Radfem 2013 and the MRAs

[MooncupGoddess]

As many of you will remember, the Radfem 2012 conference in London was explicitly open only to born women and consequently attracted lots of condemnation and anger from people who saw this as transphobic. It was kicked out of its original venue at Conway Hall and went underground (very successfully in the end).

This year Radfem 2013 has not explicitly banned transwomen... but instead it's come under attack from Men's Rights Activists, who have staged a demo at the planned venue, the London Irish Centre, while making lots of unpleasant and ridiculous claims about how radical feminists want to murder small boys and the like. As a result the venue is threatening to cancel the booking.

www.mralondon.org/

bugbrennan.com/2013/04/20/statement-from-rad-fem-2013/

I have mixed feelings about the whole trans issue but have no hesitation in declaring the MRAs utter misogynist knobbers and am disappointed the London Irish Centre has seemingly caved into them.

LRD you are forgiven.

I know women have always worked, you are merely assuming I didn't. I am aware that in some cases women worked with a babe on their back.

If you are so knowledgeable you'd know that careers based upon skillsets have been around for a little bit longer than you seem to make out.

It is why we had apprentices and masters for as long as we can think back to.

Swordsmiths? Hardly 'extremely recent'. In the mines we had specific trades to explode gas build ups. Many trades over the years required constant attention to keep skills up.

Chattels.

In an arranged marriage do EITHER party (ie the bride and groom) actually have a say in the procedings? Yes, women have been used chattels, but so have men. Thus niether have been used as chattels purely on the basis of their sex.

It isn't that long ago that teh WHOLE family was considered the property of the head of that family (in some places this is still the case). Yes, the heads were usually male, that doesn't transfer down the male lines that they had greater say in how they themselves were treated.

If son number 3 was told to marry the daughter of another family, then off he went. Is that not the same?

Or is it upsetting some cultivated ideals of how beastly men are?

Can I just point out that all the guilds and apprenticeships excluded women, in common with all the institutions where money, power or status was to be had.

Not sure what point you're making there.

How kind of you to 'forgive' me. For what, I remain unsure.

It is strange that, knowing women have always worked, you asserted that they'd been home while men did ... it's almost as if you're telling a little fib, isn't it?

Huge numbers of women worked in jobs that did not require them to keep up their skills. They still often do, in fact. This is because women are often not given the jobs that are considered to require constant maintenance of skills.

Many other traditionally female-dominated jobs (and men's jobs up until relatively recently) were carried out in and around the babies of the family, btw.

In an arranged marriage, men are not used as chattels on the basis of their gender.

You have yet to explain why you think they were. And I know why - you can't explain something that never happened.

basil - erm ... well ... they did and they didn't.

I would have to check, but I'm pretty sure there were occasionally women guild members - there are female scribes in France who seem to have been recognised practitioners. I know you are basically right, btw, just we might as well have an interesting conversation! It's not as if the tiny number of women who got into interesting jobs against the odds change the basic picture, after all.

In an arranged marriage, the boys don't have any say, you're right, but they don't get acid thrown in their face or get petrol thrown over them and set alight if they don't have enough dowry.

HTH.

(I am loving that 'swordsmiths' is the example that came to mind. That doesn't suggest a beautifully romanticized medieval world at all, oh no.)

hmmm, perhaps Lazarus would care to explain the long history of female infanticide and now the abortion of female babies and why this doesnt happen to male babies?
And then tell me men have had it as bad.

LRD,

How about blacksmith? Still romanticised? I wasn't seeking to make it all rather quaint. Just named a trade that has skills to be practiced and honed.

We could probably include net makers, thatchers, leatherworkers, carpenters (esp if we start thinkng about complex structures or ships), stone masons, sailors, various hunters/gamekeepers.

I'd imagine the village healers and mid-wifes (to use a modernish term) wouldn't really be trusted if they'd taken a 'gap year'.

Fighting men of certain times had to be constantly trained or trained from birth in the case of the Longbow (hence why crossbows and guns became very popular even whilst still outclassed by the Longbow)

I used swordsmith because I've just been reading about a bloke who seeks to emulate the skills and methods of the past in making modern replicas of old swords btw. He had made a Roman Sword to the best of his knowledge and ability.

What makes you imagine blacksmiths couldn't or didn't work at home, with the baby in the same room? Those child mortalities you refer to - they happened for a reason you know.

FWIW, women were occasionally blacksmiths.

You imagine wrong about midwives, though - women typically relied on other women, so a woman who'd recently given birth would hardly be out of the job market. They would be right in it.

Men trained at the longbow, yes. It was the law to practice once a week, in fact. But you seem to imagine that this would somehow mean men had to 'work' and women 'stayed at home'. This is simply an inaccurate idea of that period of history.

I would suggest you read up a little more. Replica swords are great fun and a friend of mine much enjoys taking her little boys to those lovely historical recreation days. But real history is better for discussions like this.

(I am loving that 'swordsmiths' is the example that came to mind. That doesn't suggest a beautifully romanticized medieval world at all, oh no.)

Or something more Freudian

You know, I didn't even think that.

I was too busy with those Roman swords in the middle ages with the longbows, the 'mid-wifes', and the gamekeepers.

It was a lovely image, I think I've seen similar at the Renaissance Fayre.

Mini I think trying to pin the existence of MRAs on radfems is a bit grim. Radfems aren't responsible for other people's misogyny

Sorry, when I asked my original question about the cause of the MRA backlash, I was being lazy. I don't think the backlash is caused by Radfem blogs, rather I think there is a dialectic btw the two. One is not the cause of the other in a linear cause and effect way.

If you reduce everything down to biological determinism or even to (another example) capitalism V socialism you end up with an antagonism. It is impossible to say that one is as a response to the other in a linear causal way. Only historical social process leads to consensus where one wins out. Consciousness is key but so is the process of antagonism.

Women have been fighting their subjugation for a very long time because it is historical, the process of subjugation is historical and is not based on biological determinism but from the division of labour that sprang from practical necessity. Women shaped society and the relations btw men and women just as much as men. There is a dialectic btw both material base structure (economic/mode of production/technologies/human development) and the super structure (ideologies, ideas that shape social relations, religion, feminism, patriarchy theory and even marxism !) & the relationships btw men and women. The relationships are structures by that two way dialectic btw base and super structure.

When LazarussLozenge "Why do you think women stayed at home, whilst men worked? Sexism in action or just a common sense response to the practicalities of life at the time?" I happen to agree.

So whilst I don't blame Radfem conferences or blogs for the phenomena of MRA, both create an antagonism and a dialectic, both will be shaped in response to the other.

To simply close ranks and only discuss theory and opinion with others that validate your opinion leads to more antagonism not solutions. However necessary that antagonism is to the social process, it also relies upon the idea of gradual change through consciousness. If we want to see change we have to be in dialogue with the opposition. Retreating through any form of separatism be that in conferences, blogs, daily life or activism entrenches the problem further. Rather than doing anything that further creates antagonism, radicalisation and deepens the rift, we need to be looking at how we can break down those divisions, be they social or material. Women working is a great example of this were it not for the fact that middle class women entering production displaced working class men. But that is due to capitalism not just to women themselves in their quest for equality. Production shapes social relations, just as the social relations shape production. We need men to understand & not feel marginalised and join the MRAs. The answer for me is more feminism but my caveat is that it needs to be socialist not radical (IMO)

"infamouspoo Sat 27-Apr-13 12:32:46

hmmm, perhaps Lazarus would care to explain the long history of female infanticide and now the abortion of female babies and why this doesnt happen to male babies?
And then tell me men have had it as bad."

Hmmm. Why do you think this happened? Because of some sexist idea or for a practical reasons?

This sort of discussion method doesn't really lend itself to such wide ranging topics, response are not instant, nor are they heard by all. Others can jump in and turn the whole thing in to a mess quite easily.

'When LazarussLozenge "Why do you think women stayed at home, whilst men worked? Sexism in action or just a common sense response to the practicalities of life at the time?" I happen to agree.'

But they didn't. This is the point. Unless you think sexism only came into force with the industrial revolution, this model doesn't work. This is why I have a problem with trying to make the historical basis of women's oppression the most important thing to look at - we simply don't have the history to tell us when and why it happened. It was ingrained in culture long before it became more usual for work to happen outside the home. It endures no matter how this job, or that job, becomes male-dominated or female-dominated, becuase the structure of work is not the root problem. The root problem is the oppression of women.

In an arranged marriage, men are not used as chattels on the basis of their gender.

Neither were women, they were chattels on the basis of their SEX.

female infanticide: would that not be due to the fact that female off spring would need to have a dowry. Again, its due to the economic/class system that excluded women from property rights. Some time after we moved from matrilocal to patrilocal inheritance because marriage allowed for men to know with some certainty that the babies were related to him. I don't think it stems from misogyny, although misogyny upholds and perpetuates the practice.

I think mini has pretty much said what I feel far better than I can at this time.

LRD, well done. Your arguement is so compelling. Have you thought of a reason why modern re-enactments would represent those trades? Or do you thnk we should have a few town beggars, and other un-skilled trades thrown in for good measure?

Maybe the village leper could be wandering around in bandages.

Women don't 'need' a dowry, mini. There is absolutely nothing to do with being born with a vagina that means you need someone to pay money to your future husband. The dowry system arises because society oppresses women and treats them as property.

If it were due to the economic system purely, men would also need dowries just as often. Plainly, it must stem from misogyny therefore.

lazarus - ooh, thank you. I am glad to see you realize your errors. A basic primary school history textbook should help, next time.

Why do you think modern re-enactments represent those trades? And what does it have to do with anything?

My personal view is probably the one sabrina expressed.

I love the way Lazarus sees the Middle Ages through a modern lens. It's like the basket-makers had to demonstrate an annual level of CPD-type related activities, and if they'd had a baby they wouldn't have done any paid work during the year and hence would be seen as out of the game, professionally speaking.

Suffice it to say that it wasn't quite like that.

I like that idea mooncup.

I also like that 'the Middle Ages' seems to go from something like second century AD to about 1700, but then, Oxford university always had ridiculously long time-spans too, so I can't get too worked up.

I'm really enjoying reading this thread

I agree LRD that women have always worked. (excluding perhaps women of the ruling elite who had slaves and later servants) Even bringing up children is work, horticulture and small animals ( paleo-bronze age) sewing, basket weaving, pottery. Women became marginalised not from production but from "social production" after men settled and created agricultural surpluses, this led to further specialisation, agriculture relied upon more hands, more babies, more food available meant they could feed more children, population boomed. Ploughs and surpluses created markets for exchange, exchange led to wealth and because women's work was increasingly private within the home, the wealth became concentrated with those who not just created it but were involved in exchange in the social sphere of the market. I really don't think men thought, "right lets keep the little women at home and beat her into baby making". That "ideology" of inferiority came after the material conditions led to the division of labour btw public/social; and private. The ideology had the effect of perpetuating and entrenching those inequalities.

Women don't 'need' a dowry, mini. There is absolutely nothing to do with being born with a vagina that means you need someone to pay money to your future husband. The dowry system arises because society oppresses women and treats them as property

The dowry arose because women were exchanged within the class system, a system that excluded women from the exchange/market that would lead to the accumulation of property & disallowed matrilocal inheritance. The dowry was protection for the woman. It was the only property she took with her from her family, should she be returned to her family through divorce that dowry went with her.

LRD it wasn't engrained in the culture prior to the industrial revolution.

If you go far enough back sexes at one time were seen as equal.

As time went on various pressures were brought to bear.

One pressure would be the hand over/take over of power in a family. (doesn't have to be a monarchs family).

This time was quite fraught in the family. The head (male or female) would hope the linage would pass to their selected heir, but internal strife could occur.

At the time child birth (even pregnancy) was quite likely to end up in the mothers death. Thus a male head was proably prefrable, this is just practical, not some sort of sexist behaviour.

Likewise, a woman head is going to provide the heir. If she is unable to, we end up with dramas again. As Henry VIII proved, if you can't get teh heir you want you can swap wives (in various ways!). This would allow for a clear line of inheritance. If the bloke is unable to furnish himself with an heir it is still possible for his wife to provide one...

Bastard children could be acknowledged as heirs... women can't have such children.

This practical reason denied women (in the majority) from reaching such positions, thus expensive education was also removed from many. They just didn't need it.

None of ths is some sort of plot by men to hold women in a lesser place. Yes, it happened, but not for the reasons many would hope we were foolish enough to believe.

Mini

What makes you think that women's work "was increasingly private within the home"? (genuine question)

Men did not work alone in agriculture. Women were there in the fields right alongside them, often right up to giving birth and again immediately after. Wet nursing was not just a practise of the rich - it was also something that poor women did, with one woman feeding several babies so that their mothers could work.