8:48 pm - 10/25/2012
It is perhaps a demonstration of irony that in the same week when a poll showing only 1 in 7 women are happy to call themselves feminists appears, so too does a column by the editors of Vagenda demonstrating exactly why that is the case.
According to Rhiannon and Holly, Caitlin Moran should not be called out for the now infamous tweet that she "literally could not give a s___" about whether the show Girls depicts women of colour (it is set in Brooklyn, where 55pc of the residents are not white).
Apparently, hoping that a movement that supposedly brands itself as being for all women might have prominent spokespeople endorsing the idea that someone other than white-middle-class women are involved, is "cloaking feminism in esoteric theory."
If that's what qualifies as esoteric these days, then we really are doomed as a species.
I stopped calling myself a feminist several years ago for the simple reason that many feminists don't like sex workers. I'm sort of the opposite of Groucho Marx: if a club doesn't want me, then I'm more than happy to chip off elsewhere.
Even Caitlin Moran, who is put forward as a model of all-inclusive, get-in-girls feminism, writes in her book that she doesn't believe people like me can possibly be happy. Cheers for that. And they wonder why I don't want a part of it?
At its core feminism is - or is supposed to be - about equality under the law regardless of sex. Sounds simple, no? Maybe even appealing? Absolutely! But the devil is in the details: women are diverse as a group, therefore their needs vary widely. Loads of women don't see mainstream feminism including them, so they go on and live the lives they were living anyway - without feeling the need to label themselves as feminists.
But that hasn't stopped me, and many other women who have rejected the label, from being constantly nagged about the f-word. Because apparently if you are a woman, you have to be a feminist. Which makes about as much sense as saying since we've all enjoyed the benefits of the Protestant reformation, this obliges us to become Lutherans out of gratitude.
So you have to be a feminist. Unless of course you're not. Because there are plenty of people queueing up to tell us who is in and who is out in feminism: you can't be a feminist if you're Conservative, if you're Liz Jones, if you're the Prime Minister of Australia, a trans woman, a man, or Katie Price. And that's just for starters.
It starts to look less and less like a movement that wants as many voices as it can get - and more and more like one that is prioritising the concerns of a particular slice of womanhood above all others.
I say this as a middle-class white woman who is not a feminist: wouldn't it be great if feminism was more inclusive and used its voice for minority groups? Many feminists in the UK seem, for instance, wholly unconcerned about the drastic changes affecting family route migrants (surely affecting loads of women, both native UK and migrants). Historically, women who are not able-bodied, or who are not born women, or who are not white, have had a hard time finding a foothold in the movement too.
And we are told, according to the New Statesman article, that this is because intersectionality - the idea that feminism could embrace the concerns of many different groups - is too hard for the public. Too confusing. Feminism should be "comprehensible or it will be bulls___." What's incomprehensible about embracing the full diversity of ways in which to be a woman, or - sod that - a human? What's hard to parse in the notion that all people are not the same?
The article appears to endorse allowing the extremely personable and funny Moran, who has sold shedloads of books about how her specific experience of growing up made her a feminist, to say whatever she likes and exclude whomever she likes.
Moran's entitled to her own definition, of course. I'm not going to tell anyone they have to include all comers in their movement.
That's their shout. But when you call your book "How To Be a Woman" (as if there is only one way to be a woman) and write about the "voice of a generation" (as if there is only ever a single voice) it does rather invite the criticism.
Source
FYI, Dr. Brooke Magnanti is ~real~ Belle de Jour and the author of "The Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl", which spawned the TV show Secret Diary of a Call Girl. And I call myself a feminist but I think she makes mostly good points about what's wrong with a lot of mainstream feminism, and why Caitlin Moran's behaviour on Twitter was inexcusable.
Belle de Jour takes on Caitlin Moran's BS
It is perhaps a demonstration of irony that in the same week when a poll showing only 1 in 7 women are happy to call themselves feminists appears, so too does a column by the editors of Vagenda demonstrating exactly why that is the case.
According to Rhiannon and Holly, Caitlin Moran should not be called out for the now infamous tweet that she "literally could not give a s___" about whether the show Girls depicts women of colour (it is set in Brooklyn, where 55pc of the residents are not white).
Apparently, hoping that a movement that supposedly brands itself as being for all women might have prominent spokespeople endorsing the idea that someone other than white-middle-class women are involved, is "cloaking feminism in esoteric theory."
If that's what qualifies as esoteric these days, then we really are doomed as a species.
I stopped calling myself a feminist several years ago for the simple reason that many feminists don't like sex workers. I'm sort of the opposite of Groucho Marx: if a club doesn't want me, then I'm more than happy to chip off elsewhere.
Even Caitlin Moran, who is put forward as a model of all-inclusive, get-in-girls feminism, writes in her book that she doesn't believe people like me can possibly be happy. Cheers for that. And they wonder why I don't want a part of it?
At its core feminism is - or is supposed to be - about equality under the law regardless of sex. Sounds simple, no? Maybe even appealing? Absolutely! But the devil is in the details: women are diverse as a group, therefore their needs vary widely. Loads of women don't see mainstream feminism including them, so they go on and live the lives they were living anyway - without feeling the need to label themselves as feminists.
But that hasn't stopped me, and many other women who have rejected the label, from being constantly nagged about the f-word. Because apparently if you are a woman, you have to be a feminist. Which makes about as much sense as saying since we've all enjoyed the benefits of the Protestant reformation, this obliges us to become Lutherans out of gratitude.
So you have to be a feminist. Unless of course you're not. Because there are plenty of people queueing up to tell us who is in and who is out in feminism: you can't be a feminist if you're Conservative, if you're Liz Jones, if you're the Prime Minister of Australia, a trans woman, a man, or Katie Price. And that's just for starters.
It starts to look less and less like a movement that wants as many voices as it can get - and more and more like one that is prioritising the concerns of a particular slice of womanhood above all others.
I say this as a middle-class white woman who is not a feminist: wouldn't it be great if feminism was more inclusive and used its voice for minority groups? Many feminists in the UK seem, for instance, wholly unconcerned about the drastic changes affecting family route migrants (surely affecting loads of women, both native UK and migrants). Historically, women who are not able-bodied, or who are not born women, or who are not white, have had a hard time finding a foothold in the movement too.
And we are told, according to the New Statesman article, that this is because intersectionality - the idea that feminism could embrace the concerns of many different groups - is too hard for the public. Too confusing. Feminism should be "comprehensible or it will be bulls___." What's incomprehensible about embracing the full diversity of ways in which to be a woman, or - sod that - a human? What's hard to parse in the notion that all people are not the same?
The article appears to endorse allowing the extremely personable and funny Moran, who has sold shedloads of books about how her specific experience of growing up made her a feminist, to say whatever she likes and exclude whomever she likes.
Moran's entitled to her own definition, of course. I'm not going to tell anyone they have to include all comers in their movement.
That's their shout. But when you call your book "How To Be a Woman" (as if there is only one way to be a woman) and write about the "voice of a generation" (as if there is only ever a single voice) it does rather invite the criticism.
Source
FYI, Dr. Brooke Magnanti is ~real~ Belle de Jour and the author of "The Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl", which spawned the TV show Secret Diary of a Call Girl. And I call myself a feminist but I think she makes mostly good points about what's wrong with a lot of mainstream feminism, and why Caitlin Moran's behaviour on Twitter was inexcusable.
still don't get why saying you want to be equal to a man is a bad thing
ever
and tbh i think some ppl decline from calling themselves feminists due to backlash/exclusion from other branches of feminism shld fight back, just by calling themselves feminists. otherwise, who'd be there to contest the 'mainstream'?
Like for example in 30 rock the other day they listed a number of female comedians and the only black woman was Monique. It's so hard to identify with them when they don't give a shit.
“Feminism is the political theory and practice to free all women: women of color, working-class women, poor women, physically challenged women, lesbians, old women, as well as white economically privileged heterosexual women. Anything else is not feminism, but merely self-aggrandizement.”-Barbara Smith
That is so true.
because Susan from the Discworld has similar hair
and I don't like 'casual sex is cool, I kill monsters with pokers, also Death is my grandfather' Susan being associated with this shithead
Edited at 2012-10-26 01:05 am (UTC)
#Susanforever
(also she was played by Queen Michelle Dockery, whom I love)
Who?
And why the hell shouldn't she be?
From a Scotsman interview in 2004:
Here’s this issue you’re not allowed to discuss: that women are needy. Men can go for longer, more happily, without women. That’s the truth. We don’t, as little boys, play at being married – we try to avoid it for as long as possible. Meanwhile women are out there hunting for husbands. The world is vastly counted in favour of men at every level – except if you live in a civilised country and you’re sort of educated and middle-class, because then you’re almost certainly junior in your relationship and in a state of permanent, crippled apology. Your preferences are routinely mocked. There’s a huge, unfortunate lack of respect for anything male.
He also talked about the "feeble female mindset" about past companions, but my bookmark is down.
In short, he neatly reduced her from the individual woman she was in canon who was able to outsmart the detective all on her own to being passive pawn in Moriarty and Holmes's ongoing cock-dueling. The last twenty minutes of that episode were the downfall and would have made Irene from canon pissed off. Don't even get me started on "SHERLOCKED" because a four-year-old who just learned word association games could have guessed that. It was cheesy, emotional, irrational, and of course the cleverest woman who could outsmart the cleverest man used it. It's ridiculous and insulting that they reduced her to a sentimental, weeping, fragile character who now fears for her life because Sherlock bested her with the code. Mind you, this would have never happened with the Irene in canon. She not only won over Sherlock and ran away, but she demolished his savior complex. Irene in this show only confirmed his. She had to be rescued, at the point of death, by Sherlock in the end. She did not beat Sherlock at the game. You cannot claim to be a modern version of the Holmes canon and incredibly realistic to the originals if you decide to make "Irene beating Sherlock" actually mean that she made him feel emotions instead of her actually intellectually beating him at the game. It's insulting and regressive and fucked up.
Not to mention, she's a lesbian who fell in love with Holmes. Not once is any progressive fluidity of sexual desire been talked about in the episode or by the creators about the episode. They chose to announce her with the binary label of being a lesbian yet she falls for Sherlock. Instead of having the opportunity to make some advanced claim on sexual orientation, they chose to skin logic and make Sherlock some irresistible pussy magnet. And then there was the jaw-dropping finale which somehow managed to smoosh together some of patriarchy's top-10 fantasies. Think back to every English class you had that spoke about sexual symbolism. We're treated to the sight of the sexually liberated woman laid low. Down on her knees. About to have her block knocked off... by a great, big sword. And, at the same time, our hero miraculously appeared to save his damsel in distress. Yet she won the game because she made Sherlock care for her. She was dumb enough to let her emotions get the best of her in a sappy, dumb-dumb moment with the code and needing him to rescue her in the first place. Apparently she had no other resources to escape or friends, fellow criminals, and the likes to make it out on her own. At the end, she not only lost the battle but she needed to be saved by Sherlock.
All as the kick ass, unsentimental, take no prisoners, separate my girly emotions from business, outwitting all men Irene Adler from ACD's canon is rolling in her literary grave.
Most men who create Irene Adler in adaptation always reduce her as some romantic weakness for Holmes, even though it never was the case. Moffat's portrayal, however, takes the cake. At least other adaptations, as bad as some were, allowed Irene Adler to be the ruthless, unwavering character she could be in the face of the great detective.
Moffat handled the criticism like a child and refused to hear anything but praise for his genius. The very fact that someone in an awards speech adds "non-misogynist" to your name should be a red flag. Unless "non-racist" and "non-homophobe" start popping up to describe people, it should be left unsaid if it's true. The very fact people have to make excuses and emphasize his non-misogynistic ways reveals that maybe there's something in your work that's actually troubling enough to need fixing. Moffat's work should be the defense against such a claim, not his friends.