'Feminist betrayals'

I have new glasses. No, wait - New Glasses. This means everything looks all super and awesome and slightly higher than usual, and sometimes even 4-D.

Yeah, that's right. 4-D.

If anyone was worried by the last post - I will just reiterate that writing about suicidal thoughts is my standard way to free myself of them. To quote The Golden Notebook yet again - 'Literature is analysis after the event.' To blog my fears is to seal them in the syntax-coffin and push 'em off to a Viking burial of publication. They shrink to Roman characters and stop being fuzzy visions of potential futures in my head that might grow and grow until I find myself inside.

My dear oldest sister was fool enough to attempt undertaking the topic of my brother's general bumassery with my parents (specifically, my mother) this evening. Much as I care about her, it was a fool's errand. Firstly because it was SO not the time to pick a fight and secondly because, well, he's TWENTY YEARS OLD. It's a bit late to institute miracles of parental authority, especially when now more than ever, they're huffing about being old and selling up and moving somewhere in India (ha! Yeah right. Dad would end up getting BARBECUED) and how they just want to be left alone.

They were on top form, interpreting it as an attack on their parenting, attempting to obfuscate the heart of the matter by fixating on technical details ('Have we ever forced either of YOU out of bed?' etc.) and finally, my mother squawked, her natural rougeur heightened by sunburn, 'WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO DO?' My dad echoed this earlier (less forcefully) and sort of wandered in and out being 'righteous' and basically accepting his role in the argument enthusiastically. I actually told my sister to give it up and told my mother not to drag me into it when she attempted to. I did, however, laugh cynically. Which was not necessary, I guess.

Earlier, my sister and I had a spin class. No, not the New Labour kind, but this fucking insane bike-astride form of exercise which kills about a thousand calories at a go or something and is SO not the thing to do if you have any sort of problems Down There. I neared weeping 20 minutes in, but somehow lived through to the thirtieth minute. My crotch was most unhappy, and I think I may have saddle burn. Good freaking God. The surreality of the experience was heightened by the fact that we were in a pitch-black room lit with electric blue here and there so that everyone was all teeth, eyes an' T-shirts. The speakers weren't working so the instructor basically turned down the (shit) music every now and again to yell incomprehensible instructions, which were then transmitted to me by the sororal teeth to my right. Just remembering it is making my crotch get mad at me.

Onward, to pastures less private-related! I was almost amused to see that the usual crock of shit about Western feminists not doing enough for Muslim women was doing the rounds. I went on to Heresy Corner to hit back, but guys - I'm pissed. Why the fuck do feminists keep taking flak for not 'saving' Muslim (or non-white) women all the time? Why is it exclusively our job? Given all the talk about liberating the women of Iraq, the American government doesn't seem to have bent over backwards to avoid a similar fate (i.e., things going backwards) in Afghanistan.

I'm sorry, but I'm having a little Red Mist moment, so to those who argue like the Heresiarch has, can I just say: um, fuck you? I could care less whether swearing is big or clever right now, I am really fed up of (often male) people who don't normally go out of their way to support women's rights or racial equality fucking telling women how to behave. The post on HC - 'Silence of the Fems' should REALLY have been thought out more, because - yes, rich white Western feminists (or a few renowned ones anyway) perhaps SHOULD highlight these things more.

However, there are plenty of us Western feminists who aren't white and we know better than anyone how hard it is to save ANYONE from a deeply patriarchal culture, let alone Muslim women. Also: do 'Muslim women' as a group have the monopoly on oppression? You'd think it judging by that post. Whereas a middle-class Indonesian woman is obviously NOT going to be as oppressed as an Indian hindu chamar (untouchable) female. Also, what about the oppression of poor migrant women (frequently non-Muslim) by Muslim women in the Middle East?

Obviously, things aren't as wonderfully simple as HC would like to make out. It mentions Geraldine Brooks's Cif article, launching an attack on the first few lines and missing the point spectacularly. The whole HC post pretty much boils down to 'But OMG! Western feminists didn't ADOPT AYAAN HIRSI ALI! How dare they? Traitors!'

Which is clearly utter cack. I'm sorry, where does it state that 'Hirsi Ali' and 'all Muslim women' are one and the same? Where is the proof that Western feminists rejected her and 'left' her to be bankrolled by neo-cons? Furthermore, why is it not society at large's responsibility to bankroll her (rather than just feminists') if Western liberal democracy is so loving and tolerant and all of those other things it claims to be? Shouldn't everyone be signing her up to advertise, or something?

I demonstrated the appalling lack of research to some extent, by linking to a recent F-Word post calling on suggestions from readers for how to help the women of Mali in my comment on the post. Check out this bit of pathetic emoting though:

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, whose unforgivable crime is to be black, a woman, an immigrant AND a believer in the liberal principles of the Enlightenment

This coming from a blogger who was among those thinking that Henry Louis Gates might have been 'imagining' racism, and I quote:

That Henry Louis Gates should have interpreted Crowley's challenge as racist isn't surprising, though. Gates isn't just black (African-American, if you insist). He's a professional analyst of the black experience. And he has always been a politically-engaged scholar. He is, perhaps, primed to see racist behaviour where there is none.

That's right kids, he was one of those uppity negroes. Not like good old Ali, who has been playing the victim alongside neo-cons to HC's satisfaction! He made the mistake of showing the ugly racism, the Dark Side of liberal democracy.

To return to Geraldine Brooks though; her article grated with me at first, but once I had finished reading it, I was hard pressed to argue. I mean, what excellent advice:

I'm not saying here that a human right is what the local despot says it is. I find the kind of moral relativism that justifies practices such as female genital mutilation disgusting and fatuous. What I am recommending is a little humility. Western feminists with a genuine desire to raise the status of oppressed women in Afghanistan or elsewhere should call their nearest mosque and make an appointment to talk to the sisterhood there.

Sadly, such logical and non-patronising advice is wasted on the likes of Nick Cohen and the Heresiarch who clearly feel that feminists should simply be seen to be doing something. Do they have any fucking idea how patronising it is that they, white people with very little awareness of the day-to-day realities of growing up in another culture, are telling feminists with experience on the ground what to do? We should launch a feminist Iraq War mark II, should we? Geraldine Brooks actually provided a suggestion on what to do to get Muslim women engaged with Western feminism - precisely so that they can be 'saved' as the Heresiarch so patronisingly put it. I haven't seen that from any of the men sounding off.

I grew up in another culture, and guess what, wannabe neo-cons? Them darkies are not that different to you. People everywhere just want to belong, just want the safety of a group identity and freedom from individual angst. For people juggling more than one culture, it is really confusing. In the same way that you so-called liberals (because it's not authoritarian at ALL to scold feminists for not executing your will, oh no sirree) clutch your 'liberal secular democracy' and English breakfasts and beer at the pub (or whatever) like a comfort blanket - so too do they clutch their separate language, customs and religions like a comfort blanket. That doesn't mean that we should leave them to it if what they're doing is wrong - but I'm fucked if I can see how shouting in their faces about how they need to stop being medieval and telling them that their way is wrong is effective. You don't want to let go of your 'liberal values', why on earth should you expect them to want to get rid of theirs as if by magic?

Even if you believe it (and I must confess, it didn't take me too long to get sold on atheism and Western liberalism), people take a very long time to deprogramme. When they're not even of your country, and you throw in a shared inglorious history of colonialism and imperialism - well, you can expect a lot of shuffling away and a lot of failure. It's better to work like that renowned Western politicker Machiavelli - through discreet fanning of the flames of rebellion. These Muslim women that get tossed around and routinely consigned en masse to oppression - they too are people with agency. They need supporting and encouraging - not to be trampled on so that we can make way for Liberal Democracy 2.0 or whatever.

I mean ferChrissakes, I come from an educated middle-class Indian family who have lived in this country since well before I was born, and I'm a British national. I have tried the full-on approach with female relatives quite a few times and it was like they simply tuned me right out. Women living under oppressive regimes are very often so floored by the fear of taking the hard road and standing up for themselves that they simply concede. It is easier to surrender oneself to low expectations and run from reality. I myself had decided that I would rather die than follow my mother in becoming the sort of person that thinks a domestic violence-free marriage is 'successful.' There's the grey area around what exactly constitutes DV in our culture anyway - it seems to be an unspoken thing that if it's not frequent, then you shouldn't really leave. Thankfully, that's changing but it's taken at least 20 years to start changing! So... to reiterate what I was saying earlier - busybodies, kindly take a hike and get a reality check already.

Rihanna, Chris Brown & Gossip Folks

Let me just begin by saying that one thing I really hate in modern society is the continually schizophrenic attitude we have towards celebrities. Overtly, people will bitch about how they're not as glamorous as they used to be (cue misogyny - frequently in gossip magazines - which involves slagging off female celebrities for having the temerity to um, go to the gym in their gym-clothes and the like, while sanctimonious twats reminisce about Marilyn Monroe and 'old Hollywood' actresses, and how 'women were so much more glamorous then') while secretly feeding greedily on every make-up free picture, every wardrobe malfunction and every failure to conform to a pre-ordained fashion trend or rule.

It's not in the least logical. Anyone who thinks about it - just think of Marilyn Monroe, if nothing else comes - can see that women weren't necessarily more beautiful or glamorous 'back then.' It's just that there was more privacy for, and respect of, celebrities in general - and then there's the issue of technology. HOO BOY. I daresay that the only reason celebrities from 'back then' had the privacy they did is because there wasn't computer software sophisticated enough to be uploading pictures of them all day long. Nor were there the kind of super-advanced cameras we have now that mercilessly and minutely capture a person's flaws. When you think of movie posters, for example, a lot of the 'old Hollywood' movie posters were painted - a lot easier to prettify someone that way. Photos of them are also frequently in black and white, which as any fule kno, is one of the easiest ways to make a picture look more flattering. Not to mention that there wasn't a 'gossip industry' quite as unscrupulous as today's.

(It is ironic, actually, because MM was never completely OK with being a 'sex symbol' and wasn't a natural blonde either... I've also read that she cut the tip off one of her heels to emphasise the wiggle in her walk, but I don't remember where I read that... Still, at least she had, by today's standards, quite a hand in controlling her public image).

Aaanyway, the worst thing about all this - gossip magazines, gossip sites, celebrity gossip in papers, etc. - is that it only encourages and reinforces the worst of human tendencies - that of leaping to judge people as if it is some divine right of ours. Now, judging others is a tendency of ours which isn't going to go anytime soon, and to some extent it's of course necessary, but snap judgements - fuelled ably by our obsession with celebrity-gossip culture - are just another way for us to pander to that which is lowest in us.

You surely will have encountered somebody in your life who tried to pass these snap judgements off as having some sort of intrinsic, instinctive 'truth-value', because they are instantaneous. BOLLOCKS. I would say that they're actually much more of a Pavlovian thing, the result of elaborate social conditioning. For example, if I were not a follower of gossip at all, and happened to observe that a female celebrity had gained weight considerably, I might see her and think 'Oh, she's gained weight. I wonder why?' in a surprised/semi-curious way. That in itself, is not bad. What is bad is when an elaborate chain of associations make themselves instantly known in my head, leading to the triggering of a negative 'snap judgement.' Anyone who doubts the truth of this may want to experiment with the scenario I've just described, using a fairly young and 'unsocialised' child. Show them two pictures of a celebrity and see what happens. I doubt they'll associate shame and disdain with the celebrity in the way that gossipers - older, more socially-conditioned beings - would: 'Oh my God, that fat cow! She's obviously let herself go since so-and-so dumped her' or similar.

Note that - despite it being a 'snap judgement', it's anything but simple. That's because humans, despite what reactionaries and pseudoscientists of all stripes would like to have us believe, are NOT SIMPLE. In that negative response, which is posited as a 'natural' occurrence, we have: disgust/disdain at the person's lack of shame in refusing to conform to a particular expectation, dehumanisation, instantaneous removal of their agency (she's 'let herself go', that is, given up instead of controlling and policing herself like she should) and extrapolation on a situation on which the commenter knows fuck-all based on a hamfisted appropriation of biographical detail.

Sorry to get so long in trying to make my point, but I'm trying hard to convince here! The patriarchy (I hate saying that sometimes, because it makes it sound more big, powerful and shadowy than I'd like to accept) has socialised us to react in ways which are posited as 'plain-speaking', 'straight-up' or 'natural,' when they're anything but. This is why the case of Rihanna and Chris Brown is so distressing (if you're not following, please follow the link for a speedy update, I'm not going into any more detail!).

By chance I came upon this response to the whole affair, which I found extremely heartening. Pricks on the Internet just LOVE trying to shout down feminists when they comment on things like this. One of the most frequent and infuriating techniques - no matter WHAT the issue - is to indulge in whataboutery by crying 'What about TEH MENZ??!!1!!1' Hence - naive that I am - I always like to see feminist-friendly articles written by men. It's still all too rare, which I can't help thinking fuels these idiots further. So I read it, thinking: 'Hmm, a black man commenting incisively and eloquently on the issue. Hopefully this won't be besieged by trollery, seeing as how it's a man...'

Alas, I was hoping in vain. I had reckoned without the power of the modern-celebrity-gossip-strengthened snap judgement. A quick scroll through the comments, and - hello! The whataboutery begins with the very first fucking comment. I'm not going to try and chronicle just how many people indulged in this type of comment, because I want to sleep sometime this night, but there were many, and not just here but on other posts about this which criticised the 'Blame the Victim' culture. The classic tactic is to respond (imagine someone saying this as if thinking causes them great difficulty, while their knuckles rub lightly against the floor): 'Well he shouldn't have hit her, but a woman shouldn't hit a man either, innit, and if she does, then it's SELF-DEFENSE!!1!!1!'.

The worst thing about these snap judgements is that they breed, and perpetuate more of the same, keeping the hateful misogynistic rumours in steady circulation. The above type of comment, while missing the point of the post entirely, also manages to distort the seemingly simple message that 'Violence is not OK. Ever.' By doing so, it generates a whole noxious narrative from where there previously was none. It is immediately implied that Rihanna must have hit Chris Brown which was why he hit her back, of course - it was self-defense, right?!

Er... well, actually, no. Nobody but Rihanna and Chris Brown actually knows what happened between them. Furthermore, if scum like the above really believed the crap they spouted, then they wouldn't say what they said. If they really believed that violence is always unacceptable, they would've said something more like this:

'Now, I don't know about this matter, but Chris Brown seems to me like a good fellow. Maybe Rihanna struck him first. Even if she did, though, he should not have retaliated - he should have walked away, because that is the mark of a mature and sensible adult. Violence only begets violence.'

Still, that's not going to happen because many of these male-privilege flaunting desperadoes are hypocrites. They don't care about violence being wrong, they just want to disseminate the 'crazy bitch' meme at all costs. They're basically trying to encourage more attitudes like Chris Rock's, as cited at the start of the post. I do believe in innocent until proven guilty, but if we're going to play the gossip-extrapolation game, let's look at the facts: just by looking at Chris Brown, and knowing that he's had extensive martial arts training, one can comprehend that he's far more capable of doing damage to Rihanna than the other way round. Again, violence must be used responsibly and carefully - especially against a weaker opponent! Black mark. Also, as anyone with a shred of brain activity knows, people who are abused tend to become abusers themselves, and Brown has previously spoken out about his abusive stepfather. Again, this would imply that HE was in the wrong, HE behaved in a way unacceptable by the rules of martial arts and human respect in general - but let's not let that get in the way of a good round of misogynistic Blame-the-Victim.

Finally - if you were actually pushed to the point of 'self-defense' by someone smaller and weaker than you - as the morons are trying to suggest - that suggests that the situation would be so extreme that you would lash out simply to protect yourself. Either it would be a blind strike, or you'd try to knock out/immobilise your attacker, right? Especially if you'd had martial arts training. Rihanna had 'deep bruises on either side of her forehead, blackened areas around her eyes and what appears to be blood at the corners of her mouth' in the photo leaked online, which seems - gee, I dunno - more like domestic violence.

Especially now that Rihanna has apparently reunited with him and has declined to press charges, I can only see the victim-blame escalating. Cynical as it will sound, the way these male-privilege assholes are ('Of course he can bruise her whole face in self-defence, she obviously struck first and/or was a crazy high-maintenance bitch, while he's just a poor little R'n'B crooner, which obviously goes to show how much he loves ladies, yes, even though I know neither of them'), I suspect it's going to reach farcical levels. I tell you, the trolls are probably going to love the latest developments and say something like 'Well, he didn't kill her, did he? And she went back to him. So what's your problem, femonazis? Move along, there's no victim here, you're just trying to hate on men again and stop a brother from having a chance'. Sigh!