Why "fun feminism" should be consigned to the rubbish bin

[Nyac]

article by Julie Bindel in the New Statesman.

www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2011/08/fun-feminism-women-feminist

Quote:

"We need to bring back the radical edge to feminism, and do away with any notion that slutwalking, lap dancing, sex working or Burkha-wearing is liberation for women. If men like a particular brand of feminism, it means it is not working. "Fun feminism" should be consigned to the rubbish bin along with the Lib Dem party."

Agree with Julie, that it's extremely irritating to see a bunch of interlopers attempting to elbow their way in and co-opt feminism, redefining it to suit patriarchy's needs. I've even seen people who support patriarchal institutions like marriage, BDSM or the sex industry calling themselves radical feminists. There is so much misunderstanding and misinformation about feminism out there that people feel like they can grab what they like without making an actual political commitment or any kind of challenge to the patriarchy.

Really liberal feminism (the old kind, not the sex industry supporting kind) and radical feminism are the only kinds of feminism that have ever effected any kind of positive change for women. They need to be reclaimed and supported, not erased by third wave non-feminist feminism.

She's right about the lib dems too. :D Or maybe they are in the same boat and need some classic liberals to reclaim their party from the Tory party's whipping boys.

"Patriarchy is a social system in which the male acts as the primary authority figure central to social organization, and where fathers hold authority over women, children, and property. It implies the institutions of male rule and privilege, and entails female subordination."

however

"Anthropological evidence suggests that most prehistoric hunter-gatherer societies were relatively egalitarian, and that patriarchal social structures did not develop until many years after the end of the Pleistocene era, following social and technological innovations such as agriculture and domestication"

So patriarchy did not develop over other social structures and then shape them, rather other structures create the social conditions under which a form of domination known as patriarchy could take root.

So what is the main condition under which both domination/patriarchy sprung up, changes to the social relations in the production and exchange of goods. The acquisition of surplus, to create capital and therefore wealth.

That is the very same reason why women are systematically excluded from wealth creation but also used as the means by which wealth creation can be furthered, as in the sex industry and the co-modification of women. Women don't just sell their labour but themselves as product. In this case it is possible to see that the capitalist class (usually male but not exclusively) acts as the mode of both exchange (profits from) and as the consumer.

Oh, great point about the left and trade unions, I could scream Basil, that's something that needs changing.

Hmm, but why did men en masse decide to exclude women, en masse, from benefitting from this surplus and from ownership of this property?

They could have chosen any group - green eyed males, red haired people, blue eyed women - but they didn't. They chose the half of humanity which produces and nurtures the next generation of human beings from their own bodies. It wasn't surplus that made them make that choice, was it?

Even in very ancient social groupings and in some very isolated tribes to this day there is a division of labour but women are not excluded from production or even hunting. It seems that women became excluded at the point of agriculture because through agriculture a surplus could be created but only through the many hands make light work principle (women were excluded because of reproduction) and later through the use of machines. I personally think that the mode of production has led to an exclusion of many classes, through the adoption of settled and farming communities because as the population grew and surplus food/surplus wealth grew too it leads onto yet more population and so continues. This meant land ownership for the few and making consumers of others, incl working class men. We see this later through the adoption of the feudal system, where the original wealth/food producers assumed land but put the population (surplus created by farming methods) to work on the land. However adoption of agriculture and a move away from nomadic life also meant that a class of people sprung up who took the form of a "merchant class" traders, this meant a need for the merchants to behave as intermediators and therefore means of exchange such as coinage came into existence.

So middle class women (those who were coupled to the owners of land) were the first to be packed off to the home to reproduce. Later to become the upper classes. Middle class women became the intellectual class that is now willing to make bargains with the capitalist (patriarchy) in exchange for their own freedoms. So yes I do think class is actually the key to understanding how feminism moves forward esp in relation to "fun feminism" because it is usually less advantaged women through, age,lack of life exp or education, social exclusion or of lower socio-economic background that are co-opted into it. I don't say that through any sense of snobbery, I say it because I think it needs saying.

yy mini it does need to change. The question is - how?
(answers, on a postcard...)

Basil the standard argument is that it was, indeed, the surplus and existing division of labour and inheritance rights that gave the incentive to men to control women's reproductive ability. But you could equally well say it was vice versa, control of women meant inheritance by biological children could be guaranteed

I don't really believe either of these

I was behaving like a child making a sweeping statement. Strangely Bindel makes a sweeping statement she's everyone heroine. And a radical makes a sweeping statement and it is ok because she is one of the team. Well sorry but when people make sweeping statements that haven't been thought through I tend to give them an example back. And considering the total number of posters on this thread that have made more than a handful of comments we can see why radicalism has alienated women in general. Congratulations.

So if radicalism does drive away potential recruits to feminism does this not help those we are suppose to fight against? Think it through carefully. Go through the threads where women came on these boards to learn but were driven off because they asked the wrong question. Sorry but if radicals have all the ideas they can keep them IMVHO.

I think Nyac's point was not that wearing a burkha makes a woman less than human, but that men forcing women to wear burkhas (which cover their face, including nose, mouth and eyes - it's not exactly comfortable or convenient) are trying to take away any outward signs of their individuality and hence humanity (since as humans we are all individuals). Just as the Nazis were trying to take away the Jews' individuality.

Sorry, I thought I was on the last page and hadn't seen that Basil had already made the point much more clearly!

Sausageeggbacon, it has been clearly explained what Basil meant by her 'radical' statement. I hope you didn't miss those posts - I put quite a bit of thought into mine.

I don't think any of us here count ourselves as 'radical thinkers' (we would probably be writing books and giving speeches rather than chatting to each other on MN if we were). Perhaps you are an exception?

If women are driven away from feminism when they encounter unapologetic feminist analysis that argues that the sex industry is misogynistic or the institution of marriage is patriarchal or whatever, TBH I would be kind of wondering what exactly they were expecting to come across.

I think it is rarely the case that people are driven away by feminist analysis - rather that they choose to turn their backs on it. Which is fair enough, nobody is going to hold anyone down and force them to read and agree with the entire works of Dworkin.

You know what, people used to say about the labour party in the eighties, that they were turning white working class voters off them with their insistence on talking about equality and being anti-racist.

That was partly true - lots of the white working class did feel alienated by the emphasis on equality. Should the more radical progressive thinkers in the Labour Party have STFU because a large part of hteir constituency felt uncomfortable about what they were saying?

Waht Ken Livingstone and Diane Abbot were saying in the eighties, was considered wildly extremist. It turned a lot of people off the labour party. It's now maintream orthodoxy of every party. (At least the racism and homophobia bit. The sexism bit was dropped quite quickly and everyone started pretending we're all equal now.)

Basil, you are so right. I agree that some things need to be said even if it doesn't always at first strike the right chord or win support. I think the problem in the past has been down to education and it has been necessary for a "radical" intellectual class to put things on the agenda. However we should always be aware that those with more power may seek to dominate those with less, so we need to ensure that white working class men are not alienated now. I guess it's economics again because these same men are antagonistic mainly because of access to better pay and conditions and wrongly assume they know who the enemy is. It's a form of splitting that the capitalist system/class is very good at.

The rise of the BNP and EDL to take up the white working class male who feels alienated is not good for women that's for sure.

I don't think that radical thinkers are necessarily intellectual though - I think it is more about an ability to cut through bullshit, challenge the status quo and have a clarity of thought that the person is able to communicate to others.

I live in France and our new president has ambitions to challenge the racism that is very integral to French society - no doubt he will alienate a lot of voters who consider themselves socialist but who want to be allowed to talk about les arabes in a racist way and not have that challenged. No doubt they will say that he isn't doing the cause (socialism) any favours.