From my blog: tenderhooligan.wordpress.com/

I’ve put about 100 things aside recently to blog about and none of them are timely or current any longer. I’m not going to blog about the UK riots because I really have to make a commentary on them in a journal article I’m writing and I haven’t thought them all the way through yet. I’m also not going to blog about what’s going on in Libya because that is very far outside of my expertise. So, I’m going to backtrack on a few things I’ve been reading recently and hope that they’ve not disappeared too far into the ether to be no longer relevant. The Internet is a busy place and, it seems, you either comment on something quickly or you don’t bother commenting at all. Well, in my head it’s still 1998 so ya’ll can just have patience.

So, then, about two weeks ago Julie Bindel wrote in the New Statesman that “fun feminism” should be confined to the rubbish bin. By “fun feminism” she meant, for instance, movements such a SlutWalk(because challenging rape culture is a-laugh-a-freaking-minute, don’t you know). For Bindel, any form of feminism that isn’t defined as strictly radical (a definition of feminism that’s as moveable as any other, it’s worth noting) is just not feminism. Most of all, she dislikes the kind of feminism that attempts to include men and argues that “if men like a particular brand of feminism, it means it is not working.”

Now, I find myself disagreeing with Bindel a lot but never more so than on this occasion. I wrote on a comment on a friend’s blog at the time:

I have many problems with Bindel’s piece: she’s resolutely opposed to (and seemingly very threatened by) anything post-second-wave and remotely intersectional; she is dictating what type of feminism is acceptable (and what type apparently isn’t) and what sort of feminist everyone should be (as if there’s a bullet point list of criteria); and she’s horribly silencing of young or “just arrived” feminists who are still finding their place in the movement and figuring out where they stand. I thought it was a disgraceful article.

That pretty much sums up my stance, still. Let me develop on a few points. There is no bullet point list of criteria for feminism, and the argument that there is and that you must be a certain “type of feminist” is hurting the movement. I don’t personally have a tolerance for the belief that feminism is some sort of dirty word that should be avoided (and there’s a discourse, currently, that we should change the name because it’s so loaded with negativity), and I have little patience for the argument that the term has come to represent something that is so uncomfortable to many that they would rather deride feminism than identify with it, but at the same time, insisting that there is only one way to “do” feminism is nonsensical. (That sentence got very long; I apologise.) It’s not a case of “you are either with us or against us”; it’s a not a binary state. Yes, one would assume that there is a fundamental set of core beliefs that feminists share but there doesn’t need to be a rigid typology to which we all must subscribe. Bindel appears to be advocating that there is. If you are not part of a “radical” movement that seeks to overthrow the patriarchy, then you’re not allowed to play in her gang. I mean, who doesn’t want to overthrow the patriarchy? I certainly do. But if I’m the kind of feminist who doesn’t see that as our most crucial goal, would I be any less of a feminist? I don’t think I would. If I want my feminism to include men, am I not a feminist any more? Don’t be ridiculous!

Which brings me to a related point. We feminists can be an unforgiving lot. We will call you on your privilege, we will tell you each and every time you’re being patriarchal, and our –ism radar is like a finely tuned military machine. We will shout and scream. (Or maybe that’s just me.) The feminist interweb, which is where the majority of the feminist debate takes place now, is a minefield. Half of the feminist blogosphere seems to be waiting for the other half to say something which could remotely, vaguely, even at a stretch be construed as anti-women or anti-feminist. Sometimes this vigilance is welcome (trolls and misogynists are easily identified) but sometimes it means that feminists who have things they want to say are too terrified to say them. If you say something anti-woman/ feminist, then of course you should be called on it but too often that’s not the real motivation. In short, what some feminists are very good at doing is silencing other feminists. (If you’ve ever happened upon some in-fighting between feminists on one of the more popular blogs, you’ll know what I mean.) As a rule, it’s the young, “new” feminists who are most silenced by the older, established (and generally quite privileged) feminists who are there and ready to pounce. I don’t think it’s even a conscious action at times, but it is prevalent. Bindel is one such established (and privileged) feminist. And in defining and stating what she thinks is “pointless” feminism, she has silenced an enormous number of young feminists who are still trying to find their way with the movement and who have many important things to say.

By the way, I consider myself one of those “young feminists” even if I am next door to ancient. So well done Julie. If your aim is to establish some sort of monopoly on feminism, keep at it; you’re doing a good job. On the other hand, if you want to contribute meaningfully to a movement that is as vital now as it was when you first identified with it, then allow others to do the same.

Post from my blog (tenderhooligan/ wordpress).

If only I could spend all day online reading blogs, I would. I can’t, so I can only give you what I see. Recently:

• David Willets: feminism has held back working class men (thetelegraph). This is from weeks ago, of course, but never let it be said I’m in fashion. Willets (our Universities Minister for our sins) declared recently that feminism has led to the ruination of working class men. (For those of you who don’t know what feminism is, it’s all about them women who want to wear trousers, answer their own front doors, and belch in public.) On what planet Willets resides, I do not know but let’s mention the one very glaring incongruity. Women and working class men are not, and have never been, on the opposite ends of any sociological or economic spectrum so the reason for his putting them there was lost on just about everyone.  So his argument was flawed from the start. If Willets had his way, women would be relegated to the reserve workforce again and only called upon in times of extreme need. If I ever see him, I’ll run up to him and tell him what I think of him. I’ll be able to run as I’ll be wearing trousers, you see.

• “Virginity Tests” Forced On Egyptian Women Protesters (msmagazine). Another relatively old piece but important nonetheless. One wonders where to start with all of this. How could one’s virginity or otherwise be relevant to anything? Well it’s not, of course, and it was never intended to be. The only purpose of these “tests” has been to inflict humiliation. The women protesting in Egypt were subjected to verbal, physical and sexual abuse on many occasions and we can’t, of course,  forget about the CBS reporter who was raped during the protests.

Amnesty International is now condemning the treatment of at least 18 women who were held in military detention after being arrested during a protest on March 9 (a month after Mubarak stepped down).  The women told Amnesty International that they were beaten, given electric shocks, and subjected to strip searches while being photographed.  They were then forced to submit to “virginity tests” and told that if they were “found not to be virgins,” they could be charged with prostitution.

• The Effort to End Acid Violence (msmagazine). This is another one that is not for the faint-hearted. If women in Bangladesh, India and Cambodia don’t do as their told, and deviate from their “expected behaviours”, they risk being attacked with acid. (Though don’t be fooled that it can’t happen elsewhere too.) The physical and health ramifications of these attacks are boundless. These women often lose their jobs, their homes (because they lose the “support” of their spouses), and fade into exclusion and poverty. While these crimes might not, apparently, be as entrenched as honour killings or public stonings, they’re still as problematic.

“This is a form of gender terrorism,” says Sital Kalantry, director of Cornell Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic. “If we [women] deviate from what’s expected of us, this is the punishment that we receive.” …The report found that women were most often attacked for refusing marriage proposals or sexual advances. The attackers believe that if they can’t “have” the victim, then no one should. Thus, they seek to “destroy what society considers to be one of the most valuable traits of a woman–her beauty.” Acid is also thrown at women for transgressing the boundaries of expected behavior, or for exercising seemingly any modicum of independence. Women have been attacked for initiating divorce proceedings or attempting to keep wages they’ve earned at a job.

• Conservatives are encouraging parents to divert their kids from thoughts of college (friendlyatheist). Apparently it might give them “ideas” (you know what I mean: critical thought, mind of their own, that sort of thing). I’ll say no more.

• Slut Shame: Attacking Women for Their Sex Lives (alternet). We’re still calling women sluts and we still don’t like it when they choose to have sex with whomever they please. Why? There’s a variety of reasons. One is that women’s bodies should be reserved for procreation and having sex for any other reason is some sort of crime against nature. Another is that a woman doesn’t have any right to make her own sexual choices (or any choices about what she does with her body), and that being sexual in any way is not natural or expected behaviour for women anyway. Ultimately, the piece hits the nail on the head when it says that the term “slut” is meant to put women back in their place (with their legs firmly closed), and make them ashamed of their own desires and pleasures. We wouldn’t want them enjoying themselves now, would we? All hell might break loose.

• On a related note, abstinence-only sex education results? 150 pregnancies since august (edenfantasys). Well, if ever you needed some evidence that abstinence-only education (wherein you’re told just that you shouldn’t be at it) does. not. work. you can look to this Texas school board which, despite its commitment to such education, has had to report 150 student pregnancies since the start of the school year. Ooops! One word: contraception. Or at least make a flipping stab at it.

• On another related note, contraception use is the norm among religious women (feministe). See, God can’t hate the non-procreation sex that much, can he? Or are they all damned to the burning fires of hell too?

More later.

Post from my blog (tenderhooligan/ wordpress).

I must blog about this very same thing twice a year because I just don’t get it.

From padaviya:

Feminism has fought no wars. It has killed no opponents. It has set up no concentration camps, starved no enemies, practiced no cruelties. Its battles have been for education, for the vote, for better working conditions.. for safety on the streets… for child care, for social welfare… for rape crisis centers, women’s refuges, reforms in the law. If someone says ‘Oh, I’m not a feminist,’ I ask ‘Why? What’s your problem?’

- Dale Spender

I might not ask, ‘Why? What’s your problem?’, but I will ask you to have a think about that. I frequently say things like the following to my female students: Really, feminism is a load of rubbish is it? How’s going to university working out for you? Looking forward to getting a job and earning a wage, are you? Appreciating your full access to birth control, I suppose? Ah, enjoyed the pub last night, I see. Voting about AV in May, are you? How do you think you got to enjoy all of the above? 

Feminism’s a load of rubbish, it? Think on…

Post from my blog (tenderhooligan/ wordpress).

I’ve been absent from tumblr, I know. I used to spend a lot of time here but recently, for a variety of reasons, I’ve been spending less and less. I want to learn from the blogospere (for there is so much to learn) and I felt that I was no longer doing that so much on tumblr. On a related note, keeping up with my dashboard (even though I don’t follow that many people, really) was becoming impossible and it got to the stage where I was able to neither read nor post with any success. The fashion of posting 30 times a day on tumblr is an excellent one but it’s not for me.

I’m still following some blogs here, and maybe I’ll come back some time, but right now I want to concentrate on the vast array of fascinating links I’m finding on twitter and seeing what I make of them.

Be well.

Where to start. It’s been a busy week in the blogoshere. There’s been a lot to talk about.

In no particular order:

• The iconography of French advertising (theillusionists). This is a discussion of the very obvious objectification of women on Parisian billboards and the effect that that may have on the pervasive sexism on Paris’ streets (and, presumably, behind its doors). It may, the author admits, be a simple correlation but it’s a noteworthy one nonetheless. These ads “confirm”  the sexual availability of women for our happy sexists (with one going so far as to claim that “Everything is allowed”) in a culture which is all too ready to take that on board.

• Men speak out about the sexist coverage of rape (msmagazine). And this is a call to action where men (for a refreshing change) ask that coverage of rape moves away from its frequent demonisation of victims to focus on the men who perpetrate these rapes and the culture which not only produces them but insists on apologising for them and condoning their actions afterwards.

For too many young men, communal rituals of sexism perpetuate negative notions of manhood. Most of us are rightly horrified when we read about gang rape. But group sexual assault is best understood as being at the extreme end of a continuum of behaviors that normalize men’s sexist treatment of women. What about college guys hiring strippers for private parties and openly calling those women “bitches and hoes”? And let’s not forget–an entire genre in pornography is devoted to simulated scenes of gang rape, which in many quarters is considered socially acceptable entertainment for men, who sometimes watch it in groups.

• The sisterhood of “the pole” (jezebel). We may not like it (and I, for one, object to jezebel’s title) but the sex trade exists though God knows I wish it didn’t. This piece looks at a side of the sex trade we don’t hear about very often and discusses the strong bonds that are often developed between sex workers in their daily lives. It might not mean much to you but it might help to remind you that these women are, indeed, human beings after all.

• 83% of women in rural Uganda have never used a condom (newvision). The piece is entitled 83% rural women shun condom use which is a somewhat misleading title. Further reading indicates that this issue is not about “shunning” condom use but is rather more about these women not being able to insist on condom use because to do so is (1) not “normal behaviour for women”, and (2) not possible given the lesser place and power of women in Ugandan society which makes it difficult for them to enforce condom use with men. The figures on HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases speak for themselves.

• Finally, for now, Nigerian traffickers use black magic to trap 1000s of women to send to Italy for sex trade (theindependent). This one is not for the faint-hearted. Nigerian traffickers are reportedly terrifying the living hell out of trafficked women by using a West African religion (“juju” ) to ensure that these women are fiercely loyal to their traffickers. Let the following excerpts tell you what you need to know:

Nigeria’s human traffickers are using black magic to trap thousands of women like Rita into a life of sex slavery in Europe. Eastern European gangs use violence to coerce the women they transport, but the “madams” at the top of the Nigerian trafficking chain don’t need muscle – they have juju on their side. It is a form of ritualised extortion that allows Nigerian women to be both perpetrators and victims of the exploitation.

… Rita says she has no choice but to carry on working. Before she left Nigeria, she swore an oath of loyalty to her traffickers in a traditional religious ritual, a practice I was investigating for Channel 4′s Unreported World programme. She promised to pay back the cost of her transportation to Europe and offered up her soul as collateral for the debt. When she arrived in Italy, she was told she owed her traffickers €50,000 (£44,000), as well as extortionate living costs, including €300 a month in “rent” for the right to solicit from her particular patch. “I can’t escape this unless I pay,” she says. “Africans have very strong charms that can destroy someone in the twinkle of an eye.”

… The condom-strewn lay-by near Bergamo where Rita picks up clients is a far cry from the Europe she imagined five years ago when traffickers approached her in Edo. “I was happy that I was going to Europe to feed my family,” explains Rita, 27. “I didn’t know it would turn out to be like this.” She now sleeps with about 10 men a day, seven days a week, for €20 (£17.50) a time. She will work even if she feels ill, even if she has her period, even though she has been badly beaten in the past.

Keep your eyes peeled people. There’s a lot going on in the world.

From my blog:

Would you ever calculate your carbon footprint? (Prompt from Plinky.)

Yes. And then no.

I would like to but I don’t know how. I know I could learn but considering the most travel I do is to Asda in the car (forgetting for a moment a longhaul flight at the weekend), I dare say I’m not doing the most damage. But it would be interesting to know…

Actually, this leads me to a confession. I have recently become involved in a petition/ social justice site whereon I sign numerous petitions every day. They are invariably excellent causes and mirror my own concerns with women’s rights, human rights, animal rights, human trafficking etc. I also sign petitions about the environment and sustainable food, though I don’t always understand The Science.

Anyway, I was sceptical at first and but I signed as many petitions as I thought were worthwhile and waited to see what happened. As it turns out, a lot happens. Advertisers change their campaigns, senators change their votes, the wrong imprisoned are freed, politicians are made accountable, schools change their polices, and, in often very small ways, the world becomes a better place.

But I must confess: I will not sign a petition if the grammar used within is incorrect. I just can’t. If you don’t have your commas in the right place, if you abuse semi-colons, if I spot one too many errant apostrophes, if you don’t know the difference between title and sentence case, I am not signing you. I don’t care if your petition is to save the whole damned world, you will not have my X on the end of you.

I am surely a terrible person. That there just undoes all the good I do otherwise, I’m sure of it…