Mary Beard on Radio 4 now with Point of View about Miss World 2011

[EleanorRathbone]

NOW!!!

POP, exactly... How can we fight for someone if we see them as a threat?

This isn't about an individual... MV may be an individual, but she's also representative of a group. As a feminist, I'm concerned with fighting for the rights of all women, not condemning the ones who don't fit with my ideologies.

"fwiw, I did see the FS as an enormous source of encouragement for me"

Hmmm, that's an interesting objective for a Feminist Board - to be encouraging to a man. Why would you see that as an important element of it Pan?

Exactly Plenty. Mary your argument might have worked in terms of Ciceronian rhetoric, but on feminist terms it failed.

You undermined a feminist action (Julia Long interpreted you as saying their protest was redundant - did she misinterpret too?), you played directly into an anti-feminist stereotype by saying that Miss Venezuala wasn't your enemy, you listed a whole lot of reasons why Miss World isn't so bad after all, when it remains a sexist institution, and you generally undermined what was an excellent piece of feminism.

Feminist activism is rare, it deserves support. It really would have been better if you'd said that you supported the protestors rather than listing reasons why they were mistaken.

If only we had a like button for posts...

Couldn't agree more with Thunderbolt's post at 10:51

Hi Mary,

Just wanted to say that I appreciate your willingness to engage here. Not something many successful academics would do. Don't wholly agree with you on the Miss World issue, but I did really like the bit of the broadcast where you talked about the aging body and your toenail. Again, not something one could imagine N. Ferguson or others of his pompous ilk addressing. For me, there was a real sense of a feminist approach in your piece (personal is political) - which is a refreshing change.

Feminists have always disagreed with each other. This kind of Streitkultur has historically been used to discredit and weaken the movement (wimmin fighting like cats in a sack etc.), but I think it's one of its very best aspects.

thunder -fwiw I didn't say it was an objective for a feminist board. neither did I say it was 'an important element' of it either.

So why is it supposed to matter to us then that a man doesn't find this space a source of encouragement anymore? You obviously thought it was important for us to know or you wouldn't have mentioned it. Feminism has nothing to do with being a source of encouragement for men, in fact if it is, we're probably doing it wrong.

I was merely expressing a sort of change that i'd noticed. and I do disagree that feminism shouldn't be a source of encourgement for men, or for some men at least. I think there you are massively wrong.

Well if you thought I was right Pan, once again, I'd be pretty sure I was doing feminism wrong.

If it makes you as a man uncomfortable Pan we're probably getting somewhere. Feminism is about getting rid of male privilege and entitlement and male domination over women. Making feminism a source of encouragement for men is probably at about number two million on feminists' list of priorities.

Unless the feminist in question is a funfem, in which case obviously it's number one.

no, making a man feel uncomfortable isn't the 'purpose' of feminism, I don't think, though it is often a result of it?

I've an idea. I'll cease relating to you on threads on MN. Seems the best way fwd, probably. we aren't going to be changing our points of view.

I didn't say it was the purpose of feminism. The purpose of feminism is to liberate women from male oppression.

Anyway this conversation is over Pan. You've been getting in digs at me for the past week or so and obviously thought this was another opportunity.

I'd suggest you take some time to think about your male privilege and why you think you're entitled to complain about how feminism is being done here. Because you're crossing a line when you do that.

hi everyone.. i might disagree with you in all kinds of ways.. but at least we are on the same planet. try this:
www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2063695/Women-secrets-left--fault-usual.html?ITO=1490&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

mary x

just to sign off for the moment.. thanks for the debate, and I do like to think (as teatimesthree has it) that the big blokeish historians would have steered clear of mumsnet! more fool them

will be back soon..but i am giing to focus on the stuff in the mail (which actually applies to me and Bea.. a great interlocutor)..link again:

www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2063695/Women-secrets-left--fault-usual.html?ITO=1490&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Hi MaryB, I dont have anything to add to the discussion but I want to say I think you're fab.
I enjoyed listening to you on womans hour and am looking forward to listening to your points of view programs via the podcast.
It's great that you took the time to come and 'do battle' on MN!

"It seems when I 'challenge' a poster's opinion (lately) it gets labelled as being 'aggressive'."

Pan, the responses to you were to this post:

"Lordy. Have you heard yourselves? Non-issue aggression? Personal undermining.? Wild deliberate misinterpretation. It reads like a feeding frenzy on another woman as if she had poo-ed on your best-drawn picture at primary school. One or two of you really need to grow up."

That's not actually challenging anyone's opinion, is it, it's telling women how to debate.

If you can't see why that is offensive, then yeah, this probably has stopped being the right space for you. Regular posters here tend to react not very well to men telling us how we should talk to each other.

Pan - would you really have said to a bunch of men discussing politics:

Lordy. Have you heard yourselves? Non-issue aggression? Personal undermining.? Wild deliberate misinterpretation. It reads like a feeding frenzy on another man as if he had poo-ed on your best-drawn picture at primary school. One or two of you really need to grow up."

Plenty of heated debates between eg men in the Labour party and men in the Tory party or just men in general.

There are some different views being discussed on this thread re objectification etc - no need for anyone to "grow up". I see no frenzy.

Your comment has really really thrown me. I can think of no reason for you to make it (despite your self-confessed like of this place) and other more measured posts - apart from unidentified male priviledge - and an unwillingness to consider your position as a man in a feminist space.

Book recommendation for you.

I sort of agree with Liz Jones. Talking about thickening toenails isn't striking any kind of a blow for womenkind. I'm not seeing male professors of classics at Oxford lining up to talk about their aging bodies. Men are offered the right of privacy unlike women.

If you're sticking around though Mary, a documentary on Andrea Dworkin and her work on pornography has recently been put up on YouTube. I've started a thread about it in this section and i'd be interested to hear your thoughts, given that you were a radical feminist back in the day.

I've peeked in and out of this thread, but haven't felt I've had much to add. I'm not an academic but have been doing "practical feminist" stuff at the coalface for getting on for 30 years now.

I just wanted to expand on something said by messyisthenewtidy (Sat 19-Nov-11 01:06:55) which might get lost in the conversation. I agree that there have been significant gains in the rights of women and addressing sexism since 1970 - particularly overt examples of this. We've had acts on equal pay, sex discrimination, divorce reform, criminalisation of rape in marriage, etc. and yes, 70's feminism gave us the language to describe gender oppression that wasn't there before. Subordination of women was just a "given" where as now, it's not - sort of.

But, what I think messy was referring to is that while the most overt examples of oppression are either illegal or not readily "tolerated" even by fairly moderate folks, its the indirect, institutionalised examples of sexism that are more pervasive now than ever before. So, while you can't say advertise a job as just for men, you can put enough features in the job spec so it effectively is for men only and/or have a culture that makes the role intolerable for women. You get the same effect without being obvious about it. It's like nailing jelly to the wall because those who perpetuate it can deny and deny that they are doing anything wrong, and even appropriate the "language of equality" to try and demonstrate how fair they are being, (e.g. but it happens to men, too.)

And more recently, gender oppression has been dressed up in the language of "choice" and even of "empowerment," which I find even more insidious than old fashioned, "women are this, men are that, that's just how it is." So, we're told now that there aren't many women in boardrooms because actually, they are better at striking a work-life balance than men and don't particularly want to be in senior management. We are told that young women take up activities like beauty contests, topless waitressing, stripping, etc., because they like it, it makes good money, causes no one any harm, is something that "empowers them," and we shouldn't criticise their personal choices.

By insisting these are "choices," it serves to shut down the debate. And, there is that extra layer that if you are a woman who has "chosen" something and you then don't feel happy/fulfilled/safe/etc., then you only have yourself to blame because YOU made that choice.

I don't think anyone should have to talk about their body, and it's true men are usually accorded the freedom to not think or talk about their bodies. But I think women talking honestly about women's bodies is an important thing. Whether you can think of it in battle-terminology like 'striking a blow' I don't know, but it's better than the idea that not talking about bodies at all should be the ideal for both sexes, I think.

Cross-post - but Kritiq well said.

It depends what you think feminism is for. If it's to acknowledge that women get older, then fine, talking about aging toenails and bodies would be part of that.

If it's about defeating the patriarchy and ending sexist and misogynistic oppression of women, then I think it's going to be a harder argument to make that toenail talk has anything to offer politically to that end.

Just to add, I don't agree with Mary's analysis that her loss of interest in protesting a sexist event is necessarily connected with age. It's possible not to support feminist action at any age. As Julia Long pointed out there were veterans from the first protest at the most recent protest. Many women become more, not less radical as they get over. I wasn't a radical feminist until my 30s. Second wave feminists like Catharine MacKinnon, Sheila Jeffreys, Andrea Dworkin, Mary Daly, Kate Millet who would be Mary's contemporaries or a little older, did not lose/have not lost their radicalism or their fire. Dworkin and Daly kept their analysis of and outrage against male supremacy right up to the end.

Get over - get older even.