Changes

I closed down this blog for a while due to some changes/upheavals/distractions/other important stuff going on in my life. Throughout this time I’ve been without regular Internet access and such a break proved to be as refreshing and re-invigorating as I hoped it would be. You see, I was getting tired of the same old arguments, the pettiness, the rigidity and factionalism that permeate the feminist blogosphere, whilst also finding it hard to keep up with the number of new posts and lengthy comment threads on the topics I was/am keen to engage with.

Such a break has clarified for me that I want to engage with more, do more, be more than the feminist blogosphere seems to allow.  Returning my attentions to the blogosphere has roused in me feelings similar to the ones I have on going back to the parental home. There’s that comforting familiarity, but also a stifling staidness to it all, a feeling of needing to say more, of wanting to break out and be more, than that which is allowed.

For whilst I’m still a feminist, I’ve come to a point where I want to write about things that are not so specially tied to ‘feminism’ per se. Maintaining this ‘Feminist’ blog doesn’t appeal to me much anymore, because my interests, inspiration, attentions, and priorities encompass more right now. Feminism still permeates my life, my identity, it’s still a guiding passion, a bedrock of ideals and politics to live by, something that bolsters me. But there’s more going on for me now… I want to talk about other things, other politics, express other sides to myself, delve into the other parts of me, things that I feel can’t be expressed whilst remaining cooped up in the blogosphere box labelled ‘radical feminism’.

My thoughts have turned onto other things lately… stuff that I want to write about & express… but not necessarily here, as ‘LonerGrrrl’. Undoubtedly, feminism is still a part of all this other stuff, for the personal is political, and your feminism cannot be separated off from the other facets of your life & doesn’t stop influencing your thoughts on and responses to other things. But I also don’t want to feel compelled to write about feminism with a capital F all the time…

I also feel like this blog got a bit too theoretical and self-conscious… it started to feel like a burdensome volume of feminist theory, and writing it started to feel a strain, as I felt the need to  analyse and account for everything… whereas right now, I want to cut loose from that, I want to be a bit bolder, whilst no less thoughtful, in expressing myself. A part of me wants to return to the personal & everyday, and not always to books and big ideas. Although I still like books and big ideas. But I don’t like theory and writing and talking that is devoid of warmth, emotion, integrity, reality… and yet I also don’t think invoking the personal, the everyday is antithetical to complication and contradiction. I want to mix things up a bit more, not be so tied down.

I’ll no longer update this blog with long feminist analyses, although I’ll leave it open to post other stuff from time to time. I also want to leave it up so what I have written can still be read by others… I think I’ve written some good stuff here, and I want that to be available for others to read.

Instead, I’m thinking of putting together a zine of longer essays/articles/rants/whatever, because there’s a few topics I want to write about, and doing this in a printed form seems to afford me more time to do a better job of it, and the potential lengthy nature of these articles seems better suited to paper than screen.

There’s also other things I want to do, new directions I want to take, in terms of my feminism & otherwise, which I feel will be best served if my energies aren’t so wholly absorbed in the blogosphere as I feel they have been previously.

So, see you around…

For women with “old-fashioned hair (undyed, unhighlighted; just, you know, hair)”*

 

I liked this article from India Knight in today’s Sunday Times, from which the title for this post was taken, about the reaction to Gail Trimble’s success on University Challenge.

The very fact such a fuss has been made about this reflects how deep-rooted the sexist notion that women and intelligence don’t go together still is. Intellect in women is still novelty, it still inspires confused awe, unsettles the patriarchal order of things- a woman who thinks too much is dangerous, let her read too much, and maybe she’ll start to question her place in the world, refuse to keep quiet, won’t get married and have babies… cue anarchy!

 

Although, Ms Knight reflects that this wasn’t always the case- when she was at school being clever wasn’t something to be embarrassed about, it was the less intelligent who faced ridicule.  But this isn’t my experience. When I was at school, to be a ‘boffin’, to have done your homework on time, to get good grades, lead to social ostracism, and these attitudes were held quite specifically amongst the girls. Bookish girls were eyed with more disdain that bookish boys; I know because I was one of those girls. I received the message loud and clear from my peers (and thinking about it in hindsight, even from some teachers) that you couldn’t be female, clever AND cool.  

 

Class, as well as gender, may also have something to do with which attitudes towards intelligence circulate in particular spheres. Perhaps in the classrooms of private schools and redbrick unis, middle-class mainstays, intelligence is more revered, whereas in comprehensive schools and former polytechnic unis (which are still wrongly deemed the ‘lesser’ unis by virtue of offering so-called less academically-rigorous courses) which have greater numbers of working-class students, bookishness is deemed more suspect.

 

Yet there is also something of a contradiction in the argument that clever women are not valued, when we look to the fact that young women are doing better than ever at school and university. Many girls are perfectionists when it comes to their school work and get really stressed out, even depressed, with the pressure they put on themselves to achieve good exam results. If patriarchal culture is so dismissive of clever girls, why are so many of them getting so worked up about not doing well enough? Again, this seems to be a specifically female problem which requires some feminist attention.

 

But I want to further explore this idea that intelligence in women is mocked and looked down on, for I feel it is still quite potent. Why does society still have such a problem with women who pursue a life of the mind? I think it has something to do with the fact that intelligence in women is deemed incompatible with femininity and by extension, heterosexuality, which are much more valued in women. A bookish woman is de-feminised and asexualised.

 

But a patriarchal capitalist society requires its women to be feminine and heterosexual in order to keep functioning,  hence the push by mainstream media (and even some alternative media for that matter- alternative politics and music are also unsettled by the woman with the scrubbed face who questions too much) to feminise and heterosexualise clever women.

 

They try and placate a woman’s intelligence, get her back in that feminine box, by giving her a makeover, sexing her up, highlighting the fact that she still likes to indulge in feminine pursuits such as shopping, and most importantly of all, ‘has time for boys.’

 

If they can do this – get her in low-cut top & lippy, get her to admit that the pursuit of knowledge isn’t everything to her – then they’ll let her off for having the temerity to use her brain. As long as she’s heterosexualised and feminised we can just about stomach a woman’s bookishness.

 

This is what’s happened with Ms Trimble. She’s received an offer to pose topless for Nuts magazine and a separate article in The Sunday Times today reported that she’d got engaged to her boyfriend. Read: ‘It’s okay people, no need to get freaked out by the woman with brains, she’s with Man now, a Real Woman.’

 

Of course, women shouldn’t feel that their intelligence negates their sexual attractiveness and a woman can enjoy reading and shopping for clothes. But why is the issue always framed this way round; why is it that the only way for women to be acknowledged is via their compliance with white, heterosexual, feminine norms?

 

Why is it always the girls with glasses who need to go for the makeover before they are noticed or listened to? Why is it always the case that the only time clever women, or feminism come to think of it, are spoken about with any respect and make the front cover is when they subscribe to conventional white femininity? This is why I find the argument that radical feminists who spurn beauty practices are the oppressors of those women who don’t a complete load of shit. It’s not images of women with make-up-less faces and hairy armpits bearing down on us everyday. They’re not allowed to. They don’t sell. It’s not the impression we like to give out. Women can’t just be. They have to have the feminine accessories.

 

I like this quote from Joan Bakewell from the aforementioned article about Gail Trimble‘s engagement: “Intelligent women don’t suffer. They have got too much brains to do that. They will think themselves out of the issue.” It’s important that women do, do that though, particularly young women. To know that they don’t exist only in relation to men, that their minds and intellectual achievements are worthy in and of themselves, that they are worthy for who they are alone. It doesn’t matter if you wear glasses and don’t have a boyfriend, just as it doesn’t matter for boys. Hell, even men in rock bands who wear glasses are still hailed as ‘rock gods’. Girls with glasses are only tolerated in Specsavers adverts.

 

“Men don’t make passes at girls who wear glasses”- so fucking what? Why isn’t it: “Girls with glasses don’t make passes at men who are dumbasses?” Women need to get on top, refuse to be the ones who are gazed at and judged, and instead revel in our intellectual pursuits and rejection of white heterosexual femininity, and not made to feel awkward and embarrassed by it. That’s a real tenant of my feminism.

 

We need to change these standards by which women are expected to measure themselves, by breaking down this dichotomy between clever & beautiful. We need to make it loud and clear that a woman doesn’t have to be attractive to men to be respected, to have some self-worth, to exist in this world. We need to determine our own standards to live by, ones that suit women.

 

* As someone with “undyed & unhighlighted” hair, I got excited on reading this sentence with its acknowledgment of the lack of images that exist of women with such hair. This applies to both the dominant mainstream and alternative cultural spheres- if you’ve not got the glossy locks of the Vogue cover star, you should have the bright dyed hair of the edgy rock chick. Hair on a woman cannot just be.

It’s only rock ‘n’ roll…

 

… but I fuckin’ love it. Had a great time at the Metallica gig in Nottingham, UK the other night:

 

 

I always intend to get round to writing about my love of rock music and how that relates to, and also contradicts, my feminism. How it was rock music that built my confidence, my sense of self, that validated me and made me feel okay with not fitting in, years before feminism entered my life. About the important and vital place some (male) bands and (male) musicians and ferocious (masculine) music have in my life. How a bloody good, gutsy, loud, raucous rock song emboldens and centres me, spurs me on, just as much as participating in a women-only march does. How I think the non-conformist and independent ethos of rock is entirely compatible with that of radical feminism. But also aware of the contradictions inherent in being woman-identified politically, spurning all that is male defined, but also identifying with aggressive, messy, so-called ‘masculine’ rock music. Of how, generally speaking, men don’t really do all that much for me, but when they get their riffs out, it’s a different story. But these contradictions I’m happy to harbour & to live out.

 

TBC

Reading

My Nicaraguan Father: Reflections on Feminism, Letters, and Digital Media

“Radical uncertainty”

I recently read Sheila Jeffreys’ chapter, ‘Return to Gender: Post-modernism and Lesbianandgay Theory’, in the radical feminist anthology, ‘Radically Speaking: Feminism Reclaimed’*, and parts of it resonated with me, particularly in light of how I felt when writing my previous post on the importance of Reclaim the Night (RTN) marches being women only.

 

I stand by everything I wrote in that post. It’s an issue that gets me on quite a visceral level; to hear people dismissing, or trying to appease, women only politics really gnaws at the root of my radical feminism.

 

And yet, whilst finding some relief in writing – for the first time in a while – something so unabashed and unapologetic, and wanting to communicate my anger and steadfast views on that issue, the whole time I was writing it, the niggling voice of my academic training kept trying to reign me in, telling me to take a more nuanced approach to the issue. So as I was writing, I felt like I should at least include some sort of disclaimer or footnote to say, ‘yeah, I know this sounds angry, but’, as a way to explain away my seeming step back to my ‘old school radfem ways’; except I didn’t want to, because I really felt (feel) strongly about what I was saying and didn’t want to water down a post that was a tirade against the watering down of feminism itself.

 

This reticence towards taking a strong stance on something is what Sheila Jeffreys discusses in ‘Return to Gender’. She talks about how the shift to postmodernism in feminist theorising has led to what she calls, “radical uncertainty”. Because postmodernism encourages the ‘deconstruction of subject categories’, for example that of ‘woman’ (‘woman doesn’t exist’), and treats concepts such as ‘oppression’, ‘power’ and ‘social structure’, as just that  - concepts – with no concrete basis in reality, it makes it hard to claim an identity or take a political position.

 

This “radical uncertainty”, Jeffreys argues, holds dangerous implications. Not being able to take a position leads to tentative theorising and academic introspection at the expense of taking action. It prevents us from proposing any concrete politics, from being bold in our assertions. For women, it means we can’t speak as ‘women’, because ‘women’ don’t exist, and if we don’t exist then neither does the discrimination and oppression we experience. And there’s no point then in forging on with a ‘women’s liberation movement’. On this score, I’m in agreement with Jeffreys. Extreme postmodernism is bad for women’s health.

 

I also recognise what she says about how engagement with postmodern theory can affect your previous views on things, saying, “Indeed once in the academy [...] it is not easy to hold onto positions which can be seen as vulgarly political” and that many lesbians have become apologetic about their “earlier embarrassing feminism” after being exposed to postmodern academic thought.

 

I recognise this because it’s what’s happened to me. As I’ve written before, my approach to feminist thinking and analysis has changed a lot over the past year, and this is due in no small part to my engagement with postmodern feminist theory. Where’s once I was quite gung-ho in my opinions, since my forays into postmodern academia, I have felt the strength of those opinions dissipate to some extent, I have been reigned in. And yes, I too do feel embarrassed about some of my earlier feminism.

 

Though, unlike Jeffreys, I don’t think this is all that much of a bad thing. I can see how being gung-ho can equate to being absolute in your views, which can lead to taking an overly simplistic and self-centred approach to things. Expanding my theoretical horizons, with the help of postmodernism, has encouraged me to be more attentive to difference (those of identity and opinion amongst women) and to incorporate a consideration of how other oppressive structures, e.g. racism & capitalism, coincide with patriarchy. And I think this is the direction feminism as a whole needs to take if we want a fully inclusive women’s liberation.

 

However, because of this direction my thinking has taken, there is another part of me that does find it hard to be as bold and assertive in my writing as I used to be, to just come out and take a position on something, unapologetically,  no questions asked.

 

So when I was writing about the importance of RTN being women only, the urge to placate my forthright views on this, to add that disclaimer, was strong, because I felt I should be somehow justifying holding such a strong view, but in the end my simple, radical feminist conviction that RTN should be women only smothered all that, and I’m glad it did.  It’s good to question, but it’s also good to clarify, and I didn’t feel like questioning in that post, I wanted to put forth a strong opinion.

 

Yet the mind war remains- between my conviction that recognising others, difference, the opposition, is important, and my other conviction that you shouldn’t be afraid to speak up and be unapologetic about expounding some profoundly felt and steadfast feminist politics.

 

Jeffreys also says: “There is an anguished agony of the artist here which many of us who simply seek to express ourselves as simply and frequently as we can, just cannot afford in ordinary political struggle”

 

However, unlike Jeffreys, I don’t think this issue can be framed as a case of either/or; either deciding to partake in the “anguished agony” of abstract postmodern radical uncertainty or instead choosing to forge on with ‘real life’ political struggle. The two can intertwine.

 

We do need to be attentive to difference, to ask questions and be self-reflexive, to examine our stances, and recognise the different places women’s views and experiences come from, so that we don’t create self-centred, simplistic, rigid feminist politics. And to ensure this, we do need to delve into the abstract, to sometimes take a step back from ‘real life’ activism so we can assess where we’re at, where we need to go, and if we’re on the right path. In that respect, being academic or looking to theory is to be encouraged and shouldn’t necessarily be deemed as nothing more than postmodern pontificating.

 

But after asking some questions and doing some thinking, we also shouldn’t also be afraid of making a statement, proposing some politics, devising some action.

 

We shouldn’t succumb to radical uncertainty to the extent that it stops us from taking action and saying something. We can alternately take a stand, and then a step back to reflect. We can determinedly and passionately share our opinions, ideas and views, whilst also being mindful of others’.

 

I think it’s important to acknowledge that each instance of our feminist theorising, politicising and action, cannot always account for everything. There’s always going to be something missing, something not accounted for, something to do better next time.

 

The key thing is to acknowledge this, to recognise that what we may be thinking, writing, saying, doing, at any point in time, is just one part of the whole, one part of ourselves and also one part of women’s liberation.

 

*‘Return to Gender’ is an excerpt from Jeffreys’ book, ‘The Lesbian Heresy’.

Why Reclaim the Night should be ‘for women only’

 

 

It angers me when people argue for men’s participation on Reclaim the Night (RTN) marches.

 

They say maintaining its women-only ethos is:

 

‘Divisive’
‘Separatist’
‘Exacerbating the problem’
‘Man-hate’
‘Retrograde’

A back-pedal on the journey towards ‘equality between the sexes’.

A relic of the past, appropriate for a time when people did things like that, when women did have something to fear whilst out alone at night.

 

But it’s anathema in today’s climate where;
women don’t have as much to fear,
men are more enlightened and,
movements for liberation are something to be frowned & laughed at.

They say we’re meant to have moved beyond all that now…  women have no reason, really, to define & forge on with their own
politics, activism, liberation.

 

To all this, I say an emphatic: ‘No’.

 

Women still have every right, every need, to self-organise and protest by ourselves
in our name,
on our terms,
without men.

 

Women still have reason to Reclaim the Night.

 

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know the statistics say it’s men who are more likely to be attacked on the streets at night (by other men).

 

But men aren’t raised to fear that.

 

It’s women who are told our lone selves and night time don’t go together.

 

If we’re attacked whilst out alone at night, we get told we shouldn’t have been out alone at night.

 

We get given tips on ‘how to stay safe’ if out alone at night.

 

We have boundaries and curfews placed on us.
Told to stay home if a rapist is still out there.

We.should.not.be.out.alone.at.night. We.should.not.be.out.alone.at.night.

 

Men don’t face this fear, men don’t get the blame, therefore men have nothing to reclaim.

 

RTN is a women-only tradition and should remain so.

 

Why should women have to justify & compromise their women-only space?

 

Why are we the ones having to make concessions?

 

Why do we have to apologise for and explain our women-only spaces,
more loudly and more profusely,
than men have ever had to apologise for or explain the violence they do to women?

 

Men, if you’re so fucking bothered about tackling violence against women, there’s many ways you can do this without hijacking that one space, women have to themselves,
for a few times a year,
for a couple of hours,
to do what we have to do.

 

Form your own campaigns. Talk to each other. Stop hurting women.

 

Women should not be compromising & diluting their spaces, their politics,
for men.

 

We should not be on the dock for daring to initiate & participate in women-only space,

 

For creating & enjoying that respite, reprieve, and relief from men,

 

For forging our own path, doing it ourselves, no men allowed.

 

Men,
Get some perspective. Question your privilege.

 

Hands off our bodies &
Hands off our spaces where those bodies converge, & turn to each other, and not you, in the name of railing against our fears & experiences of
male violence.

 

 

 

 

 

Something to keep in mind

 

This from Andrea Dworkin (again):

 

“I am going to talk a lot today about sexual assault, but first I want to make a generalization about the women’s movement and its relationship to knowledge- its purpose, in fact. The women’s movement is not a narrowly political movement. [...]

 

The women’s movement is a movement for knowledge, toward knowledge. [...]

 

The women’s movement, like other political movements before it, has unearthed a tremendous body of knowledge that has not been let into colleges and universities, into high schools, into grade schools, for political reasons. And for that reason, your relationship has to be a questing one: not learning what you are given, but finding what questions you must ask. The women’s movement in general, with many exceptions, with many failures, with many imperfections, has been dedicated to that process of finding out which questions to ask and asking those questions. [...]

 

If you are not brave enough now to ask the questions that you think need to be asked, you will never be brave enough. So don’t ever put if off. The women’s movement cannot survive unless you make that commitment. The women’s movement is not a movement that passes down an ideology: it’s a movement that creates ideology, and that is very different. It creates ways of understanding the world in which women live, ways of understanding the social construction of masculinity and femininity, ways of understanding what prejudice is as a social construction, how it works, how it is transmitted. [...]

 

So we are dedicated to questions and we try to find answers.”

 

 

From a speech entitled, ‘Feminism: An Agenda’ (1983) in ‘Letters from a War Zone’, a collection of Dworkin’s essays and speeches.

 

Re-reading Andrea Dworkin’s ‘Woman Hating’

I’ve been re-reading Andrea Dworkin’s ‘Woman Hating’, one of my Top-3-Feminist-Reads-Of-All-Time (So-Far) (the other two being Angela Davis’ ‘Women, Race & Class’, and Adrienne Rich’s ‘Compulsory Heterosexuality & Lesbian Existence’).

 

Reading Woman Hating for the first time a couple of years ago turned out to be a pivotal moment in my feminist development, at both a theoretical and personal level. Dworkin’s critique of the beauty practices women in the Western world are expected to adhere to, validated and encouraged my further rejection of such practices; her exposure of ‘gender’ and ‘sexuality’ for the social constructs they are and her analysis of how they maintain the systems of patriarchy and compulsory heterosexuality, as well as her humorous deconstruction of the gender roles we learn from childhood fairy tales such as Snow White and Cinderella, all shed new light on things.

 

In addition to liking what Dworkin actually had to say, I also liked the way she said it.  Her eloquence; her powerful rhetoric; the uncompromising and forthright approach she took to her subject matter which imbued her work with integrity; her belief that writing is action- I found all this hugely enriching and inspiring.  

 

Unfortunately, I was to discover that I was about 30 years too late in deciding to fall for Andrea. Once I’d embarked on my MA, it soon became clear that the sort of radical feminist theory contained in books such as Woman Hating was officially deemed passé in the contemporary postmodern academy.

 

Here, radical feminism was dismissed as something belonging to a bygone era, it didn’t exist anymore, it’s not what you should quote unless you do so in order to criticise it because the views of radical feminists are too ‘totalitarian’, ‘essentialist’, and ‘universal’ for these supposedly more ‘multi-vocal’ and ‘contradictory’ theoretical times (as if contradiction and difference were not features of previous feminisms – I’ll think I’ll elaborate on this in another post).

 

Bizarrely, I was being told that the idea that ‘gender’ and ‘sexuality’ are social constructs arrived with Judith Butler’s ‘Gender Trouble’ in 1990- Butler was who we were supposed to be lovin’ now, not the likes of Dworkin. In fact, Dworkin’s theory on gender and sexuality wasn’t even on the syllabus; she only appeared when it came to discussing pornography, because that’s the topic on which radical feminist theory had something to say, decrying all men as rapists and brutal objectifiers of women. It didn’t have anything to say about anything else, and even if it did, you shouldn’t be taking it seriously because it is ‘too simplistic’ for the purposes of higher-level academic study.

 

Fucking bollocks.

 

I wasn’t about to start cheating on Dworkin with the likes of Butler et al; I might flirt with them, test the water, see what they had to offer, but I wasn’t ready to swap one completely for the other. But then I also knew that my forays into postmodern feminist academic thought were showing up gaps and issues in the radical feminist theory I so adored, making it increasingly difficult to continue to completely align myself with that body of thought either.

 

So, I decided to return to Woman Hating to see what my new theoretical insights would bring to a re-reading of it, and see if perhaps for the purposes of my future theorising, rather than having to choose The One, (radicalDworkin or pomoButler?) to approach things with, I could instead hold onto some key elements of Dworkin but also recognise where others needed to come in.  I mean, if we want to be all ‘multi-vocal’ and ‘contradictory’, it makes more sense to me to do things this way, rather than feeling like we should replace the old stuff completely with the new.

 

Here then are some of the things I picked up on in my re-reading:

 

• An intersectional analysis is present in Woman Hating, contrary to claims that radical feminism only reflected the concerns of white and middle-class women.

While Dworkin does see sex/gender as the root oppression – she doesn’t explicitly say this, but reading the book you interpret it as much – that’s not to say she’s completely oblivious to how race and class are tied up with sex/gender oppression. In the Introduction, she’s hugely critical of the women movement’s failure to address the class system and argues that the middle-class lifestyle is antithetical to women’s liberation:

 

“The women’s movement has not dealt with the bread-and-butter issue, and that is its most awful failure. There has been little recognition that the destruction of the middle-class lifestyle is crucial to the development of decent community forms in which all people can be free and have dignity. There is certainly no program to deal with the realities of the class system in Amerika. On the contrary, most of the women’s movement has, with appalling blindness, refused to take that kind of responsibility… middle-class women have absolutely refused to take any action, make any commitment which would interfere with, threaten, or significantly alter a lifestyle, a living standard, which is moneyed and privileged.” (p. 22, her emphasis)

 

There’s recognition of how women can oppress other women:

 

“Because of our participation in the middle-class lifestyle we were the oppressors of other people, our poor white sisters, our Black sisters, our Chicana sisters- and the men who in turn oppressed them. This closely interwoven fabric of oppression, which is the racist class structure of Amerika today, assured that wherever one stood, it was with at least one foot heavy on the belly of another human being.” (p. 21)

 

She acknowledges other facets to women’s social position which negate the notion that all women are primarily oppressed because they are women:

 

“The analysis in this book applies to the life situations of all women, but all women are not necessarily in a state of primary emergency as women. What I mean by this is simple… As a Native American, I would be oppressed as a squaw, but hunted, slaughtered, as a Native American. That first identity, the one which brings with it as part of its definition death, is the identity of primary emergency.” (pp. 23-24)

 

‘Consideration of race and class!  Sex/gender isn’t always the primary oppression! Where’s the pornography, goddamnit?! I’ve been told Dworkin was a universalising, unreconstructed, man-hater! Someone’s obviously not been paying close enough attention.’

 

Too right.

 

Sure, her analysis could be improved. These hints at an intersectional approach to explain women’s oppression are not always extended to the rest of the text; for example, in her critique of beauty practices, she doesn’t discuss how they are as much racialised and classed as they are gendered, and there’s only a passing acknowledgement to how racial difference is eroticised – as well as sex/gender difference – in pornography.

 

But to say that she does not acknowledge other oppressions, unconsciously reflects the concerns of the white and middle-class, sees all women as primarily oppressed by virtue of their sex/gender, is inaccurate.

 

• While reading the sections on fairy tales and beauty practices, I swayed between two lines of thought.

The first was the realisation that the bulk of her critiques are only applicable to white, Western women, as the notion of romantic love and the nuclear family which she attacks are quite racially, economically, culturally, and historically specific, and I could only end up agreeing with those that suggest radical feminism’s tendency to assume that everyone is raised in nuclear families and expected to find The One to settle down with, is inaccurate and universalising.

 

However, as a white woman from a middle-class background, I did recognise the endurance of her critiques of romantic love, of the competitive jealousy that exists between women bred out of their socialisation that teaches them to gain the utmost approval from men, of the dream of a man coming along to take us away from all *this*, only to end up in a stifling monogamous relationship, with 2.4 children & the imperative to needlessly consume. I find these critiques still applicable because I’ve heard women my own age say that all they want is to find a man, get married, and settle down. My mum and one of my sisters still believe in that notion of ‘The One’. My youngest sister reads ‘More!’, a teen girls’ magazine, which is a bastion of compulsory heterosexuality, mocking men but also hankering after them, hailing the model of celebrity heterosexual romance as something to aspire to in all its vacuous glory.

 

I know these come across as very stereotypical, old-hat, Feminism 101 complaints, but they still apply because what they refer to still exists, still forms a large component of women’s lives. No, they’re not every woman’s experience, but the myth of happy-ever-after heterosexual romance and the standards of feminine attractiveness women are expected to conform to in order to secure that happy-ever-after still endure; and radical feminist theory such as that of Dworkin’s here, still has immense value in demystifying all this bullshit, and affords us the opportunity to conceive of some alternatives to how we live and love.

 

• One thing that really struck me on re-reading Woman Hating was how close Dworkin comes to positing people with ‘false consciousness’, particularly in terms of how we come to learn our sex/gender roles.

Now, while I share Dworkin’s social constructionist stance on the origin of patriarchal gender roles and forms of sexual expression, I did jerk at her absolutist approach to this. For example, she writes:

 

“We are programmed by the culture as surely as rats are programmed to make the arduous way through the scientist’s maze, and that programming operates on every level of choice and action.” (p. 155, her emphasis)

 

“As individuals, we experience ourselves as the center of whatever social world we inhabit. We think that we are free and refuse to see that we are functions of our particular culture… That culture no longer organically reflects us… it possesses and rules us, reduces us, obstructs the flow of sexual and creative energy and activity…” (p. 157, her emphasis)

 

I understand what she’s saying- that socialisation plays a key role in determining our traits and behaviours, and that when that socialisation occurs in a patriarchal culture, the effects of that socialisation can be stifling and non-conducive to individual expression, more authentic forms of being, and the full liberation of our desires and selves.

 

However, noting the language she uses to get this point across – talking about us being ‘ruled’ and ‘programmed’ by culture-  I can see where the charges made against radical feminism for stripping women of their agency and treating them as ‘dupes’ come from. If we’re all just “functions” of our culture, completely possessed and reduced by it, then it leaves little room for any of us to deviate and make a break from it. Which clearly isn’t the case- people are capable of seeing through, and acting out against, The Bullshit. It also begs the question- if we’re all supposed to be mere tools of patriarchal culture how come Dworkin got away with it? What did she have that the rest of us don’t, that allowed her to shake off the shackles of patriarchal culture and it’s programming of us all into submissive, unquestioning automatons?

 

• Now, to the most radical and interesting section of the book, entitled ‘Androgyny’.

Pomo feminist academics take note:

 

This is where Dworkin says that gender is a social construct:

 

““man” and “woman” are fictions, caricatures, cultural constructs… Culture as we know it legislates those fictive roles as normalcy.” (p. 174)

 

This is where Dworkin says that in order to maintain these “fictions”, two sexes have also had to be arbitrarily created:

 

“If there are two discrete biological sexes, then it is not hard to argue that there are two discrete modes of human behavior, sex-related, sex-determined… Hormone and chromosome research, attempts to develop new means of human reproduction… work with transsexuals, and studies of gender identity in children provide basic information which challenges the notion that there are two discrete biological sexes… That is not to say that there is one sex, but that there are many.” (p. 175)

 

This is where Dworkin says that it is culture that has defined heterosexuality as the ‘natural’ mode of sexuality, and therefore anything to the contrary as a “perversion”:

 

“Heterosexuality, which is properly defined as the ritualized behavior built on polar role definition, and the social institutions related to it… are “human nature”. Homosexuality, transsexuality, incest, and bestiality persist as the “perversions” of this “human nature” we presume to know so much about.”  (p. 174)

 

This is where Dworkin says that, overall, sex and sexuality are multi-faceted and liberation would include recognition and realisation of this:

 

“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” (p. 183, her emphasis)

 

“If human beings are multisexed, then all forms of sexual interaction which are directly rooted in the multisexual nature of people must be part of the fabric of human life, accepted into the lexicon of human possibility, integrated into the forms of human community. By redefining human sexuality, or by defining it correctly, we can transform human relationship and the institutions which seek to control that relationship.” (p. 183)

 

“We must move away from the perverse, two-dimensional definitions which stem from sexual repression, which are the source of social oppression, and move toward creative, full, multidimensional modes of sexual expression.” (p. 157)

 

Dworkin is supposedly one of those rigid, prudish, fascistic radical feminists; essentialist, seeing everything in an either/or binary, obsessed with keeping the demarcations between the sexes intact, so that women can then claim their ‘difference’ from men.

 

But here, I think her writing is more reminiscent of queer and postmodern feminisms that call for the emergence and acceptance of more fluid, diverse, open, and libratory forms and expressions of sex/gender and sexuality.

 

There’s also a small section on transsexuality. Again, Dworkin’s thoughts on this are not reminiscent of the dominant radical feminist line (that associated with Janice Raymond/Sheila Jeffreys/Julie Bindel and oft-repeated in the blogosphere).

 

Firstly, she argues for trans people to have the surgery they want, and that it “should be provided by the community as one of its functions” (p. 186). She seems to reject the way transsexualism is pathologised, and says that stigmatisation and oppression of trans people is wrought by a society hell-bent on maintaining rigid sex/gender categories and roles.

Overthrowing these dictates would be liberation for cis and trans people alike: 

 

“Transsexuality can be defined as one particular formation of our general multisexuality which is unable to achieve its natural development because of extremely adverse social conditions” (p. 186)

 

“by changing our premises about men and women, role-playing and polarity, the social situation of transsexuals will be transformed, and transsexuals will be integrated into community, no longer persecuted and despised” (p. 186)

 

Thinking about what Dworkin is saying here, I see the necessity for radical feminism to integrate trans issues and advocate for the rights of trans women as part of its wider project. In working to create a world in which trans people have rights, agency, and are spoken about and treated with humanity, we simultaneously tackle the arbitrary gender roles a patriarchal gender system assigns to us all, which it expects us to conform to, and discriminates against and punishes us when we don’t.

 

Perhaps more contentious is her premise that transsexuality would no longer exist following the eradication of patriarchally-defined polar gender roles:

 

“Either the transsexual will be able to expand his/her sexuality into a fluid androgyny, or, as roles disappear, the phenomenon of transsexuality will disappear and that energy will be transformed into new modes of sexual identity and behavior.” (p. 187)

 

Though, I think she makes a valid point here. I don’t think she’s suggesting that the desire to change one’s body and sex/gender identity would disappear – which is what society currently labels as ‘transsexuality’ – post-revolution; just that it wouldn’t be called ‘transsexuality’. The same could be said about any category of gender and sexual expression we’re currently bound up in – heterosexual, woman, lesbian, queer. Would these identifications and expressions also disappear post-revolution?  There’s no clear-cut answer, but I think what Dworkin’s getting at, is that what are currently deemed ‘perversions’ no longer will be post-revolution, because the cis male/masculine + female/femininity = heterosexual ‘gender norm’ will no longer be the norm against which every other expression of sex/gender and sexuality is currently juxtaposed.

 

Overall then, her denouncement of the fictional & rigid sex/gender roles created by patriarchal society, of compulsory heterosexuality, and her calls for more open-minded and full conceptions of sex and sexuality in this chapter, bear no resemblance to the caricatures of Dworkin constructed in contemporary feminist academia and even here in the blogosphere. Whereas those caricatures often portray Dworkin as a representative of radical feminism’s supposed staid approach to sex and sexuality, comparing them to what she has actually written here… and well, it doesn’t quite add up. I don’t see any declarations from her of what a ‘true’ and ‘authentic’ female sexuality ‘should’ look like and be; which are the sort of charges made against Dworkin, that she conceives of female sexuality in a very narrow way (a charge I think is more accurate when directed at Sheila Jeffreys, but not Dworkin). But here Dworkin has deconstructed the very notions of what is ‘authentic’ and ‘female’, and the idea that a person does harbour a single sexuality.

 

Not that I want to appropriate Woman Hating by deeming its content ‘Queer’; that would be inaccurate and entirely subjective. I acknowledge that my own recent investment in other modes of feminist theory traditionally placed in opposition to radical feminism has prompted this reading- others may interpret it differently.

 

She does condemn models of sexuality based on dominant/subordinate identification and expression – such as they are bound up with patriarchal notions of masculinity and femininity, respectively – so while her ideas about sexuality here are less rigid than usually given credit for, she’s still going to be quoted by those who denounce, for example, BDSM, and to do so wouldn’t be a misappropriation of Dworkin’s words.  

 

In essence, I may have come away from this second reading feeling a little less enamoured with Dworkin than I had been previously, but I’ve still found what she has to say here incredibly inspiring and life-affirming, freeing from the dictates of patriarchal femininity and heterosexuality.

 

No, I don’t agree with everything she says, and in light of my new knowledge, I think lines such as this (talking about the pressure to fit the feminine mould, particularly via participation in beauty rituals): “It forces women to be a sex of lesser accomplishment, weaker, as underdeveloped as any backward nation” (p. 116), are a little over-wrought.

 

But then, I think it’s important to be critical and point out the flaws in our favourite feminists, as opposed to just treating them as Goddesses. Feminist texts aren’t meant to be uncritically devoured, to be spat back out verbatim by their readers & unquestioningly quoted on protest banners.

 

Ideas and arguments are presented to us to be weighed up, measured against our experiences and ideas about the world, and then confirmed, amended, and improved accordingly. This is a form of feminist theorising. This is a form of feminist practice. Feminist theorising is feminist practice. If we critique, as well as applaud, the feminist theory we read, it means we can extend and improve future feminist theories, rather than continually regurgitating what’s already been written and seeing feminism stale and stagnate in the process.

 

But I don’t just think radical feminists should be more critical of radical feminist theory; I also think the absolute dismissal of radical feminist theory by some should also be pulled up. Radical feminist theory should not be uncritically dismissed as something belonging to a bygone era, essentialist, totalitarian, entirely focused on pornography. That is both factually and herstorically inaccurate, and means the foundational elements of such theory go unacknowledged only for the wheel to be unnecessarily re-invented a few years down the line. If you’re going to dismiss or agree with something it needs to be on the content of the argument, not on the label attached to that argument, and all feminisms have things we can find to agree and disagree with.

 

Ultimately, re-reading Woman Hating has further stressed to me the importance of feminism – and particularly radical feminism – to not make universal assumptions about women and their oppressions; but it also confirmed that there’s still a lot in radical feminist theory that remains relevant for contemporary debates about sex, gender, and sexuality, and that it can’t always be wheeled out to demonstrate the negative and rigid opinions that exist around this.

 

I also found its form & style all the more invigorating after my time spent ploughing through more Academically-inclined texts. Woman Hating isn’t dense, distant, academic prose written for the purposes of achieving academic credentials, but a text composed of radical phrases and thoughts delivered directly to the reader, no bullshit, allowing her to envision a world post women’s revolution. That’s reason enough for me to continue lovin’ Dworkin and taking inspiration from radical feminist writing.

Blogging- why bother?

I wanted to elaborate on a comment I left over at The Bead Shop, particularly in relation to the lack of acknowledgement many of us feminist bloggers get for what we do, in comparison to those ‘feminist’ columnists in the Guardian for example, who get all the infamy and money for a lot less work.

 

I see where Jenn’s coming from, but I don’t quite share her sense of frustration on this.  Firstly, I don’t read the Guardian- the only time I do is when someone links to its latest article on the ‘resurgence of feminism’, either to a) hold it up as an example of how ‘active’ Feminism is right now (the shouty, street-protesting type of feminism, that is); or b) to denounce it for emptying feminism of all its politics and context.  To a) I say, ‘complete bollocks’ and I’ve already written enough on that here, here, here, and here; as for b) I say, ‘what do you expect from a corporately-owned mainstream newspaper?’  As a result, I don’t foster that much frustration in relation to this, or if I do, I’ve got a lot of it out of my system and am figuring out how to move forward from it.

 

Nonetheless, it can be annoying to see columnists- feminist-identified or not- getting paid to spew out ideas that have been circulating in the blogosphere for years with no credit afforded to said bloggers. This Guardian article from Kira Cochrane didn’t say anything we didn’t already know- the same issues have been debated not only in the blogosphere, but amongst feminists more broadly, since the year dot. Then last week there was an article in the Sunday Times by India Knight bemoaning university beauty contests, as if feminists haven’t been going on and protesting about this since at least 2005 (not that she mentions these feminist protests, of course). But then a big part of me has gone beyond getting riled up about all this- what do we expect, really? I’d rather spend my time writing for independent feminist media – which no, won’t make me rich or dress my name in lights – but it does seem to be a more constructive and positive way to spend my time, not to mention being more creatively and intellectually satisfying as you’re not so tied to mainstream journalistic writing norms and the need to keep corporate interests happy.

 

Which brings me to blogging, and why I continue to do it. Outsiders may come to the conclusion that my blogging is surely a waste of time; I can spend a lot of time on a single blog post- a good few hours usually, if not days, and that’s not counting the thinking time leading up to the actual writing, which may have taken place intermittently over months. I like to post only when I think what I’ve got to say makes sense, that what I’m writing is actually what I- and not anyone else – thinks (it can be easy to just rattle something off because it’s what everyone else is talking about, and get swept up the myriad of opinion going ‘round); I want my posts to be well-written, to be in some sort of order, I turn over words and phrases a lot. Basically- as in life- I like to think before I speak. The introvert’s approach to blogging, you might say. I do labour over my writing, so even if I did want to be one, I’d be no good as a Guardian columnist- I wouldn’t meet the deadlines.

 

But then it’s not as if what I spend so much time writing here garners that much interest- I don’t get much recognition for my blogging, apart from my few commenters and the odd link here and there. So, why do I bother doing something that involves a lot of work for such little gain?

 

‘Cause I’m a woman, duh!

 

***

 

Seriously, I see blogging as a way of doing my feminism, and I’ve always liked writing, so I find it both enjoyable and useful.

 

It helps me – in fact, it more than helps, I find it’s pretty much necessary– to get my head around things. I’m a thinker, I question, I analyse, sometimes I wish I didn’t so much because it means I find it hard to switch off and get to sleep at night. So, writing is a way for me to purge my thoughts, take some of the weight off my head and onto paper, where they start to make more sense, appear clearer, and become more useful. The actual process of writing enables me to structure my thoughts, clarify my stance on an issue, and ultimately create a place from which I can then move on in order to further develop them.

 

But I could do all that without sharing it with others, couldn’t I? I could just write for myself, keep my feminism between me and my hard drive- but then I do like to get feedback on my thoughts. When you have someone directly responding to something you’ve written, it forces you – well, it forces me – to re-consider stuff which leads to more thinking, and eventually an amendment of my views or a strengthening of my resolve on an issue. 

 

So, surely I must get a little pissed off with the lack of comments I get? Well, yes and no.

 

Yes, because I would like to have seen some of my posts generate more discussion than they did, particularly my series on UK feminist activism, because I felt – and still feel – it a pertinent and important topic to discuss, and I did spend a lot of time on those posts. It’s something I’ve noticed more generally- if someone in the feminist blogosphere were to post about something on a more abstract level, about something that’s more theoretically-informed, that’s concerned with noting our privileges and difference, that’s concerned about more than the gender pay gap but also women in other countries, other oppressions aside from sexism, they’re not going to get as much of a response as if they were to post about, say, Jeremy Clarkson being sexist (again). There was a really important article (I felt) published at The F-Word recently, ‘Whose Feminism Is It?’ ,which I was dismayed to see didn’t generate many comments. It does make you wonder whether we/feminism/whatever can get interested enough, and riled up about, weightier issues.  And that’s definitely a downer.

 

But then, if you look again at what topics and types of behaviour do guarantee you an audience, I’m happy with what I’ve got. The longest comment threads tend to be those associated with a blog-war – can a feminist wear make-up?  is all porn baaaad?  should trans women participate in women-only space? – and while the topic under discussion may be important, the response to it can get so unwieldy and so far removed from what was originally being discussed, it loses all perspective and fails to be productive.

 

But then again, maybe it’s not just a simple case of people not being interested in ‘meatier’ matters (and what counts as a ‘meatier matter’ is of course up for debate). Maybe blogging, with the opportunity it gives us to just fire something off and publish it moments later, prevents us from reading and reflecting on things in depth. 

 

When you visit a blog, see that something new has been posted, and the comment box waiting for your response, there is that impulse to read it NOW and comment straight away, because by the next time you visit, there might be a new post there, and you’ve got to keep up! But I think this particular element of blogging doesn’t afford us the time to think about what’s being written and to form a considered response. Because blogging moves so fast, and new posts are appearing all the time, there’s almost a compulsion, an urgency to read what’s been posted today, NOW, because tomorrow it won’t be there; and I find this quick fire feminist publishing hard to keep up with, firstly because I have limited Internet access, but also because I like to think about what I’ve read before I comment and am rarely able to respond there and then.

 

So in this respect, I still think there’s a place for printed publications, particularly when it comes to covering more complex and broader issues, as they can allow for that more reflective reading process, it’s something tangible to refer back to, and it doesn’t compel you to read something all the way through there and then.

 

Which brings me to my next point- just because a post isn’t generating a lot of comments, doesn’t mean people aren’t reading it and thinking about the issue at hand. There’s been a lot of discussion about prostitution and ‘sex workers’’ rights lately following Reclaim the Night London, and I haven’t contributed to that discussion at all. Not because I’m not bothered, or not interested, but because I’m not ready to articulate my thoughts on it at this present time; I still have a bit more reading and reflecting to do before I feel I can. Just because I’ve not been commenting, doesn’t mean I’ve not been engaging with the discussion at another level. This blog gets more readers than it does actual comments, so considering how I read and engage with blogs, I like to think that even if I’m not provoking people to say anything here, I’m at least getting people to think. 

 

With this post, I’m feeling more positive about blogging than I was a few weeks ago. Since then, I’ve realised that blogging can be a useful medium through which to make otherwise inaccessible ideas and concepts – such as those within academia – more accessible to more people, and  being able to report and get feedback on the trans/feminist debate I went to via this blog is an example of that.

 

At the very least, blogging allows me to establish and clarify my thoughts on things, and that’s reason enough for me to continue blogging. Getting comments is great, but I’m content to carry on without the recognition.

Notes from a trans/feminist debate

I attended a ‘Trans/Feminist Transgender’ debate at Manchester Met Uni on Friday and I’ve decided to post my thoughts about it here.

The debate was between Julie Bindel, a renowned radical feminist writer/activist and Susan Stryker, a renowned transgender academic/activist. They were invited to discuss the relationship between (radical) feminism and transgender politics- where they do and don’t meet; whether they can come together, and if they even should.

I found the debate fascinating and enlightening, and it definitely helped to clarify many of my own thoughts on the issue.

Crucially, I felt it was a good example of the kind of useful debate feminists – cis and trans alike – should be having in order for us to be able to start working together and supporting each other. The discussion between Julie and Susan, and between them and the audience – which included trans and cis people – was a respectful one, devoid of the personal attacks, ostracism and shouting over each other that has come to constitute the blogosphere ‘debates’ on this issue. 

I was encouraged by this, as I was expecting the debate, and the atmosphere surrounding it, to be more contentious than it turned out to be, and I think that’s partly because my understanding and experience of the trans/feminist debate up until yesterday was largely informed by the more heated nature of the blogosphere debates. Further proof if I needed it, that feminism tends to be more productive when it takes place away from the computer screen; for thrashing out our ideas on this, we’d do better to sit down with each other – ideally face-to-face – and really start listening to and engaging with each other, instead of keeping on with the blogosphere debates as they currently are; rigidly polarised, composed of two distinct ‘sides’ which one is expected to take, and which too often descend into downright nastiness, disrespect and ignorance. It’s not really getting us anywhere, we’re just getting bogged down in creating and maintaining sets of rigid ideologies at the expense of teasing out some of our commonalities and coming up with a practical way to move forward and work together.

Some further notes/thoughts:

• Susan Stryker argued that feminism and transsexual/transgender politics should not be working in isolation from each other, should not be in opposition to each other, but can and should work together.
  
• Susan pointed out that – contrary to what Julie Bindel has written in the past – transsexualism/transgenderism was not a condition ‘invented’ in the 1950s by the forces of patriarchal psychiatry and medicine; evidence of transsexualism/transgenderism (or what we have since come to recognise as such) extends back to the 19^th century. It’s not a ‘condition’ that was ‘invented’ in order to ‘cure’ those ‘affected’ in order to get them to subscribe to patriarchal gender norms and compulsory heterosexuality.
  
• The main difference that emerged between Julie and Susan (and by extension between the dominant versions of radical feminism and transgender feminism) was around their notions of ‘gender’, what it is, and what should be done with it. 

For Julie/classic radical feminists, gender is something to be abolished as it is a patriarchal construct, set up to create and maintain the unequal power relations between the sexes, with man = dominant, woman = subordinate. Julie even claimed that feminism ’fights to end gender’. She then argued that transgender politics, in direct contrast to radical feminism, maintains ‘gender’ and does not address those power relations that constitute the gender system. Susan explained that transgender feminism does address the system of gender, but also argued that unequal power relations aren’t intrinsic to ‘gender’. Gender is also present in the language we use, a form of communication & expression, a means by which we form our impressions of each other.

I think both Julie and Susan’s points on this are valid, but I think the different notions of ‘gender’ being bandied about here are preventing the potential for a middle-ground to emerge from which we could start to move forward.

Firstly, I agree that the dominant notion of ‘gender’ is a patriarchal construct and that the unequal power relations between the sexes it is based on are oppressive, to both women and men, but particularly women because we are placed at the ‘subordinate’ end of it.  I’m also sceptical about wholeheartedly embracing the ‘yeah, let’s fuck with gender; gender is nothing more than performance’ line, because as Julie said, gender is not just some ‘floating signifier’ but has material consequences, which for women, too often includes being beaten by a man intent on carrying out his ‘dominant’ gender role. And while I acknowledged Susan’s point about gender being a part of language, I’d also add that language does reproduce and maintain those gender power relations at the heart of radical feminist critique and we shouldn’t take our eye off that ball.

However, the point at which I start to disagree with Julie/classic radical feminism is about the possibility for ‘gender’ to change and ultimately, be abolished.

Because Julie sees the construct of gender as inherently patriarchal, she cannot envision any other way of conceiving of, or ‘doing’, gender. Her line is: All gender is patriarchal = all gender is bad = all gender must fuck off. She gave an example of the woman (or rather Riot Grrrl?!) who wears ‘a tutu with Doc Marten boots’ as someone who’s not ‘dismantling gender’ (as she may think she is by teaming two contrasting items such as these together) but merely reproducing two stereotypes– the tutu represents the feminine, the DMs, the masculine. The reason I don’t quite agree with this though is because by wearing both, isn’t it showing that the stereotypical signifiers of each gender aren’t exclusive to that gender they have come to be associated with, but can be worn by either? More broadly, can’t the cultural codes and meanings we attach to items of clothing, mannerisms, hairstyles, etc, change? Skirts don’t inherently mean feminine, and DMs don’t inherently mean masculine. This is Radical Feminism 101 but to follow the logic of Julie’s argument, there’s no other way of conceiving of these items, no matter which bodies wear them.

Another problem I have with this argument, and to echo Susan’s own disagreement with it, is how possible is it to imagine a world without gender? There is no world outside of gender. Even those of us who don’t subscribe to patriarchal gender norms in our appearance or manner, are still located within the code of gender, our gender presentations are still informed, enacted, and perceived by others within a system of gender codes. Susan said that even radical lesbian feminists are still invested in the code of gender, and I agree.

Speaking for myself, the reason I choose to wear combat boots over heels, and trousers over skirts (aside from finding them more comfortable and practical), is not only because I’m uncomfortable with enacting that particular form of femininity associated with skirts & high heels, but also because I want to present myself in opposition to that form of femininity, which I still see as me performing some sort of ‘gender’. I may hold no truck with many patriarchal feminine gender norms, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have some sense of my own gender, one that arises out of the relationship I have with my own body, how I want to display it, and how I want it to be seen by others. We all want to make particular impressions on people, and dress is one of the main means by which we do this, our gender, race, religion, class, ethnicity, musical preference, etc, all potentially informing what we wear. So in this context, I don’t particularly find ‘gender’ oppressive, rather it’s a means of personal expression, individuality, it can even be fun.  

A trans woman in the audience summed up what a potential middle-ground could be between the ‘gender = inherently patriarchal & oppressive’/’gender = a mere means of expression’ dichotomy; we – cis and trans women alike – can work to abolish the patriarchal notion of gender and its corresponding exploitative and oppressive power dynamics (as is radical feminism’s goal) and in its place work to create and endorse another notion of ‘gender’.

Unfortunately, I didn’t think Julie quite *got* this, as she reiterated in response to this that ‘we need to imagine a world without gender’, seemingly missing the point that gender is a social construct, the meaning of which can be changed.  But if radical feminists believe gender is a social construct – and they do, they were the ones who came up with the idea, after all – then I think it’s more realistic to work at changing what that construct is constituted of, how it’s perceived, and enacted. I think – even post-revolution – some notion of gender will remain (even if it isn’t called ‘gender’ as such); I think we’ll each have some notion of ourselves in relation to our feelings towards our sexed bodies, our sense of personal embodiment, and how we want to dress and express ourselves as a result. Difference being that, post-revolution, there would be myriad expressions of said gender and ‘gender’ wouldn’t be something used to judge, stereotype, discriminate, and violate women, for the patriarchal foundations that lead to this would have been demolished.

• There was agreement amongst both the speakers and the audience that some common ground could be shared between radical and transgender feminists when it came to resisting the institutionalised medical/scientific constructs of gender imposed on people, cis and trans alike.

Julie argued that there is no such thing as a ‘male’ or a ‘female brain’ and that patriarchal constructs of gender i.e. man = aggressive; women = passive, are not inborn. I agree with this, and I don’t see trans activists and theorists arguing much to the contrary.

It’s on this aspect of the debate though, that I think the radical feminist line comes across as too simplistic and not sensitive enough to the experiences and voices of trans people. Julie said that growing up she never liked playing with dolls and wearing skirts, and as a result found gender ‘oppressive’, and many other cis radical feminists – myself included – would agree that they are also uncomfortable with the pressures placed on them to conform to patriarchal feminine norms; though it should be pointed out that these norms are also inflected by race and class- there is no one ‘feminine norm’ imposed on all women.

Susan suggested that Julie’s own discomfort at the imposition of (white, middle-class) patriarchal gender norms on her was then used to justify her arguments against trans surgery; I wasn’t sure what to make of this, but I don’t think a cis radical feminist’s discomfort at having to wear a dress or conform to other patriarchal feminine wiles should be conflated with a trans woman’s more embodied sense of dissonance between her born-sexed body and the gender role s/he is expected to subscribe to as a result. Transsexualism/transgenderism cannot be reduced to ‘born-male feels more comfortable in the ‘feminine’ role therefore wants surgery to get the female body so that it can all match up along patriarchal gender lines’, and yet I think that’s a key element of the radical feminist opposition to transgenderism and its politics, and the place from which the ostracising and disrespect towards trans persons is bred.

Clearly, a cis radical feminist’s experience of sex/gender embodiment and oppression is different to that of a trans woman’s, and in working together we shouldn’t lost sight of those differences, just as we shouldn’t ignore differences of race, class, sexuality, etc. However, that’s not to say there’s no room to see ourselves on a continuum; Susan suggested a model of ‘Compulsory Gender & the Transgender Continuum’ (a play on Adrienne Rich’s Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence), as a way of linking together cis and trans women’s refusal of, and discomfort at, the imposition of patriarchal gender norms on them. One may be happy in their sexed body but not with the patriarchal gendered construct imposed on it, whilst another may not be happy with either; while respecting these differences between us, there may also be room for cis and trans women to find some common cause if we place ourselves in relation to each other along this sort of continuum.

• Susan remarked that we need to break down the essentialism vs social constructionism binary; she proposed that a third-way is necessary to better understand trans people’s sense of their sex/gender identity.
  
• Julie said that the core of her feminism is to tackle sexual violence against women, and argued that sexual violence – experienced or feared – is the one thing that unites all women. I have two problems with this. First of all, I’m reluctant to band women together in such a way that posits us as ‘victims’ (no matter how true – unfortunately – the reality of sexual violence is for all women). But also, there’s little recognition in such a statement that other facets that make up a woman’s place in the world – her class position, race, sexuality, ability – will impact on the nature of the violence she faces.  

This is why I think ‘academic feminisms’, which are concerned with examining the differences between women, need to be made more accessible so they can be fed into the more populist/activist feminist circles, so we can stop making totalising statements like this which leave so many things unexamined, but which need to be examined in order for us to be able to tackle all forms of violence against all women. Not that I think Julie isn’t informed by academia – noting some of the language she was using yesterday, she’s clearly well-read, but I don’t see the nuances and attention to difference which is such a feature of contemporary academic feminism, making it’s way through in these sorts of radical feminist arguments and I think it’s important that they do, for radical feminism to remain relevant.

• It was a moment of clarity to hear from Julie that her political opposition to transgender politics – and LGBT politics more broadly- is just that, political, not personal. Referring to the recent furore over her nomination for a Stonewall award, she said that she had never had so much vitriol directed towards her as she did around that, not even from men, the other group she’s not afraid to take issue with.  However, as one trans woman in the audience noted, the reason trans people have been so vocal in their opposition towards her is because they are already in a disempowered position, and her views – put out on a platform as public as the Guardian newspaper for which she writes – perpetuates that. This is in contrast to those men she may offend- they don’t take it so personally because they still have their place within the system of male supremacy to cushion them from her criticisms.
  
• My own allegiance to radical feminism – particularly in respect to advocating a focus on the gendered nature of violence against women and the importance of women-only space & activism to combat male violence – was confirmed following points raised by a couple of the male audience members to Julie in relation to this. One questioned her focus on man-on-woman violence at the expense of affording attention to violence in same-sex relationships, while another drew comparisons with examples from the animal kingdom to say that men aren’t hardwired to be dominant and violent.

*Cue eye-roll* at a) misunderstanding the radical feminist position on gender (Julie had made it perfectly bloody clear she knew gender to be a social construct and that she knew men were not inherently violent) and b) at the attempts to divert attention away from the prevalence of man-on-woman violence to take into account other violence (which should be tackled of course, don’t get me wrong). But I’m with Julie on this- men are violent towards women on a bigger scale than any other and those of us who want to tackle this should not be apologising or making concessions to those who’d rather we didn’t. The fact these points were raised by men, also showed how important women-only space remains for women to be able to determine their own stance on this, without having it diluted or side-tracked by men.

• And when I say ‘women-only’, and that it is imperative to tackle the violence perpetuated by men on women, I want trans women in that women-only space and for violence experienced by trans women to be on the agenda.

Though unfortunately, I don’t think my views on this cohere with that of Julie’s/the dominant radical feminist line. Julie felt that trans women did not afford enough attention to violence against women in their activism; though Susan and members of the audience were quick to correct her- tackling the violence trans women fear and experience, including in relation to prostitution and sex trafficking, is a central component of transgender feminist activism. Julie then replied by questioning the extent of trans women’s activism around violence against all women; but this begs the question, if cis radical feminists won’t ‘allow’ trans women in their women-only spaces, how can we work together on this? A trans woman in the audience implored that she couldn’t understand why Julie couldn’t make the connection between the violence experienced by both trans and cis women under the system of male supremacy, and include the violence faced by trans women in the remit of ‘violence against women’; and I don’t understand why she won’t either.

• In the trans/feminist debate, it’s important to be aware of the nuances that exist, whether in relation to the experiences of trans people, or the views held by trans and cis women. Listening to Susan, and the other trans people present in the audience, it’s clear there is no ‘one’ transgender experience, just as there is no ‘one’ experience of ‘womanhood’. Some trans people hated their bodies pre-transition, others didn’t. Some experience a more deeply-felt dissonance between their assigned and felt sex/gender identities than others.  

Different views are held within the radical feminist and transgender communities, as well as between them, and in carrying on with these debates we need to be mindful of this and stop conflating and over-generalising in order to prove a point all in the name of trying to adhere to some rigid ideology we’ve gone and created for ourselves.

The final point I want to make is that I was quite surprised, and I got the sense that many of those present were too, at the many common views held by both radical feminists and trans feminists. To me, it was clear that coalitions could be forged between cis and trans women in working to resist patriarchal constructs of gender and at tackling all forms of violence against all women.

Perhaps most importantly, there was a sense that we needed to get beyond the kind of vitriolic, rigid ideological debates which have become so diversionary in recent years and which are taking time and energy away from trying to find points of commonality between cis and trans feminists, (whilst always being mindful of the differences too), so that we can move forward.

To paraphrase Susan, there are far more important issues to be dealing with than getting bogged down in these ‘border skirmishes’. I agree, and I think we need more debates like this, respectful ones, where people are willing to listen, willing to perhaps shift their views (Julie said she’s open to doing this and took on board the points raised by the trans women in the audience), and forget about what party line we’re supposed to be adhering to, and instead think about how we can actually move forward in solidarity, with some practical ideas for how to work together.

I’d welcome any of your comments on what I’ve said here, but please note, I want the respectful nature of the debate I witnessed yesterday to be extended to the comment box below. I find that thinking, ‘would I say this to this person if I were to meet them face-to-face?’ before posting, to be a useful guide for feminist blog war etiquette.