Feminism Book Club - The Equality Illusion by Kat Banyard - 14 April 2010 9pm

[Molesworth]

Thought I'd set the thread up ready for next week

Link to book on Amazon

Synopsis

Today it is widely believed that feminism has achieved its aims, and that women and men have achieved equality. This, quite simply, is an illusion.

Women working full time in the UK are paid on average seventeen per cent less than men. Domestic violence causes more death and disability among women aged sixteen to forty-four than cancer or traffic accidents. Of parliamentary seats across the globe, only fifteen per cent are held by women and fewer than twenty per cent of UK MPs are women. The number of men paying for sex acts doubled during the 1990s in the UK. From body image to work to education to violence to sex, women in the twenty-first century are still on an unequal footing with men.

In The Equality Illusion, campaigner Kat Banyard has written an alarm call, arguing passionately that feminism is one of the most urgent and relevant social justice campaigns today.

Structuring the book around a normal day, Banyard sets out the major issues for twenty-first-century feminism and explores how they are woven into our everyday lives. She also challenges how we think about choice and empowerment - ideas that have been so successfully co-opted by both the beauty industry and the sex industry - and argues against the notion that biology is at the heart of most gender inequality.

Banyard draws on her own campaigning experience as well as academic research and dozens of her own interviews and case studies. The book also includes information on how to get involved in grassroots action and a list of resources.

(www.faber.co.uk/work/equality-illusion/9780571246267/)

Author Website

Kat - I have a ridiculously difficult question for you but it is one that I think about a lot.

In a feminist utopia - i.e. in a scenario where feminism is no longer needed - what do you think the re-constructed man and the liberated woman will be like?

Do you think there would still be gender roles and / or differences?

Agree dittany (and also how 'postmodernism' links into neoliberalist ideology - just to refer back to another discussion entirely for a moment )

SGM, I'm interested in your points about agency and 'choice'. I think we are all far more constrained than we're encouraged to believe. And the lack of regard for the harm individual choice might inflict I find utterly offensive. But the idea that we're all free agents making free choices in the free market and that this somehow leads to the best outcome for all has been thoroughly undermined now, hasn't it?

LeninGrad - the gender auditing powers are unfortunately very restricted. They only apply to public sector bodies with 150+ staff members. There are powers to allow the Government to compel private sector employers to do auditing - but not before 2013....
But better than nothing!

Yep Molesworth - think that makes sense:

Neoliberalism has failed with the banking crisis etc which will lead to more regulation - which provided is shaped in a Feminist way should push equality forward.

I seem to remember reading that an argument put forward for the banking sector collapse was that there was so few women at the top that the leadership was unbalanced - too much testosterone. (Bit confused here as to how much a Feminist accepts/discusses gender differences - although I guess most people accept a small level of difference from nature which is then stereotyped and accentuated by nurture.) Any thoughts?

dunno, blinder. i was hoping they would answer that the other day, but they disappeared.

i'm not sure if it's collusion or not tbh - i wear lipstick once a year as i've been conditioned to wear a big frock for the christmas do, but i do walk out late at night (i picked up a hitchhiker at 2am once - dh nearly had a coronary when he found out - i thought that was really weird - even he thinks all men are rapists...)

i do wonder what would happen if we all suddenly said 'no more' and collectively took down the lad mags. there's no such thing as a 'collective' at the mo though.

can i ask a really dumb question? why the new site? (uk feminista) is it an extension of the fawcett society/ rebrand - or to fulfil a different purpose?

Right I have updated my FB status to recommend that everyone reads the book! I linked to it on Amazon and I copied the first 2 paras from the synopsis in the OP of this thread.

This is me making my personal stand to all those FB friends and trying to spread the word!

Blinder - good question. I've also been pondering this quite alot recently. It's a pretty huge one isn't it....

Can i rain check that question and perhaps come back next book club with a few thoughts?! Am struggling to keep my eyes open right now i'm afraid. Need to get some zzzzzs in.

Thank for letting me join in everyone

I'll leave you with a link to this video of OBJECT activists doing the conga in Tescos to protest against lads mags

Thanks SGM

It seems like it's actually a deeply compassionate response to the person making the 'harmful' choice. I like that. It's a sort of forgiveness.

I find the idea of a choiceless choice existing outside normal morality very interesting.

Yes indeed thank you Kat.

ooh, and just quickly - one of the things that UK Feminista aims to address is that activism is so spread out at the moment. We aim to act as a bridge between activists and all the many fantastic feminist organisations spearheading campaigns. By highlighting all the activism together in one place we hope to prove once and for all that feminism is alive and well in the UK!

ah, ok. that makes perfect sense.

if you're pondering utopia (as you do lol), i'm wondering where people who identify as transgendered would fit in... would there actually be a gender binary at all?

Thanks so much for joining us Kat (and for the book and for all the good work you do): UK Feminista is a great idea for bringing activists together. I'll certainly be checking the website out regularly

good question madwoman... but it has pickled my brain .

Also off to bed. Thanks for organising this thread Molesworth!

SGM, I think it's OK to say that when we make choices these are constrained in all sorts of ways, often without our being aware of the constraints. I don't think this in any way implies that we are powerless or that we have no choice in how we act.

The idea of 'externalities' i.e. the impact of an economic transaction on other(s) not involved in the transaction is widely accepted in the context of 'ethical living' though. People are willing to accept that the choices they make might harm the environment or perpetuate slave labour, for example. It seems odd to me that the same people (if they are pro sex industry) can be so resistant to the idea that choices to do with prostitution or porn might have harmful consequences to others.

"Powerlessness as a description puts it back on to the individual - oppression directly implicates the oppressor - the person making the choice to oppress. Those are the real choices that need to be examined because at the moment they are seen as a force of nature rather than another human being choosing to act in that way towards another or others. "

This is so well observed and true. I think this has been part of neoliberalism's strategy to justify itself by privileging the sort of vocabulary that places the 'freely choosing individual' in the foreground at all times and in so doing masks systemic oppression, as you say making it seem like a force of nature rather than something quite literally man-made (and therefore not inevitable).

SGM, I guess that was one of the functions of the consciousness raising groups in the 70s wasn't it, to become aware of these constraints and to gain the strength (through affirmation from other women) to begin challenging them in everyday life, as well as building the collective strength for overt political action. All that work on raising awareness that was done by women in the 1970s needs to be raised again now after 30 years of obfuscation and backlash. Only it's been made easier now with the advent of the interweb.