blaming
i think that twisty at i blame the patriarchy is usually right on target; often, she's more than just right on target, she's brilliant. she's also one of the best and funniest writers i've come across. however, there's one matter that i think she's getting wrong. here's a point she makes in her latest post, which is about the harm done to all women by patriarchy-conforming women:
I assert that we’re choosing the path of least resistance. It’s much easier to acquiesce to a set of established conventions—social, aesthetic, political, sexual, sartorial—for which the rewards (dudely approval, other women’s satisfying jealousy) dangle brightly ahead, than it is to blaze forth in a fury of white-hot anti-feminine iconoclasm and risk ridicule, ostracism, and male reproach.well, yes, i think this sounds good and i agree. i'll choose the path of most resistance on any given day. (i agree, too, that "girl power" was harmful - not to mention utter bullshit, etc.etc..) and yet, in practice this gets very complicated, because you know what?! the scariest thing of all (and most indicative of patriarchy's pervasiveness and omnipotence) is that "ridicule, ostracism and male reproach" are heaped not just on those who don't "choose the path of least resistance" but on those who do, as well! in fact, i think the latter is more common - and maybe it's more common because there are many more women who conform to society expectations (just like there are more men who do), but it's certainly the case that the type of person men (and women) ridicule most often are women who follow the "sexy’n'stupid mandate" (to quote twisty again). and while it may be more "socially acceptable" to be a "bimbo" or a "stupid girl" or a "lady" in some ways, it's also the most restrictive, mind-warping place to be. i really believe this. and i don't mean that in the "feminine mystique" sense at all - i mean that to me blaming women for choosing any one thing because it's "more patriarchal" than another doesn't make sense. the whole point of the patriarchy is that it takes anything that's deemed "female" or "feminine" - whether it's "inherently" good or not - and devalues, ridicules, shoots it down, brutalizes it and ultimately makes it into a tool of the patriarchy. and then reinforces it as a "feminine" trait. this is true for "bimboish stupidity" as much as it is for "feminine sensitivity." as feminists, we know very well how this goes: women are always damned if we do, and damned if we don't. and really, what exactly is "sexy and stupid"? aren't plenty of men the equivalent of "sexy" and "stupid" (if we just go by those words and don't attach the gender implications) just because that's who they are (leaving aside for the moment the fact that men in general don't have to live under the same social pressure to be those things)? the difference is that they're not sexy and stupid women. and therefore they're not the constant butt of jokes; anyway, not to the same extent - men only get the same level of ridicule and aggression precisely when they are seen as "effeminate."
and i, for instance, as a completely non-girly girl in most respects, am still ashamed to knit in public (stitch'n'bitch notwithstanding) - because what if someone who doesn't know me sees me and makes fun of me for doing such a "backwards" thing, for being "the kind of girl" who does? or - my obsession with playing the chinese jump-rope: i'm a little bit "ashamed" of admitting to it, and conflicted over it, because it makes me sound "like such a girl." but those are both "gender-appropriate", "feminine" things i revel in, and i refuse to believe that the reason i love knitting may be that i want to serve the patriarchy by making it stuff to wear, or that maybe i love jumping elastic because i believe girls should play "silly girls' games." i love knitting and the chinese rope because i do - because they feel like a part of me in some way. i know these are random examples, but they express what i really mean here. and yes, like twisty, i also believe that every move an oppressed class makes is a political act. but i don't see how - say - dressing "provocatively," if it felt natural to me (which it might, i remember a time when i was younger when it almost did), would be different from holding on to any other traits the patriarchy calls "feminine" in spite of their being "feminine." is it just because it would be somehow sexual?? why?? why does stuff that's perceived to be sex-related become more threatening in this context? i think patriarchy is responsible, and that blaming the victims of the patriarchal value scale, instead of the patriarchy itself, is not radical feminism. that's the crux of my personal (very nuanced) "sex-positive" stance. and i must say, for all these reasons it was a surprise to me to realize that in certain circles radical feminists are almost required to be ANTI-sex-positive. WHAT??? how is that getting to the root of our patriarchal problems? i agree - very much so - that it shouldn't all be about "choice," but i cannot agree with this judgement that as a woman you're either "patriarchy-fighting" and aware or "patriarchy-serving" and misguided - as if there could ever be anyone who is 100% one or the other, and as if there's someone who gets to pass that judgement.
personally, i fully intend to "blaze forth in a fury of white-hot anti-feminine iconoclasm" while knitting and jumping elastic at the same time. i hope that that's ok.
11 comentarii:
Hi there,
right. exactly. I'm concerned that if we as women and as feminists don't reclaim in some way some of the feminine or female-oriented things that patriarchy has deemed inferior, patriarchy will defeat us every time. I don't want to be a pseudo-male. I like being a woman. I feel perfectly embodied as a woman, and some of the things that I have learned to be simply because I have a vagina are good things - intrinsically good, as you say. Yet, I am made to feel by some feminists that I am conforming to patriarchy and setting back feminism every time I put on lipstick and buy a bra and have vaginal intercourse and carry a purse or wear the colour pink! While I agree that girl power is pretty stupid in that it lacks substance, the idea of women reclaiming power through the only tools we have available to us - even if they are the master's tools, as Audre Lorde wuld say god rest her soul - is an important one to consider. I don't think it's a matter of all or nothing. I think it's a matter of context.
thanks for expressing very well what I was trying to get at. I'll bookmark you and come visit again.
(By the way, is this Portugese I"m seeing?)
hi, thanks for commenting here! i actually felt strongly enough about this topic to comment over at ibtp - which i've always been too intimidated to do before (and i've felt quite strongly about lots of other posts... but mostly i've been in total agreement with twisty, maybe that's why i didn't muster up the courage to comment). :) anyway, as i mentioned in passing i'm actually not even someone who feels "perfectly embodied as a woman," and it still bothers me that denouncing all "femininity" could be called by anyone a feminist act - let alone the most feminist act. to me it's so obvious that it's straight-up misogyny. and i've thought about this a lot, in different contexts; one example that i've given in the past is how some women in my professional field, which is science, will say stuff like "there's no discrimination in the scientific community, it's no problem there are so few women - in fact, women are the problem, i personally always get along so much better with my male colleagues than my female ones"... well, i really cannot see this tendency to "denounce"/"renounce" women and femaleness and femininity as anything other than an actual catering to the patriarchy.
so i think i have a slightly different take than you, but i thoroughly agree with what you commented at ibtp. i'm bookmarking your blog, too.
:)
and it's romanian, actually.
Well, I get kind of rankled when women get all rankled about whether or not knitting or wearing a skirt is devaluing.
No, I don't see that as the big picture at all.
Its about women gaining their own power and independence and that's where many women stop at the gate.
I continuously see women choosing to not press forward into roles that would or could gain them more economic, political and social power.
Hircschmann is right, when women still choose roles that put them on the lower end of the power spectrum, then all the work of the latter feminists means nothing.
Its not about knitting or what one wears; its about recognizing that women are still told that in order to be good woman, they must assume the role of housekeeper and care taker alone and that they must sacrifice, with glee no less, their future earning power and independence. Men may be assholes to demand that women have dinner ready and the kid quiet and fed when they come home. But what of the women who actively refuse to be the household slave, but demand the man take on a fair share of the workload; the women who refuse to sacrifice their career and future earning potential?
Last I knew, they were called selfish bitches, not only by their men, but by the patriarchical structure that has done everything it can to label women who challenge the uneven and unfair power balance not only at work, but most importantly, at home.
When it comes to choosing to stay in the office or stay at home, women don't challenge the role that so many feminists have challenged in years past; they assume it. They assume the unequal power balance of not being the bread winner.
By saying that a woman who takes on male dominated roles is threatening her feminitiy hearkens back to pre-liberation days. It also blames those women who do have ambition, who do want to make a difference and who DO want to earn their own money, somehow less of a woman.
That is the problem. Feminists worked hard to make work available to women, to make women able to leave abusive husbands, report and take action against abusive and harrassing bosses and to demand equal pay for equal work and to be able to demand a share of the power and gain of their hard work.
Hirschmann states and accurately that women have made few strides in the homeplace. The crisis of care that seems to be budding was subsumed in the wake of the conservative backlash. Who need worry about child care if mom will stay home?
Since women still earn less than that of a man for the same work, to say that the women's lesser earnings qualify her sacrifice of time in her field, isn't that a bit unfair? Who will be out in the field to push for equal pay? 16%?
Seems like a construct for failure that women are capitulating to.
And since there aren't that many women out there in the work place, then one can also infer that those women who are, the further they get up the ladder, the more alone they are and less able they are to challenge the male dominated status quo that gives higher pay and more promotions to men.
Knit away, knitting is a skill to be proud of and won't take down the patriarchy. But if you give up a good paying job to be dependent on a man in order to stay home and knit, well that's another thing entirely.
"Knit away, knitting is a skill to be proud of and won't take down the patriarchy. But if you give up a good paying job to be dependent on a man in order to stay home and knit, well that's another thing entirely."
hehe, yes it is, and i never said anything about that, and i certainly never said that women should stay at home or that "a woman who takes on male dominated roles is threatening her feminitiy"! wow. that's pretty much the last thing that i would ever think or say. don't you see?! that's the whole point. you're missing what i am saying, you don't have any idea what "kind" of woman i am, and your response is to preach to the choir while being patronizing. why do you think it's necessary or ok to do that? and if you don't realize how patronizing your line of argument is... well, i said above that "nobody gets to pass that judgement." i will add that i certainly don't need the go-ahead from anyone - whether it be the patriarchy or any person in particular - to... "be proud of knitting!" :) i am proud of knitting because i know very well that it's a useful skill and a fun thing to do... i could care less that it's also a very "feminine" pastime, really. i was just giving a personal example about the kinds of things that i see the patriarchy lumping into what's called "femininity" and devalued by society. my point remains that at a very practical level denouncing "femininity" is just another flavor of misogyny.
and, honestly, it would be nice if you reacted to what i was saying instead of what's in your head already about "women who get rankled" about something or other...
ps: and what if knitting will take down the patriarchy? i don't know a better candidate, so... maybe i should give up my job and stay at home to knit vast numbers of antipatriarchal blankets or something. i'm thinking about it.
The thing of it is, what's generally deemed "feminine" has been shunted to the shadows of this our various-inheritance-laden (Biblical patriarchy and other forms of insitutionalized sexism included) culture. That includes sensuality, softness, art for art's sake, frivolity, play, nurturing, communitarianism, most emotions except for anger...and any or all of the above in combination with sexuality, which is in a shadow of its own already.
but many of the things that are looked at with such horror by (many) mainstream folk, reactionaries, and certain radical feminists alike (with the exception of nurturing)--being penetrated, erotic role-playing, polyamory, dressing up and painting one's face--is part of that shadow.
so further rejecting and shaming of people (much less women) for wanting to indulge in such things, to my mind, is not--
well. it's not part of any feminism *I* want a part of.
even if all of the above weren't true, group shaming and an invitation to beat oneself up all by themselves are serious tools of the patriarchy; why recreate them?
as per the pressure to stay home: no, that's *some* women. other women simply don't have a choice and never did: it's work or starve.
i don't believe in any sort of reified "feminity" associated with domesticity or anything else (any of the things listed above can and should be reclaimed by men as well). but I do believe wanting to stay at home is perfectly valid. the issue isn't about the nature of what's being pushed; the issue is that there's pressure/coercion at all.
and women, feminists included, are not exempt from the ability to be the pressurers as well as the pressurees.
going shame shame bad feminist IS a form of pressure; and it is a power move.
belledame - yes, totally. both going "shame shame bad feminist" and going "shame shame stupid girl" are power moves and, as i've already said, in effect they mean submitting to (not dissenting with or resisting) the patriarchy. feminists, of all people, should be the last to resort to such tactics.
"...hearkens back to pre-liberation days..." Well, welcome to the lovely world of science and engineering. It really is pre-liberation days, in some ways, in our world. We have women with false consciousness and men who hang up nudie calendars in their labs and blatant harassment and research associates getting raped and all kinds of stuff you'd never believe. Go read my blog for all the sorry details. But what I really wanted to say is, I agree with the general point of this post. It is not the case that women are NOT choosing to be kick-ass feminists who reject traditional femininity because they fear the reaction of men and prefer their current state where men treat them like goddesses 24/7. It IS the case that many women know well the fist inside the velvet glove and the boot upon their neck, and love what they are familiar with. Nobody likes to rock the boat, but women have a lot invested in not knowing that their boat is leaking. (pardon all my mixed metaphors). In fact if they would become kick-ass feminists, they would lose much (like asshole husbands), but also retain much (like knitting) and even gain new things they didn't know about (like more equal and satisfying relationships with men or with women). So it would seem to be in their interests to change - to exchange one set of crap for another set of crap that comes with additional benefits and keeps all the good stuff of the old one. But you also lose things like: not having to be responsible for knowing how to fix cars or toilets, 'cause that's "guy" stuff, etc. You have to take on new competencies - which ultimately can be gratifying - but you give up relying on guys to do some of YOUR shitwork - yardwork, etc. - if the equal thing is going to be equal. It's much more complicated than saying "I am woman, hear me roar". Audre Lorde said "your silence will not protect you", - keeping mum about the patriarchy does not protect you from the crap. Speaking out is scary, but only so much as we think that speaking out is only when the crap descends. I know women who believe that becoming an engineer is a brave feminist undertaking and other women who believe that participating in science or engineering is just being part of the western capitalist colonialist oppressor's machine. Neither one is right, really - being a woman in engineering, it depends upon how you approach it, how you treat other women, what you stand up for, how you conduct yourself in life - just like anything else. It's just a hell of a lot harder to do it in engineering and science because the institutionalized sexism is so frickin' entrenched.
hi, zuska, thanks for commenting! i'd say we're on the same page about 80% of the way, and i really like what you say right at the end, especially... "being a woman in engineering, it depends upon how you approach it, how you treat other women, what you stand up for, how you conduct yourself in life... it's just a hell of a lot harder to do ... in engineering and science because the institutionalized sexism is so entrenched" - so well put and SO TRUE! however, i guess i'm a little bit less clear on the point about women choosing not to be kick ass feminists. definitely, women choose not to rock the boat because they know what rocking it would mean and because they have a lot invested in not rocking it - and also yes, TOTALLY, it's not an easy decision to make to give up the advantages of conforming and staying quiet and traditionally "feminine"... but actually my point here - and i don't know how else to make it - is that even choosing those advantages is hard in many ways (being a woman, whatever you choose, is hard), and then sometimes saying "this particular part of 'femininity' is actually very worthy and valuable" means rocking the boat A LOT and standing up to the patriarchy at least as much as rejecting traditional femininity crap. basically, i wanted to stress that we as feminists should be very weary of going "shame shame bad girl/feminist" (as belldame observed) - and not that we should never criticize, but that we should be careful and thoughtful when we do it.
thing is, i don't understand very well how this, including your own points here about how it's all so complex, mesh with the "false consciousness" stuff... i mean, i for one am conflicted. because i also referenced "false consciousness" with what i said above about some women in science who think there's no sexism in this field... but on the other hand, a large part of my post is about NOT subscribing to the "good and aware vs bad and unaware women" dichotomy, because things are never as black or white as all that. and i must say - some of your response to the it goddess calendar issue/people made me quite uncomfortable in this respect (i will have a new post where i go more into this - you should read it :) ).
Best regards from NY!
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