March 9, 2011
That Egypt Thing
During the Egyptian uprising, I didn’t have much to say. Far too much was being said already, and little of it well-informed. I was, of course, struck by the fervent optimism and passionate belief espoused by almost all on the Left. For this uprising – we were assured by many – was a truly democratic revolution, by a people yearning to be free. These were Democrats In Waiting, slaving beneath the Yoke of Tyranny. We had only to wait for The People to cast off Their shackles and a New Age of Democratic Freedom* would dawn.
Amidst the excitement and hubristic proclamation, it seemed to me consistently unwise to pass any judgements during the heat of the moment. For three considerations in particular seemed, if anything, to tell in the direction of pessimism about Egypt’s prospects.
Firstly, that the entire Middle East sits atop a pile of what Flying Rodent so aptly labels “democracy kryptonite”, aka oil. Given this particularly pressing truth, the long arm of America was never likely to withdraw its hand. After half a century of careful investment and planning, the US was hardly going to let things go all Venezuela in a key military and economic hotspot. At least, not if it could help it – and so on into the future.
Secondly, and closely connectedly, even the most cursory glance at the political situation during the Egyptian uprising revealed that the army always held the final balance of power. It was clearly with the support of the army that Mubarak would stand, or fall. In the end he fell. And now the army’s ruling council runs Egypt, following what was technically a military coup d’etat. Of course, it is quite possible that the army will cede power following elections in September. But it’s actually unclear whether there will be any elections in September. And as there has been no effective opposition in Egypt for decades, it’s also unclear whether will be any viable political alternatives on offer even if the ballots go ahead.
Furthermore, a kindergarten knowledge of history reminds us that never, ever, anywhere, has a ruling section of society willingly and freely given up power to those beneath it. Political revolutions – by which I mean proper revolutions, not eventualities which see nasty Mr Mubarak go to Sharm el Sheikh and his generals simply take over the running of affairs – are achieved by the forceful and bloody seizure of power by one group from another. The army is highly unlikely to let power go to any whom it does not approve of. Now at this point, note that democracies tend not to flourish when the military is the primary political power within a state. Now further note that for decades the primary source of American leverage over Egypt has come in the form of military aid. Things, to put it mildly, do not point in the direction of Hope and Change.
Thirdly, given that Egypt has no history or tradition or functioning democratic governance, the transition to any such regime is likely to be precarious. This is a country without democratic norms; a country where ordinary people have not yet had time to adapt to a political system which involves putting enormous amounts of trust and responsibility into the hands of parties whom one did not vote for. (Because the logic of democracy is that nobody’s favoured candidates can win every election, every time.) It is a country in which those who hold the strings of power, patronage and influence have not yet evolved the mechanisms of reciprocal deferred trust when out of power. The arrangements whereby electoral losers amongst the elite abstain from recourse to violence and thuggery, on the guarantee that their interests will not suffer too much in the short term and that they’ll get another meaningful shot at power shortly.
All of which is not to say that Egyptians – or Arabs, or Muslims – “cannot do democracy”. That is a piece of crass racism, against which we recall that less than a century ago respectable British individuals in respectable British newspapers urged the folly of democratic systems. Men who called for the imperative of strong rule; the clarity and good governance provided by Messrs Hitler and Mussolini during times of straightened economic woe. But it is to say that democracy is a difficult, complicated thing. It takes time to emerge, and requires favourable historical, geographical, social, economic and political settings. At present, Egypt appears to have none of these – albeit in significant part thanks to the grubby paws of The Land of the Free.
But then blaming everything on America just won’t do, either. For bound-up in the over-excited and premature rhetoric of Democracy and Freedom for Egypt was often the assumption that here was a democratic people simply yearning to be free. The implicit assumption being that They (what, all of them? young and old? rich and poor? muslim and christian?) were really just like Us. And that when They were given power, They would behave just like Us – a situation happily dovetailing with their new Democratic Freedom.**
But recent reports show that this is all a little too lazy. With dead Coptic Christians following religious clashes with sections of the majority Muslim population, this appears to be a society which hasn’t had the good fortune (and placatory economic development) to get beyond the bloody religious frenzies that our own blessed Isles used to play such sanguinary host to. And then there’s the International Women’s Day march in Tahir Square, which saw angry men charging the marchers, dragging them to the floor, beating and sexually harassing them, as police and army watched from the sidelines.
Certainly, these events are too isolated to tell us anything about “Arab culture” (or if you like, “Muslim mores”). Societies, religions, peoples and cultures are complex (and there’s plenty of violent hatred against women in the UK too, let’s not forget). To infer anything from the above in terms of positive substantive content would, again, be crass racism or outright stupidigy. But these happenings are nontheless enough to put the lie to the naively optimistic (and self-servingly convenient) assumption that They are just like Us, sharing Our Values, the outward political expression of which will necessarily be Democracy and Freedom.***
Those whom this piece is primarily aimed at will likely mistake the above for a sort of petty schadenfreude. They will think that I am indifferent about the sufferings and poor prospects of ordinary Egyptians, in service of some wider self-satisfied political cynicism. But that is wrong. I would genuinely like for it to be the case that Egypt could enjoy the prosperity, security and advantage of a nation like Britain (for all its faults). It sincerely saddens me that so many people’s lives must be made abject by forces beyond their control (such as the profitability of the British arms and oil industries). The point, however, is that just because I would like it to be otherwise, it does not mean that it is otherwise. And I adapt my assessments accordingly. I have this funny idea that other people should do the same.
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*notice the marriage of two complex concepts, introduced unexplained and unsubstantiated as though nothing in the world could be more obvious.
** that conjunction again.
*** in for the third, whatever it actually means.
January 28, 2011
Gray and Keys vs. the New Social Legitimacy
Andy Gray and Richard Keys have been removed from their positions at Sky Sports. This follows their sexist remarks about (assistant) referee Sian Massey, the emergence of derogatory off-camera “banter”, and a frankly bizarre rant by Keys on TalkSport radio.
The first thing to note is that nobody forced Sky Sports to get rid of these two. Neither did anybody threaten to coerce Sky physically, economically, or via the power of the state. Rather, we now live in a society which (finally) deems it unacceptable for public figures to speak in such outrageously derogatory terms about women. Public figures caught doing so are exposed to extreme normative disdain, and this can in turn lead to purposeful abandonment by their backing-organisations or institutions.
This shows the power of values and legitimacy in collective human life and interaction. Sufficient collective moral disapproval can alone be enough to stimulate decisive action. Keys and Gray went beyond the bounds of contemporary “normative legitimacy”, and have paid the price.
This affair is likely to sit very ill with the right-wing commentariat, especially hysterical “opinion” spouters like Mad Mel and Richard Littlejohn, but also the less manically deranged. The angry (and nuttier) right typically reacts to such events by bemoaning the power of “sinister” interest “lobbies” that are “taking over” our society. More specifically, such “lobbies” are controlling even our very language and public morality. We can no longer say what we want – some words themselves are off-limits.
Now as it happens in some measure I agree with these rightwing commentators. Because it is true that our very language and public morality has undergone profound change with regards to the status of women in particular. As a result, certain people can no longer say whatever the hell they like without expecting serious repercussion. Some words themselves are, indeed, now off-limits (in public).
Where I differ from the right – aside from disdaining the naively simplistic view that profound social change is orchestrated by “sinister lobbies” – is in thinking that with regards to women’s equality, this is actually a jolly good thing. For the alternative is one that we know well from recent – and indeed, long-standing – historical precedent.
Certainly, there’s still a long way to go before genuine female equality is achieved in this country. But I would much rather live in a world where it is at least the publicly stated goal and norm. A world where ignorant bigoted male patriarchs cannot throw their weight around as part of a process that keeps half the population in the position of chastised, marginalised, denigrated second-class citizens.
Equally, I would much rather live in a world where offensive, degrading, intimidating, dismissive, undermining nastiness cannot be shrugged off as “just banter”. Because as anybody who has ever met a bully knows, the excuse that verbal intimidation is “just a joke” is one of the most effective means to marginalize and undermine a victim. Whether Gray and Keys realise it or not, when they claim that “it’s only banter”, they choke-off the voice of protest and close-down the means of escape for those objecting to what they are being subjected to, in turn manipulating them into accepting what they rightfully wish to resist.
So I welcome the new (and it is very new – well within my short lifetime) social norm of something like gender equality. A social norm that draws the bounds of legitimacy far narrower than what fat old Jurassic boors can cope with. And I make no qualms about that: because if the bounds of legitimacy weren’t being redrawn this way, the winners would be people like Keys and Gray. And frankly, I see no reason to prefer that world than the one we’re moving towards.
December 18, 2010
Gender and Protest
Following my recent posts on the student riots, Clifford Singer (of The Other Taxpayers’ Alliance) posed me a question:
“There’s one thing you don’t discuss: gender. Is the violence you explore all about men vs. men?”
As regards the violence that took place in Parliament Square, the answer is at some level “no”.
At the start of the protest, I watched as a group of Cambridge students linked arms and stood firm to prevent around 15 police horses entering the Square. There were, by my estimation, more women than men in that human barrier. As the police walked their horses straight into the line, each stood firm – literally shoulder-to-shoulder with a 600kg horse.
Eventually the police gave up, and the horses retreated (temporarily) to Millbank. Whatever you think of the student protests as a political endeavour, it takes guts to physically face-down a police horse. Anyone believing women to be somehow inherently timorous should think again.
When the protest degenerated into a riot, and the violence-proper began, it was clear that many women remained on the front line – even as the batons, boots and horses rained down. It is true that overall there were more men than women in the riot. But that mostly reflects the skewed demographic of political participation which, for social and cultural reasons (“politics is for men”), tend to ensure males are over-represented at any political event. Though the police did not hesitate to target women (their being typically both smaller and weaker), pulling them out of the lines to baton and kick them to the ground.
Women can be as brave (or foolhardy) as men. The conflict thrill of rioting does not divide on gender lines. At the London riots the commonplace clichés of female passivity and male aggression were shown up as complacent and boring stereotypes.
Yet if violent protest serves to discredit the mythology of female gender passivity, peaceful protest can sadly reconfirm the extent to which ours is a deeply patriarchal society. A society pervaded by macho and aggressive sexual norms, characterised by discourses infused with metaphors of male sexual dominance.
Here I can do no better than quote from this excellent set of reflections:
“In London it was the placards. The casual misogyny was rife: David Cameron was warned that if he fucked the country, SamCam was in for the same and Nick Clegg’s mother can apparently ‘bend over and take it’ just like he will learn to. As a woman, this was a pretty alienating experience: here I was marching shoulder to shoulder with people for whom I was meant to feel solidarity, but could really summon little but disgust. The language they chose to criticise the Coalition evoked the very real practices of London’s gangs, where the rape of a female family member has become a tool retribution amongst mini-mafiosos…I don’t want people paying more for Higher Education, but neither do I accept that there is ever a case for constructing political protest on these terms.”
What’s perhaps interesting is whether the people carrying the placards invoking sexual degradation and casual misogyny had any awareness that they were thereby deploying and perpetuating aggressively misogynistic gender values.
My guess is actually not: that the use of sexually-offensive and degrading language is unreflectively employed as a useful (political) weapon. The weapon’s relation to systems of social ordering and hierarchy largely goes unnoticed, even by those (i.e. men) who typically benefit from the hierarchy of gender embedded in the social status quo. Accordingly, misogyny and sexism are manifested and perpetuated even without conscious intention of the agents responsible.
In short, exactly what you’d expect to find in a thorough-going and deeply entrenched patriarchy. QED, as they say.
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See also the condemnation by Cambridge Defend Education of misogynistic protest language.
November 9, 2010
Offensive Words and Sexist Norms?
Over at Crooked Timber there’s a somewhat bizarre discussion taking place beneath this video (warning, Not At All Safe For Work)
What various Timberites are arguing over is whether the use of language like “sad twat” and “stupid cunt” is sexist and misogynist. Interestingly, we can use this as a case study for applying some recent philosophical theories of meaning and interpretation that have been advanced in the 20th century.
In the study of intellectual history, perhaps the most influential and important contribution to theories of interpretation and meaning was made by Quentin Skinner in this paper, which became a significant plank in what emerged as the “Cambridge School” approach. Skinner’s basic claim was that to properly understand and interpret a text from the past – and to avoid reading one’s own anachronistic contemporary prejudices into it – one had to recover its author’s intentions in writing it. To do this, the text has to be located in its relevant social and intellectual context, to see what arguments it was engaging with and which specific historically located concerns it was informed by.
We can apply this intentionality-based approach to our case of swearing above. The key question is: did the 15 year olds who made this video intend to use language that was derogatory towards women? Reconstructing the context of 15 year olds in Britain, the answer would appear to be that they did not. For as a commenter at CT points out, in contemporary Britain the words “twat” and “cunt” are predominantly used as insults for men. (Indeed it is quite rare and odd-sounding for a women in Britain to be called a “cunt”, in particular).
So can our 15 year olds be cleared of the sexism charge? Not so fast.
Yale professor Ian Shapiro has long argued that the Skinner intentionality approach is not the end of the story. Shapiro urges we acknowledge the possibility of agents un-knowingly reproducing power structures and dominant modes of thinking without realising it. For example, whilst an author may “intend” to produce an argument criticising (say) a current governmental regime, they may unwittingly be reproducing a pattern of argument that simultaneously presupposes that (say) a third of the population ought to continue to be kept as slaves. As the author’s argument becomes widely disseminated, it surreptitiously reinforces a norm that the author did not in fact realise they were endorsing (in this case, that slavery is acceptable).
Whilst that’s an oversimplified example, we can clearly apply the thought-process to the case of our swearing children: they may not have intended to reinforce sexist and misogynistic norms, by using language that portrays female genitalia as the basis for gross insult they unwittingly reproduced and re-enforced sexist and misogynistic values.
On this view, the use of “sad twat” and “stupid cunt” does appear to be misogynistic.
Yet perhaps we can go further. Much of the “post-structuralist” work of Michel Foucault, and the “deconstructionist” approach of Jacques Derrida, emphasised the extent to which individual subjects are themselves the products of power structures and “discourses” beyond their control.
On a (simplified and crude) reading of a general Foucault-Derrida approach, it might be said that these 15 year old children are intimately the products of societies which are ruled by “discourses” (i.e. legitimated ways of speaking, interacting and thereby thinking) that have developed in ways that systematically privilege men and relegate women to the status of subservient, exploited, secondary and controlled members of society. On a certain reading of this approach, what these 15 year old children are doing is redeploying and re-enforcing the gendered sexist norms of a society which is structured so as to systematically dis-empower one gender in opposition to the other. In turn, to focus on what these specific children happen to have done is to basically miss the point: the real action goes on elsewhere, at a more (if you like) “fundamental” level of social analysis.
The famous objection to this approach, however, is that it leaves no room or hope for individual agency. And this indeed seems a proper criticism to make: these children chose to use these offensive words. They could have chosen otherwise, and indeed would have had the phenomenological experience of the possibility of choosing when they made this video, rather than being mere automatons in the power matrix. These children’s actions are not straightforward functions of deeply-seated societal power structures; to forget that renders any analysis inadequate in providing a complete picture.
What we need to do, therefore, is reconcile all of the above considerations in some way. If we do that, I reckon the correct response to the question “was it sexist and misogynistic to use words like twat and cunt?” is clearly both “no” and “yes”.
It’s “no” insofar as these children, possessing their own sense of choice and agency, in a context in which these words are generally used as insults for men, probably did not intend to produce a sexist and misogynistic video. But it’s “yes” insofar as these children (unwittingly?) perpetuated the use of words that take female genitalia to be the height of insult, embedded in a structure of norms that assign women a more lowly status than men, reflective of deep power imbalances between the sexes whereby one group is generally placed in positions of control over the other.
Now, you may think that’s a damn obvious conclusion to draw, and that it shouldn’t have taken a thousand words plus much talk of interpretative theory to get there. Maybe. But then, re-read the CT comment thread and see what happens when people pick either “yes” or “no” and keep slugging it out regardless. Sometimes long-winded theory is helpful on getting clear, even if it yields what appear to be fairly obvious answers by the end of the process.
October 25, 2010
Feminism’s Complexities
When I was being born the doctor in charge of the procedure ordered a forceps delivery. He was about to go off shift, and the birth was taking “too long”. A trainee midwife was ordered to perform the procedure so that my birth did not over-run into the next doctor’s time. However, the trainee missed the side of my head and cut a gash in my face, about an inch from my eye. I still have a small scar on my right cheek – lucky, really; I could be walking around half blind.
Is this a feminist issue? After attending the excellent Feminism in London conference on Saturday, I believe it is. The reasoning is simple.
We start by noting the brute fact that only women give birth to babies. We then observe that birthing procedures in western countries have become institutionalised. That is, it is now the dominant expectation that women have their babies in hospitals, lying on their backs, overseen by a team of medical professionals administering various drugs at the instruction of a lead doctor. But this latter development has fostered a practice of viewing birth as a factory-like operation; women are put through scheduled timetables and medical processes designed by the institution to facilitate what is now deemed a “normal” pregnancy.
Unfortunately, “normal” is dictated and determined by doctors, who are in charge. And like any institutional practice, the rules are shaped by the preferences of decision-making professionals. Hence women receive epidurals, skip-loads of drugs and sometimes caesarean sections – or forceps deliveries that might go horribly wrong – not because they need or want them, but because this is what works best for medical professionals calling the shots in a busy daily schedule.
The result, however, can be trauma for the mother as she is processed through the system, especially if things go wrong. This trauma that potentially rebounds onto the child, immediately or in the longer-run. (Watch this documentary for more information).
The important point to take away today, however, is that something can be a feminist issue – i.e. a phenomenon which disproportionately impacts negatively upon women – without being the result of deliberate discrimination, prejudice or exploitation. Combining the “factory” approach of hospital birthing with the brute fact only women give birth, we end up with a situation in which specifically women (as well as their babies, depending on how wrong things end up going) but not men risk being subjected to highly undesirable practices and potential outcomes.
This helpfully illustrates one way in which feminism properly appreciated incorporates an extremely broad set of considerations. It encompasses far more than some crude thesis that women are straightforwardly “persecuted” by men. (Though having said that, it is worth pondering whether child birth would be viewed in the way it is – and women treated in the way they often are – if the medical profession hadn’t been dominated by male doctors for so many years).
But then the crude – though sadly common – view that feminists are mere paranoid simpletons screeching that all men are evil and out to get them has far more to do with the backlash than with the women’s movement itself. Whilst many men do hate women – and this deep hatred seeps into much of our society – no feminist worth her or his salt would say that’s all there is to it.
August 4, 2010
BS
There’s so much wrong with the Conservative’s “Big Society” nonsense it’s hard to know where to begin. But let’s try anyway.
Firstly, the Big Society exists already, just not where the Conservatives want it to. Tory policy of slashing local public spending is in fact more likely to decimate than invigorate the real Big Society.
Secondly, the Tory vision of Big Society is based on bare ideological assertion. Voluntary groups are staffed by volunteers, who are by definition amateurs. Take away the centralised finances allowing these volunteers to organise and how will volunteer amateurs be able to provide anything, lacking as they will the finances required for service-provision? The fantasy that services provided by trained professionals can be replaced with spontaneous volunteer groups, and without significant falls in quality or reliability, reflects right-wing preferences for a smaller state, not serious policy-making.
Thirdly, the Big Society is pure political spin. It was originally deployed during the election campaign to distract from the pain the Tories were proposing to inflict upon Britain. Although tough talk on the deficit initially played well with the electorate, voters became skittish as voting-day arrived. The Big Society rhetoric allowed the Tories to move the debate onto something else, distracting attention from the scope and scale of their proposed cuts, and present themselves as more than just heartless cutters.
And it’s fulfilling exactly the same purpose now: comment and debate is dedicated to the vacuous “ideas” underlying the Big Society, and not what the Treasury is already getting up to. This process of spin and distraction is aided when organisations like Demos run polls finding that there is no support for the Big Society, but then issue high-profile press releases claiming the exact opposite.
Fourthly, underlying Big Society rhetoric is a common, but lazy and inadequate, conception about the virtues of “community” versus “the state”. This lazy and inadequate view begins by assuming that small communities are always loving and caring places, where people necessarily trust and help each other because of spontaneous bonds of common fellow feeling. By contrast when the big nasty state combines with large-scale society, people become “atomised” and fear their neighbours, refusing to help each other. “Community” disappears, allegedly making life much worse for all concerned.
There may actually be some truth in this: small communities arguably are less “atomised” than large ones, and people may lose something important accordingly. But the laziness and inadequacy kicks-in when it’s forgotten that there are also bad sides to small communities. Often such communities will be characterised by dominant individuals or groups imposing their views and demands upon others. Hence, for example, homosexuality has typically been better-received and tolerated by large “atomised” western societies than by the small, close-knit communities that we’ve allegedly lost with tragic repercussions.
What large societies characterised by active states can do is help free individuals from the “tyranny of the community”. Rights can be secured and enforced for women, gays, minority groups and others who would otherwise be at the mercy of the prejudices and powers of local dominators (who in the West have typically been older, white, heterosexual and male). So: withdraw the state and you might get better community bonds, and that may well lead to people helping each other out more. But what you might also get is the abandonment of the vulnerable to the capricious mercies of the more powerful.
Which makes the following especially worrying for anybody able to recognise that questions of society, community and the state are complex and unlikely to result in easy, straight-forward or convenient answers:
“A scheme to protect women from domestic abuse by removing violent partners from the family home is being scrapped by the Government as part of its drive to cut public spending.
Under the so-called “go orders” planned for England and Wales, senior police would have been given the power to act instantly to safeguard families they considered at threat.
Violent men would have been banned from their homes for up two weeks, giving their victims the chance to seek help to escape abuse.
But Theresa May, the Home Secretary, has decided to halt the scheme, which was due to be piloted this autumn and be rolled out nationwide next year”. (h/t)
2 women die every week in the UK as a result of domestic violence.1 in 4 British women suffer domestic violence at some point in their lives. But don’t worry, the voluntary sector – the loving local community which would have saved these women already if the state weren’t getting in the way – will no doubt spring into action to defend battered women.
Or then again, maybe not.
July 14, 2010
On Banning the Veil
UPDATE II: It’s just occurred to me that today is 14th July, Bastille Day. Is it naive, then, to think that it was mere coincidence that the ban was voted-through yesterday, before today’s French public holiday?
UPDATE: Everyone should read Nakul’s excellent comment at the bottom of this piece. Also, the post below may give the impression that all French feminist groups are rabidly in favour of the ban – that would be deeply misleading, see here. Also, I should have mentioned in the OP that a huge part of French paranoia about Muslims stems from collective anxiety about the French-Algerian population, following the fact that Algeria fought a bloody and brutal war of independence post-WWII, something which still dominates French collective consciences.
Yesterday the French moved towards a complete ban on the full Muslim face veil.
Very little is straightforward in the debate on this issue, and anybody who says otherwise is usually confused or lying. But there are a few things that can be said here. (Those wanting a more in-depth account can read this paper by Cecile Laborde, from which I borrow).
Firstly, France has a very specific history regarding the issue of religious dress which is perceived – or alleged – to restrict the freedom and autonomy of women in particular. Modern French politics is heavily conditioned by the formative experience of the 1789 Revolution and the ideals which later emerged in reference to that. In particular, the state is generally viewed as a positive, secular, rationalist, Enlightenment force which delivered individualism and autonomy from the ashes of the hierarchies of the ancien regime, and continued to do so in the face of the Catholic Church.
As Laborde notes, in the early 20th Century, the Catholic nun – her head veiled – was viewed as the antithesis of the republic, “whose irrational religiosity and forced confinement ostensibly symbolized rejection of the republican ideal of secular progress, female autonomy and rationality”. The modern Muslim veil thus cuts deep into the French collective political-historical psyche.
Furthermore, the predominant conception of the state as a positive, secularising force for rational autonomy has led to a long and deep tradition of “Laïcité” in France. A firm division of church and state, especially in matters of education, has long been pursued.
Recently French feminists – of both 1970s vintage and second-generation immigrant background – have united, arguing that the veil is both symbolic of, and essential to, the systematic subjugation of women in Muslim communities. They argue that, in particular, women raised in Muslim communities and forced to adopt the veil cannot get enough critical distance from patriarchal practices to be able to choose autonomously, for themselves, whether or not to endorse such practices. Furthermore, feminist critics of the veil argue that it is in truth a systematic attempt to control female appearance, individuality and sexuality as a product of Muslim males’ loss of identity and self-certainty in a globalised and displaced world.
These concerns are reinforced by an insistence that it is a mistake to simply treat all Muslims as part of a single, homogenous “community” that speaks for itself and asserts “its own” values. On the contrary, they urge the recognition that such “communities” are often given voice by privileged and empowered males who assert patriarchal values at the expense of (in particular) women within that community. (A good case for such an understanding is put forward by Anne Phillips in this excellent podcast).
However, these arguments cannot straightforwardly translate into any ban on the veil. In particular, there is a problem in explaining how it can be that if banning the veil is supposed to increase Muslim women’s autonomy, they have to be forced not to wear it. Thoughts might here turn to Rousseau’s famous paradox – that members of a well-governed republic must be “forced to be free” – but the fact (as Bernard Williams notes) that this is a paradox puts the ball into the veil-banner’s court.
Furthermore, it’s not like real-world French politics is driven solely by philosophical argumentation – indeed far from it. In a country where the racist, anti-Muslim National Front can poll up to 15% of the national vote, and have its leader in the final 2-candidate run-off for the Presidency, the efficacy and imperative for politicians to “clamp down on the Muslims” should not be underestimated.
Similarly, that the increasingly unpopular President Sarkozy habitually attacks French immigrant Arab and Muslim communities whenever his poll ratings look especially low, should not be forgotten or ignored in the context of yesterday’s vote.
And lastly, there is an outstanding problem for all proponents of the ban.
If Muslim women are oppressed and forced into wearing the veil by men in their immediate communities, then forcing them not to wear it is hardly going to end well for many of these women. Especially if the feminist claim is right, and the controlling of female identity is a product of perceived Muslim male emasculation.
If the veil is banned in public, controlled Muslim women can simply expect never to go out in public again. Or what is probably worse, to be beaten and punished for appearing unveiled.
It’s difficult to see that outcome as a victory for secular rationalist feminist humanism.
July 8, 2010
La plus ça change, encore une fois
I recently came across a collection of political campaign cards from the early 20th Century centering on the demands of the suffragettes, both for and against. The following is some sort of postcard, graffitied into anti-suffragette hate mail. (Apologies for poor quality, I only had my iPhone camera):
Front [the "Striking Example..." passage is added by hand]:
Back:
What I find fascinating – albeit depressingly so – is the extent to which misogynist abuse has not changed in nearly 100 years.
The claim or insinuation that campaigns for women’s rights and equality are rooted in a lack of family to cater for (“no homes”), rejection by men (“no husbands”) and infertility or barrenness (“no children”) are apparently as old as the hills yet very much alive and kicking.
Over at the Guardian’s CiF threads, anything remotely relating to feminism will attract exactly these sorts of derogatory comments. A fair number of them include aspirations to violence (“why don’t you drown yourselves”), and hence have to be removed by the moderators ASAP (usually with howls of indignation against the feminazi conspiracy).
I’ve previously asked Laurie Penny – one of the UK’s best young feminist writers - about the abuse she receives as a feminist commentator and journalist. She confirmed that all the above are standard tropes: “My very least favourite are the ones that tell me ‘you know you’re just doing this because you’re frustrated that you don’t have a baby yet’. That’s a common line.”
Laurie estimates that she receives about 35 abusive emails and comments a month. Indeed her comment forms have to be pre-moderated because the abuse got so bad in the past. You’ll note that The F-Word also has to pre-mod comments to keep things under control.
In her book Backlash, Susan Faludi argues that throughout history whenever steps towards women’s rights or equality are achieved it doesn’t take long for a counterveiling “backlash” movement to come into force. A key part of that backlash typically involves blaming women’s continued inequality and disadvantage on the women’s movement itself. As recently exemplified by Phillip Blond.
But also common to the backlash phenomena are techniques used to denigrate and dismiss women’s campaigners, in particular painting them as unfulfilled, lonely, bitter trouble-makers. You guessed it: lack of family, lack of babies and lack of a man to clean up after usually come top of the list.
The above example, an entirely typical exhibit from the period, only adds support to Faludi’s observations.
July 2, 2010
Feminism and Equality; Or, Why Elections Can Be Like Urinals
That’s right dear readers, it’s another post about toilets!
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Wandering into St Pancras station yesterday to take advantage of the free toilet facilities, I was greeted by the not-unusual sight of women queuing outside of their section. As a man I was able to breeze straight in and out of my side, not having to wait at all.
This is an extremely common occurence. Paradoxically, however, it is often the outcome of equal treatment…at least, on a particular understanding of equality.
Allow me to explain.
Men and women’s public toilet facilities are normally allocated roughly the same amount of physical space. Nominally, therefore, equal priority is given to men and women when designing and building public toilet facilities. However this equal-space approach over-looks the fact that male facilities include urinals and cubicles, whilst women’s facilities are necessarily all-cubicle. Urinals, however, take up much less space than cubicles (so more of them can be provided in a given space), and they are much quicker to use. The result: men are able to use their facilities much more quickly than women, meaning men don’t wait in long queues but women do.
Equality of physical space therefore results in inequality of waiting-times. Insofar as the latter is considered more important than the former (and surely it should be), this is an undesirable outcome. It also illustrates that equality is a complex concept. Accordingly, alternative ways of thinking about equality may help us engineer different results. Ronald Dworkin famously encouraged people to think about equality in terms of exhibiting equal “concern and respect” to all individuals.* How might a Dworkinian approach toilet provision?
Straightforwardly. Those designing public toilets could ask themselves: “do these plans treat men and women with equal concern and respect by ensuring roughly equal waiting times?” The simplistic equal-space approach would fail this test. Instead, women’s facilities would be allocated greater physical space than men’s (to compensate for cubicle-urinal disadvantages), thus equalising waiting times.
Men may think this a trivial issue; I expect many women will disagree. Regardless, it illustrates two further points:
1. Inequality of outcome in public lavatory provision is consistent with a society characterised by patriarchy. Not because those who commission and design public facilities purposefully want to frustrate women’s lives. That’s (usually) not the case. But because alleviating obvious and well-known female inconvenience simply won’t be a priority in a society overwhelmingly geared to the interests and needs of men.
The discrimination is thus subconscious. Precisely what a thoroughly-entrenched patriarchy would exhibit.
2. Public lavatory inequality illustrates (by analogy) why all All Women Shortlists may be needed to secure gender equality in political elections. For although men and women are nominally equal – both are free to put themselves forward as candidates for selection by political parties – this initial starting equality interacts with other factors to generate (manifestly) unequal outcomes.
Such factors include:
- self-deselection by many women due to their believing that “politics isn’t for women”
- conscious and subconscious ignoring of women candidates by selection committees due to beliefs that “politics isn’t for women”
- gender-biased social attitudes that encourage women to be quiet, non-combative and passive whilst politics rewards loud combative aggression – traits socially inculcated, and found predominantly, in men.
These factors – combined with initial equality of selection between men and women – will likely result in inequality of outcome. And indeed only 21.4% of British MPs are women.
All Women Shortlists – by excluding men and being unequal in terms of starting selection – may therefore better promote equality of outcome. Which I’m assuming most decent people want. At least, insofar as a conception of equality that is geared towards interacting with the world as it actually is remains preferable to one which is implemented with wilful disregard to the likely subsequent consequences of other relevant social factors.**
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* Dworkin mainly focused on the state showing “equal concern and respect” to citizens, but we can apply the principle more widely.
** Neanderthals believing that women are “less good at politics” because they are women, or that the above social factors don’t exist or affect selections, need not reply. In fact, they can go jump in the sea.
June 24, 2010
Please Give
Yesterday afternoon brought good news for England fans after the 1-0 win over Slovenia. The evening, however, was a bit of a dampner as it turns out we’ll be facing Germany next. FYI, one of the USA, Ghana, Uruguay and South Korea will definitely be in the semi-finals. That’s what not topping the group meant.
But I want to draw attention to something far more serious. Few may know this, but during the 2006 World Cup incidences of domestic violence increased by 30% in the UK. The combination of alcohol, sport and especially an England defeat bode particularly ill for the thousands of British women trapped in abusive relationships, which often include sexual violence and where abuse frequently rebounds onto children.
Furthermore, services established to support women – or get them out of such relationships – are often woefully underfunded.
The Boris Keep Your Promise campaign has highlighted the deception of Boris Johnson, who pledged to increase funding for London’s rape crisis centres but instead did the opposite, ensuring that London’s one rape crisis centre is under threat of closure.
Last month the BBC reported that in Scotland 3,000 women are turned away from refuges each year because of a lack of funds. With public spending cuts about to go into over-drive, women’s support services may be amongst some of the worst hit.
What I’d like to ask everyone to do today is to donate to the charity Refuge, who do outstanding work to support and safeguard abused women in Britain. The donation form is here. Please give what you can.
