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

[EleanorRathbone]

NOW!!!

ES.. ONE way is a demo.. but there are other ways, no better no worse; different ways.. horse for courses.

Ciceronian rhetoric should never be forgotten...always useful.

Thunder .. because I think what you are saying is damn interesting even if I dont agree with you.. that is why.

I am happy to have got lots of emails from people saying thanks.. it shows one isnt totally barking (I think).. but also very keen to engage (else why else would I have been piping up all these days??)

oh no - I recall those vital(?) stats as 36-24-36, in 1973, as a competition standard.

thunder - why should MB be unable to discuss/argue out here, even if she has 'support elsewhere? Are you wishing to introduce a 'bar'? "if you have support elsewhere, you can't argue here." (esp. if you disagree with me). Risible.

Pan we're aware you're not keen on thunder but please stop the personal attacks. That's not what thunder said and not how Mary took it. You're coming across as stirring.

Pan.. I would like to know when the stats stopped.. I havent watched since .. well the 1970s/... possibly 1970 itself..

of course, one might well argue that they were still there as a hidden text in all this stuff.. I was not at all meaning that MW was totally clean..just that the headline presentation of the numbers had gone

Pan, can you stop with the personal attacks.

Your rudeness/aggression is an obstacle to the discussion

not at all, AW! Nothing 'personal'!! Personal attack? It's the debate that is important, not egos and the like. I only asked re the 'bar' being possibly set as that was the implication. I know I would have asked the same in any event of anyone else. nothing specific to thunder.

Pan, you always come across as notably more aggressive towards Thunder. It's getting a bit boring.

How do you think Roman rhetoricians would have dealt with people who answered them back on the interwebs, Mary?

This discussion has been disappointing because I don't think you have been 'arguing it out', Mary, if that means 'engaging with the critical points others have made about your APOV piece'. I don't think you engaged with Bea Campbell's points either.

If you don't feel angry or particularly bothered about Miss World these days, fine. But you still haven't explained why you felt the need to undermine the actions of feminists who are still bothered about Miss World, and you still haven't explained what you meant by your closing remark: the one about Miss Venezuela no longer being 'the enemy' which definitely did imply that others (your younger self? or other feminists?) do think of Miss Venezuela as an enemy. Nor have you explained how the burqa can be spoken of - as you did - in terms of 'choice' and 'pleasure'.

rather like me... engage, be polite, explain where you hadn't been clear enough, dont be afraid....

it's odd: i think that quite a lot of people who write/broadcast now will have nothing to do with the internet follow up.. that seems to me to be part of what it s about.

But, honestly, I am slightly unnerved by the pseudonymous aggression..

Pseudonymous aggression? Where?

Dont - it isn't aggression, or stuff being personal. I have no desire to upset the current FS status quo - there seems to be a mis-match so I'll opt out.

crumbs I was going to bed an hour ago.. Look I am doing my best.. and happy to engage, but this isnt an inquisition or a viva. I am here because I am interested in discussing these issues, not because I have been called to account!

I am sure you all know the feminist debates on the burka and veiling (some of them have surfaced on Womans Hour, for heavens sake!)..el Guindi's book would be one obvious place to start a discussion of the pleasure and empowerment of veiling. NOW.. dont get me wrong; some Islamic women see the veil as a mark of oppression (and yes I would help them), but that is not the only was hat the veil has been discussed in Islamic feminist literature.

pseudonymous aggression? well .. in spades in the early comments on this thread. They were pretty aggressive against me (as ES said) .. and pseudonymous, because you are all using pseudonyms.. I am here as me.. talking to a load of people whose identity is obscured (ie pseudonymous).

I am very happy to disagree and debate.. I dont think you are talking 'rubbish'.. that is quite different. But it is a bit odd talking to a load of nicknames!

I'd be interested to know about the Miss Venezuela/enemy thing though.
Do you think when you were a younger feminist you DID see other women as the enemy? Or do you think other feminists (the protesters) do now?

It's interesting because it's one of the classic digs non-feminists love making at feminists (ie that they're all about criticising other women) and yet it's not something I see among the ones I actually know, though as I said upthread one of the older women in my local feminist group does reckon there was more of it about in the 70s than now.

But you haven't engaged on this thread Mary.

You haven't explained why you think of this in terms of anger and enemies. Do you really think that Julia Long who organised the protest was simply angry and nothing else? Do you think that was their only motivator? You haven't said why you equated protesting Miss World with seeing Miss Venezuela as your enemy. You haven't explained why you thought it was necessary to go on to Radio 4 and undermine other feminists' actions, saying that their protests should be about something else, an argument which you restated on this thread.

To me you sound like you're making liberal feminist arguments about "choice" which completely ignore the structures that in place to put women in the position of being objectified and judged by men for their looks and bodies and that's what you are basing your non-objection to Miss World on - the idea that something is OK if women are seen to be choosing it. Miss World is sexist institution that dates back to the 1970s which feminists have so far been unable to stop, although earlier feminists did manage to get it off terrestrial TV in the UK, it's right that feminists were outside it protesting it and pointing out what it actually is.

But what did you mean about Miss Venezuela no longer being the enemy?

And why undermine the feminists who still object to Miss World and feel it needs protesting?

Yes I'd like to know about that too. It's been there since the very first posts.

Marybeard, we use nicknames on this site. Always have done.

I don't think there's been any aggression towards you. Anger and/or confusion and/or questioning statements =/= Agression

MB you can always change your name to a pseudonym and then start a thread about rape and euro... although we might guess it was you I suppsoe.

It's great. Once you're under a pseudonym, you automatically get a personality transplant, and become aggressive and unreasonable...

1. Miss Venezuela = metonym (part for whole).. In a short broadcast (whose subject I chose myself), I used the old rhetorical trope.. I dont think much hangs on it, but most people I think would have got the metonymical/ring composition usage here. Of course I didnt mean Miss V herself. I have no cluse whteher she is the enemy or not.. she might be, but I doubt it.

2)I feel that I have engaged pretty consistently: the fact that you dont agree, or that I havent responded as you would like, doesnt mean I havent engaged.

3. To ES.. I dont know about the enemy thing. Bad to have enemies.. but in some ways bad not to, I did feel that my interests with other women split when I had kids,,, and when my own decision to keep working outside the home full time became quite loaded. It was no secret to me that many of my friends and colleagues who had taken a different decision were quite eager to see my kids go to the bad (as it were)... in my life experience, that is where the big split in practical (rather than theoretical) feminism comes.

I think that I have it as an old fashioned pledge to myself that I will always avow my opinions as my own.. that's one of the reasons I feel anxious about the pseudonyms. There are others.