Don't let's argie bargie about it …
My boyfriend and I are off travelling two weeks today. We're spending four months in South America - Peru, Bolivia (including a little voluntary work), Chile, Argentina and Brazil. Now, my trust Lonely Planet and Rough Guide both inform me that South American men have a slightly different way of treating women than their UK counterparts*. They won't mean to be offensive, but they'll leer and whistle, etc. etc. (assuming I'd be 'worth' their attentions, obviously). They are also likely to be concerned about my welfare if I'm on my own. In a conversation with my boyfriend and me, even if I speak Spanish more fluently, they are unlikely to address me, and will talk only to him. This last bothers me the most. I am not accustomed to being ignored and I don't intend to become so. Yet for many, it is travel etiquette to observe and absorb a different culture without criticising or trying to change it. One of the arguments is that a culture may have more to it than meets the eye: a mere outsider cannot understand it well enough to comment. I find this incredibly hard. In some ways I agree: the idea of Christian missionaries trying to convert 'heathens' who are perfectly happy with their own religion/s offends me utterly, so should I consider that I have a right to peddle my beliefs? I don't see why I should allow myself to be treated with any less respect or equality than I expect anywhere else, but am I being colonialist (in a modern sense of the word)? Should I make a point of joining in conversations? Help!* I am not claiming that this is true, and no doubt there are exceptions (for instance, I'm sure some South American men are just as obnoxious as some UK men - sorry, couldn't resist that). It is my one source of knowledge until I experience it for myself.
Despair
Last night I had a long cry. It was because I felt despairing about how society treats and views women, and about our chance of changing it. One of my friends had just told me that she didn't really believe in equality - that she thought men and women weren't equal. She thinks that a company would be quite within its rights not to promote a woman on the assumption that she might want children at some point in the future. And, moreover, that the company should have knowledge of a woman's personal life in order to make such decisions. Having spent the last two years, as I have only recently realised, being shoehorned into a role at work that is considered 'woman's work' (i.e. filing all the boys' work and typing up the boss's letters) I find this attitude depressing beyond belief. Why does this idea have any following at all in my generation, especially among women? I feel as though I am always going to be penalised for being a woman: through spending more money on clothes, shoes, haircare, make-up, bras - not because I am very appearance conscious, but simply to get on in my career; through being overlooked when men are in the vicinity in the workplace; through feeling a hypocrite every time I don a pair of high heels/shave my body hair, but not being able to avoid feeling less attractive unless I do; through having to see objectified images of women everywhere which are making me subconsciously ashamed of my body, terrified that my partner will want someone else or go off me because of my body, and feel mistrust towards other women when I should not; through feeling scared walking home alone. We women in the Western world are the lucky ones in many ways: we have rights and freedoms still denied to so many. And yet we are still so oppressed, and many people don't even realise it! That we have so far to go, but are always being told "Count yourself lucky you didn't live 100 years ago" makes me despondent. I want action and results. What can we do? Does anyone else get these moments of feeling overwhelmed by the obstacles ahead?
Do you know why it's wonderful to be a woman?
Well if you don't know, don't fret, because luckily for us, Good Housekeeping is here to tell us. I was leafing through an old issue and found a back page list of things we have to be thankful for. It was intended, I think, to make women laugh at men and feel smug but it just made me angry. Here are a few of the choice items:We have to do very little to impress a man with our intelligence - just listen to him and nod. Hmm, so you mean men aren't actually interested in our intelligence, or what we have to say because what they have to say is so important? And we should pander to their pathetic egos by nodding along like puppet dolls instead of displaying our real intelligence? How uplifting!We don't suffer from impotence and can even fake an enthusiastic interest in sex while we're mentally redecorating the sitting room. So it's good to be having sex when you're not in the mood? It's good that we feel we have to fake enthusiasm to shore up the aforementioned ego of our partner, when they wouldn't extend the same courtesy (if that's what it is - personally, I hate the idea of sleeping with my partner when his mind was elsewhere)? So it's still our job to lie back and think of England? And this is why it's wonderful to be a woman? Wouldn't it be better if our partner made an effort to arouse us, and made sure we wanted to have sex, and we both had a bloody amazing time when we did?We can wear reinforced knickers to stop our tums rolling over the top of our trousers. Or, more accurately, we're made to think our post-children, or just slightly plump, or just plain normal, stomachs aren't good enough and will make society (men) look down on us in disgust, so we spend good money on uncomfortable restraining pants and still feel grateful we're not in stays. Whoop whoop, this must be revolution!The list also makes mention of our freedom to give pet names to our cars, buy lots of pairs of shoes, and talk to our friends for two hours about a chance meeting with an ex lasting four minutes (it's good, obviously, to waste valuable time discussing a man who is no longer part of one's life, because things like reading a book, learning a language, or just discussing current issues would be just too dull). Why, why, why, do women's magazines keep producing this tripe? How about some real things to celebrate about being a woman? I know it's hard in a patriarchal dictatorship, but to my mind these are just insults.
To me it's simple
I'm about to irritate quite a few people here I suspect, by drawing a parallel: porn is a bit like smoking. While avid smokers choke over that last statement (and their Silk Cut) let me explain. Being a non-smoker myself, of course, I'm pretty biased, but my argument is this simple: when doing something harms others, and takes away from their freedom to choose, surely the freedom to do those things is superseded by that harm. Smoking - in public places, or in front of children or animals - is harming those who have no freedom to be in a place of their choosing without damaging their health (and making clothes/hair/eyeballs etc. smell unpleasant). Maybe people should have the choice to inflict said damage and odour to themselves, but on others? I don't think so. The same goes for porn. Users of porn are exercising their 'freedom of expression' (and the result of that 'expression' is not worth dwelling upon) in being voyeurs of objectified women. That's their argument, and let's go with it for a second, despite the numerous foolproof arguments against it. Surely their right to choose this is overridden by the emotional and physical harm that may have been imposed on the women involved (not wishing here to get into a debate on sex workers' defence of their trade, it is an undeniable fact that many women in the porn industry are not there of their own free will, and how is the 'consumer' - a horribly apt tag I fear - to know the difference?) and of the damage to the self-esteem of their partners? Not only this, but porn is difficult to avoid for someone who wishes to make an active choice to do so. To avoid porn, you would have to do all one's grocery shopping online, be rich enough to employ a personal shopper, or have a partner stuck well under your thumb to run your errands. Even then, you're limiting your recreational shopping opportunities, and recreational pursuits in general, since TV, film and music are imbued with subtle - and shockingly in-your-face - references to porn. I do not feel I have the freedom to choose to live without porn, because, by my definition, it is all around me. I do not believe that someone can use porn and know that they have not been masturbating at the expense of others' well-being. Therefore, surely, the 'right' to use porn must give way to these more fundamental rights? Usually, where others are hurt by an action, the action is condemned. Otherwise paedophiles, thieves, rapists and the like would have free rein (more than they already do …) because their actions would be their ‘choice’ and therefore none of our business. Why should porn be any different?
Liberation = No Handbags!
How many women can get by on a day-to-day basis without a handbag? Not a serious feminist issue, of course, but women do seem to be utterly dependent on these 'life capsules'. Some are, granted, highly practical and don't get in the way, but many are bulky, unwieldy, fiddly, uncomfortable or annoying to carry. Even the practical ones mean you have slightly less ease of movement than a bagless bint (word used for alliterative purposes rather than as a term of abuse) and you always have to be aware of where it is when you put it down.In a very unscientific poll last weekend, I took a stroll through the town centre. Every woman had a handbag. Only one woman bar me was bagless - and her husband was carrying her handbag. Why is this? I know men's clothes are generally baggier, so there's more room for a wallet, but why do we constantly need things with us? Handbags can contain everything from chewing gum and sanitary towels to a spare outfit and hair straighteners, but when we're out for just an hour or two, and we have no medical conditions, can't we survive with just money, a mobile and keys? And can't these items be secreted about our person? If our clothes don't have big enough pockets, why don't they? Why don't we demand them? Why, too, is it acceptable for men to have bulkily-filled pockets but unattractive for women's silhouettes to see the shape of a mobile phone cheekily swelling a rear pocket?A challenge, then. Spend one day (when you don't have your period or any major extenuating circumstances) without your handbag. Wander about the town, skip along country lanes, mooch about the pub, boogie about the dance floor - and feel the freedom. It sounds a small thing, but I honestly feel much freer when unfettered by a bag's unreasonable demands. Unless I have a real need - for a rucksack or picnic hamper - I want to remain a bagless bint.
Living by Feminist Principles
My ponder for today is about just how easy or hard it is to live by my own feminist principles - and, consequently, how many of them I do actually live by. It was this blog entry that got me thinking. Laura has decided to grow her leg hair and only shave them when she makes an active choice, unaffected by conforming to social norms, to do so. Which is easier said than done. Because why would one shave unless one's legs were to be seen and/or touched, and one wished the person doing said seeing/touching to appreciate their hairlessness?The same principle seems to apply to quite a few areas of my life. I don't always shave my armpits and legs or wear make-up - but when I do, why is it that I do it? The blunt answer is that it is to conform to social, patriarchal norms: because I do, undeniably, feel more confident and attractive when I've done them.When I look back on myself as a teenager, I am frankly horrified by what I see. Insecure as the next person, unsure of my own identity and desperate to feel attractive and popular, I was neither as confident as I appeared nor brave enough to live according to my opinions. I was always friendly to everyone at school, but I freely confess I didn't want to be one of 'the sad group', so I often underplayed my intelligence, for which I had been mildly bullied. I was also incredibly naive - until my 'friends' laughed at my unshaven legs (I was 13) I hadn't even looked at a razor. I went home that evening and borrowed my mum's razor to shave my legs, but even then, I just shaved the front of my lower legs, thinking that was all that was necessary. My friends soon pointed out my mistake …Surrounded by girls whose worth as a person seemed to be determined by whether they had ever snogged anybody, and if so, how many, I did not protest at the stupidity - instead, I went to my local disco and, like my friends, my evening was considered a success if I 'pulled', no matter how unappealing the 'conquest'. I always 'dressed to impress'.All right, I was young, and peer pressure and insecurities are highly influential. Many, many girls (and boys!) have similar - and far worse - tales to tell. But it makes me realise, with sadness and nausea, how indoctrinated I was from an early age. Even now, as an educated and fairly confident adult, I live by many patriarchal rules without questioning them. If it is so hard for me - someone extremely opinionated and not afraid to disagree with the majority - is it any wonder that these issues are ignored by so many?I'd be interested to know others' experiences of this kind of thing. I find it hard to justify wearing make-up and revealing clothes any longer. The traditional answer is often 'I do it for myself' but this doesn't cut any ice, because it's only to make myself feel confident and attractive within an existing patriarchal culture. But perhaps we need well-dressed and well-made-up feminists, if only to challenge the stereotype of dungarees and hairy legs?!I am, as a fledgling feminist, beginning to realise that challenging myself and my own hypocrisies is going to be as much of a task as taking on the lads' mags, pro-porn brigade and every other misogynist out there …
