So how come you think you’re able to take my female actuality away from me, Mr Mark John Jones? You’re not female. You’ll never be female. I’m taking your “female status” away from you right now – because I am female and you’re not.
You’re XY, I’m XX. And yet, somehow, you think that by having surgery, wearing frocks and painting on the clown face that makes you female? I don’t think so, Sonny Jim. If just that shit makes you “female”, what does that make me, a natural born and lived female – superwoman?
What’s more, you attempted to rape another human being after having murdered your boyfriend because he wouldn’t pay for your gender reassignment surgery. Females understand what rape is, the powerplay involved and the trauma that results. Males use rape as power and coersion to get what they want. You’re male.
And now the powers that be (male, of course) have agreed that you should be placed in a “women’s” prison because you, tender flower that you are, believe you’re “female” – even though you tried to rape someone! Talk about putting the fox in the henhouse….
I realise hands will be thrown in the air and cries of “transphobic!” will echo around the world but people assigned female at birth are my concern and I’m never going to apologise for that. I’m guessing that there must be quite a few transgendered people out there thinking that Mr Jones has let the side down somewhat too.
Instructions:
1) Bold those you have read.
2) *Star the ones you loved.
3) Italicise those you plan on reading.”
1 Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen 2 The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien*
3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte* 4 Harry Potter series – JK Rowling 5 To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee* 6 The Bible (bits of) 7 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell 9 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman 10 Great Expectations
11 Little Women – Louisa M Alcott 12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy 13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller 14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien*
17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks 18 Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger 19 The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch – George Eliot 21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy 25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky 28 Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck 29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame*
31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens 33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis*
34 Emma – Jane Austen
35 Persuasion – Jane Austen 36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis*
37 The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini*
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Berniere (three pages – couldn’t stand it.)
39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden 40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne
41 Animal Farm – George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown 43 One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving
45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins 46 Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery (and the rest…)
47 Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood****
49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding 50 Atonement – Ian McEwan 51 Life of Pi – Yann Martel 52 Dune – Frank Herbert* 53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck 62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov 63 The Secret History – Donna Tartt 64 The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road – Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy 68 Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
72 Dracula – Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett*
74 Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses – James Joyce 76 The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath 77 Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal – Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession – AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell 83 The Color Purple – Alice Walker*
84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry 87 Charlotte’s Web – EB White* 88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton*
91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad 92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks 94 Watership Down – Richard Adams 95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole 96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare 99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo
We went for a meal and the thinking was that we’d be far more comfortable in pj’s because:
a) we won’t have to do any of that “getting ready for bed” shit when we stumble in
b) we won’t have to do any of that “Sorry, got to let my waistband out a bit” rubbish when our day/evening clothes couldn’t accommodate the intake of nice nosh we were subjecting them to. And
c) having to bother about all that looking ‘nice’ bolleaux.
I tell you what; there are few more liberating feelings than sitting in a restaurant full of other people in their ‘nice’ clothes on a Friday night in your pj’s and slippers tucking in to a plateful of fab food in good, likeminded company and NOT GIVING A SHIT about how you’re perceived.
It was fab. I might just go out in my pj’s from now on.
Woman is the nigger of the world
Yes she is…think about it
Woman is the nigger of the world
Think about it…do something about it
We make her paint her face and dance
If she won’t be a slave, we say that she don’t love us
If she’s real, we say she’s trying to be a man
While putting her down, we pretend so hard that shes above us
Woman is the nigger of the world…yes she is
If you don’t believe me, take a look at the one you’re with
Woman is the slave of the slaves
Ah, yeah…you better scream about it
We make her bear and raise our children
And then we leave her flat for being a fat old mother hen
We tell her home is the only place she should be
Then we complain that she’s too unworldly to be our friend
Woman is the nigger of the world…yes she is
If you don’t believe me, take a look at the one you’re with
Woman is the slave to the slaves
Yeah…you better scream about it
We insult her every day on tv
And wonder why she has no guts or confidence
When she’s young we kill her will to be free
While telling her not to be so smart we put her down for being so dumb
Woman is the nigger of the world
Yes she is…if you don’t believe me, take a look at the one you’re with
Woman is the slave to the slaves
Yes she is…if you believe me, you better scream about it
We make her paint her face and dance
We make her paint her face and dance
We make her paint her face and dance
We make her paint her face and dance
We make her paint her face and dance
We make her paint her face and dance
“I had to find out more about myself and my attitude to women…” kinda speaks volumes, don’t you think?
…who would leave a huge gap in the world if they ever stopped writing.
It’s Wednesday and this is a Wow that more than makes up for the general lack of Wows at the foot of my stairs this year. Amananta, thank you. You rock.
…’The Hidden World of Lap Dancing’ on TV and you know what? It didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know.
And I’m in two minds.
Part of me is thinking “fair play to Despatches for sending hidden cameras into strip clubs and broadcasting evidence of the widespread disregard of licence conditions, the seemingly mandatory breaking of all kinds of ‘rules’ that the proprieters write down in order to dupe the licensing authorities and the abject dehumanisation of women who work in such places”. The other part of me is thinking “do we actually have to see yet more nakedly sexualised women crawling over strange, fully clothed men and pretending that they’re rilly, rilly turned on? Has the point not been made already?”
Part of me understands why Despatches chose to do it that way. It unequivocally demonstrated that Local Authority licensing committees are utterly and completely stupid for believing that pimps and pornographers tell anything like the truth in their licence applications. From the West Country to sleepy market towns in the Black Country, from the big stripping-women chain stores like Secrets to small one-offs just starting out, they all lied. They all knowingly broke the terms of their licences to the extent that their expressed intention to comply was laughable. I guess they all know that breaking the terms of their licence doesn’t really matter; after all why worry about a Local Authority licence inspector who might come round in a year or so – and is likely to be a bloke anyway…
It also unequivocally demonstrated that the female ’sexuality’ that’s so sought after by the male patrons of such establishments is nothing but a sham. It’s a plastic effigy of something that doesn’t exist outside of their pornified imagination anyway.
The programme did have its lighter points though. It made me laugh out loud when I heard the Government view that the relaxation of licensing laws was made in an attempt that urban Britain should emulate Milan’s cafe society. They apparently wanted to see happy, healthy people sitting at oil-clothed tables in the streets outside buzzing cafes during the evenings; they wanted to see whole families frequenting art galleries (with dad, natch) after work. They apparently wanted to raise British ‘culcha’ above that of the lager lout leering and yelling sexual abuse at every passing female and puking in the street or the pissed up city gent crashing his car on the way home to abuse his wife. So they relaxed the licensing laws and, in doing so, enabled pimps to ply their trade with a licence! I guess I laughed with embarassment a bit – I was embarassed for the ignorance and aspiration of the Government of this country who seemingly have absolutely no idea of what it’s like for ordinary people in the street during the evenings – or at any other time, come to that.
The findings of the Profitable Exploits: Lap Dancing in the UK report by Julie Bindel and the Child and Women Abuse Studies Unit of London’s Metropolitan University in 2004 were exactly the same as the Despatches programme I watched this evening. That report was published four years ago. I’m wondering if action will be taken now because filmed footage of exactly the same things that were described in that report has been broadcast on (Freeview) national TV.
The upshot of Despatches tonight was that the evidence showed that “gentlemen’s” ‘clubs’ (however you care to name them) were outlets for prostitution. The question asked was “In licensing these establishments, are the UK Government licensing prostitution?”
Damn good question, if you ask me, and I’m ears agog to hear their answer. I don’t expect I will but my vote is YES, they are.
I’m kinda go, go, Ch4 because, essentially, I think they did good but I’m going to shower now. Really feeling all the scum, iykwim.
Welcome to the eighteenth Carnival of Radical Feminists! This edition is entitled ‘Exploring a Radical Feminist Understanding of Hierarchy and Class’ and is packed full of brilliant, thought provoking, illuminating and inspirational writings. I’ve checked the links and they all work from this end but if you find one that doesn’t, please let me know. If something you’ve written is featured in this Carnival and you’d rather it wasn’t – again, let me know.
This Carnival has been put together by resisterance, Laurelin and me and it’s been a pleasure and a joy for me to collaborate so closely with two solid radical feminist sisters and real life friends. Thank you both.
EXPLORING A RADICAL FEMINIST UNDERSTANDING OF HIERARCHY AND CLASS
Hierarchies are institutions common and integral to patriarchal societies. Hierarchies place individuals in an ascending order of importance, power and access to resources; in a capitalist society in particular, the goods and rewards produced by the labouring classes go up the scale, accruing to those who have the most, and not to those who produce. Women are commonly found at the bottom of hierarchies. Even though women are found in every strata of a hierarchy, they are inevitably placed beneath the males in that same stratum, with less access to resources than their men. Women’s place in the hierarchy is usually determined by their relations to men- and thus their places in hierarchical structures frequently rely upon acquiescence with men. Women who do not please men in their class or stratum rapidly find themselves relegated and cast out.
Western hierarchy and class structures rely on the ideological image of the rational, intelligent, capable and controlling white male. The traits considered masculine are those that are attributed to those highest in the hierarchy; leaders have to be ‘strong’, ‘rational’ and ‘objective’. In this schema, emotion is devalued as ‘subjective’ and as the preserve of women. One can see this phenomenon quite clearly in the media coverage of the run-up to the US election; when sexist language is used to denigrate Hilary Clinton and Sarah Palin, it is because they are feared as intruders upon a masculine ruling body. This is different from the general discussion of policy (as women have had genuine concerns with the antifeminist standpoints of the conservative Palin). The use of sexist language- in other words, language that would never be used to criticise a male candidate- reveals the masculine terror of the powerful woman. The recent Republican concern with media sexism comes from their acceptance of Palin as acquiescent to their ends; her policies present no antagonism towards male domination, and thus they can proudly denounce the sexism of Democrat questioners. The hypocrisy is clear, as their previous attitudes towards Hilary Clinton when she was still considered a threat showed: she was a bossy wife, an ice queen, an emotional wreck, a ballbuster. The Obama campaign too, made use of these weapons to denigrate Obama’s much more qualified and experienced female adversary. The indifference of Barack Obama towards women was made crystal clear in his statement that the fact that he is slightly less bad for women than the Republican guy means that Hilary’s supporters should be able to (and I quote) ‘get over it’.
As women as a class (a class in that women share the same threats and treatment however high up on the hierarchy they appear to be: sexual violence, job discrimination, sexual harassment, exploitation and denial of civil rights in the profileration of pornography) are offered pale substitutes for control over their lives, which are presented by men as equal to their own political, social and economic power. These include the ability to ‘influence’ those in power, and the ‘power’ of ‘sexuality’. Women, we are told, have historically been able to influence male leaders by their wit and innate goodness or badness and thus have they affected policy and social change. Women also, the same tired voices will lisp, have sexual power over men as they can incite desire in men which weakens the male will and bends it to female purpose. This excuse for ‘power’ is ascribed to lap dancers, for example, despite the many studies which show how lap dancers are subject to sexual harassment and abuse by both punters and staff in strip clubs. The commonality between ‘influence’ and ‘sexual power’ is this: both rely upon the goodwill and economic support of men. As I have remarked before The power to please is not a power. True power, the ability to control and change the conditions of one’s life, is not dependent on the patronage of those stronger than oneself. True self-definition for females, and the dissolution of hierarchy, will not include such substitutes for real power and integrity.
Another important aspect of hierarchy, I would argue, is that those in power have control of such concepts as ‘rationality’, ‘logic’, and ‘common sense’ upon which their rule supposedly is based. In other words, those in power control what is considered to be commonsensical or self-evident. The use of the term ‘natural’ to describe whatever male authorities wish women to believe about themselves, and to proscribe female behaviour is a case in point. Another is seen in the framing of the pornography issue as being one of ‘freedom of speech’, and not of the civil rights of women and minorities. Because men at the top of the hierarchy have freedom of speech, and see themselves as the norm by which everyone is to be judged, they fail to see the inherent injustice in the fact that their ‘freedom of speech’ is bought at the expense of the freedom of women. As women are less than human to them, their suffering does not register as suffering, and women lack the resources to appeal successfully against their treatment. Those lowest on the hierarchy do not have the freedom to speak, in the sense that they are not able to speak of their subjective experiences, as such speech endangers their lives. Hierarchy has a mental component, and is internalized. This can be seen in the phenomena of women trusting male authority figures over females, and in the support of the poor for policies that favour the rich.
RADICAL FEMINIST HIERARCHY AND/OR CLASS
Kitty Glendower writes about the experience of pain and illness as a person living in poverty, the internalisation of the idea that one is hogging resources or making too much of a fuss, and the way that the privileged often refuse to acknowledge the legitimacy of a poor persons illness.
She also asks – what do you make of the message she received from her local library?
“Unable to place a request on this item. The maximum number of requests for your borrower type has been exceeded.”
Ginmar also writes on not being heard or taken seriously as a woman in poverty with illness, with a righteous digression into the tactics the economically privileged will use to keep hold of their supposed entitlements.
Elaina resists the idea that there is a ‘hierarchy of oppressions’
Jenn points out the futility of the oppression olympics
Michelle is re-working her radical feminism, and is writing a series of posts where she will go over the core principles, examine problems that arise in the way they are framed, and looks for ways to move forward. Part 1 asks questions about how patriarchy connects with other forms of oppression, and Part 2 looks at hierarchies among radical feminists.
Aletha explains the ways in which male dominant value systems devalue women here and here
This piece from Dark Daughta examines the limitation of choice by race, class and gender
In a post from 2006, Yolanda explains why Marxist-Leninist groups are wrong to denounce the seperate organising and activism of oppressed groups.
And again from 2006, Amy discusses conflict and hierarchy in women’s communities
Maggie provides a primer in unlearning classism – this page contains lots of resources
SharkBait comments on the tokenism of UK Government support for domestic violence recovery services for women here, and explores the hoo-ha around a conference held to help support women in business being for women only here
A piece from “Women, Lesbians and Prostitution: A Workingclass Dyke Speaks Out Against Buying Women for Sex”, by Toby Summer
A SELECTION OF OLDER ARTICLES, NOT SPECIFICALLY RADICAL FEMINIST:
Angela Davis – Women, Race and Class: The Approaching Obsolescence of Housework: A Working-Class Perspective
Sharkbait has set up a “Blog for the Blogless”, offering radical feminists who want to write a piece for the carnival a place where their article can be posted and kept, without them having to own and maintain blog of their own. I hope that non-bloggers are tempted to use it, and to add their thoughts and voices to the mix.
EVAW have also released their Template for an Integrated Strategy on Violence Against Women for the UK, Realising Rights and Fulfilling Obligations, pdf here.
and there is an open letter to Gordon Brown calling for proper resourcing for Rape Crisis, here
Marcella Chester of Abyss2Hope is in the process of setting up a new website, www.daterapeisrealrape.com, and is asking for the thoughts of survivors of sexual violence into the sorts of information and resources they would link included there.
Heart draws attention to the suspension of civil liberties in Peru
Amy refuses a party invite on grounds of the fact it is sexist and racist, and learns that in hipsterville pimps and hos are considered “iconic figures in American culture”.
Meanwhile, Amananta addresses “BDSM Positive Feminists” who indulge in victim blaming and claim their worst-est ever-est enemies are radicals because we ‘rain on their sexy parade’. No doubt they just can’t bear the thought that many of us horrible sexless prudes have been there and done that already, making them about as original and deviant as sausage and mash.
S M Berg proposes a paradigm shift in the way that prositution is framed
Heart gives a collection of statements from survivors of the sex trade who describe prostitution as violence
Another post from Amananta, an analysis of the compulsory nature of skimpy clothing among modern feminists, and a look at the misogyny, ageism and body fascism aimed at women who fail to conform to ‘empowerment’ through fashion and beauty.
Which brings us back to Amy who notes that feminism is about defeating oppression, not making us feel better, and connects body modification for transgenderism with other types of body modifications being marketed for profit to people under constant pressure to conform to rigidly defined gender roles and beauty standards, encouraging the use of resistance as a viable and revolutionary choice.
And in a further post, she identifies femininity as a consumerist practice and explains some of the consequences of “value-neutral” product consumption,
Tracey Sioux gives “10 Antidotes to Self-Objectification & Sexualization of Girls”, and she also provides some strategies for pro-lifers to prevent the necessity of abortion – like supporting womens access to free family planning clinics
Kristen McCarthy implores women to consider the implications of “menstrual suppression”
Ginmar writes about the failure of the US military to protect military women from the men they work and fight alongside, even going so far as to disguise their murders as suicides
Heart collects quotes, images, and video in her post “DNC 2008: Real Change, Inspiration, Power Were Outside the Fence”
Laurelin provides a list of her best posts, all of which come highly recommended
Victoria wishes Happy Birthday to Kate Millett, and you can read Chapter 2 of Milletts “Sexual Politics” 1969, here
…but I did just now and there’s one on there that says
Oh, Witchy, what are we going to do with you, eh?
Made me laugh out loud.
My first thought was “we” have no business thinking about doing anything with me – after all, who the fuck do “we” think “we” are? Second thought was ok, what are “we” going to do with me? Third thought was “fuck knows”. Fourth thought was throw it open to those who might have had a brush with the clue stick (yeah, the question came from a blog with no brains).
So, answers on a postcard please – failing that, a comment will do. Go for it.
Because I’m still exhausted from my extended weekend of grooving in a field in Oxfordshire I don’t have the wherewithall to add anything that hasn’t already been said about the F Word and its really shabby treatment of Polly Styrene and mAndrea. I’m simply writing this on the off-chance that some people who read here may not yet be aware of the dangers of holding informed opinions that differ from the views of certain F Word bloggers and daring to attempt to post those opinions in the comments there (let alone anywhere else, really).
Be warned – some bloggers at the F Word are apparently exempt from the comments policy that they expect the rest of us to abide by. Their ‘frustration’ is apparently ‘understandable’ even when comments have kept within the policy guidelines. It seems they can chuck insults at their readership willy-nilly without fear of making a public apology while other F Word bloggers are taken to task simply for some unfortunately slipshod writing.
