Bloody hell.

[slemslempike]

Anne Enright says " The statistics on how often mothers choose not to breastfeed girl babies are shocking." I had no idea that there was a difference - I don't think it occured to me that there might be at all. Does anyone know what the statistics are? Is it a culture-specific thing, or fairly widespread?


Rosalind Coward says "the issue of date rape arrived in Britain, as American trends inevitably do". Yes, date rape is almost as annoying as Barbie. She then goes on to ask: “The question is whether in such situations we can really equate unwanted penetration with rape – penetration against our will.” She paints a nostalgic view of the time when a man could force a woman to have sex, and the woman would just chalk it up to experience. Ah, happy days. This is from her 1999 book Sacred Cows, which is subtitled "Is Feminism Relevant to the new Millennium?" - unsurprisingly, she thinks not. And I can see why she thinks that, because apparently she hasn't ever considered that feminism might be anything more than the seventies' media stereotype.

One of the most offensive things she does (and as you can see, there's no shortage) is appropriate the term "womanism" for her own ends: "What I have called 'womanism', a sort of popularised version of feminism which acclaims everything women do and disparages men. Womanism is feminism's vulgate." I think she thinks she's invented the term, which would come as quite a surprise to many African-American womanists/feminists such as Alice Walker. That Coward could blithely ignore the history of womanism as a term and a movement and use it to describe a "vulgate", a lesser, dumbed down version of the "proper", (white) feminism is disgusting. Surely, surely at some point in the publication someone must have said "oh, that's actually already a term, and it doesn't mean anything like that?"

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised at the awfulness of the book, as she writes approvingly of both Melanie Phillips and Katie Roiphe, and has a quote from Fay Weldon on the cover. Still, she is providing me with material that draws together many of the strands of my work.

Comments

[cellardor.livejournal.com]

"Yes, date rape is almost as annoying as Barbie." I loved that.

Well Rosalind Coward sounds peachy. Hmm, because with date rape if a woman has said yes to a date that obviously means she has consented to sex. What the hell? Some women are so damn infuriating.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

She almost has some interesting points. This is the problem with her, and Roiphe (though Roiphe is far, far further off interesting points) and others who talk about power feminism vs victim feminism vs feminism at all; they don't take account of differences within feminisms, and have such broad brushstrokes that anything they say is almost useless, it's condemning (I think wrongly) not criticising. She also goes on about teh poor menz in such a way that any agreement I might have (that the whole system of gender and how it's used is also oppressive of men) gets lost because my eyes are rolling too fast to focus.

[cellardor.livejournal.com]

I had a quick look at her books on amazon and part of the description there was going on about feminists feeling superior towards men. What sort of definition of feminism does this woman have?

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

I am in fact just writing a paragraph this very moment that says that she never defines what feminism is, or thinks, or does in her book, so it's all very vague and we're expected to know what she means.

And the thing is that there are some feminists who do think that. But it's not a very widespread view, and I don't think it ever has been. (And it gets criticised very heavily by other feminists sharpish). It's a fairly widespread stereotype though, and she doesn't distinguish between stereotype and archetype, so it's all a bit rub. There are also a lot of non-feminists who think that women are or feel superior to men - lots of times when I'm saying that I do women's studies, and yes I am a feminist I get the response that we don't really need feminism do we, because we woman are all great and we just let the men do their silly things.

[carandol.livejournal.com]

I would have thought that largely a male stereotype of feminism.

[netgirl-y2k.livejournal.com]

the issue of date rape arrived in Britain, as American trends inevitably do".

That's offensive in so, so many differnt ways. Although, reading that sentence on its own it sounds almost as if she's argueing that all date rapes are commited by Americans which while slanderous would solve the problem, just don't date any Americans.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

That's very true, it would.

There's another bit further on where her writing says that "It is all very well for powerful women in the media to assert new clichés about female sexual potency, but harder for the wannabes and lookalikes to live these on the streets. For the majority of women move in a world where it is not so easy to draw a line between provoking men to drool and getting something more unwelcome."

It was almost a relief. Because the rest of the chapter kind of skirts around victim-blaming (uh-oh, said the v word!) and when she finally comes out and says it at least there's a point for the rage.

[cellardor.livejournal.com]

If men are so damn easily 'provoked' by women then they should walk around with blindfolds on, otherwise they should be able to restrain themselves yes? I should stop reading things here before my head explodes.

[oursin.livejournal.com]

There is someone who needs smacking about with a copy of bell hooks' Outlaw Culture (which eviscerates Roiphe and C Paglia among others).

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

I bought that recently - I think I will have it as a lovely sane treat after I have to reread Roiphe. (I read The Morning After as a first year, I think, and while it was a library book and I couldn't therefore damage it, I did put it carefully on the floor and very neatly stamp on it before I returned it.)

[yiskah.livejournal.com]

I'm going to invent Ladyism. Has anyone bagsied that yet?

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

I don't think so - but googling brings up this lovely response:

http://gawker.com/news/alessandra-stanley/alessandra-stanley-advances-the-banner-of-ladyism-225640.php

[pathology-doc.livejournal.com]

“The question is whether in such situations we can really equate unwanted penetration with rape – penetration against our will.”

The question is, what sane person of either gender could not?

She paints a nostalgic view of the time when a man could force a woman to have sex, and the woman would just chalk it up to experience.

She is working for whom? And to what end? Nauseating.

...version of feminism which acclaims everything women do and disparages men.

Leaving aside the question of who first used which word for what: whatever term one chooses to describe that sort of behaviour, it's not feminism's vulgate - it's a counterproductive embarrassment. Equating 'feminism's vulgate' with pointless and thoughtless misandry is IMO an even worse mistake than the one you say she's made.

If "feminism's vulgate" is anything at all, surely it's the day-to-day issues that matter to the woman in the street - whether that be in New York or Nairobi - in plain language, without all the academic writing and theorizing that's been built around it. Because if you need a university education to be a feminist, then feminism has it badly wrong.

As far as the not breastfeeding girl babies thing is concerned... What? That's inexcusable.

[notmarcie.livejournal.com]

My sister bought me a copy of Sacred Cows. It makes me angry, I keep it around ready for when Civilisation ends and I need toilet paper. I wouldn't sell it or give it away because it's so supremely crap I wouldn't want to inflict it on anybody.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

Yes. It looked a bit promising but then it rapidly showed that this was not going to be the case.

[cookiemonster01.livejournal.com]

Shockingly, it was only a couple of decades ago that the scots law on rape was changed - before that a woman had to resist, or it wasn't really rape!!

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

Yep, and only 15 years ago that it was illegal to rape your wife...

[jinxremoving.livejournal.com]

“The question is whether in such situations we can really equate unwanted penetration with rape"

WTF? Um, that's what it fucking is.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

Yup. I think the answer to the "question" is fairly obvious, but since she seems to be saying that women weren't raped until Americans put it into their head to be, she doesn't really understand.

[jinxremoving.livejournal.com]

Why do so many so-called feminists make me want to commit violence against women?

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

You'll be pleased to hear that in the introduction she pretty much concludes that she doesn't want to call herself a feminist any more.

[sollersuk.livejournal.com]

Date rape is supposed to be recent? 40 odd years ago my mother passed on to me 1930s and 1940s vintage advice on how to avoid it.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

She seems most of all to be objecting to the involvement of the police when the law is broken. That really, the bad thing about date rape is not that it happens, but that women complain.

[the_antichris.livejournal.com]

She thinks there's a difference between 'unwanted penetration' and 'penetration against our will'? There's not even a semantic difference! *spit*

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

I think she thinks...no, no idea. Possibly she doesn't think at all.

[ainsley.livejournal.com]

The more I read about feminism and gender and anything, the more I find just how much utter crap is out there.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

I think it's probably a similar noise-signal ratio as most areas, although perhaps bad science stuff doesn't get promoted as "look, that's what all science is" as much as bad feminism. (Badly written and argued feminism, as opposed to bad because I disagree with it.)

[owl]

“The question is whether in such situations we can really equate unwanted penetration with rape – penetration against our will.”

And the answer to that would be YES. Next?

[slightlyfoxed.livejournal.com]

I have just attended a lovely sane keynote speak by Imelda Whelehan taking on Roiphe (and a couple of others - 'Who Stole Feminism' etc) on the idea of 'feminists as Victorian'. She rigorously looked at what they meant by that comparison, whether the Victorians did what they said, whether feminism did what they said, and she concluded with a pleasing bit of light swearing.

While I was listening to her soothing balm of sanity, I realised that in fact the resistance to talking about sex (specifically sexual danger, but that's sex too) in case the talk interferes with the glorious sponteneous expression of desire, is very stereotypically Victorian. I'd have thought. (Of course, it's not true of the Victorians either.) And we're back to the tyrrany of communication.

Grrrrarrghfle.