Beyond Feminism

I swear to the Goddess that I have tried not to do this doodle.

This is how I imagine popular feminists to be like. It’s a fantasy of mine which may or may not correspond to reality, but for some reason I can’t get rid of this image. I call them Glamour Feminists. They publish books, they keep blogs. They don’t venture into more “radical” or “unpopular” territory. But more importantly, they have a Helluva time. Which sounds slightly suspicious to me. How many political activists do you recall to have had a Helluva time while actively trying to change the world? While this is what I torture myself with (WARNING! Extremely disturbing stuff), they go to fancy shmancy trips with their boyfriends. No wonder they never appear keen on changing the current economic system. No wonder they don’t stop to think about what it means to fe a feminist and have a boyfriend. Hell, they don’t seem to have anything but praise to being “single” even though they have partners themselves!

I am being unfair, I know that. I am far too frustrated with my own life to not colour my perception of anyone else’s with jelousy. But I read blogs by less Glamorous feminists who have it much much tougher and work much harder. Women who have seen the nastiest side of what it means to be a woman in patriarchy.

As I said, I don’t know where sheer childish prejudice ends and real criticism begins. So I ask for your help. Do you think that the Glamour Feminist exists? Have you ever felt anything similar?

It seems I have inadvertently stumbled upon a subject that other people apart from me would like to talk about. Awesome! ‘Cuz it’s been in my mind for quite some time now, and I haven’t as of yet found any reference to it in the feminist (radical or otherwise) blogosphere.

The subject in question can be summarized as follows:

“It SUCKS to be a STRAIGHT radical feminist“.

It would be a long, winding excercise to enumerate the many reasons why it sucks to be a straight radical feminist, but let’s give it a try.

The most obvious one is, of course, the inevitable aversion that we have towards men after years devoted to understanding and discovering what they do to us women. Misogyny is a radical feminist’s bread and butter. It’s the very stuff we work with every day in our tireless quest to dismantle Teh Patriarchy. And the very essence of misogyny is simple: “they hate us”. It is only natural that we would, at the very minimum, face men with a raised eyebrow and a suspicious look. So, from the get go we have a problem: how can we expect to love that which we know hates us? Sounds masochist, doesn’t it? The only solution I can come up with lies in the distinction between the “whole” of men as a group and every individual man. They might all hate us, but it is possible to find at least one who doesn’t. Right?

Then there’s the problem of that individual man. For me, my feminism is non-negotiable, and I guess it will be the same for most radical feminists. The question is, can we love someone who doesn’t agree with our most basic values? And should we? Where do we draw the line? After all, men do have a tendency to engage in misogynistic behaviour (Duh!). Can we love someone who, say, visits prostitutes, goes to strip clubs or consumes porn? And should we? I know I can’t and I am quite certain that I shouldn’t. We know very well that no matter what men say, when they disrespect “some” women, that attitude tends to “spill over” to all women. You know how you can test the “quality*” of a society by the way it treates its most vulnerable individuals? Well, I think you can test how much of an asshole a man is by the way he think of the “least valuable**” women. I’ll call this the “Tracy Test of General Assholery”I. ‘ve been with men who scored very low on that test. They didn’t think much of women and they didn’t think much of me.
We all choose different battles and that in turn will, I guess, define what we will tolerate from a man and what we won’t. Like waxing, or dress-code, we will all have our individual “deal breakers”. But once we have firmly established what those deals are, what we are willing to put up with and what we are not, we fly in the face of the cold, harsh reality: the men who could, in principle, meet all our feminist “requirements” would be very, very few. We are looking at a small, almost non-existent sample here. Feminist men do not abound. And this is when desperation kicks in for me, usually in the form of:

“Aaah, I’ll never find love! I’m going to be single forever!!! I hate MEN!!! Being straight SUCKS!!!”

And… we are back to where we started. Unless we come up with an alternative. Can we? More to come. Stay tuned!

What do you all think? Do you feel the desperation of an eminent life in “permanently single” land? What are your deal breakers? Are we being “too picky” or are we merely being consequent with our principles? And if so, well, no one said that would be easy.

* By “quality” I mean an artificial measure of how crappy it’s individuals have it.
** By “least valuable” I mean the women that patriarchy values less by definition, ie: prostitutes, old women, the unfuckable (fat, ugly, hairy, etc), disabled, black, homosexual, etc.

NOTE: Before anyone accuses me of assuming that all feminists are straight, note that I said “more to come”.

Last week I posted a half-arsed comic featuring three female celebrities. I’ve been criticised for this on several accounts and since I haven’t given any words on the post itself, here’s are my thoughts on the whole subject.

Let’s start off with what I am actually laughing at on the images.
a) The tables in society are suddenly turned and Madonna has to respond to the new people in power, The Feminists, and explain the reasons for her anti-feminism. I like this one the most and so this is the one I am more eager to defend.
b) Beyonce, in a continuing effort to appear smiling at all times, has pulled out a funny face. I make fun of the fact that she doesn’t seem to want to be seen non smiling, so much so that a funny smiling face which reeks of a pose is better for her than no smile at all.
c) Scarlett’s pose is, frankly, ridiculous. Her eyes are vacuous and her is mouth opened for no good reason in a good impersonation of “The Fuck Me Look”, her hair is floating and her bag is up in the air. Sheer nonsense in any normal life situation.

Now onto the wider topic of why I think it’s OK to laugh at and criticise female celebrities. In short words: because they hurt us all.
Let’s start with a quote I already quoted in what later became this blog’s most popular post for entirely un-feministy reasons.
It’s by Gail Dines, and I’m just gonna include the last bit:

“(…) When Madonna goes out, and talks about women and puts out the message that women are exactly as men thought they are (pornographic men), it’s all right for Madonna to say that, cuz’ you know what, she travels with beefy guys who protect her. It’s you and I walking in that fucking parking lot at night that have to deal with the guys who believe this. So that’s the problem when women talk about their choices is that every single one of us suffers in some level.”

I don’t think I can improve on what she’s said, but I’ll try.
First, I shoudl perhaps add that I have left out a small piece of Dines’ speech, seeing as she didn’t go on through that path. But her exact words were “when Madonna, in her “feminist” way, goes out …”. That detail is important to understand why I consider Madonna te be one of the greatest anti-feminist woman of our time: precisely because she dresses up her anti-feminism as feminism. But let’s go on.

This story is very old. People from oppressed minorities and groups sideline with the oppressor to obtain personal advantages at the expense of their own group. It’s a tactic that feminists understand very well. And it’s precisely the reason why feminists feel they can criticize blatant anti-feminist women like the worm who wrote that vile stuffed column about how women are really REALLY sucky. They have betrayed us, and the loyalty we reserve for each other is, thus, gone. And, I think, rightly so.

Now, why do I think that female celebrities, for the most part, have “sidelined with the oppressor to obtain personal advantages”? Well, because their entire “celebritiy” status, the basis of their career, is precisely that of “being there for the menz”. If you magically removed menz from the equation, this women’s status would fall to pieces. They are embracing and encouraging patriarchal attitudes which have and continue to hurt women everywhere. Namely that we, women, are a sexual tool for men’s fantasies, that we are all “gagging for it”, that the sole purpose of our existence is to have men come and take us. What I call “making men’s balls jingle”.
Madonna has based her entire career on it. Well, that and creating pointless controversy, but let’s leave that aside for the moment. She didn’t have a “point” when she started and she doesn’t have it now. Her goal wasn’t for women to be sexually confidence, or for sex to be less taboo. Because she continues to carry on with the same poisonous attitude today. Without her talent to make men’s balls jingle, she would have never gotten anywhere.
Beyonce and Scarlett are just smaller examples of the same thing. One is a porno-pop-star, the other is a porno-pop-actress. What do I mean by that? That their success is based mainly in their ability to sell “sex”. Like porn-actresses, though less explicit, their goal is the same: making men’s balls jingle. Without that, they wouldn’t have gotten far either.

All of this has many effects. The main one is to condone the prevalent idea that women are here for men’s visual pleasure. This, in turn, affects the conditions of women everywhere. From sexual assault to campaigning for president, the whole perception of what women are is shaped constantly by the depictions of women like these. And they are complicit, there’s no way around it.
Another effect is to literally boycott the careers of talented women who refuse to play into this game. See, making men’s balls jingle might bring you fame and fortune, but it doesn’t get you silly little things like respect from your fellow women, recognition for your hard work and the always undervalued sense that you are doing something worth doing. If I may be allowed a moment of boldness, Billy Holiday and Aretha Franklin didn’t work as hard as they did so that Beyonce could become famous for her legs and arse.
Yet another effect is to make mere mortal women feel like shite. They present themselves as an impossible ideal, the underlying assumption being if THEY can be like this, then surely everyone can. One could say that this is not the celebrities’ fault; that this is all the doing of big corporations selling junk. But lo and behold, celebs do profit from this inmensely. They lend their faces to the big corporations so they can sell the junk. In this they are complicit. And we also have to consider how celebrities themselves are made up to look like something they are not through entirely artifical means. From make up and lighting to photoshop and surgery. We rarely hear them complaining about all this. What we DO hear is their blatant denial that they’ve had anything “done”. Way to go.

One last thing. I believe that this siding with the oppressor happens in all areas of life and is perhaps the main reason preventing women from marching as a whole to improve their situation. Which is why I am not willing to give any woman, celebrity or not, a pass just because they are women who suffer under patriarchy. We all suffer under patriarchy. And some of us pay an incredibly high price when we refuse to side with men.

People may say that criticizing female celebrities is not very useful. And I give you that. It does have the unwanted effect of removing men from the equation. I wish I could be a more positive person and use my abilities to help advance the feminist cause by bringing the spotlight to the people who are causing the real damage. I am aware of this, and, for what is worth, you have my word that I will try my best to change this aspect of myself.

I hope all of this has made my position somewhat clearer. You can disagree and that’s fine. I think the only thing we should restraing from is shutting up.

YAY for socks and YAY for hairy legs!

Who wants to join in the challenge? All you have to do is let the world know that you have body hair like a normal human being and that you are not ashamed of it! Let’s kick femininity up the arse with our hairy legs! 

Anyone brave enough to take a picture of her be-knickered crotch with pubic hair springing from the sides?  

Here’s a concept that’s so obvious I needed to hear it from someone else. As a feminist in constant training, I am aware of the most common types of privilege, even the ones that don’t affect me directly. And yet this one, which has punched me in the face throughout my life and scared my soul for lives to come has somehow managed to fly right through my Privilege Catching Net of Feminist Awareness (cool name, ha?).

And so it was that, thanks to Littoral Mermaid, that I could finally articulate my feelings. The Privilege Catching Net has grown in surface. Watch out, world!

So, let’s get on with it.

I’m an average looking woman. I know. There are millions of us. I can imagine myself saying those same words in a support group for Average Looking Women. “Hi, my name’s Mary…”; “Hi Mary”, say all the women in a neat choir; “… and I’m a *sob* average looking woman”.
This idea would be much funnier if it wasn’t so needed. With all the messages out there making us feel like utter trash ‘cuz, you know, it’s profitable to “un-trash” us, I believe it would be tremendously helpful for all of us average looking women to get together and discover that
a) we are by far the majority of women on the planet and b) our very existence, or rather, the label put on our very existence, actively PRIVILIGES the ones on top. That is, the pretty ones.

See, for every 10 pretty women, there are 100 average looking women who exist to make the pretty special. That’s the thing about privilige: the ones who have it, have it precisely because there are considerably more who don’t.
Pretty-ness wouldn’t be worth so much if it wasn’t so rare. And for it to be rare, there has to be far more average-ness than pretty-ness.
That’s the thing about privilege, it causes oppression. Pretty-ness is used in pretty women’s favour and against average looking women. Pretty-ness is used to put yourself up. But the only way to do that is to put many many down.

I could go on and on about pretty privilege, particularly the effect it has on the ones who, like me, do NOT have it and more particularly still on the effect it has on one’s perceived worthiness of being loved. If for some reason this resonates with you and you want to rant with me, feel free to do so.

I’ll leave you with the words of two awesome feminists:

Amananta, “Ugly Girl”

“Yes, I am ugly - why should it matter? Why should it invalidate my opinions, be used to dismiss me as a friend or a gaming buddy, be used as a weapon against me whenever someone becomes angry with me or some random stranger sees my picture and decides he wants to use me as a toilet to dump his emotional shit into? Why should I be required to be ornamental? Why is my refusal to try to be an ornament met with such strident disapproval from complete strangers? What gives them the right?”

L.M., Pretty Privilege

“Pretty women are not devalued under this system and may even reap some benefits for their good looks. That’s why I think that pretty women* often express indifference or even hostility towards radical feminist criticism of beauty culture as misogynist or hell even as a little sexist or see beauty culture as something to be celebrated or even as empowering. They can’t see through their pretty privilege.”

While I was writing my previous post, I stumbled upon this, also from the Ex-Prostitutes Against Legislated Sexual Servitude, within something titled “Calling Former Sex-Trade Workers”.

Are you tired of hearing prostitution described as a choice and do you have a different story to tell
So am I

It resonated with me for some reason, even though I am not, of course, an ex-sex worker. So why?
Silencing. That’s why. I have experienced silencing when expressing dissenting views when it comes to prostitution and the sex industry. Worse still, I’ve experienced silencing through my entire life when expressing non compliance to patriarchy.

This is not abut me not being abled to express my disgust for porn. This is about women who have experienced male violence not having a voice to say “I have endured this and I feel it’s wrong”.

In the midst of the abuse, these women cannot articulate what’s happening to them, not to others, not even to themselves. The silencing is so thorough they cannot name it. Because they are told that “nothing” is happening to them. And even if there was something happening to them, it couldn’t be that bad. And even if it were that bad, well, it must have been their fault in the first place.

Think about it. They have suffered male violence. But what do they get if they dare speak out? They are told that they are liars, mad or whores; that “rape is simply sex”, so what’s the big deal; that “it’s just a job”, the implication being “quit complaining”

Being abused is undoubtedly painful. But having everyone deeming your abuse unimportant when not downright imposible? Having your pain brushed aside because it’s believed you “chose” it?

Who is telling these women that what they have suffered is wrong? Who is telling them that they are the victims? Who is listening to them? Who is validating their feelings?

Here, Amananta tells her story , one filled with pain and abuse. The kind that forces you to reconsider what the limits of human indurance to suffering are. And instead of adopting a “why me?” attitude and feel sorry for herself like I WOULD DO, she bravely stands up for all the women who experience this and tells us she is no exception.

(…)
Through her blog I discovered other unapologetic feminist blogs. I was exposed to ideas I had not heard before, but that struck a chord deep within me. If you have ever heard something for the first time and instantly recognized its RIGHTNESS on a deep level, you know what I mean. But still, I could not talk about these things in my own blog because I was afraid of frightening away all of my friends, who got mad at me if I even said anything that was like a pale echo of what these other women were saying.
(…)
“The child abuse I experienced was sanctioned by the patriarchy, was committed by patriarchs, was demanded to be hidden by the patriarchs and their supporters, and when I refused to obediently remain silent I was further punished by the patriarchs and their servants.
And finally I get told by women who think they are fighting the patriarchy that many of the systems that oppressed me can really just be good clean fun if you have the right attitude and clearly I don’t so the whole problem is my attitude problem and IT’S ALL MY FAULT so why am I so angry and I can’t criticize a system they are supporting without it meaning that I am trying to steal their “feminist membership card”, because talking about my experiences and those of my friends honestly isn’t allowed if it makes them feel maybe they are buying into the patriarchal mindfuck program somehow, because denial is just so much more comfortable.

This is Rebecca’s comment to my last post.

(…)
I, as an ex-prostitute, have spent my life being silenced.
(…)
I had to live with silence, and it was killing me.
When I chose to speak out, I did it with great of pain and confusion,
(…)
When I first spoke out it was with a pro-prostitute group who sent me back into denial. For they told me that “if” was as violent as I said then I would be dead. And, because I was middle-class, I could of brought my way out. I was then told that prostitution wasn’t that violent.
I went back into silence.
(…)
Finding radical feminists save my life.
I found women who let speak in my own words. I found women who listen and heard. (…)
I found that I was believed and I was seen as a full person.
I also found women who were prepared to see that prostitution is male violence against all women. That prostitution is a violation of prostituted women’s and girls’s rights to dignity and safety.

It’s heartbreaking. I cannot find the words to express what these stories make me feel. So I’ll borrow Marcella Chester’s, author of abyss2hope, from her post “Sexual Assault Awareness Month”:

“Most survivors of sexual violence rarely, if at all, talk about being survivors which is their right (it took me decades before I could begin to speak about my experiences), but too often their silence is taken as proof that they were never victims of sexual violence or if they were that the violence committed against them had no serious negative impact.”

For these women, speaking out against sexual violence is not a choice. It’s a matter of life or death. They can’t look the other way, or hide behind bogus claims of “women’s individual choices”. They have suffered violence themselves. It has shaken them to the core. They have to articulate their feelings as a first step to exorcise this monster out. Notice how Rebecca says that “finding radical feminists saved my life”.

Our duty as fellow feminists is to add our voices to theirs so we can all be heard everywhere. So that every woman who has ever suffered violence, who has been abused, who has had to put up with patriarchy’s nastiest side, knows it’s not her fault. That is not OK. That her pain is real, not “made up” by oversensitivity to a non-existent problem.

We cannot keep quiet. We owe it to them. And I’d advice all feminists out there, including myself, to think about this every time we feel like giving up. Read these words, listen to these women, acknowledge their pain. They are the reason why we are here.

NOTE: To the women quoted in this post: if I misrepresented your views, or if I have offended you in any way, please let me know.

I’ve just done an important diservice to my stress-level and read Echidne’s post on intersectionality. And what the F is intersectionality? In her own words:

“”Intersectionality”, as far as I understand it, means that it’s important to look at women positioned in all the different places in the society: poor women, women who are ethnic minorities, religious women, immigrant women, lesbians, disabled women, to give a few examples, and to make sure that the way feminism is practiced isn’t just to benefit those who already are fairly well placed, as women are concerned.”

It gets better. Here’s Valenti’s idea of intersectionality:

“(…) One of these claims is that mainstream feminists have ignored an “intersectional” approach to feminism–one that takes class, race and sexuality into account”

And here’s what I say to them: AWESOME. Good Stuff. Just one tiny, minor, entirely unimportant thing: HOW. HOW ON EARTH ARE YOU PLANNING TO DO THAT.

With LIBERALISM???

Every so often, the amount of pretended concern I can take reaches critical levels and I literally explode. This time, I’m unfairly picking on something Echidne and Jessica said, only because they happened to make up the last 2 straws that set me off. In all honesty, this stuff is everywhere.
But what exactly is this “pretended concern” that annoys me so much? It’s people’s aparent concern for things that need changing. It’s only “aparent”, mind you, because they never consider the possible solutions. Why? BECAUSE NO ONE WANTS THE SOLUTIONS. Let me say it loud and clear:

No one wants poor people, women or not, to stop being poor. No one wants inmigrant people, women or not, to stop being inmigrants*. NO ONE. Because that would piss off the God of Capitalism. For the poor to stop being poor, the rich would have to stop being rich. FAT CHANCE OF THAT HAPPENING! For inmigration to stop being the mess it is today, the poor countries would have to stop being poor. And for the poor countries to stop being poor, the rich countries would have to stop being rich. Again, FAT CHANCE OF THAT HAPPENING.

Anyone can play the “I’m so concerned” part. It guarantees you a considerable aura of sweetness. Just remember to pout, look very sad and under no circumstance should you hint at a solution.

*Here, I mean poor inmigrants, of course. No one raises a peep when rich people come to their countries. Like when the British move to Spain looking for “a place under the Sun”.

NOTE: I am not accusing either Echidne or Jessica of anything.