Pink stinks , or why not all little girls want to be princesses

Now I don't have kids and until recently didn't really know any . I was more likely to be found camping it up with gay men or sitting with a load of old Trots at a meeting . Over the last few years though, I have spent time with Dave's girls, Rachel and Hannah. They are 10 and 7 respectively.

This has meant delving into the world of little girls, whether that be toys, books or clothes. Now when I was a kid I got mucky outdoors, rode a bike, played with 'boys' toys and I can't ever remember wanting to be a princess or wear pink. As I wandered through Hamleys looking for pressies a while back, argh a hell only equaled by a trip to Ikea, I found my self confronted by what looked like quite clearly stereotypes boys and girls toys. Now of course there is nothing to stop a girl having any of the toys, and in fact Hannah is partial to bug related books and games, but the shop does not so gently demarcate specific gender toys . It is not the only store that does this. Go in most toy shops and you'll be surrounded by barbies and bratz, all pink and princessy or wag wannabes. Toys are pink packaged. This must be what its like in Katie Price's world, an explosion of candyfloss.

Many of the games are quite domestic, others aimed at quite young girls include make up, glitter and kits to make jewellery.Head to the boys and it is all much more manly, with science kits,trucks and sport.

Clothes shopping is no better , ranging from the cheap Primark to the more yummy mummy approved Gap . I have been looking around for some pyjamas for Rachel and they are all pink or if not very very cutesy . Rachel does not like pink ! Over the summer she needed some t-shirts. All she wanted was plain and not pink, with long sleeves. Bloody nightmare to find . Rows of pink, cute or princess t-shirts , or if not some bordering on a bit too Wag and grown up.

I popped into a shop selling rock t-shirts as she likes these and has a few. The assistant was helpful , but assumed the ten year old was a boy. I said a girl, yes they do like rock music !, and was directed to some pink Blondie ones . I said she doesn't like pink . The assistant looked bemused .

Now I know there are good educational toy and clothes shops with more of a range . I know that no one needs to buy along gender lines. But a quick tour of the high street will show an assumption that little girls love love love pink, want to be princesses (so many books about that) or else want to be Wags or on X Factor . It is not choice when all pyjamas on the high street come in a range of pink . The boys had action figures, combat pant PJs and dark manly colours .I gave up and will get her black leggings and a t-shirt instead.

To avoid this, to try to push past the stereotypes and marketing, takes times and effort and often is the more expensive shop that caters . Many parents will not have time or will grab cheap clothes as kids grow fast. They may not have the cash for the more expensive shops catering for the educational toys , with less pink in them.

Girls are being offered little choice and to move away from that means them pushing the boundaries and going to the boys section, thus perhaps then not fitting in with their peers . It takes a strong minded girl to reject the overwhelming pink pressure . This also affects boys , yep they are being pushed towards manly pursuits from an early age. Brave is the boy who wears pink and buys a doll.

I am not talking about pushing Hannah and Rachel into politically correct gender neutral toys and clothes. They are saying what they want themselves. Hannah likes her bugs and Rachel hates pink and dresses . Luckily they are both pretty strong minded little girls and say what they want. It just means a lot more effort to get the stuff.

I'm not alone in my frustration, there is a website called Pink Stinks. Check it out !

Pic, one of the T-shirts for sale on the Pink Stinks website.

Cross post -The Sex Work Shibboleth

Laurie Penny has written what I consider a very balanced thoughtful piece about sex work. It echoes many of my concerns about both sides of the feminist debate . She has kindly agreed that I can post her article here :


For feminists, arguments about sex work have become an ugly, obstructive shibboleth. The debate about whether feminism can ever tolerate the sale of sex has raged for over five decades, and in recent years the question has opened old wounds in the fabric of feminist unity, leading to such embarrassing flashpoints as the verbal abuse and police intimidation of sex workers and their allies at the Reclaim the Night march in 2009.

Many feminists, like Finn MacKay of the Feminist Coalition Against Prostitution, feel that the purchase of sex from women is always and only misogyny: “Equality for women is a farce in a society where it is considered normal for men to buy our bodies.

“We can't be free while so many of us are literally for sale. As long as I believe prostitution is a form of violence against women, then how can I work alongside anyone who promotes it as a job like any other?”


A Moral Quarrel

Furious debate about sex work and pornography dominated the discussion at the recent Women’s Question Time event in London, organised by the charity Eaves, where feminists were invited to put questions to prospective Women's ministers in the run-up to the General Election.

Pandora Blake, a feminist sex worker, attended the event. “I hadn't realised quite how aggressively hostile most of my sisters are to my ideals,” she said. “It’s worrying that so many of the best female politicians seem unable to see nuance when it comes to the sex industry".

At this event, like so many others, issues such as abortion rights and the pay gap were elbowed out in favour of monolithic tub-thumping about sex work that played out a worrying tendency on the part of contemporary feminists to moralise rather than strategise.

On the other side of the debate, many pro-sex work feminists believe that the protection of sex workers should be the only consideration.

“Criminalisation of kerb-crawling, to take one example, is harmful to sex workers because ultimately they are the ones who suffer,” said Nine, a former support worker for Edinburgh prostitutes. “Sex workers who still need to make their money are faced with doing business with clients they would ordinarily have rejected. It concerns me greatly that the mainstream feminist movement refuses to look at the harmful effect of laws like these, which they support simply in the name of sending a message to men.”

Giving space to abusers

Unfortunately, tolerant attitudes such as Nine’s are too often manipulated by patriarchal apologists concerned with maintaining a status quo that constrains and commodifies female sexuality. Easy examples of such apologism can be found on the popular networking site for johns, Punternet, which rates and reviews prostitutes as ‘pieces of meat’. Worryingly, the International Union of Sex Workers (IUSW) recently recruited on the site, encouraging punters to write to their MPs to safeguard their favourite hobby.

If the exclusionary tactics of abolitionist feminists are unsound, the unscrupulous attitudes of organisations like the IUSW are hardly more laudable. The attitude that abusive punters are an inevitability, and the related reasoning that one cannot fight the misogynist meat market, hardly offers an answer to people like Rebecca Mott, a former prostitute:

“The torment of being prostituted has never left me. On the first night, when I was fourteen, I was gang-raped for many hours. That was the test to see if I was suitable material for prostitution. You learn that your body is there to be damaged. That you have no right to say no. That your purpose is to service men in any and every way they can think of. It is so much easier to speak only of women who appear in charge of their own working environment, rather than the reality.”

Too often, the pro-prostitution lobby is guilty of silencing the voices of women like Mott – just as the abolitionist lobby refuses to acknowledge sex workers whose experiences differ. The sex work debate is a sea of unheard voices, private tragedy and misinformation in which moral squabbling obscures the real-life concerns of many vulnerable women.

A legal no man’s land

The net result of all this wrangling is that the legal status of sex work remains an unworkable, precarious Jenga tower of muddled laws and moral equivocation. Recent changes to the law in Britain have altered that situation very little. Welcome efforts to focus police attention on those who buy the sexual services of abused women, such as Clause 14, which makes it a criminal offence to buy sex from ‘a woman controlled for gain’, has been balanced by more regressive and punitive sanctions against soliciting.

In Britain, as in many other developed countries, women who work as prostitutes are stranded in a socio-economic no man’s land, their work just about legal enough to offer a seedy but acceptable outlet for restrained bourgeois sexual mores and an economic option for women in desperate financial circumstances, and just about illegal enough that the market for commercial sex remains illicit and underground, depriving sex workers of public dignity and of the full protection of the justice system, and satisfying the prudish public drive to punish those who sell sex.

Amongst all of this moralising, misogynist apologism and equivocation, it is stupendously difficult to have a productive conversation about sex work. “There are very few spaces in which feminists with different perspectives on this issue get together and talk about it and find points to agree on,” said Nine. “There frequently isn't even room for debate at all, just point-scoring and shouting over people.”

The stagnation of the sex work debate around a brutal moral binary can be seen as the greatest extant danger to the future of feminism, particularly if one believes, as I do, that if we all stopped shouting at each other for a while we could hold the revolution tomorrow.

Belle De Jour: a misleading cipher

The keenest example of this unimaginative binary thinking is the Belle de Jour problem. Dr Brooke Magnanti of Bristol was recently forced to out herself as the former PhD student and prostitute behind the blog which turned into the book which turned into the lucrative, trashily unchallenging ITV adaptation, Secret Diary of a Call Girl, in which Billie Piper wears a variety of rump-revealing latex dresses and does a lot of heavy breathing.

The show, now in its third series, has become the dominant vehicle for the Belle De Jour meme, stripping out everything that was realistic and challenging about Dr Magnanti's blog and leaving a deodorised husk of middle-class male fantasy in which a massively undercast Piper perkily advises the audience to “'work out what the client wants, and give it to him as quickly as possible”.'

Feminists have justly denounced the show as duplicitous, portraying sex work as entirely safe, glamorous and lucrative for all those prepared to devote themselves entirely to the sexual service of rich men. However, commentators from Kira Cochrane to India Knight have failed to notice that Secret Diary of a Call Girl is ITV's convenient fiction, and not Dr Magnanti's reality.

Dr Magnanti herself was working in the elite eschelons of the sex trade, with no pimp or drug habit to worry about, but even so, critics have failed to notice that the show bears about as much resemblance to the blog as Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves might bear to the life of a medieval peasant.

Poor Dr Magnanti. All she wanted was to develop her writing and discuss her experiences. Instead, she has been distorted, idolised, victimised and vilified by anyone and everyone with a barrel to beat about prostitution. From glamorous courtesan to tragic victim, it’s not just Belle's body that can be bent into any position you fancy.

The one thing that almost no-one has asked is why a PhD student might find herself selling sexual intercourse to fund her studies in the first place. Commentators are slow to connect Belle with a bankrupt higher education system in which indebted students routinely live well below the poverty line to afford the degrees their future employers increasingly demand. Just last week, a report by Kingston University suggested that since the abolition of the student grant, the number of students funding their degrees by working as prostitutes and strippers has increased fivefold. Basic socio-economic analysis of this kind is what is missing from both sides of the contemporary conversation about prostitution.

There is a trench of faff and fighting at the core of the sex work debate where a rigorous analysis of work and capital should be. Sex work is an economic question, not a moral one: in a world where shame and sexual violence are still hard currency, the normalisation of the sex industry is a symptom not of social degeneration, but of the economic exploitation of women on an unprecedented scale, in a feminised labour market where all working women are expected to commodify their sexuality to some extent.

Nothing obscures this crucial approach so much as the dogmatic insistence, on both sides of the debate, on the primacy of a faux-feminist notion of ‘choice’.

With sex work, as with many other feminist flashpoints, the notion of ‘a woman’s free choice’ is fetishised and taken out of context in order to obscure useful analysis. The word ‘choice’ has been manipulated by the neoliberal consensus in order to erase the influence of brutal capitalist paradigms on the deeds and decisions of poor people, and of poor women in particular.

Liberated sex workers insist that their work is ‘a free choice’, whilst abolitionists and many exited sex workers claim that prostitutes suffer such abuses that the very notion of ‘choice’ is anathema. The term has already been devalued by wider society to the extent that any sexual choice made by a woman is assumed to be an empowering act of autonomous agency – especially when the net result of that choice is financial exchange.

Abolitionist feminists unwittingly play into this misleading rhetoric of ‘choice’ with their insistence that women in the sex industry have none, that, as Finn Mackay puts it, ‘prostitution is non-consensual sex’ - as if choice and consent are ever enough to justify industrial abuse. As if choice were something made in a vacuum, unconstrained by socio-economic conditions.

The underlying assumption of this analytical cul-de-sac - that any woman’s sexual choice, however restricted, is positive and empowering - could only have currency in a world where female sexual agency is still seen as abnormal.


Decriminalisation: a way forward?

The supreme irony of this sociological stalemate is that, on many counts, the ultimate goals of pro-protection and abolitionist feminists are one and the same. Both camps, for example, believe that women and men who sell sex should not face legal sanctions, and both factions understand that the persecution of prostitutes by law enforcement officers is a form of state violence against women that needs to be eradicated as a matter of urgency.

But achievable aims like these are sidelined by partisan squabbling. So intense was the debate around Clause 14 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill that practically no opposition was brooked against other, more directly damaging clauses of the Bill, such as those that gave police greater powers to raid brothels and confiscate any earnings found on the premises. “Women are being turfed out onto the street in their scanties,” observed feminist academic Dr Belinda Brooks-Gordon. “Does anyone have an answer to this?”

Even in this bitter debate, however, occasions for hope do occur. A recent collaboration on the Guardian’s Comment Is Free blog between Thierry Schaffauser of the IUSW and Cath Elliott concluded that feminists should work together on decriminalisation:

“While we've all been busy arguing over other things, those most in need of our help continue to suffer violence. We believe the criminalisation of sex workers/prostitutes helps to legitimise those who attack them. Criminalisation of soliciting is a sexist law.”

Ultimately, all feminists believe that vulnerable women need to be protected from abuse, violence and stigma, and all true liberals oppose cultures that brutally shame and commodify female sexuality. If our goals are to be realised, the sex work shibboleth must be broken. Feminists need to put aside ideological differences and work towards a radical restructuring of neoliberal attitudes to sex, to work and to sex work.

It is not enough to seek to criminalise prostitution at the expense of vulnerable women, and neither is it enough to cede responsibility to misogynist market forces and offer protection within an imperfect, abusive sex industry as the only realistic alternative.

If we want a world where women’s bodies are more than just commodities, feminists need to get radical, we need to get smart, and we need to be prepared to lay down our weapons and take the fight to the real enemies. If we stop fighting each other and turn our energies on the pimps, the abusers and the superstructure of misogynist free-market capitalism, there are exhilarating victories to be won.

This article was published at The Samosa on the 25th of March, 2010.

Launch of UK Feminista

I received an e-mail press release, see below, about the launch of a new campaign organisation. Unfortunately I can't make the event . Of course like the left, there are many types of feminism and lots of arguments and sometimes unsisterly behaviour to say the least. I'll watch this with interest, fingers crossed !



Press release from UK Feminista


New feminist organisation to launch as feminism in the UK surges

On Saturday 27 March a unique new campaign organisation called UK Feminista (1) will be launched at a public event in London (2). The brainchild of activists Kat Banyard, Anna van Heeswijk, Sandrine Leveque, and Ellie Cumbo (3), UK Feminista will help build a national movement in order to effect real and lasting change in gender relations.

There are clear signs of a resurgence in UK feminism. On Saturday 6th March thousands of women marched through central London demanding an end to violence against women as part of the annual Million Women Rise march. The Fawcett Society reports a threefold increase in membership over the last three years, and three books on feminism are being released this year in close succession; one – The Equality Illusion – authored by UK Feminista co-founder and Director Kat Banyard.

The many feminist conferences, marches, blogs and websites that have proliferated over recent years have also started to generate headlines with many media commentators remarking on a new wave of feminist activism (4).

UK Feminista co-founder and Director, Kat Banyard, said:

“We are witnessing a sea change in attitudes towards feminism. Women and men in the UK are busting the myth that we live in a post-feminist age by attending marches, conferences and demonstrations in ever increasing numbers. The reason for this increase? Well, with 100,000 women raped each year in the UK*, a gender pay gap of nearly 23%, and women constituting less than 20% of MPs, it is becoming increasingly clear we need feminism now more than ever.

“UK Feminista aims to harness this growing momentum around feminism and ensure it translates into real gains for women’s rights. By acting as a bridge between ordinary people passionate about gender equality and the many fantastic feminist organisations spearheading campaigns, UK Feminista seeks to make the UK feminist movement a force to be reckoned with.”

Sasha Rakoff, Director of OBJECT (5), said:

“OBJECT is delighted to offer our support to the organisation. There is a real feeling in the air that we, the women’s sector, are packing some punches at the moment and now more than ever the conditions are ripe to get activism out there on the streets – back as part of the culture of feminism. This is just what the women’s sector needs.”

Orlanda Ward, Coordinator of the National Alliance of Women’s Organisations (NAWO) (6), said:

“NAWO is delighted to be associated with such a flourishing new organisation. Grassroots feminism in the UK must remain strong, and UK Feminista is set to play a valuable role in ensuring women's voices continue to heard."

Pragna Patel, Chair of Southall Black Sisters (7), said:

“Southall Black Sisters strongly welcomes the establishment of UK Feminista. Grassroots activism is a crucial part of campaigning for legislative and cultural change, but due to our stretched resources we are unable to directly support and sustain significant numbers of activists ourselves. UK Feminista will therefore be an invaluable resource for our work.”
For further information or to request interviews please contact Kat Banyard on 07775 855037 or kat@ukfeminista.org.uk

Notes to editors
1) UK Feminista supports and promotes grassroots feminist activism. Our purpose is to end the continuing inequalities between women and men. www.ukfeminista.org.uk
2) UK Feminista will be launched on Saturday 27 March. The event will take place from 11am-3pm at the Women’s Library, London Metropolitan University, 25 Old Castle Street, London. E1 7NT. Speakers will include Hannah Pool (journalist), Darinka Aleksic (Abortion Rights), Frances Carlisle (Latin American Women’s Rights Service), Anna van Heeswijk (OBJECT), Katie McGrainor (Birmingham Fems), and Gail Cartmail (Unite the union).
3) Founder biographies: Kat Banyard is Director of UK Feminista and author of The Equality Illusion: The Truth About Women and Men Today, published by Faber and Faber (www.katbanyard.org); Anna van Heeswijk is Campaigns Coordinator at OBJECT; Sandrine Leveque was previously Campaigns Manager at OBJECT; and Ellie Cumbo is Campaigns Coordinator at UK Feminista.
4) A selection of recent headlines:
Feminism is showing signs of life, The Telegraph, 9/3/10
The continuing lack of equal pay proves feminism's work is still far from done, The Observer, 7/3/10
How the 'new feminism' went wrong, The Guardian, 6/3/10
Forty years of women's liberation, The Guardian, 26/2/10
Feminism: what went wrong? The Telegraph, 12/1/10
The march of the new feminists, The Independent, 29/11/09
5) OBJECT is a human rights organisation which challenges the sexual objectification of women in the media and popular culture. http://www.object.org.uk
6) NAWO is an umbrella organisation for over 100 organisations and individuals based in England. http://www.nawo.org.uk/
7) Southall Black Sisters’ aims are to highlight and challenge violence against women; empower them to gain more control over their lives; live without fear of violence; and assert their human rights to justice, equality and freedom. http://www.southallblacksisters.org.uk/

*E. Povey et al., ‘Home Office Statistical Bulletin: Crime in England and Wales 2006/7, Home Office, 2008

Kat Banyard
Director

UK Feminista
Address: PO Box 66215, London. E8 9DE
Mobile: 07775 855037
Email: kat@ukfeminista.org.uk
Web: http://www.ukfeminista.org.uk

10 years anniversary of the Montreal Massacre

10 years ago, on 6th December at about 17:00 14 women were murdered at an Engineering College at Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

Marc Lépine, a 25-year-old Quebecker had tried to join the Canadian army and was knocked back and later tried to join the Polytechnique but was not accepted.  He believed he was a victim of feminism - women were on the Engineering course he wanted to enter and he believed that affirmative action had stopped his inflated right to attend the course.


His suicude note read: 

Please note that if I am committing suicide today ... it is not for economic reasons ... but for political reasons. For I have decided to send Ad Patres [Latin: "to the fathers"] the feminists who have ruined my life. ... The feminists always have a talent for enraging me. They want to retain the advantages of being women ... while trying to grab those of men. ... They are so opportunistic that they neglect to profit from the knowledge accumulated by men throughout the ages. They always try to misrepresent them every time they can.

Attached to the letter was a list of 19 prominent Québec women in non-traditional occupations, including the province's first woman firefighter and police captain. Beneath the list Lépine wrote: "[These women] nearly died today. The lack of time (because I started too late) has allowed these radical feminists to survive." 


When he entered the classroom he shouted "I want the women. I hate feminists!,"   He seperated the men from the women. He killed six women then went on a rampage throughout the college, looking to murder more women. Twenty minutes later he had killed 8 more women and injured 9 other women and 4 men - he then killed himself.


The murdered women were:

Geneviève Bergeron, aged 21;
Hélène Colgan, 23;
Nathalie Croteau, 23;
Barbara Daigneault, 22;
Anne-Marie Edward, 21;
Maud Haviernick, 29;
Barbara Maria Klucznik, 31;
Maryse Leclair, 23;
Annie St.-Arneault, 23;
Michèle Richard, 21;
Maryse Laganière, 25;
Anne-Marie Lemay, 22;
Sonia Pelletier, 28; and
Annie Turcotte, aged 21

In memory of these women 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence became an international campaign.  Throughout the world between the dates of  November 25, International Day Against Violence Against Women and December 10, International Human Rights Day, in order to symbolically link violence against women and human rights and to emphasize that such violence is a violation of human rights. 


The 16 Days Campaign has been used as an organising strategy by individuals and groups around the world to call for the elimination of all forms of violence against women by:

• raising awareness about gender-based violence as a human rights issue at the local, national, regional and international levels
• strengthening local work around violence against women
• establishing a clear link between local and international work to end violence against women
• providing a forum in which organizers can develop and share new and effective strategies
• demonstrating the solidarity of women around the world organizing against violence against women
• creating tools to pressure governments to implement promises made to eliminate violence against women

Patrick Stewart speaks out against violence against women today at Amnesty International Conference - see his speech here

A much needed education in Feminism for Dave Osler

Honestly, I despair sometimes.

Over at Dave's blog he states :


In the interim, it looks to my outside eyes that the organised womens’ movement has all but collapsed. As this blog frequently laments, the British far left is in a bad way. But at least it is still just about visible. Feminism seems to have gone entirely subterranean.

What can have happened to all those deeply earnest young women, clad in black leggings and DMs, who once drunkenly argued that penetrative sex is inherently oppressive and that all men are rapists, sometimes only an hour or prior to an entirely voluntary temporary suspension of their political lesbianism? Or to put it another way, when was the last time any town in Britain staged a ‘reclaim the night’ march?

These days, feminism – if it means anything at all – seems to mean raunch culture on the one hand and the right of women to compete on equal terms on City trading desks. Progress? Maybe, but this is not the way my generation thought it was going to turn out.

Which brings me back to Bea Campbell, or Beatrix Campbell OBE, as she is more properly known. A heroine to some and derided by spikier proto-Riot Grrrl types, especially after denouncing male violence in the miners’ strike, the erstwhile eurocommunist has now been adopted as the Green candidate for Hampstead and Kilburn. She explains her evolution here.

How far this is a good thing, I suppose I am not best qualified to say. But Campbell’s life story nicely encapsulates the trajectory of a whole layer of women, who started out angry and ended up somewhere on the soft left, stopping only to pick up a gong from the Queen on the way.


Oh dear.

My comment over on his site was this:

Well there are still Reclaim the Night Marches, in fact I think there is one in London this weekend.

The F word is a very good starting point and has covered recent marches and a Feminism in London event a few weeks back.
http://www.thefword.org.uk/blog/

There is also an event each year organised by feminist Fightback, this year around the theme of anti capitalism.
FF tends to be mainly students, so younger women getting involved.

Women are often involved in campaigns, such as ones around reproductive rights and abortion.
Like the left there are differences. Issues of pornography and feminism still divide. There are different groupings , such as rad fems, socialist feminist etc.
There are lots of feminist blogs, many on rad fem lines. I have myself been sent to the 'naughty room ' in one !!

There are more links now with issues such as sexuality, queer politics (as there always was, but a bit more complex than the old 80s political lesbianism).
Some feminists work closely with transgender women, sadly others such as Greer and Bindel attack them.
There are women challenging the role of fundamentalism , such as WAF for example.

A I say there are many blogs, groups , campaigns and websites going.

Its not dead, its just the left seem to have little use of feminists or queer activists these days (did they ever really),

Lots of feminists just get on with their own campaigns around women who are at the rough end of capitalism, such as low paid cleaners, abortion rights for women, sex workers etc .

Oh there was also a London conference on feminism a few weeks ago, Waf has a 20th anniversary event on the 28th.

Lots is happening .

It is not ideal and still too much navel gazing or bickering over sex workers etc, but don't buy the Daily Mail crap that its all binge drinking and flashing off tits raunch culture.

Osler, you should know better !

So it seems Dave needs some ideas for books , blogs and generally what is going on with feminism since his days of coming over all 'new man feminist' to get into 'chick's' knickers .

Suggestions please .

Fay Weldon, the only real feminist ...apparently?

Fay Weldon is plugging her latest book . Shock horror in the Mail and Telegraph, this 'feminist ' is saying women should just accept men need looking after and don't challenge them too much. Well its not really a shock ,she has been coming out with this crap for a while now . As the interview in The Guardian points out :

She was vilified for her assertion in an interview in 1998 that being raped wasn't the worst thing that could happen to a woman, and a few years ago she complained that feminism had undermined men too much. In her book What Makes Women Happy she advised faking orgasms. Did she feel part of the feminist movement? "Inevitably, but I never wrote propaganda because it all seemed so evident. It became obvious that you had to be a feminist because it was such a ridiculous state of affairs." Her contemporaries, she says, "usually come round to my way of thinking in the end. I'm probably the one, the only feminist there is and the others are all out of step."

Well arrogance aside that she is the only real feminist, it seems that by most criteria she seems pretty out of step. The tag is useful to get her some headlines , as seems clear from this interview:

... which is what brings me (the journalist, SB) to her kitchen table in her lovely stone house in Dorset, where she lives in apparent bliss with her third husband, an Aga, a library and apple trees. 

... I ask her how much of what she tells journalists is true and she laughs and says, "Ooh, about 60%". She smiles and giggles her way through every sentence so that everything she says comes out sugar-coated. 

I'm sorry, but views such as these are reactionary and show no understanding of a feminist critique of marriage  :

She believes in marriage (Nick Fox is her third husband, a poet and also her manager) because “it’s a ceremony, it’s a ritual, like being buried but you’re still alive, and the only reason you don’t get married is because you’re not really committed and you think someone else is going to come along”.

So marriage , for straight people only, is the only real commitment ?  Well if that is the case how come she has got through three husbands then?  Buried alive, hmm no thanks, sounds suffocating to me. But I do get really pissed off that marriage is seen as the only real commitment, it isn't.

The comments that have excited The Telegraph (and The Mail) are :

...does she think that feminism has ruined females?

“It hasn’t. No. Life is much better, because you are not dependent on the goodwill of men. But the trouble is, the battle became too fierce, and the whole culture encouraged women to believe that men are stupid, useless creatures who are the enemy. But men nowadays aren’t s––––. They’re actually much nicer. They just don’t want to commit to you, and why would they when you are a busy working woman who can look after yourself and probably goes to bed easily with them?

Hmm, why should women play games? If they want to have sex 'easily,' so what? Oh no, we are back to Daily Mail land, a place where men marry 'nice' girls with the implication that men are sexual beings and women, well they shouldn't be too keen .

And what's with the busy working woman who can look after herself?? Fay, basic of feminism, women need to be independent of men ! This means earning and managing our own money and shock horror , working. Don't know about your world Fay, money needs earning to pay bills . And yeah, some of us, like men, have careers and are busy and not waiting around to be looked after. Or would she rather women were dependent and couldn't get out of abusive or unhappy relationships ?

“The thing is, you need to find a man who is cleverer than you, or at east not let him know that you are cleverer than him. Women want their boyfriends to be like their girlfriends, fun to go to the pictures with, but men are not like that. They want sex and they grunt. If you really want a man to be nice to you, never give him a hard time, never talk about emotions and never ask him how he is feeling...”

Actually for all her nonsense about women belittling men she seems to do a pretty good job of it herself. So men don't want women to be too clever and they basically grunt and have sex ? Well sex is good, but in a relationship being able to hold intelligent conversations is pretty useful in the time not spent shagging. In Fay's world the male ego is so fragile it needs a woman to pretend to not be as clever as she is, to make him feel superior? Should we also flutter our eyelashes whilst looking up at him adoringly as well?

Tell me again, why is this woman classed a feminist ??

Oh and most women I know, who have male partners, do not see them as the same as their female friends. What does never give a hard time mean ? Put up and shut up whatever they say or do ? Well they are cleverer , or at least think they are, so little woman shut up. That's not to say don't treat each other with respect when discussing issues, but sounds like Fay is confusing women with a doormat.

... “There are women at work and there’s mating behaviour and women get them confused. At work, gender should not come into it. Women are right to refuse to make the coffee, but when you get home I’m afraid you have to make the coffee. It’s such a waste of time trying to tell your husband to pick up the socks or clean the loo. It’s much easier just to do it yourself.”

Well I am soooo grateful that Fay thinks women should have some equality in the workplace, though won't this upset the man, being a working woman who is capable ?? Ah no, because when she walks through the door she then reverts to 1950s housewife . Yep, its just easier to do stuff for the man, who of course is your husband ...that is unless you were 'easy' and then my dear no man, however stupid you are, will 'commit' and let you clean his toilet.

Am I being a bit (pretend) dim here ? Can someone , perhaps of the male variety, explain why having a penis stops them picking up socks or cleaning the toilet ? Unless you are of the male freakish porn star build I wouldn't of thought so. 

If both partners are busy at work, and of course that as we know is problematic in Fay's feminist world, why the fuck should women then do all the household tasks ? I am not better at cooking, cleaning or tidying than any male partner I have had.  I certainly don't enjoy it. So why should I just go round cleaning the toilet or picking up their socks? If I leave my underwear on the floor, which I do, then I should pick it up.  

Any man who thinks I should run around after them and who would make my life less easy for challenging that can take a hike.

“I think we should have more teenage pregnancies, and work afterwards. If you have children late you have no energy left for sex, and then men wander off to find someone else. The definition of a good man has become ridiculous. I just think that as long as you have a sort of semi-good looking, able-bodied, intelligent man, you should have his baby.”

Again, seems Fay again belittles men as much as she seems to think us not proper feminists do. Yep, grab a man , who will just do, and breed. And linked to her other stuff, perhaps if the man did his share of household and childcare tasks the woman might not be too tired for sex.

This may help sell her books, but do shut the fuck up about being a feminist. By any of the definitions you are not . Your view of women AND men is insulting , seeing them as insecure shallow beings who need looking after and pandering to.

Cat's five word post

Edinburgh

I love Edinburgh. I live right in the middle of it, actually on the Royal Mile in the part called Canongate. I am involved in Save Our Old Town - check out www.independentrepublicofthe canongate.bloggerspot.com and www.eh8.org.uk.

Edinburgh sadly has too many tourists and a crap council. Recently we had a horrible display of the "Homecoming Gathering," organised by the Scottish Government and Tourist Scotland - lots of Americans, New Zealanders, Canadians and Australians being faux clan members. It was called the "Biggest gathering of the clans in 200 years." Yeah like since being deported maybe or since Culloden!!! It struck me that this was ethnic nationalism and it really creeped me out - many of my neighbours commented on this too. First, nationalism is wrong, weird and creepy . Now I understand why the Brit Left get worried about Scottish nationalism ,but they are worried about the wrong sort. Oh I bet I cause a stooshy about that!!!

Anyway if anyone ever comes to Edinburgh get in touch and I will do you a non-tourist tour.

Can't bear to discuss the tram fiasco and the road works and the bin men are working to rule due to job evaluation and not getting their over time payments so Edinburgh is going to rack and ruin.

Feminism

Me - I am a hard core feminist. I would describe myself as a Radical Marxist Feminist. I am in a battle against male hegemony and misogyny and not prepared to wait until socialism, I recognise the patriarchy but I think its class society not just men, Its a bit lame to blame men for class relations really. I have a male lover - Mr Eddie Truman and shave my legs (though only when I can be bothered). I campaign for a women's right to choose, against raunch culture and violence against women. I am against prostitution and see it as harmful towards women. But just to be clear I am under no illusion that women's oppression can disappear without doing away with class oppression, however not willing to let men off with oppressing women in the mean time.

Travel

Just come back from China and Mongolia and I was a Mongolian warrior in a past life!! I love travelling, though with global warming probably quite an anti social thing to do!! I am lucky and been to many lands and experienced different cultures. Me and my mum went to live in South Africa when I was 11. She was probably the only white house keeper in the whole of Africa!! Will do blog about China and Mongolia later.

Socialist

Was brought up as a socialist and a feminist by my mum and grandad. Two always been together. My grandad was in the Communist Party until 1956. Currently in the Scottish Socialist Party and before that Scottish Militant Labour. Never really been a Trotskyist though admire Leon Trotsky, been to see his house in Mexico but hate his book The History of the Russian Revolution, bits of it don't make any sense. He makes no real explanation about why women went on strike for International Women's Day in February 1917!

My socialism is being active in your community and have always been so and my workplace but I am resting from being a shop steward just now. Also being true to your self and community -don't be a hypocrite and my fav socialist quote is "each according to their ability, each according to their need".

Cakes

I love cakes - best cakes from the co-op, lemon cupcakes. I also love scones and walnut cake but a danish pastry or bakewell tart does not go a miss. Presently trying not to eat too many cakes just now in order not to look like someone who really eats cakes all the time. I also bake cakes - fairy cakes, banana bread, scones and mufins.

Gender, Race and Class - An Anti-Capitalist Feminist event - 14th February

Received this by e mail:

Join us on Sat 14 February for Gender, Race & Class
The event will run from 10.30am-6.30pm
We hope the event will provide us with a forum to come together, participate in open debate, learn from each other, develop strategies to work towards our common aims, make alliances and inspire each other to build a strong and active feminist movement from the bottom up.

The day will offer 12 workshops which explore the ways in which sexist, racist and capitalist exploitation take place in our society and will look for opportunities to challenge these together. We hope to involve as many women and men as possible in the campaigns that will be at the centre of this event.

The workshop list and practical information about the event are now online. Let us know if you’d like to book a place at the event! anticapitalistfeminists@gmail.com

Workshops at the event will include:
• Feminist History
• A woman’s place is in her union?
• Sex work
• Challenging domestic and sexual violence
• International solidarity
• Community organising
• Queer and trans politics
• Prison abolition
• Rape and asylum
• Reproductive freedoms
• Feminism and parenting

Timings for the programme will be published in the next few weeks.

http://www.anticapitalistfeminists.co.uk/?page_id=60

About Us

We are feminists who have come together from a number of groups to organise an event in February 2009. We are excited and energised by the current resurgence in feminist activism in the UK , but we think that the kind of feminist movement we build and the kind of politics it has, matter.

We are committed to an anti-capitalist feminism which sees the interconnections between all struggles against oppressions and against capitalism, and we want to build an event that creates an open space to discuss this and develop our ideas. But we don’t want to just talk about our politics – we want to fight to actually change the material conditions of women’s lives, to fight misogyny and our own exploitation, and to involve as many women and men as possible in the campaigns that will be at the centre of this event.

We want the joint event to provide us with a forum to come together, participate in open debate, develop strategies to work towards our common aims, network, make alliances and inspire each other to build a strong and active feminist movement. We need to unite to challenge women’s oppression and exploitation. We want to fight for the rights of all women - and that includes the rights of sex workers and ‘illegal’ migrants.

We organise using non-hierarchical, consensus-based decision making. We recognise the power structures that exist among us, based on the inequalities of our society, which amplify some voices and marginalise others, and we will actively work to confront them. Decisions are taken at monthly meetings, which are open to feminists of all genders. There’s also the option to work autonomously in self-defined groups (e.g. women-only). We respect the fact that women have a diversity of experience and we see this as positive in that it enables us to learn from each other.

Key issues on which we want to organise include…
• Defending and extending reproductive freedom.
• Opposing rape and sexual abuse.
• Fighting racism and immigration controls.
• Building solidarity between women workers.
• Challenging all forms of heterosexism and increasing our freedom of sexual expression.
• Struggles against capitalist exploitation.

http://www.anticapitalistfeminists.co.uk/?page_id=50

For all other details such as registration, venue etc., go to http://www.anticapitalistfeminists.co.uk/

Happy International Women's Day

HAPPY INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY 2008!

SATURDAY 8TH MARCH

Remember, if you're a woman and...

* you can vote, thank a feminist.

* you get paid as much as men doing the same job, thank a feminist.

* you went to college / university instead of being expected to quit after school so your brothers could go because "You'll just get married anyway", thank a feminist.

* you can apply for any job, not just "women's work", thank a feminist.

* you can get or give birth control information without going to prison, thank a feminist.

* your doctor, lawyer, judge or MP is a woman, thank a feminist.
* you play an organised sport, thank a feminist.

* you can wear trousers without being excommunicated from your church or run out of town, thank a feminist.

* your boss isn't allowed to pressure you to sleep with him, thank a feminist.
* you get raped and the trial isn't about your hemline or your previous boyfriends, thank a feminist.

* you start a small business and can get a loan using only your name and credit history, thank a feminist.

* you are on trial and are allowed to testify in your own defence, thank a feminist.

* you have the right to your own salary even if you are married or have a male relative, thank a feminist.

* you get residency of your children following divorce or separation, thank a feminist.

* you get a voice in the raising and care of your children instead of them being completely controlled by the husband/father, thank a feminist.

* your partner assaults you and it is illegal and the police stop him instead of lecturing you on better wifely behaviour, thank a feminist.

* you are granted a degree after attending university instead of a certificate of completion, thank a feminist.

* you can breastfeed your baby discreetly in a public place and not be arrested, thank a feminist.

* you marry and your civil human rights do not disappear into your husband's rights, thank a feminist.

* you have the right to refuse sex with your husband, thank a feminist.

* you have the right to keep your medical records confidential from the men in your family, thank a feminist.

* you have the right to read the books you want, thank a feminist.

* you can testify in court about crimes or wrongs your husband has committed, thank a feminist.

* you can choose to be a mother or not a mother in your own time not at the dictates of a husband or rapist, thank a feminist.

* you can look forward to a lifespan of 80 years instead of dying in your 20s from unlimited childbirth, thank a feminist.

* you can see yourself as a full, adult human being instead of a minor who needs to be controlled by a man, thank a feminist.

Sadly not all women around the globe can enjoy these rights and priviledges, however when people minimise the role of feminism and the demand for women's liberation - it is easy to forget who few rights women actually had in the past few decades.

London Pro-Feminist Men's group

Apart from my long debates about Kylie's arse, I have had a few chats recently with leftie men about anti sexism and the male feminist and how to be supportive and what to call themselves. Some younger ones like Kit calls himself a feminist. Some of the older ones , bit more cynical, admit that back in the 80s the main reason for calling yourself that was to get into the knickers of members of the women's group. You know who you are :-)Now of course they are both good old anti sexist lefties but who don't make a big deal of it.

Anyway enough rambling. My point is I don't expect men to be perfect (that would be dull anyway), just an awareness that they need to address issues and a hands up when they get it wrong or don't know. I don't much care what they call themselves, its what they do in support of women and whether they can question themselves and the left that counts.

With that in mind I was pleased to hear about a blog and group, the London Pro-Feminist Men' group, from one of my many drinking buddies and mates John A. John is still enthusiastic and not yet bitter and twisted:-) Its nice to see it. Perhaps some of us hard bitten old cynics could learn from people like John and this group.

Pic: Members of the group at the Reclaim the Night rally.

Feminist Fightback

A plug for this event :


Organised by a group of Socialist Feminists including the Education Not for Sale student network, the Feminist Fightback conference aims to bring together feminists from a wide range of perspectives to debate ideas and develop practical strategies for fighting women's oppression and exploitation.

Fightback 07 will build on the success of last year’s conference, attended by over 220 people, which gave rise to several activist initiatives, including the March 3 2007 Torch-Lit March for Abortion Rights.

This year will continue our campaign to defend and extend abortion rights and our discussions will include…

• IS SEXY ALWAYS SEXIST? FEMINISM, LADS MAGS AND PORNOGRAPHY
• ECOFEMINISM

• FEMINISTS AGAINST BORDERS

• ISLAMIC FEMINISM

• RACE, SEX, CLASS

• THE GENDER PAY GAP, LOW PAY AND THE CLASS STRUGGLE

• WOMEN AGAINST SWEATSHOPS

• PLUS FILM SHOWINGS…

LOVE, HONOUR AND DISOBEY: A FILM ABOUT HONOUR KILINGS BY SOUTHALL BLACK SISTERS

A PLACE OF RAGE: WOMEN IN THE BLACK CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT

Feminist Fightback’s supporters include the National Union of Students Women’s Campaign, the RMT Women’s Committee and the International Union of Sex Workers.

Saturday, October 20, 2007
Time: 12:00pm - 6:00pm
Location: University of East London, Docklands campus,
Street: 4-6 University Way
City/Town: London
http://www.feministfightback.org.uk/?page_id=3%22



I plan to go along and will post a report afterwards.