising the sex industry and the objectification of women, that this is what girls are told to buy into and align themselves with if they want to be cool, happy and successful. Articles critiquing what young girls are sold and how they are represented deplores the effect this will have on them currently as children, but not the effect it has on them as they emerge into womanhood. The underlying message being that being exposed to images of sexual objectification and dressing up as a mini-Jordan is a problem when a girl is under the age of 16, but once she turns 18 it’s perfectly acceptable for her to want to pose for Page 3. She’s no longer a child you see, but a woman. And women are supposed to be sex objects.

The different roles we expect men and women to play and the subsequent power they have in society as a result, can explain a lot. Of course we read serious critiques of how men are treated in the media, because they are the privileged sex class. They’ve been so used to holding the power, of being the authorities on everything, and on being represented as such, that when the tables turn, i.e. when we see a bloke in an advert not being able to help his daughter with her homework, it’s more noticeable, because it previously wasn’t the case. It feels more uncomfortable for men because they are not used to being belittled. And because they still are the privileged sex class, they have the social and economic power to debate and bring this to rights; it’s taken oh-so-seriously.

Yet, when it comes to derogatory representations of women, it’s a case of, ‘well what’s the problem?’ Deeply embedded in society is the view that women are still the inferiors of men; seen not only in the representations of women but also in how opposition to those representations are treated.

What I think the problem with all this is then-the negative stereotyping and representations of men and women in advertising and the subsequent emergence of articles like the one discussed here- is advertising’s reliance on drawing attention to gender and the relations between the sexes. Advertising is keen on putting men and women into boxes, imposing certain behaviours and traits on them and showing how men and women should relate to one another based on this, which often leads to one sex being superior to the other. Sadly, it would seem equality between the sexes in advertising doesn’t sell. Which is a shame because the current state of inequality leaves both women and men feeling shit about themselves.

So hilarious it hurts- more evidence of the extremities of the beauty myth

2007-07-29T02:52:00.000-07:00

It’s a mainstay of feminist criticism, and is it any wonder? Just when you thought you couldn’t possibly say any more about the oppressive and exploitative nature of mainstream, commercially-owned and produced beauty practices and standards, something else crops up which calls for another examination of the beauty myth.

I always find critiquing the beauty myth more therapeutic than partaking in it; writing about it, how it makes me feel and what I recognise it to be, I find to be a much more satisfying form of self-expression than adorning my face with make-up, even if by saying this, L’Oreal wouldn’t think I’m “worth it”. L’Oreal, I couldn’t give a shit. Exposing your advertising campaigns for the lies they are, is a lot more fun than applying your mascara. (Link to news story about L’Oreal being criticised for an advert for their new mascara which exaggerated its effects because its model, Penelope Cruz was wearing false eyelashes. Well I never!)

Anyway, I’m writing about the beauty myth again, because I’ve recently come across two pieces of promotional bumph for the beauty industry which warrant a feminist dissection.

The first is Boots’ (beauty/toiletries/pharmacy high-street store) “Seven Step Get Beach Gorgeous Plan”; the company are selling women an image of body beauty, as a way of getting them all insecure and therefore easy to make a profit off this summer. The “plan” is laid out in seven pretty, glossy leaflets inside an A5-sized wallet; the image on the cover of the wallet that of a woman in a bikini, although the photo has been cropped just below her eyes, so all we see is the bottom of her sunglasses and of course her perfectly toned, bronzed and shimmery chest. Being a beach beauty is all about what’s on the outside of course; the “plan” an exercise in objectifying yourself.

Each A5-folded leaflet inside the wallet pertains to one of the steps of the “plan”. So leaflet one is “Buff”, two “Glow”, three “Nourish”, four “Beautify”, five “Polish”, six “Smooth” and seven “Protect”. Each leaflet details what needs to be done to achieve perfection in each, the pages scattered with the products to buy to help you achieve this.

The second thing I want to critique is a catalogue for Skin Doctors Cosmeceuticals (cosmeceuticals a word my word-processor doesn’t even recognise), which is disguised as a beauty magazine. This ‘magazine’ has a number of features on cellulite, wrinkles, hair removal and other ‘problem areas’, the solution of course always lying in a Skin Doctors product.

Flicking through both of these, I was at first humoured by what I saw. But this soon gave way to incredulity. Incredulity at the products they are selling to women, the rhetoric they use to sell them, what they what women to believe about their bodies and the amount of time and money they expect women to expend on what they have to offer.

First, let’s have a look at how they treat some of the ‘problems’ women are supposed to have with their bodies. Because they are problems you know, not something just inevitable and natural to a female human being...

Cellulite
I have cellulite; and so do 90 per cent of women over the age of 20, according to Skin Doctors. So given this, I’m not that bothered about banishing the stuff to be honest. After all, cellulite is nothing more than an, “invented ‘condition’ that was imported into the US by Vogue in 1973,” (Naomi Wolf, The Beauty Myth) at a time when women were making gains in society on a level not seen before, and therefore something had to be done to keep women down; hence the move to make them feel crap about their bodies.

It doesn’t matter that having cellulite is okay; what matters is that women should concentrate their energies on getting rid of it. Skin Doctors make it quite clear that to have cellulite, to have a visible, physical manifestation of womanliness is abhorrent: “Lump deposits of fat below the skin on the thighs, hips and buttocks is not the sort of thing you want to see when you don your sexy swimsuit and are craving sun, sand and good times now is it!” Enter promotional spiel for “invigorating body polish” that will soon see to that.

Boots also condemn the appearance of cellulite on the beach. Tackling cellulite comes under the first step of the Beach Gorgeous Plan. And it’s a right rigmarole. A “body-brushing” technique is outlined, which first involves using a brush on the body to “stimulate the lymphatic system”. This should then be followed by a “warm 10 minute bath” with “alkaline bath salts... to draw out toxins”, followed by a “cold shower” to “tone and tighten the skin”. The final stage is to “drink water and relax for 15 minutes to let your body return to normal temperature”.

How crazy is this regime, really? It would be time-consuming as a one-off, but to notice a difference it needs to be undertaken “a few times a week”! This regime also wastes a lot of water (bath, shower and a drink afterwards) and it requires a recovery period. FOR SOMETHING THAT’S PERFECTLY NORMAL FOR WOMEN TO HAVE AND CAN NEVER BE GOT RID OF. In the words of Germaine Greer: “Your cellulite is you and will be with you till death...” More interesting and fun things can be done in place of brushing, bathing, showering and sipping water, okay Boots?

Body hair
Like cellulite, body hair is something to-be-got-rid-of. Hair is for your head, not your arms, legs, cunt or face. Heaven forbid a woman should have signs of something she starts to grow when she enters puberty, when she enters womanhood.

Skin Doctors are here to help though. A double-page feature promotes their “Hair No More” product: “a long-term hair removal system that is completely pain free... Hair No More can actually prevent the hair from growing back. Imagine that!” Any hair that does grow back (those pesky hairs, anyone would think it was natural to have hair!), “is a bit like that baby soft hair I had when I was very young... before I had ever started shaving”. Of course, another way to get soft hair again is to actually let your hair grow back past the point of stubble, but women are not supposed to allow this to happen.

The “before” and “after” photos accompanying this advertorial represent just how invisible the notion of hair on a woman’s body is. Despite this being a product aimed at women, the before and after pictures are of those of a man’s chest! The “before” picture is of a hairy chest, the “after” picture of a smooth-shaven chest. FOR A PRODUCT AIMED AT WOMEN! Why isn’t there before and after shots of hair on and off a woman? Is it because you’d be hard pressed to actually find any images of women with hairy legs/underarms? Women aren’t encouraged to let their hair grow back so that it can be all that noticeable in a photograph. We’re supposed to get the razors out before our hairiness reaches levels akin to that of a man’s hairy chest. What Skin Doctors are selling to women here is a product that will (supposedly) get rid of hair that isn’t all that visible in the first place.

Step six of the Boots Beach Gorgeous plan is dedicated to reaching new “smooth” heights. Again, there is a hint of hilarity. The beach beauty in the making is told to: “wear loose clothing after defuzzing your bikini line. If your skin is rubbed, it can become irritated, which can lead to unsightly in-grown hairs”. But after defuzzing your bikini line, wouldn’t you want to wear a bikini?! If you leave it and wear loose clothing as suggested, by the time it comes to putting your bikini on, won’t there be some- gasp!- re-growth?! I don’t know, I may be missing something here, I’m no expert. I gave up shaving my bikini line a while ago; ingrown hairs are unsightly but they are also sore and irritating. No thank you.

Wrinkles
The last of the triumvirate of ‘problems’ a woman should be concerned with is wrinkles.

Skin Doctors tell us that these aren’t just something caused by ageing. They’re also caused by facial expressions! Seriously, an advertorial in their catalogue has the headline, “Warning: Your expressions are causing you wrinkles!” Further on it reads: “There are wrinkles formed through the repeated formation of facial expressions that gradually form into permanent lines”. I laugh at this, although I don’t think I’m supposed to. Instead, I think I’m supposed to believe the effects moving your face can have on your appearance is A Problem. Of course, Skin Doctors don’t suggest a woman should stop smiling and frowning. They’re not going to make any money by suggesting that. Instead, one must spend £50 on a pot of cream that won’t work.

“What are the essential things I should be doing to avoid wrinkles?” Boots’ Beach Gorgeous Plan chimes in. The answer lies in leading a healthy lifestyle and of course expensive lotions. Apparently: “If you have a party lifestyle, eat badly, sunbathe or use sunbeds a lot, you need to be investing in anti-wrinkle creams from your late 20s. But if you look after your skin, you won’t need them until later on.” Need? You need anti-wrinkle creams? Oh, fuck off.

.....................................................................................

Like I said before, the products, regimes and rhetoric used by Boots and Skin Doctors here left me amused, but also stunned. Women are expected to devote a lot of time, money and energy to living up to a beauty ideal.

The amount of time Boots’ Beach Gorgeous Plan could take up is particularly disconcerting. It has seven steps, but each step has within that a further five steps to follow in order to become “beach gorgeous”. Some steps have a specific time allotted to them: “wait 30 minutes after showering before applying self-tan” (can this be the same shower we’re supposed to take after our hot bath to banish cellulite?). Then there is the “20-minute rule” to adhere to- leave 20 minutes after applying moisturiser before putting on make-up.

By the time you’ve read through the Beach Gorgeous Plan, bought the products and actually followed the thing through, you’d find yourself in the middle of winter.

What also bothers me is how serious following this plan, or getting rid of body hair or buying the right make-up is made out to be by Boots and Skin Doctors. A woman is really supposed to be bothered that frowning will lead to wrinkles, that she has cellulite. Boots Beach Gorgeous Plan asks: “Why is it so important to exfoliate?”, ‘What make-up do I really need?’ “What are this season’s must-have make-up colours?” and “What are the top five rules for a perfect shave?” Rules, regimes, correct products and procedures to buy and follow, all in the name of looking good.

It all takes on an air of seriousness and importance, but if we take a step back, analyse it for what it is- bullshit rhetoric used to instil insecurity in women so said purveyors of rhetoric can make a profit- it all just seems absurd. It’s absurd that women should take such extreme measures to look good, to spend extreme amounts of money, to waste extreme amounts of time and energy on this.

It’s absurd that this takes on an air of acceptability and that it’s normal for women to become engaged in all this. Will it ever end?

Profit before people...

2007-07-22T10:56:00.000-07:00

...is the motto corporations are based on. No matter who or what may be exploited, hurt or killed in the process, if it makes money for the company it’s all good.

I know this, yet even I was surprised to read of just how loyal Tesco, the-supermarket-giant-that- makes-more-than-the-GDP-of-Egypt, remain to this philosophy.

Last weekend, 14 Tesco stores in the UK were evacuated after receiving bomb threats. Yet, customers were told to leave only after they’d gone to the tills to pay for their groceries (or DVD player, CDs, home insurance or any of the multitude of things Tesco now feel it is their imperative to sell; after all you don’t make more than developing countries just by selling food do you?):

“Martin Jacklin, a shopper who was in a Tesco store in Hucknall, Nottinghamshire, when shoppers were asked to evacuate, said: ‘We were asked to leave. Basically, go to the cashier, pay for your groceries and then leave.’” (Times newspaper article)

“Shoppers were told over the tannoy to take their items to the cashier and leave the store as quickly as possible.” (thisislondon.co.uk article)

The bomb threat may have turned out to be a hoax; the letters containing the threat may have specified a time in which the bombs were due to go off giving people time to evacuate; Tesco may justify getting people to pop their money in the till first because it was a way to lessen the air of panic. But really, if you receive a bomb threat would you take the risk? Surely, if you receive such a threat, people’s safety, not profit, is paramount?

For Tesco, it seems not; ‘so there’s a bomb threat- well, we’re still going to make damn sure we make a profit’.

Even this report from the Times newspaper mentions the millions of pounds the company lost in sales from the closures before the quote from a customer saying they were told to go to the cashiers before leaving the store.

Every little helps (Tesco make more money); including putting paying for your shopping before your personal safety.

Police & govt in ‘doing something about violence against women’ shock- but is it enough?

2007-07-15T10:43:00.000-07:00

What do you make of these news stories that appeared this week?

First was the announcement that the Metropolitan Police is offering a £20,000 reward for information that would bring to justice those involved in female genital mutilation.

Then there was the news that police in England and Wales who are called out to domestic violence incidents will use head cameras to record evidence at the scene which may help to secure a conviction.

Men kill two women every week, making domestic violence the major cause of death amongst women. Female genital mutilation (FGM) is thought to have been committed on 74,000 women in the UK, with a further 7,000 girls under the age of 16 believed to be at risk of this brutal and excruciatingly painful practice (statistics collated from the End Violence Against Women website).

So some news that the police and government are tackling this terrorism against women should be welcomed. After all, isn’t that one of the main tenets of feminism? That the everyday abuse committed on women by men- often men they know, live with and thought loved them- be uncovered, recognised for the systematic and not isolated terror it is and for efforts to be made to eliminate it?

However, on hearing the news stories mentioned above I felt more critical than satisfied about them.

First, the news about tackling FGM. I suppose I take more of an issue with the nature of the news report, than the news itself.

I was struck by the report’s statement that FGM is committed for “cultural reasons”. To label the reasoning behind something as “cultural” can imply that nothing should be done about it, because what place is it of ours to meddle in another’s culture? The fact that FGM is prevalent in developing countries and amongst communities made up of people from those countries who settle in developed nations, makes this labelling of FGM as “cultural” easier. After all, developed and developing nations are often portrayed as polar opposites; the former more advanced, more civilised, more forward-thinking; the latter as backward, more savage. Therefore, saying that FGM is committed for “cultural reasons” fits still dominant assumptions that developing nations, their people and religions are backwards, uncivilised.

Except FGM has nothing to do with a certain culture and everything to do with male control of female sexuality. Which last time I checked, is still also a huge aspect of ‘forward-thinking’ Western culture. After all, Western women are also genitally mutilated- the only difference being it’s done with anaesthetic and in sanitary conditions, and then called ‘cosmetic surgery’. Truth is, the cutting, repositioning and stitching of women’s genitalia is done in both developing and developed nations; therefore to say FGM is symptomatic of a certain 'culture' is false. What FGM is symptomatic of is something that crosses cultural barriers- that is the patriarchal notion that women’s sexuality is something to be controlled; that men are the ones who are entitled to sexual satisfaction and pleasure, not women.

While the quote from Alastair Jeffery in the report corrects this, “It is not an attack on anyone's culture, it is an attack on anyone who commits this horrendous abuse of children," to say that FGM is committed on “children”, obscures the fact that it’s committed on female children. The report also has a number of references to FGM being a form of “circumcision”. It’s nothing of the sort. To equate FGM to male circumcision is to ignore the extent of just how horrific the consequences of FGM can be. Circumcision does not inhibit a man’s ability to urinate, it doesn’t interfere with his reproductive ability, or his capacity for sexual pleasure. By contrast, the very existence of FGM is to make sure women do not experience sexual pleasure. But not only does FGM make sex painful, but menstruation, childbirth and urination are also made more dangerous and discomforting.

The main critique I want to make about the news itself, is that if people are being encouraged to bring to justice those involved in FGM, that potentially means women being found guilty of committing the practice. Perpetuators of FGM are largely female. Older female family members are the ones who carry out FGM on their daughters and other younger female relatives. These women are likely to have been genitally mutilated themselves, also victims of this patriarchal control of female sexuality. It therefore becomes problematic when we consider who is going to be brought to justice for crimes of FGM- will it be the women who undertake the practice, but who have also been genitally mutilated themselves, and merely carrying out a practice they have been told they must perform? That would be the straight-forward solution- woman commits FGM on young girl and should therefore be prosecuted. No matter that this obscures and does not hold accountable the patriarchal forces at work behind these women committing FGM in the first place.

As for the news that police are now able to collect more evidence of domestic violence; anything that could help to secure more convictions and bring male perpetuators to justice is a good thing. However, there is still a feeling that- as with rape- a woman needs to have the ‘right’ sort of evidence before a conviction can be made. With rape, we hear that if a woman does not have any bruising or does not report to the police straight after the incident, it means she is less likely to be believed. Never mind, that just because a rape didn’t result in bruising doesn’t mean a physical violation didn’t take place or that maybe a woman didn’t report to the police straight away because of shock or even scepticism that the police wouldn’t take her seriously anyway.

Similarly, these cameras introduced to capture evidence of domestic violence can capture what is commonly perceived to be manifestations of violence- bruises, bleeding and broken furniture. But what about the verbal threats, the silent stares that say everything? Once he’s out the door, she’s called the police, what of these words and stares can a camera capture? If not much, then does that mean action is less likely, even though tomorrow may see those verbal threats and silent stares turn into physical violence, expect then it’s too late because the murder of the first woman by her male partner this week has now just taken place?

These cameras are a start then, but not enough. This initiative, this attempt to tackle the war of terror against women perpetuated by men, has cost the government £3 million; when you consider the billions they’ve spent on the war on terror-the one that’s started by men and includes men as its victims- it’s a fucking insult.

Annoying!!

2007-06-24T05:09:00.000-07:00

Last night’s edition of the Seven Ages of Rock television series focused on the early-90s American alternative rock scene, turning most of its attention to the yawn-inducing deification of Nirvana.*

Its explanation for where the inspiration for the song title, Smells Like Teen Spirit, came from was one thing that bothered me about this programme. It explained that Kurt Cobain’s girlfriend at the time, Tobi Vail, wore a perfume called Teen Spirit; one day Tobi’s friend, Kathleen Hanna sprayed ‘Kurt Smells Like Teen Spirit’ on a wall of his apartment. Kurt liked this turn of phrase and chose this as the title for his song, even though he was unaware Teen Spirit was a perfume.

Yet, throughout this explanation the programme failed to mention that Tobi Vail and Kathleen Hanna were more than just the lady friends of Kurt and the other guys in Nirvana, but were also in their own band, the brilliant feminist punk rock band Bikini Kill! Aaargh!!

This slight wasn’t surprising; after all the history of rock music is largely anthologised by men and therefore tends to focus on the male players. But it was still annoying, because this programme was intent on sign-posting Kurt as a ‘voice of a generation’- but whose generation? The white, male, 20-something ‘Generation X-ers’? If I were to compare the lyrics of Nirvana’s Nevermind to Bikini Kill’s Pussy Whipped, I know which one speaks more for my reality, and it wouldn’t be Kurt’s record.

*I do like Nirvana, but there were better bands to come out of this ‘scene’. Like Bikini Kill. And the best of all, Soundgarden.

Why is it…

2007-06-20T03:59:00.000-07:00

… that the least macho rock bands, the bands which don’t force a feminist fan to make a compromise between the sexist lyrics but otherwise great riffs, attract the most macho, neanderthal fans? And when I say ‘fans’ here I am referring to the male constituent.

This began to dawn on me while at a Pearl Jam concert the other night. Pearl Jam are one of those non-macho, feminist-friendly rock bands, yet the otherwise amazing time I had that night was marred by my being surrounded by a bunch of meat-head, hyper-masculine drunken idiots. The kind that have no respect for your space, like to beat their chest, wail their fists and think that’s the epitome of the rock ‘n’ roll experience. Strange when you consider how Pearl Jam’s music and lyrical content doesn’t really set the scene for such behaviour- one of the reasons I love the band so, but also the reason why these guys’ behaviour pissed me off and why I’m blogging about it now.

Now I don’t have a problem with people waving their arms, shouting/singing along and dancing their hearts out at rock concerts- hell, I was doing enough of that myself, as was pretty much everyone else in the venue that night, contributing to an amazing fucking atmosphere. But there’s a difference between enjoying yourself and at the same time respecting other people’s space, as opposed to just acting like a drunken arsehole.

The way I see it, the propensity of some male rock fans to act out in this loud, animalistic, macho manner is rooted in male-defined expectations of how one is ‘expected’ to behave at a rock concert (male-defined because men dominate rock music spaces- I was surrounded by men at this concert and wasn’t aware of another woman in my immediate vicinity- and therefore set the standard for ‘rock’ rituals and behaviour). I heard one of the men near me say he hadn’t been to a rock concert before, but from the looks of it he still had an idea of how he was ‘supposed’ to behave at a concert. Hence, the getting drunk, swaying around obtrusively into others’ space, hollering in a hyper-masculine way (this in particular not being in keeping with the band’s performance, this was Pearl Jam, but the way these blokes were going on you’d think it was Slayer or some such…) not to mention spilling your beer over everyone. The expression of this type of masculinity, seems to act as a marker of how good a time one is having. The male-defined standards for behaviour at rock concerts, lead you to believe the louder, more intimidating and obstructive you can get, the better your concert experience will be.

So being surrounded by such purveyors of metal-head masculinity can put a damper on your own rock concert experience, especially when your definition of an amazing time is measured by different criteria. For me, rock music is more than just an excuse to sing and dance a bit crazy, but also my soundtrack and a source of inspiration. If we take Pearl Jam as an example, not only do I enjoy the music itself, but also what those songs are about. Pearl Jam have political songs, that have inspired me and provided a sort of soundtrack and validation for my own emerging political consciousness and activism. They have a few feminist songs. They also have plenty of introspective, loner-esque anthems. What’s for me not to like about this band?! The fact they played a combination of these songs at the show the other night, meant I was having a really good time, albeit not in the way set by the male morons nearby.

One of the highlights of the Pearl Jam concert was frontman Eddie Vedder’s metaphorical denouncement of the Bush/Blair regime which then turned into a hopeful reminder that we can effect change- by taking the “keys back” off our “drunk” leaders who are driving the car we are passengers in. It was a moment that summed up why I like this band: their frontman espouses something eloquent and intelligent, as opposed to rolling out ‘boobie’ jokes and other similar witterings often heard at rock music events. Not only that, it’s in keeping with the spirit of rock music, that is, inspiring protest and rebellion, bucking the mainstream. That’s the epitome of the rock ‘n’ roll experience for me.

And that spirit of rock music, I think, sits very comfortably with feminism, which is of course also about protest and bucking mainstream standards and expectations of femininity etc. In those oft-repeated words of Emma Goldman, “I wouldn’t want a revolution I couldn’t dance to”. Absolutely! Come the revolution, I want rock music to be playing in the background, the kind that leaves the misogyny behind and instead hails a real alternative, a real- not contrived- spirit of rebellion. Pearl Jam can play, and they can do another brilliant cover of Neil Young’s Rockin’ in the Free World as they did the other night.

The “free world” come the revolution being one devoid of macho, violent expressions of masculinity.

Some meanderings on Playboy make-up (not confused)

2007-06-15T10:14:00.000-07:00

Superdrug- the high street beauty/toiletries store and sometimes pharmacy- are selling the Playboy Beauty range, which includes lipsticks, blushers and eyeliners stamped with that bloody bunny head logo.

Porn on the high street- it’s all the rage these days.

But of course, it’s not marketed as porn. It’s a “lifestyle” brand, a fashion choice, on a par with other beauty/designer labels. Maybelline or Playboy? Whichever, it’s all the same.

<Superdrug wants the range to attract “young, fashion-conscious women” into their stores. And then turn them into bunny girls.

From their press release:
“Playboy will debut with true glamour girl style… offering glosses, lipsticks, body powders and, well, everything you need in order to transform yourself into the epitome of Bunny beauty. Everything but the tail. Modern bunny girl has attitude, not a fluffy tail.”

Wow, “modern bunny girl”. ‘Cause equating women to an animal, denoting them as sex objects, isn’t demeaning at all.

But “modern, bunny girl” doesn’t have a tail, she has attitude. Meaning, buy this and you’re empowered, in control of your sexuality.

Yeah, just look at how ‘empowering’ and full of ‘attitude’ the names of some of the Playboy Beauty products are:

- Who’s The Fairest of Them All? (shimmer kit)
- Pick-Up (eyeliner)
- Hef’s Favourite (lipgloss)
- Stay the Night (brush kit)
- Perfect Pair (eyeliner/gel)
- Tie Me to the Bedpost (blush)
- Pink Pussycat (blush)

My favourite product though is Hidden Agenda concealer.

‘Cause this whole thing- selling Playboy as some innocent fashion brand, an innocuous label in which the bunny logo is just that- a bunny logo connoting nothing more- is part of a hidden agenda.

This agenda conceals the fact that marketing this stuff to women is an exercise in getting them to align themselves with a brand that treats them as sex objects. It encourages them to see themselves in relation to men, to view themselves as sex objects for men. She may be a bunny with “attitude”, but only in relation to him, for looking good for him.

It also conceals the fact that profits from the sale of these products makes its way back to the pornography industry. That’s the big thing being concealed here: that Playboy is a pornography brand, part of the pornography industry, an industry that doesn’t want its women with attitude or empowered at all, but as accessible, available, sex objects. Tie Me to the Bedpost, anyone?

These Playboy Beauty stands need to be given some ‘adhesive attention.’ Just sticking ‘Playboy = Porn’ on them may make some women think twice before handing their cash over to their oppressor.

Some (confused) meanderings on make-up

2007-06-10T09:59:00.000-07:00

Anyone see Big Brother the other night when Tracey (one of about four female housemates selected despite their non-adherence to stereotypical feminine wiles; still in the minority but an improvement I think on previous series when I don’t think any woman entering the house didn’t have breast implants or at least wanted them) was given a ‘makeover’? Tracey doesn’t wear make-up, but her housemates persuaded her to let them cover her face in blusher, mascara and lipstick. On transformation, her female housemates gushed over how “beautiful” and “amazing” she looked, (not that she doesn’t without make-up, it was hastily added). Meanwhile, Tracey looked distinctly uncomfortable and disliked her maked-up face; it wasn’t “her” she said.

Watching scenes like this makes me uncomfortable, because I recognise those sorts of situations, the kind when the person who doesn’t conform to the standard set by the majority is singled out and attempts are made to assimilate you. The assimilation, the bestowal of praise and compliments once it has been achieved, are meant to make you feel great and accepted, but all it really makes you feel is empty and uncomfortable, with the knowledge you’ve just sold yourself out.

Thank fuck for feminism, then. You can either go on feeling like the freak, insecure because you just can’t be like them, even though you are told you are supposed to be like them. Or you can say ‘fuck it’ and just be who you are, because that’s what makes you happy. And feminism kind of helps you foster that attitude.

This was one of my main entry points into feminism. Always being the ‘Tracey’ among girls at school, feminism made me realise that my inability to conform to and plain dislike of beauty rituals and the attendant social machinery (the likes of ‘Oh, you look sooo pretty’ etc) wasn’t due to my being an anomaly of female nature. What feminism made me realise was that the emphasis girls and women place on their appearance, their adherence to beauty standards and rituals isn’t something intrinsically linked to the XX chromosome, but something women are encouraged to do, because it fills women’s minds with something else, diverting their time and energy from ‘important’ matters men should be dealing with alone; because it makes women attractive to men (and what could be more important?); because it makes profit for the beauty corporations; because it keeps women insecure and inferior (‘you are nothing without this product, you need to buy this!).

This feminist view is a marginal one though; the dominant ideology is one in which women are supposed to like making an effort with their appearance, are supposed to want to wear make-up. Whole industries and media rest on the existence of this very ideology. For while Tracey was never denigrated or ostracised (although she felt ostracised from the other women) for not wearing make-up, the hoo-hah and affirmation she received when she did, shows just how much value is placed on women who do make an effort with their appearance: ‘It’s okay if you don’t wear make-up, but you look really beautiful when you do.’

So under this current dominant ideology of women and make-up, where the expectation that women should wear make-up is so strong, can women make a truly free choice to wear make-up for themselves? Can their decision to wear make-up be made completely separate from any desire to be attractive for the male gaze or from any ‘need’ to cover up an insecurity? Under the current dominant ideology, can women make a claim to use make-up creatively for their own pleasure and means of self-expression? Or does the dominant ideology, with its origins in patriarchy, mean women who wear make-up are automatically agents of the patriarchy, subscribing to constricting beauty standards and rituals, brainwashed into wearing make-up when what they really need to realise is they look fine as they are?

This is where the confusion sets in for me. I want the expectation that women should wear make-up, that they are better and more beautiful when they do, to end. I want women who choose not to wear make-up to become more visible, respected and accepted. But I don’t think those women who do wear make-up should necessarily stop doing so. I don’t think there is anything wrong with make-up per se.

Two feminist theories on the relationship between women and beauty guide my thinking- or should I say confusion- on this. First there is Naomi Wolf’s, as explicated in her The Beauty Myth opus, which strongly maintains that women’s decision to wear make-up is fine, as long as they have the choice and are not forced into doing so:

“The beauty myth posited to women a false choice: Which will I be, sexual or serious? We must reject that false and forced dilemma… In a world in which women have real choices, the choices we make about our appearance will be taken at last for what they really are: no big deal… Women will be free of the beauty myth when we can choose to use our faces and clothes and bodies as simply one form of self-expression out of a full range of others.”

I follow this argument and agree- a woman’s decision to adorn herself or not should be respected, and free from rigid expectations. If women want to wear make-up fine; if they don’t, that’s fine too.

The other analysis is that of Sheila Jeffreys, in her book, Beauty and Misogyny. She takes issue with this ‘choice’ stance:

“Wolf’s analysis does not suggest that there is a problem with the fact that women, and not men, have to do beauty practices at all, only that they are not free to do so.”

Sheila posits this stance as a “failure” to “ask the fundamental questions of why beauty practices are connected to women and why any woman would want to continue with them after the revolution…”

I also agree with this view. We can work towards creating a space where women can make a free choice to wear make-up or not, but we are still working on the premise that women are the only ones who wear make-up. They are the only sex having to make this choice, therefore things are still unequal. While women are sat around deciding whether to wear make-up or not, even when the expectation that they should has been removed, they are still concerned and engaged with something that men aren’t. This isn’t really freedom for women.

But this is also where it gets difficult, because to then follow Sheila’s logic through- “after the revolution”- would be a time when no woman would wear make-up because she wouldn’t feel she had to and would come to terms with herself as she is. All women would be make-up less and free.

But this non-make-up revolutionary vision troubles me a little.

To answer one of my earlier questions “can women make a truly free choice to wear make-up?” I think I think they can. While I take issue with patriarchal capitalist beauty standards, the beauty myths as propagated by the mainstream media and beauty corporations which coerce women to fit certain moulds and conform to practices which can leave them insecure and unhappy, I also think there are women out there who wear make-up because they want to, because they like it, and not necessarily because they feel they should. So when the make-up free “revolution” comes, what should happen to those women who do wear make-up out of free choice? Are they supposed to stop wearing it because only then they can be ‘free’, despite their choosing to wear make-up for themselves?

But- confusion!!- we still have the problem highlighted by Sheila Jeffreys, that women are still the only ones here doing the make-up thing. So if I advocate women wearing make-up for themselves, and believe there is nothing wrong with make-up per se, then perhaps it should follow that men would be free to use make-up too for similar reasons that women would? That being for individual self-expression, not to conform to homogenous beauty standards.

If we take shaving as a parallel example, men have the freedom to choose whether to shave or not. They can choose to keep their facial hair or not, shave their underarms or not, wax their chests or not. Either way, nobody bats an eyelid and their identity as ‘male’ is secure. This is the kind of freedom we need to reach when it comes to women and shaving, but also women and make-up. And men and make-up. Where people- women and men- can make choices to suit themselves, out of personal preference, not from the pressure that comes from expecting to fit socially-enforced rigid gender roles.

I realise I may have failed to make sense here, and possibly even contradicted myself, but I did say I was confused on this one…

Take action to protect abortion rights

2007-05-26T10:42:00.000-07:00

Here we go again. Conservative MP Anne Winterton is to read a Ten Minute Rule Bill on 5th June in the House of Commons calling for women seeking abortions to receive mandatory counselling. Problem no 1: this makes women seem like they are unable to make their own decisions about terminating their pregnancy and controlling their own lives. Problem no 2: mandatory counselling delays her access to an abortion.

Write to your MP asking them to vote against this. Full text of the bill here.

Pregnant women not allowed one drop of alcohol despite not one drop of new evidence to say drinking moderately during pregnancy causes major harm

2007-05-26T10:40:00.000-07:00

Check this out:

Zero- the new alcohol limit in pregnancy

Government health authorities are now recommending that pregnant women and women who are trying for a baby should not drink any alcohol whatsoever.

This confuses me, because this stance has been adopted despite the fact that there is no “new medical evidence” to back it up.

What's that I hear? Patriarchy, control, women?

I’m fed up of this shit

2007-05-19T10:12:00.000-07:00

Actually, shit’s not the right word. It’s not shit, it’s injustice. I’m fed up of this injustice:

Gang-raped girl was glad of the attention

I’m not going to go into what is so unbelievably wrong and unjust with this, eilidh70 and Liz have already done that. I wasn’t even going to post about this; I was writing something else, but a frustrating bout of writer’s block set in, and there’s nothing like ANOTHER CASE OF A WOMAN BEING HELD TO ACCOUNT FOR THE SEXUAL ASSAULT SHE HAS SUFFERED, WHILE THE MOTIVES AND ACCOUNTABILITY OF THE MALE PERPETUATORS ARE NOWHERE TO BE SEEN, to get the words flowing again.

Yet, words written to express the frustration and depression you feel on reading about cases like this can seem fairly inept when it just seems to keep happening time and time again (although more to the point how is this young woman feeling about what this (female- fuck!) barrister said about her- to have been raped is horrific enough, but then to be told you might have been glad of the attention?!?!).

I truly believe in the motivating and inspirational power of words, and that writing (whether it’s what you write yourself, or read of others’) can give you a kick up the arse to do something.

But I’m fed up of writing and reading about this rape crisis, which isn’t even overtly called a rape crisis, and nothing being done about in turn. We’ve got the words, but isn’t it also time for some action to tackle this injustice?

Carnival of Radical Feminists

2007-05-19T10:05:00.000-07:00

This is just a shout out for you to go over to Women’s Space/The Margins for the first Carnival of Radical Feminists.

Go here too to read their amazing definition of radical feminism. Eloquent, comprehensive and just so damn right…

Knocking down the wall between “man topics” and women’s voices

2007-05-06T09:58:00.000-07:00

An interesting article by Alice Miles in The Times this week, Where are all the women in public debate? (an e.g. of Murdoch letting the odd pro-woman piece slip through), in which she ponders the lack of women making the news and adding their voices to ‘hard’ political debate, leaving political discourse and decision-making the domain of men. She brilliantly sums up the problem as thus:

“It is likely that after the next election, there will be fewer women MPs than we have now… a swing to the Tories always tilts power back towards the male member. This matters, as it is because of the macho, confrontational maleness of our political system that so much time is wasted and so little gets done.”

Damn straight, sister.

So why aren’t there more women piping up to express their opinions on the so-called ‘real’ issues of the day e.g. the privatisation of the NHS, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, climate change and the fact that even if he does change his fair share of nappies, that does not make David Cameron ‘pro-woman’?

Alice says it has something to do with the ridicule a woman fears she will face if she should express an opinion on a “ ‘man’s’ topic”:

“… to be a woman and to proffer an opinion on a “man’s” topic- for which read any hard issue from al-Qaeda to the transferable tax allowance- is to invite derision, ridicule and patronising commentary; and this from men who often have… nothing but prejudice to argue with.”

I think there’s something in this, for sure. I know when I have spoken on ‘hard’ political issues with men, including with my father, I am aware of my ‘femaleness’, and the potential- sometimes recognised- for me to be rebuffed and/or patronised. Then of course if you dare express feminist politics, you’re even more likely to face ridicule and hostility from men who can’t bear to have their male privilege questioned. Being female and political, not even political perhaps, but just having an opinion on something not designated ‘female’ can lead to a woman being put back in ‘her’ place in conversation with a man.

At the root of all this though- the fact that society designates some topics “man’s topics” and therefore dismisses and disables women’s contribution to such topics- is society’s expectations of how people should behave and what they should be interested in based on their gender.

Traditional, patriarchal notions of gender deem men to be the rational thinkers, the sex with enough common sense and the mental capacity to be aware of, analyse and proffer opinions on the ‘real issues’ of the day. And these are ‘real issues’ because they are perceived to be of interest and of concern to men, not women e.g. war, climate change, party politics in general. Because these issues largely feature men as the main players, are controlled and represented by men, and because in the patriarchy men are socially superior, these issues are deemed as the important and real issues to be debated.

This leaves women, marked out as the social inferiors of men, ostracised from these debates. Again patriarchal constructs of gender say women aren’t interested in and aren’t capable of engaging with politics. Instead, they are socialised into placing importance on so-called ‘soft’ topics (‘soft’ because they concern women) such as childcare, the work/life balance, relationships, so they’ll have something to occupy themselves with and won’t get in the way of the men dealing with the ‘real’ issues.

Alice Miles highlights this ghettoising of women into discussing ‘women’s issues’:

“Looking up something on the Times Alphamummy website the other week, I was astonished to find a whole colony of intelligent, working women giving up their time to discuss nannies, flexible working or the merits of Caesareans.”

Despite the bullshit spouted in the mainstream, that we are living in post-feminist times, it would seem that it is still the case that men are dealing with the ‘real’ issues while women are tucked away in the corner (or on the internet, not in the ‘real world’) discussing what they ‘should’ be discussing i.e. that which doesn’t concern men.

What we need here is a complete breakdown of the division between ‘hard’ (male) issues and ‘soft’ (female) issues, such as they are based on rigid, arbitrary, patriarchally-defined notions of gender.

Undoubtedly, the issues of childcare and flexible working are important for women to discuss. But they are also important enough for men to recognise what women are saying on these matters and to take them seriously. In an ideal world, childcare and flexi working wouldn’t be ‘soft’ women’s issues, but an issue of importance to both sexes, with men and women both taking the responsibility to raise children.

In turn, we must stop labelling topics such as the call for troops to exit Iraq, reducing our carbon footprint, the privatisation of the NHS and the massive profits and takeover of corporate giants like Tesco as ‘hard’ issues that do not concern/interest women, therefore justifying their absence from these debates. On the contrary, these issues do affect women. After all, who makes up the bulk of the workforce whose jobs are being cut in the NHS? Who are the majority of front-line staff for corporations not seeing an incremental rise in their pay packet in line with their company’s rising profits? Who’s being marketed to, who do they depend on to purchase ecologically unfriendly products? Who are included in the numbers of innocents killed by war? Women.

As a feminist blogger, I talk about issues pertinent to women and which I feel should be more widely taken up and debated more seriously in mainstream politics and media e.g. violence against women, abortion, the harmful commercial exploitation of women’s bodies. However, I know I don’t address issues like global warming, war, corporate greed and party politics and how they affect women. I think I should start. These issues aren’t “man’s topics”, that’s how society has framed them, but there is nothing intrinsic about them that makes them inapplicable to or of no interest to women. These things do affect women, whether directly because of their sex, or simply because just like men, women are citizens of the planet affected by these things. Which should mean we are entitled to engage in debate on these matters without fear of ridicule or derision, and to bring our woman’s perspective to the table.

Alice Miles again:
“If women could find a way to harness their power, then we ought to be able to make a real difference to the public sphere.”

So how do you get more women in society to do this? While I feel there is an emerging feminist rebellion, and a healthy number of women do vote I still recognise that on an everyday level women are still reluctant to declare themselves feminist, or indeed overtly take an interest in politics per se. Where are the female political figures we can believe in and vote for? I couldn’t vote for a single female candidate in my local elections this week, the white, male Conservatives had it sealed (again). I’ve just been asked to vote to elect a young member’s representative to my trade union’s national executive. Both candidates were men. I’m not saying I would vote for a woman just because she is a woman, but it would be nice to have the choice, to perhaps see an alternative to the male way of doing things.

The media have a lot to answer for (as I always think they do). Where do we learn about the issues affecting the world, who provides us with a window on the world of politics, who educates and informs us to who we can vote for, who is representing us, and what that all might mean? The media. (As a media studies graduate, this is why I get annoyed when I hear media studies as an academic discipline derided as unimportant and trivial. Our ideas and the information we get regarding our political system, that regulates and governs our lives, is primarily communicated to us via the media. I wouldn’t say that was trivial, I think in such a mediated world it’s fundamental we understand how the media can influence politics and vice versa.)

So if we get most of our political ideas and information from the media, and women aren’t interested or are not actively engaging in political discussion, could this have something to with how the media present politics to women?

Pretty much all the media aimed at women- daytime news and television, magazines, the women’s pages of newspapers- don’t really address ‘hard politics’. The lunchtime news often has a very different tone and agenda to the evening news, tied into the assumption that women at home during the day want different kinds of news to be prioritised to that on the evening news which has in mind the male of the species who has just come home from work. The housewife who sits down for the lunchtime news but is too busy making the dinner to watch the evening news is going to get less exposure to and analysis of ‘hard’ political issues, than her husband who can come home and relax in front of the evening news which has put the news item about breast feeding being better than bottle feeding- which was the main item on the lunchtime news- way down the agenda.

Of course, the majority of women also go out to work so just like their male partners they miss the lunchtime news and get their news in the evening (that’s if they are not busy making dinner for him, that is). But despite this women are still not engaging in public debate. Newspapers- even the quality dailies- still ghettoise women’s interests in ‘women’s’ pages. While this can be a positive, in that it provides space for issues important to women to be aired which would otherwise be ignored, it still sends the message that this is what women are about, separating them off from the ‘real’ news pages in the main paper. Then if we look at women’s magazines- these send strong message as to what women should be concerned with; that is her appearance, how she raises her children, what she spends her money on, keeping her man happy. Together with societal expectations already mentioned regarding what women as a sex should be interested in, is it any surprise that on the train, I see it is the men reading a quality daily newspaper while a woman passes the time with a celeb weekly? Taken together- the socialisation of people into their ‘proper’ gender roles and the media sold to them as part of this- it could provide some explanation as to why it is we don’t see women contributing to wider political debate.

I’ve gone on a bit and I’m aware that at this point I should be concluding with some sort of solution or a way forward. So what can we do? Stop producing patronising media for women? Stop saying these are men’s issues, these are women’s issues? Start socialising our children differently? As always, the abolition of the patriarchy and its attendant constructions of gender seems to be the solution. Shame that’s also the hardest thing to do.

Some good news...

2007-05-05T10:10:00.000-07:00

… albeit that comes with conditions and which had to be fought for.

Irish girl wins right to abortion

What’s ‘pro-life’ about making a girl endure a pregnancy and birth which would lead to the trauma of losing her baby just days later? It becomes obvious that the ‘pro-life’ ethos only applies to the unborn; not to the girls and women whose lives may be devastated, damaged or disrupted by having a child.

Fortunately, in this case the ‘pro-lifers’ were forced to back down. Unfortunately, it’s likely similar cases will continue to appear, in which authorities declare control over women’s bodies to the detriment of those women’s lives.

And what about similar women who do not have the energy or support to fight for their right to an abortion? What happens to them? Do they have their baby and deal with any trauma, difficulties and constraints it may bring? Or do they seek solace in some back alley?

Pro-choice, always.

Fantastic feminist stuff to brighten your day

2007-04-28T11:00:00.000-07:00

I’m always conscious that I do a lot of moaning/critiquing on this blog, and while that isn’t going to stop any day soon, I also think it’s important to highlight the good stuff.

So…

… if you haven’t already, go over to Charliegrrl’s blog, where she has posted about East Midlands Feminists’ protest outside WHSmith in Leicester calling for them to stop selling lad mags. It was great to be involved in this protest. Big thanks and well done to sisters: Jen and Rachel (EM FEMS), Charlie and Rebecca (Northwest Feminists) and Katie (Brand New Feminist), and also Jen’s son and friend and Ian and son, for making it such a success.

… and issue no. 3 of Subtext magazine is now available! I can’t quite believe an independent feminist magazine with no advertising has managed to reach its third issue- it’s brilliant that it has! So go and get your copy; you can get a lovely badge to proclaim your Subtext love now too.

Meme

2007-04-28T10:50:00.000-07:00

I’ve been tagged by Lizzie, Fate is Chance, Destiny is Choice. So here it is…

A - Available or Single? Single and unavailable
B - Best Friend Myself
C - Cake or Pie Cake, with chocolate chips and/or lots of icing preferably
D - Drink of Choice Glass of wine for night time, tap water good enough during the day
E - Essential Item Something to read for the otherwise mind numbing train journey to/from work
F - Favorite Color Black. Or maybe green.
G - Gummi Bears or Worms Gummie Bears.
H - Hometown Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire. And before anyone says it, yes ‘home of the pork pie’. Except it isn’t. They’re made in Leicester.
I - Indulgence Chocolate. Music. Sleeping in late.
J - January or February February. January always drags and everyone’s depressed.
K - Kids Can’t imagine myself having them. But I’m up for being the cool, feminist aunt with the great CD collection and who can help with homework.
L - Life is incomplete without… Music. Books. And at least trying to educate yourself and making some difference in the world. Acknowledging that there’s more to life than that which just directly affects you.
M - Marriage Date 00/00/0000
N - Number of Siblings? Two younger sisters. One who isn’t a feminist (feminists are ‘losers’ according to her, as you can imagine, the feeling of sisterhood is real strong there…) The other is a feminist-in-the-making.
O - Oranges or Apples? Apples.
P - Phobias/Fears Abibliophobia- the fear of having nothing to read. I saw this at the end of an e-mail recently and thought, ‘yep that’s me’. Also, I’m somewhat socially anxious.
Q - Favorite Quote There’s a few, but this one particularly resonates with me:
“I know quite well… that most people would think you right and that views of that kind are to be found in books; but I can no longer content myself with what most people say or with what is found in books. I must think over things for myself and get to understand them.” Nora in Henrik Ibsen’s, A Doll’s House.
It’s feminist, it’s a declaration of independence, it’s a casting aside of the bullshit mainstream/majority. It’s one big fuck you.
R - Reasons to smile The prospect of seeing Chris Cornell, Muse and Pearl Jam in concert this summer. Non-misogynist man rock is always good with me.
S - Season Winter.
T - Tag Three You. You. And you. Seriously, I want to tag Brand New Feminist because I’m aware she tagged me for the Thinking Blogger award, and I didn’t do it- it was too confusing! So Grace, you can ignore this tag in return if you wish!
U - Unknown Fact About Me I won a Regional Young Journalist of the Year competition when I was 14.
V – Vegetarian or Oppressor of Animals Oppressor of Animals.
W - Worst Habit I over-think things.
X – X-rays or Ultrasounds X-rays.
Y - Your Favorite Foods Crunchy Nut Cornflakes. Lasagne. Chunky squares of Cadbury’s Crunchie chocolate.
Z - Zodiac Gemini.

It seems ages…

2007-04-22T09:42:00.000-07:00

… since I last posted here. Illness, general shittiness/busyness at work, and taking some action against WHSmith and lad mags (more on that soon…) has left me with little time to write recently.

But after reading and hearing reports about the gun massacre at Virginia Tech University this week in which student Cho Seung-hui killed 32 people, I’ve been prompted to post again.

In the main, I want to discuss the media’s profiling of Cho as a ‘loner’ and how by defining him as such it provides an explanation as to why he would commit such an horrific crime.

Now this is a feminist blog, and my writing on this topic may not really have anything to do with feminism. However as my blog persona is ‘LonerGrrrl’ I thought it would be appropriate to discuss the word ‘loner’ and what it means to me.

The word ‘loner’ has negative connotations in the popular imagination; largely fuelled by a media that often rushes to label mass murderers and other perpetuators of evil crimes as ‘loners’. It’s often the first characteristic trotted out to describe someone who commits horrific crimes. It’s as if the easiest way to create an image of utter depravity and just downright wierdness in someone is to label them a loner, someone who ‘liked their own company’, ‘didn’t socialise much’ or ‘kept himself to himself’ (and it’s always usually a him). By labelling someone a ‘loner’ it marks them as different, weird and so easier for the populace to get their head ‘round the fact that this person could me motivated to murder.

But I take issue with this. Firstly, because being a ‘loner’ means something positive to me. And secondly, because I don’t think those labeled ‘loners’ i.e. Cho Seung-hui were in actual fact, loners.

For me, being a loner is a positive state of being. For me, being a a loner is about being content and secure in your own company. It’s about being happy to be left alone. It’s about embracing your independence and knowing your own mind. I love being alone. I like doing things, going places by myself. I cherish my independence. Going to a gig, cinema, shopping or eating out or travelling alone doesn’t bother me. In most cases, I actually prefer doing these things by myself. This lonerism is a big part of who I am, hence including the word ‘loner’ in my blog title.

It most certainly doesn’t mean I’m about to go on a killing rampage.

Which brings me to my next point. I believe ‘loners’ in the true sense of the word like being alone, even the Oxford Dictionary defines a loner as, “a person who prefers to be alone”. So when we look at how so-called ‘loners’ like Cho Seung-hui are described in the media, the description doesn’t seem to fit with the label.

The media label the likes of Cho as loners, but then go on to say that said person felt “rejected” by a certain someone or were “jealous” and “envious” of a person or group of people and were “angry” at not being able to “fit in”. In the case of Cho it has been reported that he said he was “lonely” and didn’t have many friends.

These feelings of rejection and being an outsider could have fuelled his hatred and mental instability, and therefore led him to kill.

But they don’t make him a loner. Because loners like being alone. Cho and other ‘loner’ mass murderers, didn’t.

In the words of Anneli Rufus, author of one of my favourite books, “Party of One: The Loners’ Manifesto”, those who kill and then labeled ‘loners’ are anything but because:

“They do not wish to be alone. Their dislike of being alone is what drives them to violence.”

‘Loners’ as defined by the media are those that are upset at being outcasts, who can’t stand being alone. But in reality, these people weren’t loners because their sense of identity and emotional well-being were dependent on other people. They were unhappy at being cast out, they hated rejection and wanted to be liked and to fit in with others. It’s the rejection and isolation that bothered these mass murderers labeled as loners. It’s this rejection and isolation that motivated them to kill, because they hated those feelings of rejection and isolation. They wanted people to notice them, to pay attention to them, to know they were feeling lonely. That’s why they go on killing rampages and make videos so those that rejected them can ‘pay’ and know the hurt they caused them.

By contrast, loners do want to be left alone. While not being immune to criticism from others or to feelings of rejection and envy, loners do not place an overwhelming onus on these. I’m a loner who doesn’t fit in and I don’t care. I like being alone. My sense of identity and well-being doesn’t wholly depend on others’ acceptance or approval of me.

It’s because of this that loners lack the motive to kill. Because we’re happy as we are.

Instead of calling them ‘loners’, it would be more accurate for the media to describe these people as ‘outcasts’. As ‘lonely’ not ‘loners’. ‘Loners’ are often alone, but not ‘lonely’.

So, just like it bothers me when I see feminists stereotyped and denigrated, so it irks me when I see the word ‘loner’ being applied in a demeaning way, as a way of explaining away mass murder.

Just like ‘feminist’, I want to see the word ‘loner’ being embraced in a more positive context. And that’s why I chose the name ‘LonerGrrrl’ because I see it as a positive declaration of who I am and as a way of counteracting those negative meanings the media like to load the term with.

Pledge your support for the Pro-Choice campaign

2007-04-01T10:34:00.000-07:00

A fantastic new website has just been launched by Abortion Rights, The Pro Choice Majority. Women who have had abortions can share their experiences and individuals and groups can declare their support for a woman’s right to choose.

I think it’s really important that such a website exists here in the UK. The voices of the pro-choice majority should be heard, particularly as they are in danger at the moment of being drowned out by the anti-choice lobby who are not giving up on their quest to cut the time limit on abortion as the first step in stripping away women’s reproductive freedoms completely.

The Conservative MP Nadine Dorries is one such anti-choicer. She has just read two bills in Parliament, calling for the time limit to be cut and for a ‘cooling off’ period to be introduced which would delay a woman’s access to an abortion. Scarily, I also read on her blog that an anti-choice campaign is in the works (not that she phrased it as anti-choice but that’s what it fundamentally is).

Given this, Abortion Rights’ decision to launch the Pro Choice Majority website is an excellent one and I hope it gets the publicity and attention it deserves.

Women, I think we’re onto something…

2007-03-31T09:53:00.000-07:00

… if we all decide, right now, to let our natural woman body hair grow, it will repulse men so much they’ll spend most of their time chucking up in the toilet, giving us the chance to jump in and start dismantling the patriarchy.

This vision came to me after watching “Fuck Off! I’m a Hairy Woman” on BBC3 this week. If you didn’t already know, the programme was about comedienne Shazia Mirza’s mission to grow out her body hair and to get herself- and others- to accept it. No easy feat in a society which would much rather have its women looking like pre-pubescent porno stars than the hairy lovelies we could all potentially be.

So, back to the vision of vomiting men. What this programme made clear, was that the majority of men have a problem with female body hair. Not just a problem, but a disgust for female body hair, so much so it makes them feel sick, and an incomprehension for why any woman would want to grow out her body hair.

This had me raging.

Not just at their extreme distaste for natural woman hair, but the way in which they expressed that distaste, as if they have the right to denounce and disparage women who choose to let their hair be.

For example:
- One bloke Shazia confronted while wearing a hairy gorilla costume (as a means to open a dialogue with strangers about hairy women) assertively stated that a woman with body hair “offends” him and it is not “right” for women to “force” their hairiness on him.
- The men who took part in the phone-in on a radio show Shazia appeared on, all declared, as if it was their male prerogative, that women’s body hair is disgusting. (The radio DJ, poor love, was really struggling with the concept of hairy women, screwing his face up and wriggling in horror at the thought. Then he asked, “But does it not stop growing?” I don’t think he’d considered how equally ridiculous this would sound if asked in relation to man hair.)
- The men at Loaded magazine (yes, Shazia confronted the misogynists at Loaded with her lady leg hair, nice one Shazia!) unsurprisingly don’t find hairiness “sexy” and seemed almost perplexed that a woman would choose not to shave. Then Shazia plugged in an electric razor and attempted to shave their legs. They were having none of it. Personally, I think there was a better part of the body to have used that razor on, but…
- Shazia arranged for a group of women to put on fake hair and go speed-dating with a bunch of rugby players. None of the players were particularly enamoured with the women’s ‘taches and hairy pits. One man said that a man and a woman both with facial hair would make kissing feel unpleasant. Of course, it never occurred to him that maybe he could be the one to shave his face? After all, bearded or shaven, his manliness would not be doubted, he wins either way.

So on hearing all this, I’m thinking,

What right do men have to stand there and speak of women like shit for having hair?

I’m thinking,

There is something seriously fucked up and unjust about men having the prerogative to criticise a woman’s hairiness, having the so-called ‘right’ to make judgements on a woman’s appearance, all feeding the lie that a woman is nothing if she is not attractive to men.

I’m thinking,

Do they seriously expect us to believe that just because his ‘prerogative’ to perv on a woman has been interrupted because by not shaving she is not conforming to his expectations of her, she must go crying to the bathroom cabinet for a razor so she can sort herself out and get all smooth and shiny for him, so everything will be alright again, that her position as inferior sex object can be maintained?

I’m thinking,

It is wrong for women to have their worth determined by what men think of them.

There are also a few other things I want to say about this programme.

I enjoyed the general gist of the programme, and Shazia’s empowering enthusiasm for her body hair. Where it fell down I thought, was with the “hairy woman” fashion show which took place at the end. Shazia got together a bunch of hairy women to walk down the catwalk wearing slinky lingerie made out of human hair. While it was great to see women in all their hairy glory, it still felt a little too much like their hairiness was being placated somewhat by the items they were wearing and the poses they were striking. There was a general feeling of, “We may be hairy, but we’ll still push our tits and arse out for the lads… we may be hairy, but we still subscribe to ‘femininity’...”. Women should be able to flaunt their body hair, we need to see that, but this programme did it in a way that still positioned these women in the role of sex objects.

Then at another point in the programme, they used a song in the background with lyrics to the effect of “She’s a woman, but she’s like a man”, implying that women who do grow their body hair are like men. Now, this notion does of course fit stereotypical gender constructs in that men are the hairy brutes and women the smooth dollies.

But doing away with bullshit gender constructs, a woman who does have body hair is not like a man, but really, truly, very much a woman. Women start sprouting body hair when they reach puberty, when they start developing into a woman. Body hair on a woman is a sign of womanliness, not necessarily a sign that she wants to be ‘like a man’.

Perhaps the most disturbing thing about the programme was seeing an 11-year-old girl going for her first professional leg wax. The poor kid was obviously in pain, while Ms Professional Waxer went at her legs and stated that more and more girls are getting their legs waxed at an earlier age than ever before. If girls are waxing at 11 these days- and not just messily in their bathrooms at home, but professionally, for fuck’s sake, with no-one saying ‘hey, wait a minute’- does the age at which they want breast implants et al also get younger? This girl was pleased with her new “smooth” legs and no doubt felt like she’d passed into womanhood, but I doubt she’d welcome her first period with a similar smile. Truth is, Western society celebrates the disappearance of womanhood more than its emergence, meaning a young girl is more likely to feel womanly when she is getting rid of her body hair and cellulite than she does when she is menstruating.

I’ll end by saying that the final scene of the programme, which was of all those hairy women on the catwalk stage raising two fingers to the camera and shouting, “Fuck off, I’m a hairy woman!” was beautiful.

And I’ll sign off with this poem by Janet Russo, as I think it’s rather fitting, and can act as another “fuck you” to the misogynists who think they have a right to proclaim a woman should just exist by their standards. Just swap the word “bald” at the end for “hairy”…

I shall not allure you
with dangling adornments
Nor entice you
with painted face
Nor dazzle you
with natty garments
I shall not please you
with a veneer belying my thoughts
No, I shall not come to you cloaked in false beauty
only to disillusion you later
I shall come bald.

(Taken from the Sisterhood is Powerful anthology)

Dove, campaigning to create new neuroses in women about their bodies

2007-03-17T11:28:00.000-07:00

Dove, the beauty product brand who are all about celebrating “real beauty” but whose whole premise is to sell products that turn a woman’s gaze inward to ‘faults’ and ‘flaws’ she otherwise wouldn’t notice, and hence actually make women feel crap about themselves in the first place, have just launched a new, “Pro-Age” range of products. They are being marketed at women around the age of the menopause with the shtick that getting older is something to revel in, hence the “pro” not the usual ‘anti-ageing’ tag line.

Now, if you really want women to celebrate getting older and to feel great about their bodies, you wouldn’t be selling them face and body lotion with ‘magic’ (read: bullshit) formulas. You wouldn’t sell it to them, because celebrating and being comfortable about your body means just that, being happy with your body as it is, not after you’ve had to slap on, smooth out and spray certain products on it to get it to behave. No woman deserves to be lied to, to be encouraged to waste her time and money on these products, in order to feel great about a body that is fine as it is.

Yet, Dove has really upped their mark this time. Today I came across one of these products in the Pro-Age range- not a face or body cream- but an anti-perspirant deodorant. Yes, we now have anti-ageing- sorry, “pro”- ageing deodorants! The crap on the bottle reads, “All-day protection with the extra care your underarm skin needs right now.”

Dove, are you really expecting women to get het up about the effect of ageing on their armpits? I mean, I imagine as you get older your skin gets more sensitive, but sensitive versions of deodorant already exist for those whose underarm skin would benefit from that, and I’m sure women know this. So why bother carving out a potential new hang-up a woman is supposed to have about the effects of ageing on her body with this product, along with the ones she’s already ‘supposed’ to have e.g. wrinkles, greying hair, saggy skin (which you also claim to see to with your other products)?

Oh yes, that’s right. Because that’s what evil, lying, self-esteem destroying beauty brands and corporations- like Dove- do, isn’t it?

Why I do what I do

2007-03-11T11:02:00.000-07:00

My youngest sister- 13 yrs old, in her final year of secondary school- came home from school the other day and told me her class had been discussing what they could to for Comic Relief and Red Nose Day. The class decided it would be a good idea to come to school in fancy dress and pay for the privilege.

The kids threw around a few ideas as to what theme the fancy dress should be, and one girl suggested: “Why don’t we dress up as pimps and prostitutes?”

Really.

Now, I know you get porn corporations peddling their brand to young girls these days, and I know the pop stars and other celebrities they are supposed to like and emulate are often adverts for performing faux-femininity porn-star stylee, so a young girl thinking this is a good idea for fancy dress shouldn’t come as a huge surprise, but it did still fucking shock me.

I mean, this young girl had no qualms about declaring to her peer group that they should come to school dressed as pimps and prostitutes. This was just further confirmation and a clearer realisation for me that the sex industry and the sexualisation of young women has become too acceptable. Would this girl look forward to dressing up as a prostitute? Her enthusiasm at suggesting it would suggest yes. This girl and her female and male peers who cheered her suggestion on in class, have got the idea that it’s cool to be a pimp or a prostitute. From the lad mags the boys bring into school, to the bunny logo on the girls’ pencil cases, the ideology of pimping and prostituting, as women as sex objects, as commodities, is right there, all the time for these kids. It’s so normalised, that the kids who don’t agree with it are the ones who get ostracised.

There’s two disturbing things going on here. The first is the actual suggestion of the pimps and prostitute fancy dress and all that represents about relations between men and women. Then there is the fact that the early teen years are- in my personal experience anyway- an horrendous time of feeling the pressure to fit in and conform to what the majority of your peers are doing, especially when what they are doing does not feel right to you. Now when I was my sister’s age, pimps and prostitutes would never have been suggested as a theme for fancy dress. There was pressure to dress up, get drunk and get a boyfriend, but it wasn’t being done in a context where the boys had soft porn in their school bags and the girls sported the bunny logo on their pencil cases.

But today, when you put these together- the normalisation of raunch culture and the pressure to fit in- you have the potential for some fucked up ideas to develop in the minds of our youngsters regarding the roles of men and women, sexuality and body image. At an age when you are developing and coming to terms with your body and what it does in relation to your sex role, being told that boys have that and girls have to put up with this, forming ideas about gender and sexuality, the fact that this is being done in a context where sexual commodification is normalised is disturbing.

But it gets worse.

Once the class voiced their approval at dressing as pimps and prostitutes, the teacher actually wrote the suggestion on the white board, and by doing so, validated the idea. Un-fucking-believable. My sister said she simply wrote “P+P” as she didn’t want to write it out in full- but sorry Ms. Teacher, by writing even that you have legitimised that choice amongst that group of youngsters.

It was never questioned what the implications of dressing up as “P+P” might be- you know, establishing unequal power relations between men and women, condoning women as nothing more than bodies for commercial and sexual exploitation that men get gratification from, making young girls who don’t want to take part in that fancy dress feel uncomfortable. It was never considered what kind of conversations and role-play would potentially be carried out in the playground that day they all dress up.

I came across this statistic the other week- 35% of teenage boys aged between 11-16 thought that abusing women was justified. Shocking, but is it surprising when we see what they are being raised with?! When their messed-up attitudes and ideas towards each other as men and women go unquestioned? I know it’s not solely the responsibility of the teacher to buck these ideas, but teachers do have an important role to play. Corporations and media don’t give a shit ‘cause they make too much money from the sexualisation of young girls, so it’s even more vital for those who teach and raise the next generation that they counter these messages when the opportunity arises, like when a young girl thinks it’s cool to come to school as a prostitute. They at least need to be told that they could be so much more.

I don’t think its been decided yet what fancy dress my sister’s class are going to come to school in, but I am hoping common sense kicks in somewhere amongst the adults teaching these kids. I’d like to think it certainly wouldn’t be allowed to happen, but I just don’t know anymore.

Happy International Women’s Day! xx

2007-03-08T08:31:00.000-08:00

And to celebrate- inspired by Grace’s recent post at her blog, Brand New Feminist where she honours a few of her favourite female musicians- I thought I would list five songs from some of my favourite female artists that should be cranked up to max and which allow you to revel in all that is great about woman. So here they are (in no particular order):

1. One Beat- Sleater-Kinney
2. Rebel Girl- Bikini Kill
3. Jungle Train- Babes in Toyland
4. Dyke March 2001- Le Tigre
5. Big Exit- PJ Harvey

Because whether they call for feminist revolution, celebrate being feminist, are a declaration of independence or just prove that women’s voices and guitar-playing can be just as gutteral and powerful than that of any man-band, these songs prove that there aren’t many better combinations than feminism and rock ‘n’ roll.

More on International Women’s Day

Memo to all female Loughborough University students: strip off, shut up and stay home

2007-02-24T10:12:00.000-08:00

Since October 2006, five female students at Loughborough University have been threatened with and/or subjected to sexual assault. The police believe the same man is responsible for all five attacks. Typically, much advice is being dolled out by the police and the student union warning female students not to go out alone at night.

As mentioned in my previous post, when it comes to women being attacked and abused on the streets, it’s dealt with in a way that places the onus on curtailing the freedoms of the potential victims, rather than dealing with the perpetuators. After all, the spate of shootings in South London that I mentioned last week, have since propelled Tony Blair and David Cameron to tour the country to talk about how gun crime should be tackled with an emphasis on those that shoot and not those who get shot; in addition there is talk about introducing greater punishments for those who commit gun offences. All this has soon made us realise that gun crime is not just made up of a series of isolated incidents, but is intrinsic to a certain culture, with certain factors, causes and circumstances- whether that be poverty, family breakdown, racial tension- contributing to it, and which need to be understood, debated and tackled.

Given that this country is also in the midst of a rape crisis, I wish news stories about sexual violence, like that of the Loughborough attacks, would also place these attacks and abuses in the wider context of this rape crisis, rather than treating them as isolated incidents which can be prevented by keeping women behind closed doors.

It would have been very relevant indeed to see the point being made in the news story about the Loughborough attacks, that Loughborough University is all too keen to promote women as sex objects. Last winter they paid Nuts and FHM magazines to hold their Brat Pack and High Street Honey’s events; images of objectified women were displayed around campus to pull in the punters and female students were encouraged to parade around in their bikinis at the student union. Now I’m not saying there’s a direct link between the recent sex attacks and the lad mag events put on by the student union; but surely there’s something not quite right when institutions are happy to promote women as sex objects, and then have the gall to tell women to be on guard to stop themselves being attacked? One minute, women are being told to strip off for the lads, give ‘em what they want. Then they are being told not to go out alone, because there’s a man on the prowl, and you don’t want to provoke him. The overall message being that women are responsible for men’s urges, not men. And do they not realise that visually objectifying and exploiting women is on the same continuum as physical violation and abuse?

I wish when it came to reporting sexual violence we were placing it in this context, in a context, like we do other crime. I wish politicians were all of a sudden standing up and saying enough is enough as far as sexual violence is concerned; it’s not right that women keep getting raped and killed; it’s not fair that we keep expecting women to live in fear, that we should take away their freedoms while allowing the rapists and abusers to get away with it. I want laws being pushed through to deal with the woman-haters. I want to stop being told that I should not go out alone after dark.

News this week

2007-02-18T09:23:00.000-08:00

1. “ ‘Lifestyle’ abortions banned in Harley St” screamed a front-page of the Metro newspaper this week. After experiencing a slight sinking sensation on seeing this headline, I read on to learn that the Howard de Walden Estate that owns most of Harley Street, wants to stop its doctors offering so-called ‘easy’ abortions. Harley Street clinics will only carry out abortions in cases where, “continuing with the pregnancy involves a greater risk to the physical or mental health of the woman than having a termination,” putting abortions for any other reason on a “blacklist” of procedures, which also includes euthanasia and cloning.

It’s no surprise to learn then, that taking into account Harley Street does not carry out cloning and euthanasia (despite these being unlawful anyway), and now ‘lifestyle’ abortions, that the de Waldens, owners of Harley Street, are Catholic.

Now if you have pro-life convictions, fair enough. But don’t enforce those views by banning what is- theoretically anyway- a woman’s right by law to terminate her pregnancy. All this clearly becomes another case of ‘pro-life’ hypocrisy when we consider that Harley Street is a bastion of cosmetic surgery. By allowing Harley Street doctors to carry out consultations with women for tummy tucks and face-lifts are the de Waldens considering the physical and mental health of women then? It seems to me, that once again ‘pro-lifers’ are enforcing morals and legislation that expose them as anything but pro-life; the de Waldens are all about saving clumps of cells, but have no problem with messing with women’s lives by tearing open their bodies and exploiting their self-esteem via cosmetic surgery.

And on a related note, in Parliament on 23rd March Conservative MP Nadine Dorries is due to give a reading of her bill to cut the time-limit on abortion from 24 to 20 weeks. Abortion Rights have campaigning ideas. There will also be a march for abortion rights on 3rd March in Central London organised by ENS Women. Go here for more details.

2. Of all the news reports I’ve seen and heard regarding the recent spate of shootings of teenage men in South London, I have failed to see any proclamations that young men should be staying indoors after dark to prevent themselves from becoming the next victim. Instead, the Government are right on it, wondering how they are going to tackle this culture of gun-crime- in other words how they are going to do deal with the perpetuators. Now, if young women were being gunned down by male gangs what would the focus be then? On tackling the perpetuators or advising women to stay indoors?

This one’s for you, President Bush

2007-02-11T10:09:00.000-08:00

Short tragic life of an Iraqi baby

For the next time you claim to “promote the value of life” and that “every human life has value”.

For the next time you speak of “liberating” the Iraqi people.

Blogging for choice

2007-01-22T10:49:00.000-08:00

“Why am I pro-choice?”

Because a woman has the capability to make decisions about what her body conceives, bears and brings into the world.

Abortion. It’s a woman’s,
Personal choice, which she is capable of making
Rationally because
Only she is the one who conceives, and is faced with bearing and giving birth to a child.

“Why am I pro-choice?”

Because a woman is the one who knows better than anyone else whether having a baby is best for her. After all this is happening to her, not him and not them, them in suits, in office, with fancy titles and too much power, the majority without wombs, but still intent on taking away her right to choose.

Giving women
Choice saves women’s lives, saves them from
Haemorrhaging to death because of some botched, backstreet
Operation. An operation sought in desperation and fear because they think she is less
Important than a bunch of
Cells. An aborted
Embryo is better off than the neglected child, neglected because mum didn’t have the choice.

The choice to terminate a pregnancy because she wasn’t ready or she’d had enough; the contraception failed; her health was under threat; raped; no money; no daddy; an accident; no maternal instinct.

“Why am I pro-choice?”

Because a woman is the one who knows if she is able or willing to be a mother to a child at a particular point in her life.

If I got pregnant today, at this point in my life, I would have an abortion. I have that right to choose. And I will fight to maintain and extend that choice. To make that choice easier to access.

Despite
Pro-life
Religious and
Right-wing zealots wanting to make it harder for women to access abortion.

They may claim to be pro-life, but they aren’t because by taking away the right to choose they limit women’s lives, provoke fear in women’s lives and cause women to die from the illegal abortions they are then forced to seek.

A woman once said to Gloria Steinem, “Honey, if men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament”. And it would.

But they can’t. That’s why we mustn’t let those born without wombs but intent on passing laws on what women can do with theirs, continue to do so.

34 years since Roe vs Wade
40 years since the Abortion Act gave women 'the right to choose.'

To an extent.

It gave women a questionable right to choose, one that still needs justifying, still needs permission from those not affected.

What women need is the right to choose.

It’s okay to call someone a “c***”, after all it is only sexism

2007-01-20T10:11:00.000-08:00

In newspaper reports covering the Celebrity Big Brother racism furore, there was uproar over the fact that one of the housemates had allegedly called Shilpa a “Paki”. A Channel 4 spokesperson quickly dismissed this, saying said housemate had actually called her a “c***”. And that was how the newspapers printed the word, cunt, with the asterisk. In this debate, labelling someone a “Paki” was construed as undeniably racist (which it is) and worse than being called a cunt, yet it was the latter word the newspapers couldn’t bring themselves to print. Both terms are used in discriminatory and derogatory ways, yet it struck me as kind of perverse that a) the sexist term was deemed not as bad as the racist one, when they should be called out as being as bad as each other; and b) despite this, it was the sexist word they couldn’t print?!

Also, all it took was words and comments with racist undercurrents to draw the attention of politicians and provoke them to condemn the behaviour of the Big Brother contestants, and the programme itself. Yet, when it comes to words and comments as well as images with sexist undercurrents, in lad mags for example, politicians simply dismiss it and throw out the opportunity to discuss such matters, as was the case with the second reading of the Claire Curtis-Thomas lad mag bill which Parliament cancelled last October. They will quite happily slam a television programme for being racist, but ignore magazines that are sexist. I’m not suggesting that politicians shouldn’t be criticising racism in Big Brother- they should. It’s just I would also like to see them take other forms of discrimination in the media i.e. sexism as seriously.

Fighting for the right to not be raunchy?

2007-01-13T10:18:00.000-08:00

An article appeared on The First Post this week, entitled “Fight for the right to be raunchy”. The author of the article, a male first-year university student, argues that female students who participate in raunch culture at uni e.g. join pole-dancing societies, take part in lad mag-sponsored student union events and dress up as bunnies on ‘Playboy Mansion’ night are not victims of an oppressive patriarchy but simply exercising their right to express themselves.

This all seems a little iffy to me- a man comes along ‘defending the rights of women’ but to do what? Become sex objects? Would this perhaps be because by doing this, he simultaneously defends his ‘right’ to sexually objectify women? By advocating this ‘right’ for women and this particular means of ‘expressing themselves’ he also stands to gain something, that is to enjoy women as sex objects.

But the author says that it is not “ ‘the lads’ ”, doing the exploiting and oppressing, but the, “girls - Lucy Misch, founder of Pole Exercise, being a prime example” because they are the ones, “initiating, participating in, and making money from the 'wave of overt sexism'.”

Women are participating in and making money from raunch culture, but I take issue with the fact that they are “initiating” it. On the surface it may look like the woman who sets up a pole-dancing club or volunteers to parade herself around for the lad mags, is exercising her right to sexual freedom, but the context in which this is done suggests otherwise. Who really benefits when a female student struts around for the lad mags? Her or the men ogling her; her or the magazine who get photos to fill its pages? Who’s setting the terms here, whose got the power? Is it a sign that women are taken seriously when they get dressed up as bunnies on ‘Playboy Mansion’ night? Is gyrating ‘round a pole for male pleasure, sexual liberation? Even if no men are present to witness it, as in the case of the pole-dancing classes, can the act really be separated from its objectifying, male-defined origins, when outside all other manifestations of raunch culture are clearly there for male titillation?

I may be one of those the author of the article takes issue with on the grounds that I do point the finger at “some shady patriarchy”. Women do make the choice to participate in raunch culture, but these choices aren’t made in a vacuum. Something influences those choices, and it is my belief that a culture that celebrates the woman as sex object, is it. And what kind of culture creates and celebrates the woman as sex object? A patriarchal, consumerist one. Women make the choice to participate in raunch culture, but it is men who take the most pleasure, power and profit from it.

What this article has also managed to do, consciously or unconsciously, is make it look like women are battling against other women, a classic patriarchal tactic, because it conveniently leaves men out of it. By setting up two camps- the women who take part in raunch culture vs the feminists who are protesting it- no room is spared to account for men’s role in all this. This is done when the author says it is women perpetuating raunch culture, not men. The subtext is, ‘If women created it and are enjoying partaking in it, then any woman who has a problem with this has a problem with those women, not men because they have nothing to do with it’.

What it does leave room for though, is the men to come across as all progressive and liberal, by saying, ‘hey, if women want to dance ‘round a pole, we won’t stop ‘em,’ making those feminists protesting raunch culture look like the reactionary ones. Meanwhile, those ‘liberal, progressive’ men can continue to ogle and objectify women as they wish.

I also take issue with a couple more sentiments expressed in this sentence, “But if educated female students choose the medium of 'raunch culture' as a means of expressing themselves it is up to them, no matter how much it may offend more conservative individuals.”

The inclusion of the word “educated” to describe these female students is telling. I believe the author did this to reinforce his point that women who become sex objects, are making informed choices to do so. What I would like to point out is why don’t we read sentences like ‘educated male students feel obliged to choose the medium of raunch culture to express themselves’?

Perhaps because being “educated” is enough for men? They don’t need to become sexual objects as well? Their identity is based on their minds, not the ability of their bodies to become attractive to the opposite sex? One of the reasons why I find this explosion of lap-dancing and lad mag events on campus so disturbing is because it suggests that for a woman, getting an education and using her mind is not enough. Female students, generally speaking, enter university with better grades than their male peers, but are soon confronted with what real success is. Not gaining a good degree and entering a worthy trade or profession, not even challenging your intellect. But stripping off and getting ‘em out for the lads. You need to be a good student, but that’s not enough. It is for men, but not for you, my dear. Does this signal female liberation on campus?

I also take issue with those protesting raunch culture being labelled “conservatives”. What could be more conservative than dressing up as a sex object, as men would like you to be? What could be more conservative than fitting into a commercial, plastic, popular mould of female sexuality? The author of this article is the conservative one for advocating women to carry on being what they have always been, and in turn maintaining his ‘right’ to objectify women as men have traditionally been encouraged to do.

What I find most contentious about this article though, is that this man supports a woman’s right to get raunchy, but is not so supportive of a woman’s right to protest this raunchy model of her sexuality being placed upon her as the way to be. Indeed from personal experience and other things I’ve read, there is much defending of a woman’s right to participate in raunch culture coming from men. By contrast, any woman who opposes raunch culture, is likely to be sneered at, spoken down to and ignored by those same men. The only reason raunch culture and its version of female sexuality is so popular, is because it suits and pleases men. So of course they’ll write articles defending it.

It’s a different story though when a woman’s had enough of being sold this shit and decides to speak up and protest against it. Any men want to defend my right to do that?

Following on from yesterday…

2007-01-07T09:55:00.000-08:00

Interesting stuff in the Sunday Times today, somewhat related to what I posted yesterday, so as the subject’s still on my mind, I thought I’d post some thoughts on what it is I’ve read, particularly as it’s been bugging me somewhat.

The Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) published a report this week, which stated that there are still not enough women in the upper echelons of business, law and government; around 6,000 women have gone “missing” from the top 33,000 jobs in Britain.

Two Sunday Times commentators wrote articles in response to this report, Rachel Johnson and Rod Liddle. Both of them don’t see what the EOC are making such a fuss about; stating that it is not discrimination preventing women from smashing the glass ceiling, but women themselves. Women don’t want to reach the top. (Mr Liddle also pointing out that perhaps women don’t have the ability to; this coming from a man who said "people know what rape is and the actions which might be taken by women to avoid it" and that the objectification and commodification of women’s bodies is due to evolution, not cultural conditioning. I dread to think how much this man gets paid each year).

Rachel Johnson writes, “Working a 60-hour week, commuting to and from an office, having your “performance” being continuously “reviewed” by your superiors… I know what most women would say… ‘Gosh! I’m really tempted. Thanks, but not thanks’.” I know where’s she’s coming from with this, a long-hours culture spurred on by the accumulation of profit does not endear itself to many women who also have children to care for or who simply do not want to participate in the cut-and-thrust of corporate culture.

But then that doesn’t automatically mean that a woman who chooses not to advance her career is happy with her choice. Both Rachel Johnson and Rod Liddle are content to say that if women aren’t fighting for the top jobs, then leave them be, they’re happy aren’t they? But whose saying they are? No accompanying report has been released which suggests that women aren’t getting promoted because that’s what they want; that’s just the view of these two commentators.

Rachel Johnson adds, “(women) often choose worse pay, a smaller pension, and a more humble title in exchange for… a life.” The ‘choices’ being bandied about here, don’t really seem like choices at all. You can either sacrifice everything and get to the top, if not you are left with a low-skilled, low-paid job which is beneath your ability. These aren’t choices made available to women to make freely with their interests at heart; these are the choices set out for them under the patriarchy, which still places the onus on women to be the primary child-carer. A woman can either get really stressed out performing the balancing act, or settle for second-best so she can devote more time to her kids.

But women do have the ability to enter the boardroom, the courtroom and parliament. It may not be discrimination per se that’s keeping them out, but the working-culture of these systems most likely are. And while you can say this is fine, because women don’t want to take part in those systems, it’s also very convenient for the continuation of the patriarchy. Men can carry on taking the top jobs and therefore pass laws and create cultures that control and ostracise women; traditional gender roles stay put; women’s talents and abilities are wasted and their work devalued.

Why can’t we go a little further and ask would women would take the top jobs, if they didn’t involve the long-hours, the competitiveness, the sacrifice of a life? In other words, if we did away with the masculinist-corporate model of doing business, and designed something else a little more conducive to women? Can’t ask that, there’s a patriarchy to maintain.

I’m a feminist but I don’t want women to be equal to men

2007-01-06T10:39:00.000-08:00

It irks me the way feminism is often defined. The Oxford English Dictionary defines it as the “advocacy of women’s rights on basis of equality of the sexes”; Wikipedia similarly states, “In simple terms, feminism is the belief in social, political and economic equality of the sexes.” In the popular imagination feminism is often equated with the notion of equal rights for women (albeit usually after visions of hairy, hysterical hordes of women out to cut men’s cocks off).

It’s this emphasis on “equality” that bothers me. According to the dictionary “equality” means being, “the same in size, amount, value…; having the same rights or status…; be the same as in number, amount or quality.” When we say ‘we want to be equal’ we could be implying that we want to “measure up” or “equate to” something we are not.

Therefore, meaning what it does, I find it problematic when the word “equality” is used in the definition of feminism, because it’s never made clear what system or standards of equality we are meant to be working with. Whenever I read things like feminism being about “equality between the sexes” or “women having the same rights as men” I recoil a little, because I read it as women having to become equal to men, on men’s terms.

If this is what equality for women means, I don’t want it. I don’t want women to gain equality if that means having to become equal to men as they are now, under a patriarchal system. If we advocate equality, but do not tackle the system of patriarchy then women don’t stand to gain a whole lot. While patriarchy is allowed to continue- the system which oppresses women’s rights, freedoms, power and access to resources in favour of male dominance over women- equality will be couched in patriarchal terms because that is the dominant, defining system. Equality will be defined in the patriarchy. If a woman wants equality with men, she will have to become one of the men, will have to appropriate male traits and behaviours because in the patriarchy being a woman isn’t good enough, will have to adapt and fit into the patriarchal system, because no other system exists.

Equality legislation may allow her entry to a male-dominated profession and earn as much as the next guy, but perhaps at the expense of any semblance of a quality of life. While the men she works with can work 16-hour days safe in the knowledge they’ll be fed and watered when they get home and their suit would have been washed, ironed and laid out ready for tomorrow, the woman knows she’s got more work to do when she gets home, feeding her husband and kids and washing their clothes. All the equality legislation in the world hasn’t altered the fact that while women have proven able to become one of the men in the workplace, men still haven’t become one of the women in the home. Under the current patriarchal system, where men are still defined as breadwinners and women the baby-nurturers, equality between the sexes has not been attained.

So if equality is to be mentioned in definitions of feminism, I would find it less irksome if it was preceded by something along the lines of, 'Feminism works to dismantle patriarchy, the system by which men oppress women,' followed by, 'to create a new system based on the equality of the sexes.'

So what would this 'new system' look like? A key feature of it would be the disappearance of gender roles. Patriarchy works by inculcating into men and women as soon as they are born, certain traits, behaviours, interests deemed intrinsic to their sex, when in fact they are largely arbitrary, inculcated to maintain the patriarchy itself. You know, boys are raised to be strong and brave so they can oppress women, and girls are raised to smile sweetly and keep quiet so they won’t mind being oppressed.

A strong element of my feminism lies in the belief that biology does not predispose women (and men) to certain behaviours and interests. Indeed, this is one of the reasons why I take so much comfort in feminism. I’m a woman, but I don’t like ‘typically’ (read: patriarchally-defined) ‘woman things’ like shopping for clothes and putting on make-up and can’t stomach the kind of books, television, magazines and music marketed to women in the mainstream. Feminism taught me that this isn’t because I’m some freak of nature- it’s the system that inculcates this kind of stuff into women and discriminates against those women who don’t conform as the thing that needs altering.

In place of arbitrary gender roles, favouring one set of behaviours in one sex and another set of behaviours in the other, the best and most useful behaviours of each sex as they were defined under patriarchy, could be adopted and nurtured in both men and women. The traits encouraged in women under patriarchy such as compassion, being able to listen, and the more open, non-hierarchical and co-operative systems that come about when women get together should be hailed and nurtured in women and men. We could wave goodbye to competitive, corporate culture and war; much as they are based on unnecessary hierarchies, mistrust and suspicion and money being accumulated and spent in the most destructive and exploitative ways, men as well as women would benefit.

Similarly, those behaviours praised in men but dissuaded in women e.g. assertiveness, speaking your mind and making something of yourself using your mind, not just your body would be encouraged in both sexes. Women would be empowered, but it wouldn’t unsettle the men because they’ve been taught to listen, indeed they would have no notion at all that women shouldn’t be this way. In the minds of both sexes, women and men would be equally capable, share the same duties, have the same freedoms.

Women would be comfortable in their bodies as they are, the patriarchally-defined standards of beauty resting on cosmetic surgery, being a fixed weight and shape and doing your face and hair in a certain way, having been destroyed.

So, I don’t want women to be equal to men if that means having to be equal to men in the patriarchy. What needs to be abolished is the patriarchal system that assigns certain roles to each sex, which separates and excludes the sexes from one another, which creates inequality in the first place. Let’s dismantle that system, and then build something which will truly allow equality to flourish.

Utopian I know, but a woman can dream can’t she?

Merry Xmas and all that

2006-12-23T10:38:00.000-08:00

Firstly, Merry Xmas to one and all who read this. And as I can’t see myself getting another chance to do so beforehand, I’ll also say best wishes for 2007. Personally, I’m feeling really positive about the new year ahead, which is I think in no small part to the way things have gone for me in 2006, certainly the last few months of it anyway. And that’s mostly to do with feminism.

I remember last year, sitting down and coming up with a list of ‘goals’ (I wouldn’t call them resolutions as such), things I wanted to achieve this year. Some of them I didn’t manage, as in learning to drive (the less said about that the better…) and getting a new job (I’m still in the same one I was in last year…). But I also noted down, “Do something feminist activist related.” At the time I didn’t have a clue how I would go about doing this, I was familiar with the issues and organisations such as the Fawcett Society and Object, but still felt rather isolated and unsure.

But a few months down the line, and it’s amazing what signing up to a few e-mail groups, starting a blog and going on a demo can do. You realise there are other women out there ranting and musing on similar things as yourself, you hear of some protest taking place, and when you get there you end up meeting someone from the same area of the country as you, you decide to meet up and do some more protesting, and all of a sudden you’re not so isolated and unsure anymore.

So over the past few months I’ve done more than I ever thought I would, or was even capable of. Forming a local feminist group, stickering, attending demos and marches, leafleting, writing. Stopped shaving. It’s kept me busy, it’s certainly tiring, maddening and depressing at times to continuously see the extent to which your sex is still abused/ridiculed/not believed/derided/ignored, particularly when it happens to you personally. But getting involved with feminist activism has also given me some purpose, allowed me to become more comfortable with who I am, while at the same time given me the opportunity to become more than I was, to use my voice and do things previously unimaginable for someone like me.

What really strengthens all of this for me, is that I really feel that now is a time when feminism is needed. The mainstream may cast aside feminism, and deem the success of Desperate Housewives and the likes of the Pussycat Dolls as signs of ‘post-feminism’ (post-feminism meaning, because we’ve had feminism and it’s secured women equality, where’s the harm in relishing these non-feminist portrayals of women?), when really their popularity says more about what feminism has yet to do.

I mean, employing the faux female empowerment schtick of Pussycat Dolls/lad mag models et al would seem to be the way a gal can make something of herself in contemporary Western society. Even young girls know it, no doubt the promotion of porn bunny merchandise in their magazines and high-street stores enforcing this idea on them further. Yet, while society lauds the woman as sex object, if she happens to be raped while dressed as this, short skirt and low-cut top maybe, society suddenly turns on her and says she was asking for it. Not taking into account that men are the ones who create and coerce women into becoming sex objects and as a result feel they have the prerogative to gawp at and rape women, knowing that she is the one who is going to come across as asking for it. Rape conviction rates therefore are at an all-time low. Domestic violence is the biggest cause of death amongst women in this country.

They also keep threatening to curtail the abortion laws, when they need extending, not repealing. There’s still far too big a pay gap. There’s never a right age to have a baby. Women are still criticised for choosing career over children. And the bullshit wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have set back women’s rights and freedoms in these countries, despite protestations to the contrary by a president and prime minister who try and cling to some justification for these wars in the name of bringing "freedom" and "democracy", when they don’t truly apply it to their own countries.

As I said, I feel now is a time to be feminist. And from who I’ve met and what I’ve done this year, I can sense the rumblings of feminist rebellion. Here’s to more in ’07. xx

See ‘That Time of the Month’…

2006-12-16T10:34:00.000-08:00

… on your left. I have chosen this quote for my blog this month, because it is the most enlightened comment I have seen anyone make so far regarding the murder of five prostitutes in Ipswich. It should also be the most bleedin’ obvious thing anyone could say, but instead police and malestream media are still concerned with warning women off the streets at night and making such ludicrous suggestions that the glamourisation of drugs are the cause of this tragedy (as articles in the Daily Mail and The Sun have suggested), not woman-hatred.

Full article here

Random bits and bobs (because I’m a bad blogger who has simply not had time to write a proper post)

2006-12-03T09:45:00.000-08:00

1. Reclaim the Night was fantastic. So empowering. What we were chanting, the banners we were waving, the sense of solidarity among the 1,000 women and girls who were marching, the whole ethos behind it and everyone I met and marched with, it all contributed to such an amazing atmosphere. And it all culminated in a brilliant speech by Finn Mackay at the rally. I can still hear her saying, “And they say feminism’s dead… Not from where I’m standing!,” and it truly felt when she was saying that, and we were all in that room together, that we could have our own revolution. Memories like that can serve us well when in our efforts to knock down those patriarchal walls, we can often end up feeling like we are only knocking our heads against it instead. Which brings me to…

2. The argument myself and fellow EM Fem, Jen got into with the Ents Officer of Loughborough University on Friday. We went along to protest a Nuts event that had been advertised to take place that night in the student union. The Nuts Brat Pack girls were to appear, and students could ‘meet’ them and get their autograph and pic taken with them. We didn’t stick around to see them ourselves, as they weren’t appearing until 1am (not that this is what the publicity material had said, it soon became clear that promoting images/the appearance of women in their underwear seemed to not only have its basis in misogyny, but also commercialism, because we all know that near-naked women draw the punters in, don’t we?)

But anyway, we did find ourselves bumping into the Ents Officer who had booked the event and a heated discussion ensued. Much credit to Jen who explained to him our opposition to such an event in that it is misogynist, and objectifies and is derogatory to women. And guess what the Ents Officer’s response was? He just said that is “our opinion” and “not fact”. It is merely our “opinion” that a student union to put on an event in which women parade around in their underwear, signals inequality between men and women, and that using such women to pull in the punters and raise revenue is sexist. Like I said, coming up against attitudes like this really makes you feel like you are knocking your head against the strongest wall. We battled it out for a bit longer, until four security guards descended and warned us off (we’d also been stickering and flyering, or “littering” as they put it).

3. And I’d just like to say that the worst programme on the television at the moment, must be Channel 5’s Asbo Teen to Beauty Queen. It sees a group of teen girls who’ve been on the wrong side of the law battle it out to become the "beauty queen" who will enter an international beauty pageant.

But: how can ‘training’ them to become a beauty queen do anything to raise their self-esteem (which from the programme it is clear they are lacking) when they are being told their worth is based on their appearance? And then there’s the bitchiness and competitiveness these sorts of events breed- qualities the girls could probably do with getting away from. But most importantly, how can we expect these girls to really make something of themselves in the future when they are simply being taught how to look and act like pretty, subservient, uncritical beauty queens? You can try and turn them into "teen" beauty queens, but what happens when they are no longer teenagers? What education can they draw on then to move on in life? Or is this when they are expected to take their kit off for the lad mags?

All she wants for Xmas is…

2006-11-18T10:12:00.000-08:00

… to look one of those ‘real women’ in the lad mags, or one of those pseudo-celebs in the women’s glossies. Or like Kate Moss. Or a fucking Pussycat Doll. “This is my body. I want to shave it, mutilate it, tan it, paint it with toxins, and smooth it all out to get rid of any sign that I might actually be a real, adult woman. Instead I want to look like her. And I’ll do it for me, never mind it means objectifying myself for the pleasure of the male gaze. It’ll make me so happy.”

She turns to the Xmas Argos catalogue knowing from that she can write a list to Santa of all she needs to transform herself into her warped ideal.

It’s all in the Gifting and Toys section, starting on pg. 136. First, she is confronted with six and a half pages of “Male Grooming” products. From just £2.99! Leafing through, she eventually comes to the female grooming section starting on pg. 142 and continuing for not six, but 15 and a half pages, full of complete tat for women. “Oh, where to begin?!” she says to herself. But she soon notices there’s something somewhat amiss here- the cheapest product on sale for her is £6.49, a bit pricier than the measly £2.99 men need fork out. That doesn’t seem fair when women, on average, still earn a lot less than men; “Why should I pay more for shaving my body hair?” she says to herself.

And speaking of shaving, that’s all “male grooming” requires it would seem. Argos have shavers, hair clippers, body trimmers. Nothing more is expected of men, than to simply keep in check some stray hairs here and there. Although it’s not specified what hair is to be banished with a “body trimmer”.

No such ambiguity for women though. We are inherently more stupid, so it’s spelt out to us loud and clear. This shaver is for legs and underarms. This £89.99 laser hair removal kit is for your bikini line… and face! “My face?”, our female friend admonishes to herself, “I didn’t even know I had that much hair on my face!” The product descriptions of these expensive and evil contraptions make ominous proclamations such as, has “massaging rollers” to “ease discomfort”, and comes with a “cooling glove to prevent irritation”. You better make sure it does, we women are expected to pay over the hill for this crap, it’s the least you can do to ensure we don’t suffer any pain while subscribing to your smooth-shaven ideal.

She turns the page. Oh goody, there’s more. She’s out of the “hair removal” section now- yes, there’s more to female grooming than just shaving you know; “God, striving to be like that woman in the magazines is so great, I mean, it’s not like I have more important things to do.”

Now she has an array of products on offer to her, but which weren’t in the men’s section. She realises she is also required to polish and whiten her teeth (dental products from £9.25-£109.00) for those fake, vacant smiles, “although rather than doing this, I could just not eat as I am supposed to be on that Size 0 diet anyway, by not eating I can keep my teeth clean and get skinny at the same time!” She is also expected to turn herself orange (home tanning kit £59.99). And then “reduce fine lines and… visible signs of ageing” with a “facial rejuvenator”. Bet you’re jealous none of this shit’s marketed at you, aren’t you boys?

To complete her list, she adds the usual, you know the stuff that’s also sold to little girls. Hair straighteners. Manicure kits. Hair straighteners. Cosmetic sets. MORE FLIPPIN’ HAIR STRAIGHTENERS. (I hate hair straighteners. Well, the expectation that all women should use them anyway. I’ve never used them, I can’t be arsed to mess about with my hair. I once told a hairdresser this, and she said incredulously, “You’ve never used hair straighteners?!” like I was some weird anomaly of woman.)

For any young girl bewildered at the prospect of tussling with her perfectly-acceptable hair and masking her perfectly-acceptable face, Argos attempt to assuage her fears by marketing right at her (i.e. right next to Bratz dollies) a set of merchandise bearing the Playboy bunny logo. Cute, glittery and pink, Argos wants your little sister/niece/daughter/cousin to associate themselves with Hefner’s objectifying, demeaning, exploitative notion of woman so that in a few years she too will be able to epilate, tan and collagen-infuse to her heart’s content to achieve that bunny-girl look.

So she’s drawn up her list to Santa and it reads like an inventory of all one needs to pervert natural womanhood, and be re-born into a man-made woman. She is to shave, tan, smooth out, pluck and straighten to be like that woman. To be a woman. To be the true incarnation of her sex.

But for men to be men the most they need do is body trim? But don’t women generally have less time than men, as they are still the only sex to prove they are capable of doing work both inside and outside the home? It doesn’t seem very fair does it? Why do men get away with not wasting their time like this? Why do they not have to prove their manhood via equally extreme and ridiculous beauty rituals?

I mean, it’s not as if men are expected to shave everywhere at all times. If a man doesn’t want to body-trim, so fucking what? He’s still a man. But if she chooses not to shave her legs, no……………..!! You unnatural, disgusting, aberration of a woman you. A man is allowed to grow a beard as an ‘experiment’ and people almost admire his masculine bravado, “you fucking wonderful man you.”

“But girl, don’t go showing off that hairy leg.”
“It’s an experiment!”
“Fuck off!”

What does all this amount to? Quite frankly, one great big lie about what a woman is and consequently one huge chasm between men and women in the fight for their equality.

The plethora of porno paraphernalia in stores like Argos> are there so that women can at least attempt to be like those women they see on television, on magazine covers, on billboards and in music videos. Like a Playboy bunny. Except the images in porn and other mainstream representations of women as sex object are not real. Digitally-enhanced, airbrushed and photoshopped to extremes, these women’s faces and bodies may be poreless, hairless, tanned and trimmed but mainly through some sad man’s prowess with Photoshop and a mouse. It’s one great big lie to sell women epilator and tanning kits in order to achieve some image that isn’t even real in the first place. It’s an even bigger lie to suggest that women must buy these products and subscribe to these practices in order to be a ‘real woman’. But if these images are supposedly of real women, why are they not called women, but instead ‘babes’, ‘beauties’, ‘bunnies’, ‘dolls’ etc?

Women’s adherence to beauty regimes and an obsession with their appearance, is presented in our society as being one of nature, inevitable, something women ‘just do’. Having to undergo time-consuming, expensive, irritating if not plain painful beauty practices is not seen as some patriarchal construct to keep women in their place and to mark them out as deferential and inferior to men. It is simply seen as, ‘women like to pamper themselves and spend time and money on improving their appearance’. But that isn’t necessarily true. A lot of women do not like doing this and should not be made to feel weird or abnormal for doing so. The extremes to which we as a sex class are being encouraged to go to all in the name of beauty are getting ridiculous and more frightening. At the same time the images of women we are confronted with become more and more unrealistic. I don’t want to epilate, tan, tone and straighten my hair and lines out. I don’t want to be her. And I couldn’t give a shit what he thinks.

Subtext on the up!

2006-11-17T03:54:00.000-08:00

Issue no. 2 of the feminist magazine has just been published. It looks bigger, better and brighter than the first issue and a positive sign that female-owned, independent media can survive on its own terms. Get your copy here.

The broken record

2006-10-28T10:12:00.000-07:00

Another post from me on the injustice inherent in the popular opinion that women are to blame/ should take responsibility for being raped. I wouldn’t keep writing about it, except I keep turning on the news and there it pipes up again.

This time it came from a senior Muslim cleric in Australia, Sheik Taj al-Hilali. In a religious address last month he suggested that women who do not wear a headscarf invite sexual assault, and compared them to uncovered meat. He was quoted as saying, “The uncovered meat is the problem. If she was in her room, in her home, in her hijab, no problem would have occurred.” He also said there were women who “sway suggestively”, wear make up and dress immodestly but the “jury… without mercy… gives (the rapist) 65 years… but the problem all began with who?”

The media jumped on this, but not out of any concern as to the harm these kinds of comments do to women. They covered it because a Muslim has yet again attacked Western mores, Western lifestyle that ‘allows’ women to leave the house without covering their faces (well, not in cloth, but make-up, yes) and dress as they wish. This furore is just the latest brick in the wall being created by our media to draw Muslims and Westerners further apart.

But this isn’t just a religious issue. How can it be when women of Western origin are also blamed for inviting rape- not by Muslims- but by fellow Westerners in the roles of journalist, police officer and politician? You don’t need a religious motive to believe women are responsible for being raped. This issue is much broader than that. It’s fundamentally about control and terrorism of women by men in general.

Sheik Hilali said the problem with rape begins with the women who “sway suggestively”, do not wear a headscarf and dress immodestly.

But isn’t that also…

… what Jane Moore said in her Sun newspaper column of October 18th 2006, “… the sad truth is that women need to equip themselves against the potential danger of becoming another statistic of date-rape… If that means wearing something a little more substantial than a lacy push-up bra… then sorry so be it if you want to minimise your chances of ending up in a hotel room with a man you barely know… Dressing sleazily invariably attracts the sleazebags,”?

… what Rod Liddle said in his Sunday Times newspaper column of April 2nd 2006, “people in the real world… know what rape is and the actions which might be taken by women to avoid it,” (implying they should not get drunk if they don't want to be raped)?

… what the police say, “She asked for it, she had a short skirt on,”(as heard by Nina Hobson, who went undercover for a recent Channel 4 Dispatches documentary and exposed sexism and woman-blaming in the police force)?

… what the government suggest when they run campaigns like this, (note the statistic in the bottom left of the page) where they see women who get drunk as being responsible for their becoming victims of rape?

… what a significant number of people in the UK believe, last year a report from Amnesty International showed that a third of people believe a woman is partially or totally responsible for being raped if she was drunk/wore revealing clothing?

So it’s not just Muslim clerics with the problem. Newspaper columnists; the institutions supposedly there to protect us and a significant number of ordinary citizens- all different in religion, ethnicity, race (and unfortunately sex), all hold the same view. The view that women are in some way to blame for being raped.

The media needs to stop drawing attention to religion as being the problem, to the detriment of focusing on other authorities/institutions that espouse the same lies. Ultimately, the finger needs to be pointed at the patriarchy, the system of male privilege that oppresses women in all countries, of all religions and race. We should be criticising the Muslim cleric on this issue, but also the police, politicians and others that come out with similar damaging and dangerous diatribes.

As the Australian Prime Minister John Howard said in response to Sheik Hilali’s comments, “The idea that women are to blame for rape is preposterous”. I extend that to anyone, regardless of race, religion and sex, who suggests otherwise.

Pro-choice and proud

2006-10-23T11:47:00.000-07:00

This week (23rd-29th October) is Pro-Choice Week of Action, a campaign being led by Abortion Rights to raise awareness of the need to assert and extend a woman’s right to abortion in the UK, in the wake of a growing and more vocal so-called ‘pro-life’ movement who are increasingly keen to take away a woman’s right to choose.

Just yesterday, I read in The Sunday Times that the medical director of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service is the latest “expert” to announce his support for lowering the current 24-week time limit on abortion to 22 weeks.

A few months ago, the head of the Catholic Church in Britain, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor met with the Health Secretary, Patricia Hewitt to state his case for reducing the time limit on abortion.

In addition, a few weeks ago, I came across a ‘pro-life’ organisation who were petitioning for the rights of doctors and nurses who opposed abortion on moral/religious grounds to not have to help their patients access abortions if they wanted them. Although what they were actually doing was petitioning to strip away women’s reproductive freedoms.

Then in a related story, just a couple of weeks ago, a woman was refused the morning-after-pill as giving it to her went against the “religious” beliefs of her local pharmacist. The male-dominated, conservative media covered this story, but only because it was a Muslim pharmacist who refused this woman’s right to access the pill. And we all know one of the favourite games of right-wing media at the moment is to stoke more suspicion and hatred of Muslims. Yet, the crux of the story was that men still have the power to dictate and control women’s lives. Religion is merely one of the agents that allows this to continue.

Then there’s the situation in America. The gradual erosion of a woman’s right to access safe, legal abortion in some states- even if she became pregnant as a result of rape or incest- is downright scary.

In other words, even though the Abortion Act was passed in 1967, this did not automatically mean abortion became an acceptable right for women. It became a questionable one, continually and increasingly open to attack. A woman in the UK still needs the permission of two doctors to access an abortion, as she is deemed incapable of making this decision herself even though it is happening to her, nobody else. And mainstream media still prefer not to discuss abortion or when they do, do not represent women who have had/are having abortions in a positive light.

I believe in a woman’s right to choose, to make her own decisions concerning her reproductive life, and that a woman’s life comes before that of an unborn bunch of cells. I should not have to apologise for this or make this assertion with fear of repercussions. I’m pro-choice and proud. If you are too, visit Abortion Right's Pro-Choice Week of Action page.

Which part of “a woman is not to blame if she gets raped” don’t they understand?

2006-10-14T10:35:00.000-07:00

It’s reared its ugly head again, that assertion that women should take some of the responsibility if they are raped or attacked by a man. This time it was BBC News propagating the lie, as part of their report on the Government’s new advertising campaign to tackle binge drinking among young people. Binge drinking can have devastating consequences, they stated. Yes, okay. But then they rolled out an example of this kind of “consequence” of drinking too much, and guess what? It was of a woman who had had too much to drink one night, which blurred her better judgement, leading her to, oh so stupidly and irresponsibly, get the bus home on her own. Once off the bus she continued on towards her house, alone, in the dark. Before she made her front door, a man came up and attacked her. All that booze, the news report suggested, lead to this woman being attacked.

I’m sorry, but what the f… has this woman being attacked got to do with her going out and getting drunk? In all likelihood, she still would have been attacked if she was sober. But, the BBC were implying, sober women would not be so stupid as to make their own way home in the dark in the first place, would they? You walk home on your own, what do you expect? If she was sober, she would have been clear-headed enough to get someone to accompany her home or get a taxi.

But why should we have to get someone to ‘hold our hand?’ Why should we have to fork out for a taxi, if our home is within walking distance? Okay, going out binge drinking isn’t the healthiest or even most enjoyable way to spend an evening, but if a woman does get drunk and is then attacked, don’t blame it on her boozing. Blame it on the man who attacked her.

But society doesn’t like blaming men. But it does like controlling women. Violence against women isn’t a problem, they think, but women getting out of control is. Therefore they tell her to mind what she consumes, be wary of where she goes and what time it is, and if she gets raped or abused then she must have slipped up somewhere. She must be to blame somehow.

A peek behind the pink curtain

2006-10-06T02:52:00.000-07:00

In case you hadn’t realised- and it’s hard not to- this month (October) is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. On entering many high-street stores and supermarkets, you are likely to be met with a smattering of pink ribbons and products. Pink lingerie sets, slippers, teddies and wellies are all bearing the “Tickled Pink” slogan and cosmetic companies are promoting ‘pink’ perfumes, lotions and other potions. A percentage of the profit made from the sale of these products will be donated to breast cancer charities.

On the (pink) surface this seems great for women, that something is being done to raise awareness and money for breast cancer, the most common form of cancer in women. But does a murkier colour lie underneath?

The reality is that while we are blinded with and sold this veneer of pink with increasing ferocity each year, the number of breast cancer diagnoses is actually rising. We may be pinking it up like never before, but statistically speaking, women are more likely to be diagnosed with breast cancer now than they were before the invention of the pink ribbon.
How can this be? If more pink products are being sold, if awareness is being raised and more money is being donated to the cause, how come more women are getting the disease?

Because most of the donations from the sale of pink products and ribbons go towards developing a cure for the disease. Breast cancer charities’ primary focus is on curing and caring for those women who already have the cancer. Of course, there is absolutely nothing wrong with this. Money should be spent in this way, and the pink campaign seems to be having a positive effect. Treatments have improved and the death rate from the disease has been significantly lowered. This should all be applauded.

But the reality is that buying into the pink parade will do nothing to prevent breast cancer occurring in the first place. If we want to stop more women getting the disease, then more money and attention needs to be ploughed into the prevention instead of just the cure.

Some of the factors that can contribute to the development of breast cancer commonly espoused by the medical establishment include obesity, alcohol, genetics, age and delaying motherhood. And true to patriarchal form, some of these factors have been used to scare-monger and critique women’s lifestyle choices. Like a drink? Choose not to breastfeed? And the ultimate blasphemy, want to delay or reject motherhood? Well, then you may pay by developing breast cancer.

This kind of preventative advice is dished out because it leaves it up to women to decide whether they want to put themselves at risk- "we know drinking’s bad for you, here’s the proof, if you choose to continue to drink, you may get breast cancer."

Yet, there is one other factor that may explain the rising incidence of breast cancer in the Western world. There is increasing evidence to suggest that certain chemicals in some of the products we use may be contributing to breast cancer. Phtlates found in hairsprays, perfumes and nail polish; triclosan in toothpastes, body washes, and liquid soap and parabens in shampoo, make-up and bubble bath have all got potential links to the development of breast cancer.

We don’t hear much about this, because here the responsibility for prevention doesn’t lie with the individual woman. It lies with corporations and government.

But corporations in particular benefit from the sale of these very products. So of course we aren’t going to hear much about this.

What’s really rather galling about all this though, is that these very companies who are peddling these questionable chemicals in their products are selling the very same products for Breast Cancer Awareness Month. In other words, corporations are proclaiming to be helping the fight against breast cancer by turning pink, but remain black at the core for selling products that may lead to its development in the first place.

If you enter a shop this month selling pinked-up face-cream, shampoo or lipstick, look at the lists of ingredients. Do they contain any of the aforementioned chemicals? If they do, how can that be reconciled with their mantra about fighting breast cancer?

It seems obvious that we need more legislation to monitor what chemicals are being dumped in so many every day products and more research to determine just how (un)safe those chemicals are. Unfortunately, this would mean the big beauty corporations would come under close scrutiny and their profit margins would suffer. Sad truth is, many cosmetic corporations would rather make a profit even if that means turning their backs on the role they are playing in the potential harming of women’s health.

But we can turn our backs on them. We can do our own research and ultimately make our own decisions- if you do business unethically, if you refuse to acknowledge the effect your products are having on women’s health, then you won’t be getting any money from me. Pink or no pink.

Here are some links so you can find out more about this issue, the chemicals and the products in which they may be found:

No More Breast Cancer Campaign
Think Before You Pink

A ranty response to some pro-life bs I’ve seen today

2006-09-30T10:53:00.000-07:00

So some doctors and nurses oppose abortion on personal/religious whatever-other-grounds and you’re concerned about them being made to play a part in the killing of an unborn ‘child’ (or correctly speaking, embryo or foetus) when it goes against what they believe. But it’s not about what the doctor believes, what they think, what they want to happen to this unborn child. THE DOCTOR ISN’T THE ONE CARRYING THE BABY, THIS ISN’T HAPPENING TO THEIR BODY, THIS BABY IS NOT GOING TO IMPACT ON THEIR LIFE. The doctor’s first obligation is to their patient- in this case the pregnant woman. The doctor should leave aside their personal beliefs, politics, religion whatever to ensure that if their patient wants an abortion she can get one, without obstacle, devoid of all judgement. The onus should be on her, not the unborn bunch of cells, and certainly not on the doctor’s, best interests. I’m sure many doctors are opposed to drugs, drinking and violence against women, but they would still treat addicts, alcoholics and abusers if they came in for medical treatment, because their first obligation is to treat them as their patient. So why should women who want abortions be treated any differently? “But it’s not just about the woman, what about the right to life of her unborn child?” Err, but what about a woman’s right to define and control her own life? I can’t take pro-life zealots seriously when they use such tactics, start placing the integrity of doctors over a woman’s life, rights and freedom.

The female face of Aids

2006-09-23T10:09:00.000-07:00

The Aids epidemic in Africa is an epidemic with a female face. Over half of those with HIV/Aids in the continent are women and girls. I learnt this when I was doing my final-year journalism project at university and wrote an article on the subject. Despite the massive scale of the problem, the causes of the epidemic and what needed to be done about it seemed blindingly obvious to me. An African woman is inferior. She does not have access to education, therefore she is not employed, therefore she has no money. She then has to marry early and be subject to sexual relations with a man who is likely to be many years older and to have slept around, hence infected with the HIV virus. He then passes it on to her, because he hasn’t been educated to use a condom and she hasn’t been educated to insist on him using one. She then gets pregnant, gives birth to a daughter, but develops and dies of Aids before her daughter is 13 because she does not have access to medical treatment. Her daughter, now orphaned, must leave school out of economic necessity. She has two choices- prostitution or marrying early just like her mum did. What are the chances of her becoming infected too?

I’m writing about this again, because last Thursday’s issue of The Independent newspaper was one dedicated to reporting on the Aids epidemic in Africa, and encouragingly their focus was on how it largely affects women.

The paper pointed out:

“Of the 25 million people living with HIV and Aids in Africa, nearly 57 per cent are women. That figure rises to 80 per cent among those aged 15-19. Women have a greater biological vulnerability to the virus but the main problem is powerlessness.”

What is meant by this “powerlessness”? According to Bill Gates, who contributed an article to this edition of the newspaper, it means girls and women do not have access to preventative medicine. He argues that the emphasis on abstinence programmes as a means of preventing poor women and girls from catching the infection has its limits, because women end up marrying young anyway and it is men who decide whether they use a condom or not. Once married, they are powerless to prevent themselves from catching HIV/Aids. So Bill calls for more research into the “the discovery of a microbicide or an oral prevention drug that women can use to help block the transmission of HIV.” Allow women to take their own medicine and they can take some control, they can regain some power in the fight to stop them getting infected. He goes on to proclaim this could, “revolutionise the fight against Aids.”

But it will not revolutionise the unequal status and economic insecurity of African women. I mean I can see why Bill Gates and his fellow corporate-minded moguls would go for developing and selling preventative drugs- there’s money to be made from it. But ultimately the answer to fighting the HIV/Aids epidemic AND improving the condition of African women lies in education. Lack of education is what truly creates women’s “powerlessness”.

Another fact from The Independent: “In Africa, one in three children does not go to school. Two thirds of the 40 million non-attenders are girls and the illiteracy among women in places such as Mozambique is double that of men.” Women are the least educated sex and the sex most likely to become infected with HIV/Aids. The relationship between the two is intrinsic.

If African girls had access to education it would mean they could work towards entering a trade or profession and therefore become economically independent. No longer would girls be compelled to marry early and be coerced into violent and unprotected sex- and as a result become infected with HIV- as they would not need the financial security of marriage. Education, particularly sex education, would also allow girls to learn about the importance of contraception in preventing HIV/Aids and empower them to assert themselves in their sexual relations whether that be by insisting their partner wears a condom or saying no to sex full stop. Of course, this can only be really successful if boys are also educated in the importance of contraception and in seeing and treating women as true equals, worthy of respect.

Ploughing money into researching and developing preventative medicine is all well and good in the short term, but unless more is done to fund education in Africa women will forever remain the subordinates and inferiors of men, taking anti-retroviral drugs for the rest of their lives (good for the profit margins of the drug companies, not good for African women’s freedom).

Thankfully, The Independent’s editorial piece seemed to get it: “All the studies show that, when girls are schooled, everything improves… Money spent on the education of girls is the strongest investment in the next generation.”

But if African governments are going to be able to do this, they need money. And this is when dealing with the reality of the situation seems insurmountable.

The figures given by The Independent quite frankly, shocked me. The newspaper say it will cost £5.3bn a year to get all Africa’s children- including girls- into schools. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown announced a few months ago that the UK would allocate £8.5bn over ten years.It’s not enough. But it gets worse. The paper also stated: “… £5.3bn a year is roughly what the world lays out in a week (my emphasis) on global military spending.”

Sickening.

Links to The Independent articles:
From dawn to dusk, the daily struggle of Africa's women
Leading article: Give women their rights - and raise a continent
Bill Gates: Helping to treat Aids is not enough, we must urgently find ways of preventing it

To-do list (no.1)

2006-09-16T10:51:00.000-07:00

1. Write or e-mail Partners. They’ve joined WH Smith and Argos in promoting Playboy products to young girls, go here to see just how blatant this is. Their contact details: Head Office, Savoy House, Savoy Road, Off Weston Road, Crewe, Cheshire, CW1 6NA or info@partners-stationers.co.uk.
2. Attend the lad mags demonstration being organised by Northwest Feminists, to take place outside the Labour Party conference in Manchester on September 24. Go here for more details.
3. Start stickering. The more we stick “Woman-hater” and “PORN- not for young girls” on magazines, posters and catalogues the louder the message will be.
4. Send a letter to your MP asking them to sign the Early Day Motion to get the Government to adopt a more integrated, joined-up approach to tackling violence against women. The Fawcett Society have all you need to do this.
5. Put the date of the Reclaim the Night march in your diary- it’s November 25. More information from the London Feminist Network website.

A step forward, but we’re still not getting very far

2006-09-10T10:33:00.000-07:00

I abhor Western culture’s obsession with cosmetic surgery. I detest the pressure placed on women to have their bodies cut open by a male surgeon’s knife, more often than not their natural fat being sucked out only to be replaced by alien and unnatural substances like saline, just so they can fit a homogenous, profitable definition of beauty. I hate that these dangerous, bloody and expensive ‘procedures’ are presented as a common sense ‘solution’ to ‘fixing’ a ‘problem’ with a woman’s appearance. Cosmetic surgery is one indicator of how modern-day Western women are still owned, controlled and hurt by the patriarchy. Women are not liberated when they are laid out on the table, being torn open by male hands, in order to boost his profit margins and to conform to the male gaze’s expectations of her.

A programme called Say No the Knife was shown on BBC3 this week which I watched, curious to see how the two female subjects the programme featured were going to be dissuaded from having the cosmetic surgery they wanted. Both women wanted liposuction to get rid of the excess skin on their stomachs, hips and thighs- most depressingly, one of these women couldn’t have been more than a size 12 and yet she yearned for a completely flat stomach. Listening to how unhappy this woman was with her completely natural and healthy body shape, it hit home just how embedded the evil patriarchal orchestrations of the fascist beauty brigade must have become.

Anyway, so how were these women convinced cosmetic surgery was not the answer to feeling happy with their bodies? There was the obligatory ‘fashion expert’ who took both women shopping to find clothes that would flatter their figures which would then of course automatically make them feel better about themselves. That other f-word ‘feminine’ kept cropping up here, both women were encouraged to pick out dresses that would make them look more ‘feminine’. Nothing wrong with that I suppose, but it still represents how women need to focus on and alter their appearance for happiness. It still deals with the surface. Underneath the clothes, at the end of the day, naked in the bath and in bed, they are still left with their bodies. They still need to be able to come to terms with and become comfortable in those bodies.

So it was good to see the show attempting to delve into the psyches of the two women via a therapist who spoke to them about what they thought it was that made them so unhappy with their appearance. We learnt that one of the women had been taunted and bullied because of her weight and was angry at herself for failing to stick to the diets that she felt would get her the figure she desires. Hence her turning to the quick-fix ‘solution’ in surgery.

Although refreshing to see this approach at boosting inner self-esteem on the television, I wasn’t wholly convinced. There was no suggestion that the women’s bodies were fine as they were. No mention of how their insecurities and anxieties may be the result of outside pressure from those images the media likes to throw at us and hope they stick. No exploration of how to deal with those pressures and how to revel in their bodies as they are.

I must also mention that would we be able to see this kind of anti-surgery programme on the more commercial television channels and networks? This programme was aired on the BBC, maybe the reason for that lies in it not having to rely so much on the commercial pressures of outside advertisers and sponsors who more often than not are the cosmetic and beauty industries?

Still, even without commercial imperative, this programme still didn’t completely radicalise the approach we take to cosmetic surgery. This could be seen in the two women’s summations at the end. Both decided not to have surgery- well, for the time being anyway, and therein lie the problem. Both women were left still not convinced that their bodies were beautiful and normal as they were. The perfectly healthy size-12 woman with the desire for a flat stomach was simply deterred from the knife because of the big scar the surgery would leave. Both said they would perhaps contemplate surgery again in the future.

The show didn’t dig deep enough, it didn’t engage with the bigger issue of why women as a sex class are so pre-occupied with turning to cosmetic surgery to make themselves happy. How much longer will it be before the superficial attitude towards cosmetic surgery is exposed and dealt with in the serious way it needs to be?

More festival fun*

2006-09-02T10:02:00.000-07:00

The number of incidents of petty crime was down at this year’s Leeds Festival and there was none of the riots that have come to mar the festival’s name in previous years. The organisers thus felt it appropriate to say this year’s event was a “success”. However, this “successful” year also included a violent sexual assault on a young woman. A more serious crime than burning portaloos and nicking from tents you could say, but successful none the less. Yeah, right.

Angry was how I first felt when I read about this rape. I went to the festival this year and as already discussed on this blog, I am highly conscious of the patriarchal machinations and propaganda of the male-dominated cultural sphere that is rock ‘n’ roll. A woman gets raped at a rock festival? Perhaps I wasn’t surprised, but it sure as hell pissed me off.

Then I felt upset. I thought- think- of this woman, her having expectations of having a good time at the festival, just nipping off to the loo and then being grabbed and roughed up against a portaloo. It sickens me. It sickens me that a ‘man’ felt he had- has- the right to take possession of this woman, to violate her, that in order to make himself feel good, powerful and whatever other bullshit, he had to do this to a woman.

I think of the thousands of people milling about having a good time, the sound of loud rock music in the background, you know that genre of music that’s supposed to represent freedom, revolution, that’s the antithesis of bullshit mainstream conformity (largely). But at the back, a ‘man’ was saying bollocks to someone’s freedom- a woman’s freedom, was perpetuating an act so bound up in mainstream representations of women, it couldn’t be less rock and roll, it couldn’t be more callous.

Then my thoughts turn to the sexist comments I heard come from the mouths of the male so-called ‘rock stars’ over the weekend, stood there on stage attempting to get a crowd and most likely themselves off by ‘paying tribute’ to women’s breasts. (Sure fire way to recognise a band is utter crap- when they start rolling out the boobie jokes and fail to recognise the women in their audience as human beings something more than their body parts.)

Over at the Reading festival, I heard how during one band’s set the sound cut out for ten minutes. While the band went off stage to sort out the problem, the main stage screens filmed the crowd and a Girls Gone Wild-esque scene emerged, with female audience members baring their breasts to the encouragement and jeers of the men in the crowd.

I then think of what happened to me. I was walking alone- how dare I?!- towards a takeaway stand and a guy quickly walks past me and smacks me on the arse with a “whoop!” and a laugh. I didn’t see him coming and I never got a look at his face, it happened so quickly and took me by surprise that by the time I realised what had happened it was too late to say anything to him. And to be honest I don’t know what I would have said?

I think of all this together, this whole attitude and atmosphere of fuckin’ lairy boys and their rock ‘n’ roll bullshit where women are treated as pieces of meat- and consequentially raped- and it makes my stomach turn and my blood pressure rise.

What right do ‘men’ have to take advantage, to dominate, to try and catch out lone women walking around in supposedly safe environments? Why can’t a woman make a trip to the loo on her own in the dark without being raped, or at least not being afraid of being pounced on? Why does she have to edge away from the drunk guy behind her in the mosh pit while she’s waiting for her favourite band to come on the stage?

What I’m trying to get at is why can’t women feel safe and be free to go where they want, when they want, night or day, alone or with others? Why is it that in a male-dominated, raucous environment women have to be on their guard? And why should, as night-time falls, no matter how good the music’s going to be, the fear of male sexual violence- imagined or real, threatened or actual- rise?

*I do enjoy myself at these rock festivals, but this misogynist shit pisses me off big time. Therefore I will write about it here.

That abortion storyline in Eastenders…

2006-09-02T09:59:00.000-07:00

I felt uncomfortable watching Stacey being coerced into having an abortion by her boyfriend, an abortion that seemed to me she did not want. Abortion is an issue not often covered in soaps, but when it is, it’s usually the man in support of it*. He wants to get rid of it because he’s too old, a baby will get in the way of his career (a la Bradley, Stacey’s boyfriend, this week in Eastenders). By contrast, the pregnant woman is opposed to having an abortion, unsure, not wanting to destroy this “little baby”, convinced it will bring her and her man closer together, securing a happier future for them both.

But why don’t they turn these roles around once in a while? Why can’t we see a Stacey making a positive, informed decision to have an abortion? Choosing to abort her baby because she felt she was too young, that raising a child would get in the way of her career, worried she would not be a good enough mother, or any other equally valid reason (reasons that are valid enough for the men who persuade their girlfriends/wives to have an abortion)?

But a storyline like this would mean turning some seriously entrenched gender stereotypes on their head. Women are supposed to want babies, to feel all warm and broody at the thought of that bunch of cells forming into a cute little baby. Women aren’t supposed to want to postpone motherhood, or reject it completely. They want us to want to breed. Until daddy says otherwise and leads us to the abortion clinic. ‘Cause of course men aren’t so broody, it might get in the way of their careers and all. That some women might not want children, but some men do is perhaps too radical an idea for prime-time soaps to mould a storyline from.

But even if Eastenders insisted on maintaining the yawn-inducing woman = nurturer stereotype they could still have done this- by letting Stacey choose to have her baby, which would also mean her not having her cave in to her boyfriend’s demands to abort the baby. Shame that as well as hawking the false idea that a woman is an inevitable baby-nurturer, they also choose to represent her as submitting to the wishes of a man when it comes to decisions over her reproductive life.

* if anyone knows of any e.g’s contrary to this I’d love to hear of ‘em.

More reasons to hate women’s mags

2006-08-04T13:42:00.000-07:00

• Because they carry out surveys like this, the findings of which are inevitably depressing and infuriating; the mags' banal, in-bed-with-the-sexist-capitalists, boringly mainstream content sowing the seeds for such results to sprout.
• Because they keep the patriarchy alive and kicking by running stupid features like this. Just in case girls start getting too educated and empowered, features like this remind a girl of her proper place. Look nice for the camera (man) and treat the other girls as your rivals to the coveted crown of patriarchal princess.

The sound of misogyny

2006-06-16T05:39:00.000-07:00

I love my rock music and I always relish the opportunity to see my favourite bands perform live, whether at an intimate gig or an outdoor festival.

This weekend I went to the Download music festival, an annual event held at Donington Park, looking forward to spending a Saturday chilling out to the likes of Alice in Chains and Metallica.

However, my spirits were somewhat dampened on the day from witnessing acts and articulations of the most obvious and basic misogyny.

They included:

• The vocalist of the opening act of the day introducing a song by likening it to “covering your face in a (couldn’t quite hear, but you bet it wasn’t nice) cunt” in that oh-so-attractive macho, meathead manner.
• A singer of another band dedicating a song to “a lady… the cunt, motherfucking bitch who broke my heart”. I wouldn’t expect anyone to have nice things to say about an ex-partner that had done them wrong. However, the language chosen to describe this woman and the vengeful tone in which it was expressed seemed less to do with her specifically than it did with having an excuse to assert his masculinity by using derogatory phrases traditionally aimed at women.
• The big screens in front of the crowd projecting images of women flashing their breasts. These screens showed the crowd and often zoomed in on one member of the audience at a time. This usually meant the chosen one splaying their arms and screaming in an enthusiastic manner. Then something else happened- a woman noticing herself on the screens lifted her top and exposed her breasts. Rapturous applause from the largely male crowd.

So now every time the camera zoomed in on a woman she felt compelled to expose her breasts too. Of course, they weren’t forced to expose their breasts- but the expectation was there. Once a woman was on screen, the male crowd would spur her on, “Go on, you gotta do it”. You could see the women contemplating whether to or not. Some of them didn’t- but the majority did.

The objectification of women was going on around me before my very eyes. One woman’s random act was turned into a male-defined expectation that every other woman would also be game. All women were lumped together, a homogenous group defined by nothing else but their breasts. When the camera zoned in on a man, he lifted his top in a mocking gesture of the women who had done the same- and the crowd laughed along. Exposing your chest is expected practice for a woman- it’s just funny when a man does it. Here in broad daylight it was confirmed for me that women and men’s bodies are loaded with different- and unequal- connotations.

This was just one day. I come across other acts of misogyny in the rock sub-culture I am a part of all the time- even in the bands I like, which can cause maddening debates within myself. I love the form of rock music, the loud, crushing guitar riffs coupled with beautiful melodies- those who adhere to essentialist and stereotypical concepts of sex might say it is a very masculine form- but I’m a woman and I fucking adore it.

However, sometimes it is difficult to reconcile my feminism with this male-dominated, ‘masculine’ music culture. I can enjoy the music, but sometimes recoil at the sexist lyrics of some of my favourite bands and feel uncomfortable with their sexually objectifying portrayal of women on their album sleeves and in their videos.

Take this- I love the band Pearl Jam. Aside from the fact they write and perform brilliant rock ‘n’ roll, they are also vocal in supporting women’s issues and organisations. They have performed at concerts and appeared on CDs for and donated money to organisations that campaign on abortion rights and ending violence against women. There are even some songs in their catalogue (Why Go, Daughter) that portray women as independent human beings with minds of their own, not as ‘bitches’ that break their hearts (often a favourite in rock repertoire). Another song, Betterman, brings the issue of domestic violence (from her perspective) into the realm of hard rock, one poignant lyric reading, “She feeds him/That’s why she’ll be back again.”

The band’s vocalist Eddie Vedder has also said such wonderful things like this: (on rape with reference to the Red Hot Chili Peppers song Party On Your Pussy) “Don’t party on anybody’s pussy unless they want you to,” and (on abortion): “It should be a woman’s choice what she does with her body and how she plans her future.”

He also said this at a show in 2003 to a woman in the audience who was flashing the band:

"You know there's some little coquette up here who thinks she's getting us excited by pulling her top up and showing me absolutely nothing. Hey look guys ... look at my mosquito bites from this summer. It's all fucking girls gone wild bullshit. If every girl who pulled her top up educated herself and voted!”

On first reading, I was like, “Great, finally a rock frontman who doesn’t want to see women flashing him- heck, he’s even advocating their education and political participation.”

But he went on:

“And by the way, little lady, I'm just not turned on by that little thing. I'm into much harder core stuff. I actually like to shit on little girls heads just like you; that's what turns me on."

Any subversive potential this tirade may have had to begin with was soon lost by his reference to her breasts as, “that little thing”, and a disgusting act which re-asserts his male dominance.

I could get into the whole ‘but was she asking for it, she was offending him after all?’ This post’s long enough already so I won’t go into that too much, just to say that you can make a point without having to resort to crude, macho posturing of this sort.

And this is the bind I- as I’m sure other feminist rock fans- find myself in. I won’t stop listening to the music. I won’t stop going to the concerts and the festivals. But I can’t stop my feminist consciousness picking up on things like this. And that’s a compromise I guess I’m willing to make.