tag:theconversation.com,2011:/global/topics/feminism-53/articles
Feminism – The Conversation
2024-03-26T16:39:35Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/218803
2024-03-26T16:39:35Z
2024-03-26T16:39:35Z
The Marquis de Sade as feminist icon? Angela Carter’s surprising take on a notorious writer
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583279/original/file-20240320-24-3xpkp9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4000%2C1982&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Conversation</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>In our <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/search?q=feminist+classics">feminist classics</a> series, we look at influential books.</em></p>
<p>Social constructs and questions of control are preoccupations the late British writer Angela Carter returns to time and time again. This is especially true of the inflammatory piece of feminist non-fiction Carter published in 1979: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/276751.The_Sadeian_Woman">The Sadeian Woman: And the Ideology of Pornography</a>. </p>
<p>Carter, who died from cancer in 1992, was a true creative trailblazer. A novelist, fabulist, journalist and editor, deeply influenced by the women’s movement of the 1960s, she played with genres from fairy-tales and science fiction to magic realism and radio drama. She is known for works such as <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/49011.The_Bloody_Chamber_and_Other_Stories?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=OZofvNWv6f&rank=1">The Bloody Chamber</a> (1979) and <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/721867.Wise_Children?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=vUCU1XbGJP&rank=1">Wise Children</a> (1991). </p>
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<span class="caption">English novelist Angela Carter.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by Sophie Bassouls Sygma via Getty Images</span></span>
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<p>Her work is eerily prescient and continues to resonate. <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/581720.The_Passion_of_New_Eve">The Passion of New Eve</a> (1977), for instance, is a transgressive feminist novel set in a post-apocalyptic United States. Tellingly, Carter <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/4277694">described</a> this novel as an “anti-mythic” work about “the social creation of femininity”.</p>
<p>Two years later, she published her take on the French writer the Marquis de Sade (1740-1814). Commissioned by the feminist publishing house, <a href="https://www.virago.co.uk/">Virago</a>, The Sadeian Woman attempts the near impossible, claiming Sade as a proto-feminist author.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-are-the-four-waves-of-feminism-and-what-comes-next-224153">What are the four waves of feminism? And what comes next?</a>
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<h2>Fact from fiction</h2>
<p>Novelist <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60202.At_Home_with_the_Marquis_de_Sade">Francine du Plessix Gray</a> has described Sade (whose real name was Donatien Alphonse François) as “one of the few men in history whose names have spawned <a href="https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sadism">adjectives</a>” and “the only writer who will never lose his capacity to shock us.”</p>
<p>But who was he? Carter’s introductory note to The Sadeian Woman is useful:</p>
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<p>Sade was born in 1740, a great nobleman; and died in 1814, in a lunatic asylum, a poor man. His life spans the entire period of the French Revolution and he died in the same year that Napoleon abdicated and the monarchy was restored to France. He stands on the threshold of the modern period, looking both backward and forwards, at a time when the nature of human nature and of social institutions was debated as freely as it is in our own. </p>
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<p>Yet Carter neglects to mention Sade is one of the most notorious writers in recorded history. </p>
<p>Insane pornographer. Sexual pervert. Woman beater. Child rapist. Murderer. As the professor of French literature <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/161610795-justine-or-the-misfortunes-of-virtue-oxford-world-s-classics-by-the-m?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=fO0rsWjSAK&rank=1">John Phillips</a> has observed, these are “some of the more lurid labels” that have been attached – sometimes erroneously – to Sade over the last two centuries.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583950/original/file-20240325-20-bm2jka.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Cover of The Sadeian Woman." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583950/original/file-20240325-20-bm2jka.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583950/original/file-20240325-20-bm2jka.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=891&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583950/original/file-20240325-20-bm2jka.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=891&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583950/original/file-20240325-20-bm2jka.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=891&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583950/original/file-20240325-20-bm2jka.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1120&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583950/original/file-20240325-20-bm2jka.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1120&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583950/original/file-20240325-20-bm2jka.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1120&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Goodreads</span></span>
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<p>Sade is the author of <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60200.The_120_Days_of_Sodom_and_Other_Writings?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=N8xnSD1Qb4&rank=2">120 Days of Sodom</a> amongst other works, a novel so repellent that, in the words of the philosopher and pornographer <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/135444.Literature_and_Evil">George Bataille</a>, one cannot finish it “without feeling sick”. Two of Sade’s other major novels were Justine, or, The Misfortunes of Virtue (which describes the sexual brutalising of a 12-year-old virgin) and <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/314240.Juliette">Juliette, or, The Prosperities of Vice</a>, chronicling the adventures of Justine’s libertine older sister.</p>
<p>The shocking nature of Sade’s writing causes problems, especially because readers have difficulty distinguishing fact from fiction when it comes to him. </p>
<p>Sade was responsible for unquestionably <a href="https://theconversation.com/marquis-de-sade-depraved-monster-or-misunderstood-genius-its-complicated-145576#:%7E:text=During%20his%20lifetime%2C%20Sade%20was,the%20aphrodisiac%20%E2%80%9CSpanish%20fly%E2%80%9D">abhorrent criminal behaviour</a> in his personal life, such as when he kidnapped and abused <a href="https://www.artandpopularculture.com/Rose_Keller">Rose Keller</a>, a 36-year-old beggar woman. He was found guilty of rape, sodomy and torture in the case of Keller. Once released, he went on to commit a series of other crimes. For these offences, Sade spent decades in prisons or insane asylums.</p>
<p>Sade started writing while incarcerated. His brutally <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_determinism">deterministic</a> fictional universe is one where, in <a href="https://oxfordworldsclassics.com/display/10.1093/owc/9780199572847.001.0001/isbn-9780199572847#:%7E:text='I%20have%20become%20whore%20through,for%20sexual%20exploitation%20and%20martyrdom.">his own words</a>,</p>
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<p>it is essential that the unfortunate should suffer. Their humiliation and their pain are numbered among the laws of Nature, and their existence is essential to her overall plan, as is that of the prosperity that crushes them. </p>
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<p>Unpalatable as this may be, it is hard to ignore Sade. He has inspired artists and thinkers such as writers Gustave Flaubert, André Breton and Michel Foucault, film-maker Pier Paolo Pasolini and the feminist philosopher Simone du Beauvoir. <a href="https://contemporarythinkers.org/simone-de-beauvoir/book/must-we-burn-sade/">The latter reasoned</a> </p>
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<p>Sade drained to the dregs the moment of selfishness, injustice, misery, and he insisted upon its truth. The supreme value of his testimony lies in its ability to disturb us. It forces us to re-examine thoroughly the basic problem which haunts our age in different forms: the true relation between man and man.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/simone-de-beauvoir-hannah-arendt-simone-weil-and-ayn-rand-all-felt-different-in-the-world-and-changed-the-way-we-think-213895">Simone de Beauvoir, Hannah Arendt, Simone Weil and Ayn Rand all felt 'different' in the world – and changed the way we think</a>
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<p>Angela Carter, who knew her Beauvoir, advances a similar argument in The Sadiean Woman. Carter’s interest in Sade dates back to the beginning of the 1970s, when she contemplated writing a PhD entitled “De Sade: Culmination of the Enlightenment”. </p>
<p>Although that project never eventuated, Sade’s influence is evident in Carter’s 1972 book <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/198483">The Infernal Desire Machines of Dr Hoffman</a>. This <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picaresque_novel">picaresque</a> novel, in part concerned with abuses of sexual power, quotes from Sade and includes a carnally obsessed character – a “demonic intellectual” called The Count – who behaves like him.</p>
<h2>Identities defined by men</h2>
<p>Carter started The Sadeian Woman soon after she finished with Dr Hoffman. As she states plainly in the introduction: </p>
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<p>Sade’s work concerns the nature of sexual freedom and is of particular significance to women because of his refusal to see female sexuality in relation to its reproductive function, a refusal as unusual in the late eighteenth century as it is now, even if today the function of women as primarily reproductive beings is under question. </p>
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<p>Carter holds that Sade’s pornography raises important questions about “the culturally determined nature of women” in society. Her central argument hinges on readings of two of Sade’s major novels. </p>
<p>Justine, or, The Misfortunes of Virtue was published in 1791. Set in the years before the French Revolution, it tells the story of a 12-year-old female orphan endowed with, in Sade’s phrasing, “a tenderness and a surprising sensitivity.” </p>
<p>Justine has </p>
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<p>a look of the Virgin, big, blue, soulful eyes filled with animation, a dazzling complexion, a shapely and supple figure, a voice to touch the heart, teeth of ivory, and the most beautiful blonde hair.</p>
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<p>An altogether “charming” and innocent heroine, she is also fundamentally decent. Justine’s virtuousness is steadfast. For this, Sade spends hundreds of pages brutalising his protagonist.</p>
<p>Carter highlights this in her reading of the novel: </p>
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<p>Justine is a good woman in a man’s world. She is a good woman according to the rules for women laid down by men and her reward is rape, humiliation and incessant beatings. Her life is that of a woman martyrised by the circumstances of her life as a woman.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582745/original/file-20240319-22-vxfyq2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="The cover of Justine." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582745/original/file-20240319-22-vxfyq2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582745/original/file-20240319-22-vxfyq2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=894&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582745/original/file-20240319-22-vxfyq2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=894&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582745/original/file-20240319-22-vxfyq2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=894&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582745/original/file-20240319-22-vxfyq2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1124&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582745/original/file-20240319-22-vxfyq2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1124&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582745/original/file-20240319-22-vxfyq2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1124&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61686920-justine?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=MlsGh4DWrY&rank=1">Goodreads</a></span>
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<p>Carter is repulsed by the horrors inflicted upon Justine. At the same time, she has mixed feelings about Justine’s martyrdom and her apparent passivity. She thinks Justine “a gratuitous victim. And if there is no virtue in her suffering, then there is none, it turns out, in her virtue itself; it does nobody any good, least of all herself.” </p>
<p>This idea is worth keeping in mind when it comes to Juliette, or, The Prosperities of Vice, which Sade worked on between 1797 and 1801.</p>
<p>Juliette is Justine’s sister. A character “in possession of some wit and aptitude,” Juliette is an unrepentant <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertine">libertine</a>. She is, as author <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/61195290">Joel Warner</a> has put it, “as depraved as her sister is virtuous.” </p>
<p>Like her ignoble creator, Juliette is really only interested in one thing: the instant gratification of her own desires and demands. Carter understands this. She is alive to the fact that Juliette’s life</p>
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<p>exists in a dialectical relationship to that of her sister. The vision of the inevitable prosperity of vice, as shown in her triumphant career, and the vision of the inevitable misfortunes of virtue that Justine’s life offers do not cancel one another out; rather, they mutually reflect and complement one another, like a pair of mirrors. Each story has the same moral, offered at many levels, which may be summed up as: the comfort of one class depends on the misery of another class. </p>
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<p>Carter’s point about structural inequality is easily grasped. Yet this is the moment when things start to heat up. Consider what Carter says next: </p>
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<p>There is no room in Sade’s impeccable logic for the well-upholstered wishful thinking that would like the poor to have more money if that did not mean we ourselves had less. To be a woman is to be automatically at a disadvantage in a man’s world, just like being poor, but to be a woman is a more easily remedied condition. If she abandons the praxis of femininity, then it is easy enough to enter the class of the rich, the men, provided one enters it on the terms of that class.</p>
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<p>The unabashedly ambitious Juliette is happy to do this. “If Justine is a pawn because she is a woman,” Carter argues, “Juliette transforms herself from pawn to queen in a single move and henceforward goes wherever she pleases on the chess board.”</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582746/original/file-20240319-24-vxfyq2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Cover of Juliette" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582746/original/file-20240319-24-vxfyq2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582746/original/file-20240319-24-vxfyq2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=947&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582746/original/file-20240319-24-vxfyq2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=947&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582746/original/file-20240319-24-vxfyq2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=947&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582746/original/file-20240319-24-vxfyq2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1190&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582746/original/file-20240319-24-vxfyq2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1190&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582746/original/file-20240319-24-vxfyq2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1190&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Goodreads</span></span>
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<p>Joining a secret society titled the Solality of the Friends of Crime, Juliette sets off across Europe. She moves in rarefied social circles and leaves a trail of chaos and destruction in her wake. </p>
<p>Theft. Sexual assault. Infanticide. The list of atrocities she is responsible for is as breathtaking as it is endless.</p>
<p>While their behaviours are different, it is important to recall that Carter sees Justine and Juliette as two sides of the same coin. She underscores that they “are women whose identities have been defined exclusively by men.”</p>
<p>Saying that, it is clear when it comes to the sisters, that Carter is infinitely more interested in Juliette:</p>
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<p>The life of Juliette proposes a method of profane mastery of the instruments of power. She is a woman who acts according to the precepts and also the practice of a man’s world and so she does not suffer. Instead, she causes suffering.</p>
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<h2>Sex without reproduction</h2>
<p>To be clear: Carter does not condone the suffering that Juliette inflicts upon the men, women, and children she encounters. Far from it. And she is highly critical of Juliette’s rapaciousness when it comes to monetary matters. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, Carter remains intrigued by the “sheer force” of Juliette’s will. She also writes favourably about the fact that Juliette “is never in less than full control” of her bodily autonomy. </p>
<p>Juliette has no interest in motherhood. In fact, she violently thumbs her nose in the direction of all things maternal. Carter reads this as a defiant and subversive gesture. Juliette, in Carter’s reckoning, chooses “infertility as a way of life.”</p>
<p>This brings us to the crux of Carter’s argument and explains her fondness for Sade. Carter, like Sade, refuses to define female sexuality in terms of reproductive functionality and fertility. She is, moreover, deeply suspicious of those who do.</p>
<p>Expanding the scope of her argument, Carter asserts that the</p>
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<p>theory of maternal superiority is one of the most damaging of all consolatory fictions and women themselves cannot leave it alone, although it springs from the timeless, placeless, fantasy land of archetypes where all the embodiments of biological supremacy live.</p>
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<p>Carter reminds us that times have changed. Contraception and legalised access to abortion “have given women the choice to be sexually active yet intentionally infertile for more of their lives than was possible at any time in history until now.”</p>
<p>But Carter also appreciates that while times change, attitudes rarely keep pace. She grants that the reality of the situation doesn’t </p>
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<p>seem to have lessened the shock of the physical impact of the female body and the fact of child-bearing. It ought to seem self-evident that this body need not necessarily bear children but the trace-effects of several millennia during which this fact was not self-evident at all, since it was continually obscured by enforced pregnancies, have clothed the female body almost inpenetrably with a kind of mystification, of kitschification, that removes it almost from the real or physiological fact. </p>
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<p>This helps us understand a central tenet of Carter’s critique in The Sadeian Woman: the longstanding myths of femininity. </p>
<p>Indeed, as the novelist <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/304317.Angela_Carter">Lorna Sage explains</a>, Carter does not take Sade at face value, rather she appropriates his work in order to explore the plight of women in a world that continues to be “authorised by patriarchy.” </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/sex-zips-and-feminism-erica-jongs-fear-of-flying-has-a-joyful-abandon-rarely-found-in-todays-sad-girl-novels-222752">Sex, zips and feminism: Erica Jong's Fear of Flying has a joyful abandon rarely found in today's sad girl novels</a>
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<h2>Critics and suppporters</h2>
<p>Critics <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/the-invention-of-angela-carter-9781448137077">were divided</a> by The Sadeian Woman when it hit the shelves. </p>
<p>Reviewing it in the <a href="https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-guardian-tsw-review-guardian-1979/112881790/">Guardian</a> alongside the first volume of Foucault’s <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1875.The_History_of_Sexuality_Volume_1">History of Sexuality</a>, author and anthropologist Francis Huxley expressed gratitude to Carter. He thanked her for demonstrating that men could “free themselves from some habitual tyrannies and become human.”</p>
<p>Critic Richard Gilman didn’t agree. In an article in the <a href="https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/98/12/27/specials/carter-sadian.html?scp=10&sq=Counterforce&st=Search">New York Times</a>, he not only critiqued the book, but cast aspersions on Carter’s character. While conceding that it contained “a number of shrewd insights,” Gilman maintained that The Sadeian Woman “is in the grip of an iron set of biases and dubious presuppositions.”</p>
<p>Furthermore, for all her “intelligence”, Carter was, for Gilman, nothing more than “a rigid ideologue, fervidly feminist, furiously anti-religious and against transcendence of any kind.”</p>
<p>Ironies abound here. While Gilman was castigating Carter for being too “rigid” in her feminist commitments, she was simultaneously being attacked in certain feminist circles for effectively betraying the women’s movement. </p>
<p>To take a high-profile example, The Sadeian Woman attracted the ire of writer <a href="https://theconversation.com/andrea-dworkins-intercourse-the-raw-radical-critique-of-male-power-resonating-with-gen-z-feminists-today-214377">Andrea Dworkin</a>, who summarily dismissed it as a “pseudofeminist” tract.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/andrea-dworkins-intercourse-the-raw-radical-critique-of-male-power-resonating-with-gen-z-feminists-today-214377">Andrea Dworkin's Intercourse: the raw, radical critique of male power resonating with Gen Z feminists today</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<p>Part of the problem, it seems, had less to do with Sade, and more to do with Carter’s willingness to engage with pornography in broader terms. </p>
<p>Anti-pornography campaigners of Dworkin’s militant ilk were always going to struggle with Carter’s treatise, which suggests, provocatively, that certain forms of pornography might serve a positive political function, “as a critique of current relations between the sexes.”</p>
<p>Still, The Sadeian Woman has had some notable supporters over the years. The novelist <a href="https://www.hachette.com.au/lorna-sage/essays-on-the-art-of-angela-carter-flesh-and-the-mirror">Margaret Atwood</a>, for one, praises Carter’s book for its “suavity, wit, no-holds-barred intelligence, panache, bravado, stiletto-like epigrams, and sudden disconcerting pounces.” </p>
<p>Ultimately, it is up to the contemporary reader to decide whether they find Carter’s arguments about Sade, pornography, and the myths of femininity convincing. </p>
<p>In any case, I find myself pondering what Carter, who writes in The Sadeian Woman of living in an “unfree society,” would have made of our present – and <a href="https://theconversation.com/not-all-porn-is-created-equal-is-there-such-a-thing-as-a-healthy-pornography-209387">porn-saturated</a> – moment. It is a time when the human rights for which she and other second-wave feminists fought are increasingly <a href="https://theconversation.com/will-abortion-be-the-issue-that-swings-the-2024-us-presidential-election-219495">under threat</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218803/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alexander Howard does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
British writer Angela Carter was a creative trailblazer. And in 1979, she published a book attempting the near impossible, claiming Sade –pornographer and literary bad boy – as a proto-feminist.
Alexander Howard, Senior Lecturer, Discipline of English and Writing, University of Sydney
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/224736
2024-03-26T03:08:35Z
2024-03-26T03:08:35Z
Suffragettes resurrected, maternal ambivalence and toxic teens: two Australian novels impress, but one overpromises
<p>Earlier this year, I spent a day immersed in the second wave of British feminism at Tate Britain’s <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/women-in-revolt?gad_source=1">Women In Revolt: Art and Activism in the UK 1970-90</a>. More of an event than an exhibition, the show was brimming with multimedia installations and artworks celebrating 20th-century, grass-roots activism. </p>
<p>I was equally struck by the audience and the exhibition. The gallery was buzzing as multiple generations gathered to learn and reminisce about the creative, politically engaged, socially diverse communities of women who altered British culture 50 years ago. </p>
<p>As their name suggests, second-wave feminists were not the first women to agitate for change. The pioneering work was done by suffragettes (the first-wave feminists), as Melanie Joosten explains in her vibrant new novel, <a href="https://ultimopress.com.au/products/like-fire-hearted-suns">Like Fire-Hearted Suns</a>. </p>
<hr>
<p><em>Review: Like Fire-Hearted Suns – Melanie Joosten (Ultimo), Thanks for Having Me – Emma Darragh (Allen & Unwin), Lead Us Not – Abbey Lay (Viking)</em></p>
<hr>
<p>Unlike their successors, first-wave feminists were mostly white, wealthy women, and the movement was characterised by structural privilege. But Joosten’s clever choice of protagonists allows her to critique this inherent issue, while detailing the struggles and dreams of the individuals involved. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Women in Revolt celebrates 20th-century, grass-roots activism.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A suffragette prison story</h2>
<p>A fictionalised account based on historical research, the story begins in 1908 and revolves around two young students, Catherine Dawson and Beatrice Taylor. The third protagonist is prison warden Ida Bennett, who oversees the suffragette inmates of Holloway prison.</p>
<p>Ida, a widow of mixed ancestry with two young boys, is clearly distinct from the well-to-do Catherine and Beatrice. Resentful of the uppity attitudes and frivolous demands of her prisoners, her distress is further complicated by her racist treatment and the traumatic burden of having to force-feed the inmates when they go on hunger strike. But Ida is also a single working parent, unable to raise her own children: she understands the need for change more than most.</p>
<p>Catherine and Beatrice share student digs, similar wealthy backgrounds and a belief in women’s voting rights. They are also fiercely critical of each other’s lobbying styles and contrasting political approaches. </p>
<p>Beatrice is happy to throw bombs and smash windows as a member of the Women’s Social and Political Union, even though this results in repeated arrests and nightmarish spells in Holloway with Ida. </p>
<p>Catherine prefers the pacifist campaigns of the <a href="https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/electionsvoting/womenvote/overview/womens-freedom-league/">Women’s Freedom League</a> and sells copies of the League’s own newspaper, The Vote, while petitioning the government. Catherine does not approve of Beatrice’s tactics, and Beatrice deems Catherine’s actions to be ineffective.</p>
<p>Together with Ida’s conflicted attitude, the womens’ mutual irritation and political divide adds personal depth and insight to the historical context of their story. The varied perspectives remind the reader feminism has always been a pluralist discourse. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583355/original/file-20240321-26-yi0os7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583355/original/file-20240321-26-yi0os7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583355/original/file-20240321-26-yi0os7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583355/original/file-20240321-26-yi0os7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583355/original/file-20240321-26-yi0os7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583355/original/file-20240321-26-yi0os7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1153&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583355/original/file-20240321-26-yi0os7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1153&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583355/original/file-20240321-26-yi0os7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1153&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p>With such distinct characters at play, the narrative’s omnipresent point of view works well enough, though the switches from one individual’s interior state to the next can be sudden and jarring, and the intentionally old-fashioned linguistic style is initially awkward to read. But Joosten is a gifted writer who manages to integrate factual detail into an engaging, compelling story with a fascinating cast. Her ability to revitalise such an important chapter of women’s history is a huge achievement. </p>
<p>Brutalised and sexually assaulted by the police and the public, and horribly abused within the penal system during their 25-year campaign to gain the vote (from 1903 to 1928), the suffragettes’ battle was a violent one, often enacted upon their own bodies. </p>
<p>Name-checked in recent years by <a href="https://rebellion.global/">Extinction Rebellion</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_Rush">Climate Rush</a> and <a href="https://juststopoil.org/">Just Stop Oil</a>, they were honoured in 1981 by the women of <a href="https://greenhamwomeneverywhere.co.uk/">Greenham Common</a>, who wore their predessors’ colours of green, purple and white while marching to the Royal Air Force base in Berkshire for their anti-nuclear campaign. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583388/original/file-20240321-16-kvg8eq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Women protesting wearing rainbow crowns and plastic raincoats. One holds a megaphone." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583388/original/file-20240321-16-kvg8eq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583388/original/file-20240321-16-kvg8eq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583388/original/file-20240321-16-kvg8eq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583388/original/file-20240321-16-kvg8eq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583388/original/file-20240321-16-kvg8eq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583388/original/file-20240321-16-kvg8eq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583388/original/file-20240321-16-kvg8eq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">In 1981, the women of Greenham Common honoured their predecessors during their anti-nuclear protest.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://greenhamwomeneverywhere.co.uk/portfolio-items/jude-mundens-archive">Jude Munden Visual Archive</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
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<p>Nevertheless, the suffragettes have been largely consigned to the history books, where their stories have been misrepresented and misunderstood. Joosten’s novel reasserts their right to be heard on a wider scale. </p>
<p>Like Women In Revolt’s tribute to the Greenham women at the Tate, it’s a worthy commemoration of a conflict that should never be forgotten.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-are-the-four-waves-of-feminism-and-what-comes-next-224153">What are the four waves of feminism? And what comes next?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Maternal ambivalence</h2>
<p>A very different tale of 20th-century women comes from Emma Darragh in her debut novel, <a href="https://www.allenandunwin.com/browse/book/Emma-Darragh-Thanks-for-Having-Me-9781761471018">Thanks for Having Me</a>, the first fiction release of <a href="https://www.joanpress.com/">Joan Press</a>, the new Allen and Unwin imprint under the curatorship of Gamillaroi and Torres Strait Islander actor, writer and producer (now publisher) <a href="https://harpersbazaar.com.au/nakkiah-lui-digital-cover-story/">Nakkiah Lui</a>. </p>
<p>Confronting, poignant and tender, the novel highlights some uncomfortable truths about the bonds of love and conventional family systems, within a mosaic of beautifully crafted stories that turn the spotlight on maternal ambivalence. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583356/original/file-20240321-18-em9c0x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583356/original/file-20240321-18-em9c0x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583356/original/file-20240321-18-em9c0x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583356/original/file-20240321-18-em9c0x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583356/original/file-20240321-18-em9c0x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=918&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583356/original/file-20240321-18-em9c0x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1153&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583356/original/file-20240321-18-em9c0x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1153&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583356/original/file-20240321-18-em9c0x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1153&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p>Refusing a straightforward chronological sequence, these tales of transgenerational trauma unfold around each other organically, hanging together in a loose but discernible pattern. Fraught and fragile mother–daughter bonds are juxtaposed with toxic sibling rivalries and unfulfilling marriages. Lost ambitions are weighed against the disappointing realities of family life and unfulfilling relationships. Yet somehow, love is never quite absent from the picture. </p>
<p>Mary Anne, her mental health in the balance, walks out on her husband and teenage daughters, retreating to the seat of familial dysfunction that is her parents’ house. </p>
<p>Nursing a hot, maternal wound, Vivian is volatile and unstable but settles down with a caretaking husband, only to leave her own child, Evie, when life gets too beige to bear. </p>
<p>Little Evie, born around the millennium and named after her late great aunt, is left at home with her dad and her broken, child-sized heart. Caught in the crossfire, Vivian’s love leaves enough of a trace to sustain her. Over the years, she shifts into a touchingly maternal role with her motherless mother, who has never quite grown up.</p>
<p>Written with varying degrees of grit and empathy, Mary Anne and Vivian make ill-judged decisions and create terrible predicaments for themselves and those around them. They grasp at love, security, acceptance, and try their best to make things better – to <em>do</em> things better. This saves the novel from becoming bleak, despite the pervading sense of hopelessness.</p>
<p>An assured debut ringing with empathy, Thanks for Having Me critiques the flawed institution of motherhood by showing its impact on maternal experience. </p>
<p>With nonfiction publications like <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/jun/29/matrescence-by-lucy-jones-review-the-birth-of-a-mother">Lucy Jones’ Matrescence</a> now addressing maternal ambivalence and the challenges of parenting from the perspective of science as well as culture, second-wave feminists like psychotherapist <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2006/oct/28/familyandrelationships.family2">Roszika Parker</a> and poet and essayist <a href="https://www.thoughtco.com/of-woman-born-by-adrienne-rich-3528976">Adrienne Rich</a> are being reappraised. </p>
<p>Projects like the <a href="https://www.mothernet.eu/about/">MotherNet</a> collaboration between universities in Vilnius, Uppsala and Maynooth are funding research into a range of fields that converge on maternal experience, which doesn’t necessitate having a child. Conversations are changing, and Darragh’s novel is a valuable contribution.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ive-had-enough-of-sad-bad-girl-novels-and-sensationalised-trauma-but-im-hungry-for-complex-stories-about-women-213901">I've had enough of Sad Bad Girl novels and sensationalised trauma – but I'm hungry for complex stories about women</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Teen girls and toxic friendship</h2>
<p>Thanks For Having Me is not just about family though. Friendships play a part here too, with their capacity to soothe or exacerbate familial harm. Joosten also acknowledges the importance of friendship within the testing conditions of political divide. And in her debut novel, <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/lead-us-not-9781761340680">Lead Us Not</a>, Abbey Lay makes friendship the whole story. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583357/original/file-20240321-18-ltnvd2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583357/original/file-20240321-18-ltnvd2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583357/original/file-20240321-18-ltnvd2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=916&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583357/original/file-20240321-18-ltnvd2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=916&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583357/original/file-20240321-18-ltnvd2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=916&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583357/original/file-20240321-18-ltnvd2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1151&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583357/original/file-20240321-18-ltnvd2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1151&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583357/original/file-20240321-18-ltnvd2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1151&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p>Toxic teenage dynamics have become something of a trope in recent years, and for good reason. With the complexity of adolescence now troubled by the rapid ascent of social media, and the added confusion of online networking, there is much to explore. But while Lay’s subject matter holds currency, especially with the added questions of sexual exploration, her story lacks intrigue and ultimately fails to convince. </p>
<p>The premise is familiar enough. Millie, an insecure teenage girl develops a fascination with the more beautiful, more sexually experienced Olive, who moves in next door. Both are in their final year at the same Catholic girls’ high school, though their paths have never previously crossed. </p>
<p>Olive quickly establishes herself with the upper hand in the relationship, while the fixated Millie does her new friend’s bidding, happily dumping her old one, Jess, in the process. Boys are present but peripheral, serving as fodder for the girls’ intimate discussions. To this end, Olive instructs Millie to lose her virginity with the painfully awkward Leon, while divulging the details of her own sex life with handsome tennis player, Hunter. </p>
<p>There is nothing surprising in any of this. Teenage girls are renowned for their intense, romantic, often cruel, sometimes transgressive friendships. The merging of identities and unequal power dynamics are virtually a high-school rite of passage. After all, TV shows like <a href="https://www.paramountplus.com/au/shows/yellowjackets/">Yellowjackets</a>, in which teen-girl rivalry escalates into lifelong trauma following a plane crash in the wilderness, were not born into a void. </p>
<p>There is nothing wrong with this story arc either – and Lay’s prose is elegant and well crafted. She carefully avoids extreme drama, while raising interesting questions about the authenticity of friendship. But while she builds tension with skill, the plot is too pedestrian and the characters are not compelling or mature enough to match the level of suspense she spins.</p>
<p>Olive and Millie, supposedly in year 12, behave more like year 9 or 10 students, setting out on relatively innocent social and sexual adventures with high-blown attitudes. However, their emotional concerns and conversations are too young for their age. </p>
<p>Next to <a href="https://theconversation.com/girlhood-misery-bullying-and-beauty-combine-for-laura-elizabeth-woolletts-unlikeable-west-coast-girls-211427">Laura Elizabeth Woollett’s West Girls</a>, with its complex twists of social, cultural and ethnic hierachies, their white middle-class preoccupations appear simplistic and anodyne. </p>
<p>There is a distinct uniformity to Olive and Millie’s world. All their friends are from conservative backgrounds, with good-enough families and comfortable homes. The Catholic girls consort with the boys from St Marks as if in a preordained bubble. Nobody deviates or dissents, which makes Millie’s obsession with Olive all the more curious, because apart from a touch of drama-school charisma, Olive is no different to the rest.</p>
<p>When the girls explore the boundaries of their friendship during a school camping trip, there is potential for something to develop. But the tentative steps they take towards each other are barely discernible, and the emotional landscape remains under-explored. </p>
<p>After the trip, a communication failure brings the unhealthy dynamic to a head. Olive retreats, leaving Millie upset and confused. Millie, an intelligent, sensitive girl on the verge of womanhood, inexplicably fails to understand why Olive has withdrawn from her. The narrative presents this emotional temperature change as a pivotal mystery for both Millie and the reader, but it’s too much of a stretch: there is no mystery. The reasons for Olive’s vanishing act are all too plain.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583392/original/file-20240321-16-2md0hr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="a white woman with blue eyes and long, straight hair" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583392/original/file-20240321-16-2md0hr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583392/original/file-20240321-16-2md0hr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583392/original/file-20240321-16-2md0hr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583392/original/file-20240321-16-2md0hr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583392/original/file-20240321-16-2md0hr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583392/original/file-20240321-16-2md0hr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583392/original/file-20240321-16-2md0hr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Abbey Lay is ‘hopefully on the edge of a promising career’.</span>
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</figure>
<p>Overall, Lay’s novel would be better suited for the young adult (YA) market. The book’s attempt to interrogate themes of control, vulnerability, trust and honesty within a toxic dynamic is worthwhile, but the level at which these topics are addressed is too naive to satisfy an adult, or even an older YA readership. </p>
<p>A poised and assured writer, Lay is hopefully on the edge of a promising career, but her use of subtlety and restraint needs to be balanced with greater depth and scope. And her characters are in danger of sleepwalking into the future. By contrast, the women and girls of Like Fire-Hearted Suns and Thanks For Having Me understand the need to fight. </p>
<p>If I could, I’d pitch the Catholic girls into the thick of a suffragette rally with Beatrice, or get Evie to sneak them some vodka at a party while Vivian flirts her arse off. Then I’d transport them to the Tate and the epicentre of Women In Revolt, where <a href="https://www.euronews.com/culture/2023/11/15/women-in-revolt-british-feminist-art-from-the-1970s-and-1980s-takes-over-tate-britain">Gina Birch’s Three Minute Scream</a> echoes through the galleries. </p>
<p>Finally, I’d guide them through all the feminist diversity of that whole heartstopping show, in the hope of enriching their perspectives and expanding their vision. </p>
<p>And then I’d let go of their hands.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/224736/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Liz Evans' debut novel, Catherine Wheel, is to be published by Ultimo Press in August 2024.</span></em></p>
A novel about first-wave feminists cleverly critiques the movement’s privilege. The first fiction from Nakkiah Lui’s imprint highlights uncomfortable truths. And a debut about teen girls is ‘too naive’.
Liz Evans, Writer, author, journalist, Associate Lecturer in English & Writing, University of Tasmania
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/224478
2024-03-22T12:30:59Z
2024-03-22T12:30:59Z
Breakaway parties threaten to disrupt South Korea’s two-party system – can they also end parliamentary gridlock?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582322/original/file-20240316-30-z280lu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3994%2C2646&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Is South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol waving goodbye to his popularity?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/south-koreas-president-yoon-suk-yeol-and-his-wife-kim-keon-news-photo/1793664795?adppopup=true">Henry Nicholls/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Contemporary South Korean politics has traditionally been dominated by just two main parties – in <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/1962968">common with many other countries</a> with strong presidential systems. But that could soon change.</p>
<p>Recent <a href="https://thediplomat.com/2024/02/south-korea-in-political-disarray-ahead-of-the-april-parliamentary-elections/#:%7E:text=The%20Yoon%20administration%20and%20the,defeat%20in%20Seoul%20last%20October.">voter discontent</a> is creating opportunities for smaller political parties in the upcoming parliamentary election on April 10, 2024. </p>
<p>Heading into that vote, the two main parties – President Yoon Suk Yeol’s People Power Party and the opposition Democratic Party – between them hold 270 seats in the 300-member parliament. But both parties are grappling with internal struggles and political controversies that are fueling the prospect of new, breakaway parties making gains. </p>
<p>The result could be a multi-party legislature. As a <a href="https://www.ngu.edu/faculty/jong-eun-lee">political scientist</a> with a focus on East Asia and international affairs, I believe that outcome has the potential of transforming the country’s domestic and international agenda. </p>
<h2>Parliamentary gridlock</h2>
<p>Polling suggests that South Koreans haven’t been happy with the performance of their politicians for years, with one 2022 survey putting <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/1455207/south-korea-trust-in-the-national-parliament/">trust in the national assembly at just 24%</a>. Events since then are unlikely to have improved confidence in either main party.</p>
<p>Since Yoon being elected president in 2022, his legislative agenda has been met with <a href="https://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20230509000725">resistance</a> by the opposition-controlled National Assembly. His <a href="https://m.koreatimes.co.kr/pages/article.asp?newsIdx=345281">plans for reforming</a> the country’s education, pension and labor systems have stalled as a result. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, Yoon has <a href="https://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20240130000616">vetoed multiple bills</a> passed by the National Assembly, such as the <a href="https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20231201001653315">“yellow envelope” law</a>, which limits companies’ lawsuits for damage claims over labor union disputes, and legislation calling for special probes into the <a href="https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20240130003053315">crowd crush</a> inside Seoul’s Itaewon district during Halloween weekend in 2022 that resulted in hundreds of deaths and injuries.</p>
<p>On foreign policy, the opposition Democratic Party has faulted the <a href="https://theconversation.com/president-yoon-is-lauded-in-west-for-embracing-japan-in-south-korea-it-fits-a-conservative-agenda-that-is-proving-less-popular-220898">Yoon government’s pursuit of increased security ties</a> with Japan in the face of continued bilateral tensions over Japan’s past colonial history in Korea. </p>
<p>Specifically, the opposition criticized a <a href="https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/2023/03/02/national/politics/lee-jaemyung-yoon-suk-yeol-wartime-labor/20230302094834562.html">bilateral deal</a> on compensation for the victims of forced wartime labor in Korea, and the Yoon government’s acceptance of Japan’s release of wastewater from the <a href="https://japannews.yomiuri.co.jp/politics/politics-government/20230819-130723/">Fukushima nuclear plant</a> into the Pacific Ocean.</p>
<p>Last fall, partly as protest against the president’s foreign policy and in a bid to overhaul the government’s cabinet, the National Assembly passed a nonbinding <a href="https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/2023-09-21/national/politics/First-noconfidence-motion-against-prime-minister-passes/1875180#:%7E:text=The%20National%20Assembly%20passed%20a,of%20an%20incumbent%20prime%20minister">no-confidence motion</a> against Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, though Yoon refused to dismiss his premier.</p>
<p>The net result of the political gridlock is that both the Yoon government and the Democratic Party face high levels of <a href="https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2024/02/113_366062.html">public disapproval</a>. Yoon’s approval rating <a href="https://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20240212050041">has stagnated</a> below 40%, and the majority of voters have expressed an intention to <a href="https://www.straightnews.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=246087">hold his government accountable in the upcoming election</a> by supporting opposition parties.</p>
<p>However, the Democratic Party has failed to capitalize on Yoon’s unpopularity, due to similar public <a href="https://www.kukinews.com/newsView/kuk202312120252">disapproval toward the party’s leader, Lee Jae-myung</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="South Korean opposition party members hold signs at a rally." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582323/original/file-20240316-28-m3dlfb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582323/original/file-20240316-28-m3dlfb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582323/original/file-20240316-28-m3dlfb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582323/original/file-20240316-28-m3dlfb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582323/original/file-20240316-28-m3dlfb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582323/original/file-20240316-28-m3dlfb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582323/original/file-20240316-28-m3dlfb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lee Jae-myung, center, leader of the main opposition Democratic Party, holds a banner during a rally opposing Japan’s discharge of treated radioactive water into the ocean on Aug. 25, 2023, in Seoul, South Korea.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/lee-jae-myung-leader-of-the-main-opposition-democratic-news-photo/1622143449?adppopup=true">Chris Jung/NurPhoto via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Intraparty factions</h2>
<p>South Korea’s two main parties have frequently experienced internal feuds among factions supportive and opposed to party leadership. In recent months, such factions opposed to both Yoon and Lee’s leadership have bolted from their respective parties.</p>
<p>In January 2024, Lee Jun-Seok, former People Power Party chairman, started the <a href="https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2024/01/113_365883.html">New Reform Party</a> with party members <a href="https://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20230228000730">who protested</a> the pro-Yoon faction’s seemingly cliquish party leadership. This “non-Yoon” faction has also <a href="https://m.hankookilbo.com/News/Read/A2023122807400000123">criticized</a> the <a href="https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/2024-01-05/national/politics/Yoon-vetoes-special-counsel-bill-to-investigate-first-lady/1951960">president’s veto</a> of the special counsel bill to investigate allegations surrounding first lady Kim Geon-hee, which includes claims of violating <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/09/asia/south-korea-dior-bag-scandal-intl-hnk-dst/index.html">anti-graft laws</a> and involvement in <a href="https://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20240105000202">stock price manipulation</a>.</p>
<p>The Democratic Party is facing a similar challenge. Also in January 2024, Lee Nak-yon, former prime minister under the previous Democratic government of President Moon Jae-in, started the New Future Party, criticizing his former party as having turned into a “<a href="https://www.donga.com/en/article/all/20240112/4678600/1">bulletproof shield</a>” for the unpopular leader Lee Jae-myung. Specifically, the “non Jae-myung” faction have criticized him for <a href="https://thediplomat.com/2023/10/amid-legal-troubles-lee-jae-myung-tightens-grip-on-south-koreas-opposition-party/">refusing to step down</a> despite being under criminal investigation on corruption charges.</p>
<h2>Opportunities for breakaway parties</h2>
<p>These new breakaway parties’ strategy is to take advantage of South Korea’s <a href="https://keia.org/the-peninsula/how-does-south-koreas-new-election-system-work/">mixed-member</a> proportional election system, which provides opportunities for smaller parties to win seats. To do so, they have been focusing efforts on building concentrated support among core groups of voters. </p>
<p>The New Reform Party <a href="https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2024/01/113_367977.html">has gained support</a> among younger conservative male voters critical of the older generation of conservative politicians close to Yoon. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, the New Future Party <a href="https://www.m-i.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=1084200">retains some support</a> among traditional Democratic Party members, who feel disappointed with the direction of the party. Several Democratic legislators who claimed to <a href="https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20240307006351315">have been purged</a> by the party leadership have joined Lee Nak-yon, widening the schism within the main opposition party.</p>
<h2>Potential impact</h2>
<p>The latest polls <a href="https://www.straightnews.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=246459">indicate a tight race</a> between the People Power Party and the Democratic Party, with a 37.7% and 36.9% share of the vote, respectively. If the breakaway parties <a href="https://www.m-i.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=1102927">win even a small number of seats</a>, the result could be a “hung parliament,” in which neither main party can form a single-party majority.</p>
<p>That would leave smaller parties with huge legislative leverage.</p>
<p>The New Reform Party is more likely to <a href="https://world.kbs.co.kr/service/news_view.htm?lang=e&id=Po&Seq_Code=183112">partner</a> with the Yoon government on policy agendas – despite <a href="https://www.hani.co.kr/arti/politics/politics_general/1114142.html">personal antipathy</a> between Yoon and Lee Jun-Seok. On foreign policy, New Reform Party members have <a href="https://cbiz.chosun.com/svc/bulletin/bulletin_art.html?contid=2023031801098">expressed support</a> for pragmatic relations with Japan and have warned against excessive anti-Japan nationalist rhetoric in domestic politics. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Woman at political rally shakes her fist in the air." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582324/original/file-20240316-18-tcp90i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582324/original/file-20240316-18-tcp90i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=388&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582324/original/file-20240316-18-tcp90i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=388&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582324/original/file-20240316-18-tcp90i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=388&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582324/original/file-20240316-18-tcp90i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582324/original/file-20240316-18-tcp90i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582324/original/file-20240316-18-tcp90i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A move to abolish a gender equality ministry has reemerged as a key issue ahead of parliamentary elections.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/SouthKoreaInternationalWomensDay/bba9a2ccfd554c87b031a013fbb08189/photo?Query=south%20korea%20gender&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=91&currentItemNo=33">AP Photo/Lee Jin-man</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>On social and economic policies, the New Reform Party’s platform likewise aligns with the Yoon government in supporting the expansion of South Korea’s <a href="https://www.yna.co.kr/view/AKR20240205059800001">semiconductor industry</a> and abolishing the <a href="https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2024/02/113_369380.html">Ministry of Gender Equality</a>. </p>
<p>Particularly on gender issues, the New Reform Party could push the Yoon government further toward positions that appeal to <a href="https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www2/common/viewpage.asp?newsIdx=367977&categoryCode=113">younger male conservative voters</a>, such as by introducing female military service. At present, only men are subject to South Korea’s mandatory military conscription, a policy that many younger South Korean men perceive as discrimination. </p>
<p>Lee Nak-yon’s New Future Party is <a href="https://www.businesspost.co.kr/BP?command=article_view&num=315985">more critical</a> of the Yoon government’s domestic and foreign policies. However, with its <a href="https://www.inews24.com/view/1695770">platform to end</a> two-party gridlock, the New Future Party could also seek a role as <a href="https://www.donga.com/news/Politics/article/all/20240226/123693471/1">an arbitrator</a> over contentious policy issues.</p>
<p>The new parties could also support the opposition Democratic Party in pressuring the Yoon government to be more accountable. Specifically, Yoon could face increased demands to approve investigations on the allegations surrounding the first lady and to solicit opposition parties’ consent for future cabinet nominations.</p>
<p>It is still uncertain how well the breakaway parties will perform in the upcoming election. And they face competition from <a href="https://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20240312050698">another new party</a>, the National Innovation Party, that is politically aligned with the Democratic Party. </p>
<p>One recent election in East Asia will give <a href="https://n.news.naver.com/mnews/article/018/0005687178">these new parties encouragement</a>: Taiwan’s <a href="https://thediplomat.com/2024/02/kmts-han-kuo-yu-is-taiwans-new-legislative-speaker/">legislative election</a> in January saw a new third party become kingmaker in the legislative assembly.</p>
<p>If any of the new South Korean parties are able to emerge from the election as a parliamentary kingmaker, it would represent a crack in the country’s two-party system and could free up the gridlock that has dogged parliamentary politics in recent years.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/224478/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jong Eun Lee does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Heading into a parliamentary vote, there is very little gap between the ruling People Power Party and opposition Democratic Party – raising the prospect of a smaller party emerging as kingmaker.
Jong Eun Lee, Assistant Professor, North Greenville University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/224261
2024-03-21T19:07:26Z
2024-03-21T19:07:26Z
Friday essay: ‘A prisoner on the rack’ – how 19th-century Australian women wrote about marital rape
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582671/original/file-20240318-26-1ttfu0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Edgar Degas, Interior, 1868 or 1869.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Edgar_Degas_-_Interior_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In late 19th-century Australia, a husband could legally rape his wife. Officially, he was still allowed to do so, in some Australian jurisdictions, until as late as 1994. Legal traditions inherited from the British Empire included <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/coverture">coverture</a>, the notion that a wife lost her legal identity upon marriage – and thus her ability to consent to sex.</p>
<p>Yet over a century before <a href="https://www.auswhn.com.au/blog/marital-rape/#:%7E:text=Queensland%20was%20the%20last%20state,and%20every%20act%20of%20sex.">it was criminalised</a>, two key groups of women – colonial writers and suffrage agitators – began to criticise a husband’s legal right to rape his wife.</p>
<p>These criticisms took many different forms, ranging from self-published feminist journals to novels, short stories, serial fiction and poetry. <a href="https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/cambridge-ada-3145">Ada Cambridge</a>’s poem, A Wife’s Protest, was one such example, with lines such as:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I lay me down upon my bed,<br>
A prisoner on the rack,<br>
And suffer dumbly, as I must,<br>
Till the kind day comes back<br></p>
</blockquote>
<p>This poem was published in Cambridge’s 1887 poetry collection <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?printsec=frontcover&vid=ISBN0731700481&redir_esc=y">Unspoken Thoughts</a>. The title was a misnomer, for such thoughts weren’t unspoken. In fact, they formed part of a wider discussion about marital rape, consent, domestic violence and women’s bodily autonomy taking place in the pages of colonial women’s writings.</p>
<p>Feminist writers such as Cambridge, the wife of a clergyman in regional Victoria, <a href="https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/lawson-louisa-7121">Louisa Lawson</a>, an inventor, poet, and newspaper proprietor, and Queensland-born <a href="https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/praed-rosa-caroline-8095">Rosa Praed</a>, linked marital rape to other forms of domestic violence, such as physical violence, <a href="https://theconversation.com/revealed-the-hidden-problem-of-economic-abuse-in-australia-73764">economic abuse</a>, and what we would now term <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-its-so-hard-to-prosecute-cases-of-coercive-or-controlling-behaviour-66108">coercive control</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582708/original/file-20240319-24-l27c9e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A black and white photo of Ada Cambridge" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582708/original/file-20240319-24-l27c9e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582708/original/file-20240319-24-l27c9e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=793&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582708/original/file-20240319-24-l27c9e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=793&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582708/original/file-20240319-24-l27c9e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=793&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582708/original/file-20240319-24-l27c9e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=996&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582708/original/file-20240319-24-l27c9e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=996&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582708/original/file-20240319-24-l27c9e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=996&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ada Cambridge, date unknown.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_Cambridge#/media/File:Ada-Cambridge.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For Cambridge and Lawson, exploiting the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gothic_fiction">Gothic genre</a> in their writings allowed them to depict marital rape, while avoiding censorship from their publishers. Horror-inducing imagery and references to torture and torture devices (such as “the rack”) enabled them to paint marital rape in a graphic light, capitalising on public appetites for Gothic stories.</p>
<p>In Cambridge’s novel <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/Sisters.html?id=woP-tjLsGqcC&redir_esc=y">Sisters</a> (1904), for example, one of the four titular sisters, Mary Pennycuick, attempts to drown herself after receiving a marriage proposal, perceiving marriage itself as “a means to commit suicide without violating the law”.</p>
<p>She is “saved” by the village parson, who uses his chivalrous act as a bargaining tool to coerce Mary into marrying him instead. In an explicitly Gothic moment, “the white frock which she had tried to drown herself” in is “dried and ironed to make her bridal robe”. </p>
<p>On her wedding night, as she is led to the marital bedchamber by her husband, Mary shrinks “back from it with a shriek”, clinging to her sister-in-law: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>‘Save me! Save me!’ was what the desperate clutch meant, but what the paralysed tongue could not articulate. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>After the wedding, Mary is described as “a prisoner for life, bound hand and foot, more pitiable than she would have been as a dead body fished out of the dam”. With this sentence, Cambridge implies that, throughout the course of the marriage, Mary endures marital rape.</p>
<p>In Cambridge’s earlier serialised newspaper story <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/143017958?searchTerm=dinah">Dinah</a> (1880), the character of Dinah remarks after her husband’s death “now she will have a little peace”. The “wretchedness she had” with him had left her in bed many times, “prostrate […] with slow tears trickling down her cheeks”. </p>
<p>Widely-read serials, such as Dinah, made Cambridge a household name before she burst onto the international market in the 1890s. </p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-long-history-of-gender-violence-in-australia-and-why-it-matters-today-119927">The long history of gender violence in Australia, and why it matters today</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>For Lawson, who ran The Dawn, <a href="https://dangerouswomenproject.org/2017/03/06/louisa-lawson/">the longest running feminist journal in Australia</a>, marital rape was a constant focus of her writing. Her outspokenness – partly facilitated by her ability to self-publish her journal – made her an outlier among her suffragist sisters.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582709/original/file-20240319-20-luz8ly.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582709/original/file-20240319-20-luz8ly.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582709/original/file-20240319-20-luz8ly.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582709/original/file-20240319-20-luz8ly.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582709/original/file-20240319-20-luz8ly.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582709/original/file-20240319-20-luz8ly.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=753&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582709/original/file-20240319-20-luz8ly.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=753&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582709/original/file-20240319-20-luz8ly.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=753&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Portrait of Louisa Lawson, ca. 1885, gelatin silver print, State Library of New South Wales.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisa_Lawson#/media/File:Louisa_Lawson_V1-FL3303627.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In a July 1890 article titled <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/76420124?searchTerm=the%20legal%20link">The Legal Link</a>, Lawson criticised the laws permitting husbands to commit “abominations known to women but which must not here be named”. </p>
<p>Her frankest description of marital rape appeared in one of her <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/page/7541911">editorials earlier that year</a>, in which she advocated for divorce law reform, drawing on the experiences of the “sad-eyed women who used to come in and tell tales of violent husbands and dreary homes”. In the article, she described how a husband could approach “his lawful wife’s chamber” and “proceed to make the night hideous for her”. Marital rape was a “horrid ordeal” that wives were “expected to endure nightly”.</p>
<p>Lawson represented marital rape as wives’ inescapable “fate” under marriage laws that denied them bodily autonomy. She never used the word “rape” to describe this act. But her use of Gothic tropes, describing the marital bedroom as a “chamber of horrors”, made her meaning unmistakable.</p>
<p>It is difficult to quantify how widespread martial rape was at this time – there is minimal historical research on the subject – but the fact that these women wrote about it widely suggests it was commonplace.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/australian-gothic-from-hanging-rock-to-nick-cave-and-kylie-this-genre-explores-our-dark-side-111742">Australian Gothic: from Hanging Rock to Nick Cave and Kylie, this genre explores our dark side</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Censoring criticisms</h2>
<p>Rosa Praed, who became something of a literary celebrity when she moved to London, wrote in the romance and domestic realist genres, and was known for her depictions of the brutalities of marriage.</p>
<p>In her stories <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/An_Australian_Heroine.html?id=5XfPAAAAMAAJ&redir_esc=y">An Australian Heroine</a> (1880), which some have described as semi-autobiographical, and <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/December_Roses.html?id=9aE4AQAAMAAJ&redir_esc=y">December Roses</a> (1892), Praed framed marital rape in moral terms. She differentiated between physical violence and “immoral” violence – the latter being coded language used to convey the idea of sexual violence while escaping her publishers’ censorship. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582720/original/file-20240319-30-xv7v5j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582720/original/file-20240319-30-xv7v5j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582720/original/file-20240319-30-xv7v5j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=792&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582720/original/file-20240319-30-xv7v5j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=792&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582720/original/file-20240319-30-xv7v5j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=792&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582720/original/file-20240319-30-xv7v5j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=996&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582720/original/file-20240319-30-xv7v5j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=996&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582720/original/file-20240319-30-xv7v5j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=996&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Rosa Praed.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosa_Campbell_Praed">Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In An Australian Heroine, the antagonist George Brand justifies his sexual abuse of his wife Esther by telling her: “you are mine now, remember, and I may do what I like with you”. </p>
<p>Esther subsequently understands her marriage as “nothing but a degrading prostitution from which she could not escape”, which has “upon her the effect of a slow moral suicide”.</p>
<p>Unlike Cambridge or Lawson, Praed’s depictions of marital rape attracted criticism and censorship. Her 1881 novel <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/Policy_and_Passion.html?id=1a50PwAACAAJ&redir_esc=y">Policy and Passion</a> originally featured a chapter in which a fiancé attempts to rape his soon-to-be wife. Although Praed wanted to call “a spade a spade” and depict this sexual coercion and violence, her publishers declared it “too realistic” and “repugnant”. She was <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08164649.2024.2318750?src=exp-la">told</a> to “tone down” and avoid “the suggestion of any undignified scuffle or of any actual brutality”.</p>
<p>Not only did her publishers object to any discussion of marital rape, they particularly objected to these discussions coming from a female author. They told her: “One has to remember that it has your name on the title page, and that you cannot so well say what [a] Mr Praed may”. </p>
<p>In the end, the chapter was cut entirely, and replaced with a short scene where the fiancé merely attempts to kiss his wife-to-be, which she manages to avoid. </p>
<h2>Citizenship versus consent</h2>
<p>Other women discussing marital rape – namely suffrage agitators such as <a href="https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/scott-rose-8370">Rose Scott</a> and <a href="https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/anderson-maybanke-susannah-5018">Maybanke Anderson</a> – thought about the problem in a completely different way. </p>
<p>To achieve their goals of suffrage and political citizenship for women, they evoked women’s rights as mothers rather than as individuals. For these women, a wife’s ability to choose whether or not she had children and the consequences of her lack of choice for the children themselves were the problem, not the lack of consent. </p>
<p>Cambridge’s poem An Answer, for instance, featured a wife railing against “the yoke of servitude” and complaining about surrendering “soul and flesh that should be mine, and free” to her husband. But in Scott’s annotated copy of the book containing An Answer, she wrote in the margin: “this poem is the one [I am] sorry is in this book”.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582721/original/file-20240319-24-f82h1v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582721/original/file-20240319-24-f82h1v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582721/original/file-20240319-24-f82h1v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=766&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582721/original/file-20240319-24-f82h1v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=766&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582721/original/file-20240319-24-f82h1v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=766&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582721/original/file-20240319-24-f82h1v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=963&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582721/original/file-20240319-24-f82h1v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=963&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582721/original/file-20240319-24-f82h1v.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=963&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Maybanke Anderson circa 1893.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maybanke_Anderson#/media/File:Maybanke_Anderson_c.1893.png">Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Sydney-based Anderson, a foundational member and later president of the Womanhood Suffrage League, established her own feminist journal Woman’s Voice in opposition to The Dawn. She framed her criticism of marital rape around its effects on wives’ and children’s health, calling for women to realise “the dangers that beset them”.</p>
<p>Some of the discussion of marital rape in Woman’s Voice was concerned with wives’ bodily autonomy (or lack thereof). One article criticised the “laws [which] do not recognise the right of the wife to her own body”. The focus always returned to what Anderson described as “the mother’s right to choose”.</p>
<p>These concerns around marital rape and the “animal nature” of husbands, framed around concerns for both mother and child, were graphic. As Anderson wrote in one editorial:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It is by no means the exception, but rather the rule, that during pregnancy the wife must yield to the demand of the husband’s lust, not occasionally but constantly – as often as there are nights in the month; and not unfrequently must she give herself up to this awful harlotry before her baby is two weeks old.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In their desire to fulfil the role of wife, women’s “ruin [was] practically compulsory”. </p>
<h2>Domestic violence</h2>
<p>For suffrage agitators, not only was marital rape an entirely separate issue to that of domestic violence, but domestic violence was not deemed worthy of their focus. In a letter to the editor published in Woman’s Voice in 1895, Mary Sanger Evans, a prominent member of the Womanhood Suffrage League in Sydney, went so far as to declare: “The reign of brute force is rapidly on the wane”.</p>
<p>Both Evans and Anderson had benefited from the recently amended NSW divorce act, which enabled them to divorce their husbands on the grounds of physical violence/cruelty and economic violence/desertion respectively.</p>
<p>For Cambridge, Lawson and Praed, however, marital rape could not be disentangled from other forms of domestic violence. The husband who turns the marital bedroom into a “chamber of horrors” in Lawson’s editorial, also bruises his wife’s flesh “and perhaps breaks her bones”. </p>
<p>In Cambridge’s Dinah, the husband subjects his wife to a regime of humiliation, economic control and psychological abuse, while in another of her serialised stories, Against the Rules, marital rape is paired with physical abuse. Cambridge depicts marital rape as the worst form of a broader system of domestic violence that ensnared colonial women. “There were worse things than blows”, the wife declares in this story.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582710/original/file-20240319-30-l27c9e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582710/original/file-20240319-30-l27c9e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/582710/original/file-20240319-30-l27c9e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=938&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582710/original/file-20240319-30-l27c9e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=938&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582710/original/file-20240319-30-l27c9e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=938&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582710/original/file-20240319-30-l27c9e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1179&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582710/original/file-20240319-30-l27c9e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1179&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/582710/original/file-20240319-30-l27c9e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1179&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Cambridge and Praed continued to address marital rape in their fiction up until the start of the first world war, when both women began to wind up their literary careers. Throughout the mid-20th century, other female writers would tackle the topic, including Eleanor Dark, in her novel <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=mvlMAAAAIAAJ&source=gbs_book_other_versions">Waterway</a> (1938), Katherine Susannah Prichard in <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/The_Roaring_Nineties.html?id=rzE3AAAAIAAJ&redir_esc=y">The Roaring Nineties</a> (1946) and Ruth Park in <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/The_Witch_s_Thorn.html?id=ZxF3OwAACAAJ&redir_esc=y">The Witch’s Thorn</a> (1951). </p>
<p>Yet despite this continued literary attention, social, cultural and legal attitudes towards marital rape were <a href="https://www.auswhn.com.au/blog/marital-rape/">inconsistent</a> for many decades.</p>
<p>Not that Cambridge, Lawson and Praed were preaching to an empty choir. From the 1890s, in the wake of these women’s writings, some women used their divorce petitions to assert their right to consent. They described their husbands’ sexual cruelty as rape – “against their will” and “against their consent” – revealing a burgeoning feminist consciousness among wives.</p>
<p>In making this sexual violence public, such women laid the foundation for those who would finally be freed nearly a century later, when, in the 1970s, South Australia began to lead the charge in criminalising marital rape.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/224261/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Zoe Smith receives funding from an Australian Government Research Training Program (RTP) Domestic Scholarship.</span></em></p>
At a time when women had limited rights, writers found ways to raise the issues of coercion and control.
Zoe Smith, PhD Candidate, School of History, Australian National University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/225418
2024-03-14T19:58:07Z
2024-03-14T19:58:07Z
In France, abortion rights and hijab bans highlight a double standard on women’s rights
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581779/original/file-20240313-26-4feh20.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=56%2C153%2C5348%2C3443&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Even though laws on religious symbols are worded neutrally, in practice, they are mostly applied to Muslim women’s attire.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The French parliament recently voted in favour of enshrining the <a href="https://www.lemonde.fr/en/politics/article/2024/03/04/france-enshrines-freedom-to-abortion-in-constitution-in-world-first_6584252_5.html">right to abortion into the country’s constitution</a>. While crowds celebrated outside, the slogan “my body my choice” was projected onto the Eiffel Tower <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/mar/06/france-abortion-rights-emmanuel-macron">in giant letters</a>.</p>
<p>Although concerns about <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/03/05/france-protects-abortion-guaranteed-freedom-constitution">barriers and access</a> still remain, women in France are now guaranteed the right to an abortion up to 14 weeks into their pregnancy, mirroring Spain but still <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/03/01/france-expands-abortion-access-two-key-moves">well behind</a> Sweden’s 18 weeks and the 24 weeks allowed in The Netherlands.</p>
<p>The decision comes at a time when women’s reproductive rights elsewhere are under threat. In contrast to the United States Supreme Court’s decision <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/24/us/roe-wade-overturned-supreme-court.html">overturning abortion rights</a>, France’s vote to enshrine them into its constitution looks like a feminist dream. </p>
<p>In his triumphant speech, French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal said: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/04/world/europe/france-abortion-rights-constitution.html">“We are sending the message to all women: Your body belongs to you and no one has the right to control it in your stead.”</a> </p>
<p>Yet just last year, Attal, as education minister, banned Muslim girls from wearing <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/french-education-minister-announces-ban-on-islamic-dress-in-schools/">abayas in schools</a>. His message — and France’s — to Muslim girls and women seems to be the opposite.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1764749533605454222"}"></div></p>
<h2>Hijab bans</h2>
<p>France’s double standard on women’s rights is most plainly seen in its treatment of Muslim women and girls. A week after its historic abortion vote, France marks 20 years since the adoption of the <a href="https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/jorf/id/JORFTEXT000000417977">March 2004 law</a> that bans students in public schools from wearing conspicuous symbols or clothing that manifest a religious affiliation.</p>
<p>In principle, the 2004 law applies to all students and prohibits them from wearing religious symbols like crosses, kippas (yarmulkes) and hijabs. But in practice, it is a sexist and racist law that <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/eur21/7280/2023/en/">disproportionately targets Muslim girls</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://yorkspace.library.yorku.ca/items/a9fd3c25-946c-4486-8dd5-5d9d13da4a34">My doctoral research</a> showed how Muslim girls are racially and religiously profiled by school administrators and have been suspended or expelled for wearing hoodies, hats, <a href="https://www.liberation.fr/societe/2013/04/04/la-jupe-et-le-bandeau-lettre-a-sirine_893735/">headbands</a> and <a href="https://www.cairn.info/islamophobie-comment-les-elites-francaises--9782707189462.htm">even long skirts</a>. Last year, they were also <a href="https://www.education.gouv.fr/bo/2023/Hebdo32/MENG2323654N">banned from wearing abayas</a>, which are long garments that are worn over clothing.</p>
<p>In my research, I refer to these bans as “anti-veiling laws” because, although they speak of religious symbols in general, the primary motivation behind these is always Muslim women’s dress. </p>
<p>France’s law led other jurisdictions across Europe and North America to ban Muslim women’s attire in various contexts. <a href="https://www.justiceinitiative.org/uploads/0b300685-1b89-46e2-bcf6-7ae5a77cb62c/policy-brief-restrictions-on-muslim-women%27s-dress-03252022.pdf">A 2022 report</a> from the Open Society Justice Initiative found that out of the 27 European Union member countries, only five have never enacted, or attempted to enact, bans on veiling. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, Québec holds the distinction of being the only province in Canada to implement a <a href="https://www.legisquebec.gouv.qc.ca/en/document/cs/l-0.3">ban on religious symbols</a>.</p>
<p>Former Québec Premier Pauline Marois cited the French law as being an <a href="https://www.ledevoir.com/politique/quebec/395252/pauline-marois-et-jean-marc-ayrault-sont-sur-la-meme-longueur-d-onde?">“inspiration”</a> for her government’s failed <a href="https://www.assnat.qc.ca/en/travaux-parlementaires/projets-loi/projet-loi-60-40-1.html?appelant=MC">Bill 60</a>, known as the Charter of Québec Values. That bill was a precursor to <a href="https://ccla.org/major-cases-and-reports/bill-21/">Québec’s Bill 21</a>, which bans teachers, judges, prosecutors, police officers and other officials in positions of authority from wearing religious symbols.</p>
<h2>Discrimination against Muslim women</h2>
<p>Even though the laws are worded neutrally, claiming to defend abstract principles like secularism, religious neutrality, gender equality or “<a href="https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/fre#%7B%22itemid%22:%5B%22001-145466%22%5D%7D">living together</a>,” in practice they are <a href="https://www.e-elgar.com/shop/gbp/behind-the-veil-9781788970846.html">mostly applied to Muslim women’s attire</a>.</p>
<p>Human rights groups like <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/eur21/7280/2023/en/">Amnesty International</a> and the <a href="https://ccieurope.org/report2023/">Collective Against Islamophobia in Europe</a> have demonstrated that the surveillance, suspension and expulsion of Muslim girls at school have led to a decrease in their <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055420000106">educational and employment outcomes</a>. </p>
<p>In addition to <a href="https://ccieurope.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/report-ccie-2023.pdf">increasing discrimination</a> against them, these bans also violate their right to education without discrimination, a right that is upheld in several international treaties, including the United Nations <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/convention-rights-child">Convention on the Rights of the Child</a>.</p>
<p>However, the most insidious aspect of France’s 2004 law is how it has been used to justify even further restrictions on the rights of Muslim women and girls, such as women wearing <a href="https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/jorf/id/JORFTEXT000022911670">face veils or niqabs</a>, mothers wishing to accompany their children on <a href="https://www.education.gouv.fr/circulaire-preparation-rentree-2012?cid_bo=59726">school outings</a> and <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20230629-top-court-rules-in-favour-of-hijab-ban-in-french-women-s-football">women athletes</a> who <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/03/france-ensure-muslim-women-and-girls-can-play-sports/">wear hijab</a>. </p>
<p>In fact, Muslim women are routinely told to take off their clothes or to wear less clothing, even in places or contexts where they legally have the right to wear whatever they want, including at <a href="https://doi.org/10.13169/islastudj.4.1.0101">public beaches</a> and <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61883529">swimming pools</a>.</p>
<h2>Body sovereignty</h2>
<p>This brings us back to the issue of a woman’s right to make decisions about her own body. Access to abortion is an important right for women everywhere, but women’s rights extend beyond abortion.</p>
<p>The concept of body sovereignty was developed by Indigenous feminists and activists, and refers to a person’s autonomy over their own body as well as to their <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10130950.2017.1366179">relationship to land</a>, <a href="https://www.adiosbarbie.com/2016/01/a-critical-conversation-with-sheena-roetman-on-body-sovereignty-and-justice/">belief systems</a> and ways of being that are <a href="https://www.journal.mai.ac.nz/system/files/MAI_Jrnl_2020_V9_2_Gillon_FINAL.pdf">intersectional</a>, <a href="https://ro.uow.edu.au/jgi/vol1/iss1/4">sexually diverse</a>, non-Eurocentric, non-ableist and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1440783319893506">non-fatist</a>. It includes everything from diet, clothing, sexual activity and beauty ideals to reproductive health and freedom from violence.</p>
<p>Anti-veiling laws discriminate against Muslim women and girls, <a href="https://doi.org/10.3138/cjwl.32.1.05">encourage violence against them</a> and undermine the principle of body sovereignty.</p>
<p>Feminists and pro-choice activists everywhere should pause and think about what it means for governments to guarantee abortion rights to women while denying them the more expansive concept of body sovereignty. If feminists and their allies are outraged when theocratic regimes impose religious dress on women, they should be similarly outraged when democratic governments also restrict what women can wear: these are two sides of the same coin. </p>
<p>Both undermine women’s freedom, body sovereignty and self-determination. It is time for feminists everywhere to demand an end to laws that force women to dress one way or another, regardless of where in the world they are enacted.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/225418/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Roshan Arah Jahangeer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
As France enshrines abortion rights in its constitution, the country’s ban on wearing religious symbols in schools turns 20 years old.
Roshan Arah Jahangeer, Postdoctoral Researcher, Memorial University of Newfoundland
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/222752
2024-03-13T19:14:48Z
2024-03-13T19:14:48Z
Sex, zips and feminism: Erica Jong’s Fear of Flying has a joyful abandon rarely found in today’s sad girl novels
<p><em>In our feminist classics series, we look at influential books.</em></p>
<p><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9654.Fear_of_Flying">Fear of Flying</a>, Erica Jong’s 1973 blockbuster novel, begins with an ingenious opening line. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>There were 117 psychoanalysts on the Pan Am flight to Vienna and I’d been treated by at least six of them. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>In those 21 words Jong introduces her book’s droll, wisecracking tone, suggesting a journey that will transport her narrator’s mind <em>and</em> body. The reference to a post-war Vienna foreshadows the book’s more serious themes. But another three words Jong coined, “the zipless fuck”, are most often credited for Fear of Flying’s <a href="https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/fear-of-flying-erica-jong-50-essay-elaine-showalter/">reported 35 million plus sales</a> (and more on this later).</p>
<p>We soon learn the novel’s heroine, Isadora Wing, is accompanying Bennett, her Chinese-American psychiatrist husband, to an international congress in honour of Freud. A couple of years earlier, the newly married couple had lived on a US army base in Heidelberg, and Isadora is alert to the antisemitism still thriving in Europe. She imagines the reception awaiting them in Vienna, from the people “who invented schmaltz (and crematoria)”:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Welcome back! Welcome Back! At least those of you who survived Auschwitz, Belsen, the London Blitz, and the co-optation of America.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Isadora (as Jong was in the early 1970s) is a 29-year-old writer from an artistic New York Jewish family who has recently published a book of erotic poetry. She is also terrified of flying (understandable in the 1970s, an era when plane crashes and hijackings were not uncommon):</p>
<blockquote>
<p>My fingers (and toes) turn to ice, my stomach leaps upwards into my ribcage, the temperature in the tip of my nose drops to the same level as the temperature of my fingers, my nipples stand up and salute the inside of my bra (or in this case, dress – since I’m not wearing a bra).</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Isadora’s fear of flight seems to contradict her surname: marriage, she says, has given her a safe nest, the quietude she needs to create. But she can’t stop thinking about using her wings, about other lives she could lead. It’s no coincidence this story begins on a plane, a space suggesting new possibilities, charged with erotic potential as well as the distant prospect of being extinguished.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/andrea-dworkins-intercourse-the-raw-radical-critique-of-male-power-resonating-with-gen-z-feminists-today-214377">Andrea Dworkin's Intercourse: the raw, radical critique of male power resonating with Gen Z feminists today</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Id versus ego</h2>
<p>In Vienna, where Isadora is writing about the conference for Voyeur magazine, she meets analyst Adrian Goodlove. A paunchy Englishman with dirty toenails, shaggy blond hair and a pipe “hanging out of his face”, he looks at her “the way a man smiles when he’s lying on top of you after a particularly good lay”. And he delivers the first of what will be many backhanded compliments: “If you’d stop being paranoid for a minute and use charm instead of main force, I’m sure nobody could resist you”.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581229/original/file-20240312-26-3mx1s3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Cover of Fear of Flying" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581229/original/file-20240312-26-3mx1s3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581229/original/file-20240312-26-3mx1s3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581229/original/file-20240312-26-3mx1s3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581229/original/file-20240312-26-3mx1s3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581229/original/file-20240312-26-3mx1s3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1133&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581229/original/file-20240312-26-3mx1s3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1133&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581229/original/file-20240312-26-3mx1s3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1133&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Goodreads</span></span>
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<p>Between his flattery and his accusations that she is leading a dishonest life, Goodlove presses all Isadora’s buttons. That night he grabs her “plump ass” while they talk about new trends in psychotherapy. “In general,” she declares, “I seem to like men who can make that quick transition from spirit to matter.”</p>
<p>Our narrator’s dilemma is how to resolve the contradictions of a pleasure-seeking id that wants to live without planning or expectations, and a rational ego that tells her the more paternal and nurturing Bennett, the man who helped her overcome writer’s block, is her safest bet. (Even his name – if you delete a “t” – suggests a happy-ever-after <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Bennet-family">Jane Austen novel</a>.)</p>
<p>Fear of Flying was released soon after the US Supreme Court handed down its decision in <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Roe-v-Wade">Roe vs Wade</a> legalising abortion. Jong was writing as second wave feminism was in the ascendancy and her novel often reads like a feminist manifesto: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Damned clever, I thought, how men had made life so intolerable for single women that most would gladly embrace even bad marriages instead.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>After a less than satisfying first sexual encounter with Goodlove, Isadora muses on the asymmetry of sexual relations in a world where men may turn limp, but women are considered eternally ready: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>No wonder men hated women. No wonder men invented the myth of female sexual inadequacy.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But the twice-married Isadora is also a pragmatic realist. She believes in matrimony because: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>It was necessary to have one best friend in a hostile world, one person you’d be loyal to no matter what, one person who’d always be loyal to you.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Still, what is she to do with the restlessness that can maroon long-term relationships? With the, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>thump in the c..t, the longing to be filled up […] the yearning for dry champagne and wet kisses, for the smell of peonies in a penthouse on a June night […] </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Jong was aligned with the second wave’s pro-sex feminism. Germaine Greer, for instance, had argued in The Female Eunuch that women’s liberation should begin with their sexual liberation.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-the-female-eunuch-at-50-germaine-greers-fearless-feminist-masterpiece-147437">Friday essay: The Female Eunuch at 50, Germaine Greer's fearless, feminist masterpiece</a>
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</p>
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<p>But sexual ecstasy isn’t really all Isadora wants either. It’s her <em>imagination</em> that excites her. At a conference talk, she and Goodlove stare at each other: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>He sucks on his pipe as if he were sucking on me […] He drags on his pipe. I drag on his phantom prick […] Little heat waves seem to connect our pelvises as if in some pornographic comic.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Her taste in men might be “questionable” Isadora admits (she loves Goodlove’s sweat and tobacco smells and doesn’t even mind his “exuberant public farting”) but “who can debate taste anyway?”, she rightly points out.</p>
<h2>A liberal time</h2>
<p>When Fear of Flying was released in Australia, censorship laws were relaxing, Dolly Doctor had begun giving teen girls advice about sexual health, actor Jack Thompson had <a href="https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-1364234744/view?sectionId=nla.obj-1631636761&partId=nla.obj-1364359741#page/n57/mode/1up">stripped for a Cleo magazine centrefold</a> and the full frontal nudity of Tim Burstall’s 1973 film <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvin_Purple">Alvin Purple</a> was filling cinemas. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581234/original/file-20240312-24-htczlm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Cover of The Joy of Sex" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581234/original/file-20240312-24-htczlm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581234/original/file-20240312-24-htczlm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=974&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581234/original/file-20240312-24-htczlm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=974&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581234/original/file-20240312-24-htczlm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=974&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581234/original/file-20240312-24-htczlm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1224&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581234/original/file-20240312-24-htczlm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1224&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581234/original/file-20240312-24-htczlm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1224&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Goodreads</span></span>
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<p>As historian Michelle Arrow <a href="https://www.newsouthbooks.com.au/books/seventies/">has written</a>, in the 1970s the personal was becoming political, and Australians’ attitudes to sex and sexuality were rapidly liberalising. Many children of the 1970s will, like me, remember Alex Comfort’s The Joy of Sex on their family’s bookshelves alongside copies of National Geographic. Fear of Flying was a part of this new landscape.</p>
<p>Jong’s story can also be read in the context of a world emerging from the senselessness of the two world wars, with the US digging into another war in Vietnam. In Heidelberg, Isadora had written columns about dishonesty of German guidebooks which tied a “fig leaf” over their recent history of fascism and gas chambers. Now her target is middle-class sexual morality. When Goodlove gives her a lift to her hotel, she thinks:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>How hypocritical to go upstairs with a man you don’t want to fuck, leave the one you do sitting there alone, and then, in a state of great excitement, fuck the one you don’t want to fuck while pretending he’s the one you do. That’s called fidelity. That’s called monogamy. That’s called civilisation and its discontents.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>When the conference ends, Isadora leaves with Goodlove to criss-cross Europe while making love, a quest that seems to give a symbolic middle finger to all the forces that made war on that continent. And she embraces the intellectual movements trying to find meaning in humanity’s absurdity.</p>
<p>She introduces the two of them to clueless travellers as “Simone de Beauvoir and Jean Paul Sartre”. Camping by roadsides at night, they discuss how: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>We’d learn to do away with silly things like jealousy. We’d fuck each other and all our friends. We’d live without worrying about possessions or possessiveness. Eventually someday, we’d establish a commune for schizophrenics, poets, and radical shrinks.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The novel slips between musings about history and philosophy and flashbacks to Isadora’s childhood and earlier relationships, to fragments of poetry and humorous lists. The writing is sometimes beautifully evocative. A woman looking out a train window is “staring at each olive tree as if she were God and had just made them and were wondering what to call them”.</p>
<p>Isadora’s road trip has a propulsive energy (she’s as much Jack Kerouac as de Beauvoir) but contemporary readers may find Jong’s writing at times unforgivably shocking in all the wrong ways. While Isadora is alive to antisemitism, a chapter covering an interlude in Beirut with her brother-in-law’s family is titled “Arabs and other animals,” (“If I were writing today, I would never say [that]” <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2008/04/14/still-flying">Jong acknowledged in 2008</a>.) In another chapter, she describes Indian writers “punjabbering away” at a writers’ festival.</p>
<p>When Isadora poses questions (“Was loneliness universal?”) I was reminded of the framing device used in <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0159206/">Sex and The City</a>, where Carrie Bradshaw, another magazine writer, sits at a keyboard while her voice-over begins a column. (Isadora’s sexual adventurousness also suggests a Samantha, from the same TV show – or a Jessa or Hannah from Lena Dunham’s <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1723816/">Girls</a>). We can also see shades of Jong’s mixing of political ponderings with descriptions of (often unsatisfying) sex in Irish author Sally Rooney’s contemporary novels.</p>
<p>But there is a joyful abandon in Jong’s story that sets it apart from today’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/jun/03/sad-girl-novel-author-pip-finkemeyer-on-critiquing-sad-girl-novels-it-has-to-have-a-heart">sad girl novels</a>. Jong was writing at a time when radical change seemed imminent. Today’s stories are written when worldwide systems collapse appears all but certain, when technological ennui and a pandemic can reduce foreplay to the characters in a novel waiting for <a href="https://www.allenandunwin.com/browse/book/Madeleine-Gray-Green-Dot-9781761068614/">green dots</a> to appear on their messaging app.</p>
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<p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ive-had-enough-of-sad-bad-girl-novels-and-sensationalised-trauma-but-im-hungry-for-complex-stories-about-women-213901">I've had enough of Sad Bad Girl novels and sensationalised trauma – but I'm hungry for complex stories about women</a>
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<h2>Male critics</h2>
<p>One of the pleasures (for this reader, at least) of Fear of Flying is Jong’s constant shifts in register, with Isadora reflecting on existentialism and fascism and history and Shakespeare one minute then turning her attention to the sometimes squalid and often sexy stuff of life the next. Jong is funny in a quippy, sometimes punny way. (“Phallocentric, someone once said of Freud. He thought the sun revolved around the penis. And the daughter, too.”).</p>
<p>Some of the book’s earliest reviewers were, however, brutal. Jong’s “narration denigrates all women by casting them in her mold; people who don’t know what they want,” wrote <a href="https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/97/07/20/reviews/jong-flying.html">Terry Stokes in the New York Times</a>. “The male figures are portrayed as either lifeless or fall guys for Isadora’s proclamations,” he added, concluding that the book’s “whining” spoils “this otherwise energetic, bawdy, well-conceived first novel.”</p>
<p>In The Observer, Martin Amis argued Jong had merely written a memoir: “the girls [Erica/Isadora] seem to be more or less interchangeable. They are both thirtyish, both blonde and blue-eyed, and both married to Asian psychiatrists.” He ridicules her “beefs about women’s lib, creative commitment, dieting, orgasms”, adding: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I neither know nor care whether all the horrible and embarrassing things in this book have actually happened to Miss Jong.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In 1977, an Australian novel about another 30ish woman writer that was equally shocking in its explicit language and descriptions of a woman’s desires left male reviewers similarly non-plussed. Helen Garner eventually responded to the critics of Monkey Grip <a href="https://meanjin.com.au/essays/i/">in an essay</a> that could equally serve as a riposte to Amis’ criticisms of Jong.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Why the sneer in ‘All she’s done is publish her diaries’? It’s as if this were cheating […] As if there were no work involved in keeping a diary in the first place: no thinking, no discipline, no creative energy, no focusing or directing of creative energy; no intelligent or artful ordering of material; no choosing of material, for God’s sake; no shaping of narrative; no ear for the music of human speech; no portrayal of the physical world; no free movement back and forth in time; no leaping between inner and outer; no examination of motive; no imaginative use of language. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Jong seems to preempt male reviewers’ criticisms of her book when she has her character, Isadora, ponder why she’d abandoned two earlier novels. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I just assumed nobody would be interested in a woman’s point of view. Besides, I didn’t want to risk being called all the things women writers (even good women writers) are called: ‘clever, witty, bright, touching, but lacks scope’.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Interestingly though, <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1973/12/17/jong-love">another male writer, John Updike,</a> helped Jong’s rise up the bestseller list. Even so, his compliments can read as backhanded as Goodlove’s: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>It has class and sass, brightness and bite. Containing all the cracked eggs of the feminist litany, her soufflé rises with a poet’s afflatus. She sprinkles on the four-letter words as if women had invented them; her cheerful sexual frankness brings a new flavor to female prose.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Updike favourably links Jong with great male writers J.D. Salinger and Philip Roth, while carefully distinguishing her from the more disagreeable women’s liberationists: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Fear of Flying not only stands as a notably luxuriant and glowing bloom in the sometimes thistly garden of ‘raised’ feminine consciousness but belongs to, and hilariously extends, the tradition of Catcher in the Rye and Portnoy’s Complaint.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Pull quotes from Updike’s review featured on the novel’s second edition (the one I have been reading), along with a new cover: a luscious 70s serif typeface in black and orange on a yellow background that blatantly copies the 1969 cover of Roth’s Portnoy’s Complaint. </p>
<p>But Jong never received the same literary establishment acceptance as Roth, whose novels also feature characters with strong parallels to the author’s own life. In a 2011 <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/an-open-letter-from-erica_b_50907">open letter</a> to the author Jane Smiley, Jong warns of the fleeting successes often afforded to women writers:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The male literary establishment allows us in on sufferance […] Most women writers have been remembered for their love affairs, not their words.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Jong has not always been unconditionally accepted in the feminist canon either. When Fear of Flying was left out of the 1980 book <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/85833442-decade-of-women?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=Sq9aIwkR4d&rank=3">The Decade of Women: A Ms. History of the Seventies in Words and Pictures</a>, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/09/books/review/erica-jong-fear-of-flying.html">the wounded author complained in a letter</a> to Gloria Steinem and the book’s co-editors, arguing her novel was “probably the most widely read feminist book of the decade”.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-are-the-four-waves-of-feminism-and-what-comes-next-224153">What are the four waves of feminism? And what comes next?</a>
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<h2>That zip</h2>
<p>Perhaps it was Jong’s best-known verbal invention, “the zipless fuck”, that’s responsible for her troubled position within the women’s movement: the concept was perhaps just too fluffy, too <em>frivolous</em> for such a serious movement. </p>
<p>The zipless fuck was, Isadora acknowledges, simply an “ideal”: when two people came together and “zippers fell away like rose petals, underwear blew off in one breath like dandelion fluff”. </p>
<p>In a zipless fuck, according to Isadora, the participants can’t know anything about each other. No names and barely any faces are involved. It certainly can’t be planned (assignations on Tinder or Grindr would not qualify).</p>
<p>The zipless fuck, she says,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>has all the swift compression of a dream and is seemingly free of all remorse and guilt; because there is no talk of her late husband or of his fiancée; because there is no rationalizing; because there is no talk at all […] The zipless fuck is the purest thing there is. And it is rarer than the unicorn.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In Fear of Flying, the existentialist Goodlove abruptly ends their affair when he tells her he had planned to return to his wife and children all along. Isadora retreats to London, where she talks her way into the hotel where Bennett is staying. Alone in a bath, she looks at her sunburned limbs and decides she has a “nice body”.</p>
<p>The scene could be read as a capitulation to heterosexual marriage, but by the novel’s end it’s not clear if she will stay. What she <em>has</em> found is some love and desire, for herself. Perhaps even a story. And she is no longer afraid.</p>
<h2>Sex as liberation</h2>
<p>Issues of consent and sexual assault have rightly been a headline focus of recent feminism. Jong writes about two incidents of sexual assault in Fear of Flying. But while they are turning points for Isadora, they are not defining experiences. </p>
<p>The novel is a useful reminder of the way feminism has <em>also</em> always been interested in the liberatory powers of sex. And it reminds us that our desires can be multiple and contradictory, destructive <em>and</em> productive. They are always in flux and, in an important sense, ultimately unknowable to ourselves. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581238/original/file-20240312-22-zyxnpt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Cover of the book's 50th anniversary edition." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581238/original/file-20240312-22-zyxnpt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581238/original/file-20240312-22-zyxnpt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=903&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581238/original/file-20240312-22-zyxnpt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=903&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581238/original/file-20240312-22-zyxnpt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=903&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581238/original/file-20240312-22-zyxnpt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1135&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581238/original/file-20240312-22-zyxnpt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1135&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581238/original/file-20240312-22-zyxnpt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1135&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Goodreads</span></span>
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<p>In a <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/287542/fear-of-flying-by-erica-jong-with-a-new-foreword-by-molly-jong-fast-and-a-new-introduction-by-taffy-brodesser-akner/">forward to Penguin’s 50th anniversary edition</a> of Fear of Flying, Jong’s daughter, Molly Jong-Fast, recalls that for decades women would come up to her mother, “look earnestly into her eyes, and tell her how the book had changed their lives”. </p>
<p>Jong went on to write eight more novels, poetry collections, non-fiction works (including the 2012 A Letter to the President, about the still unfinished work of feminism) as well as memoirs and children’s books. But none, including the recent Fear of Dying, the story of sixty-something Vanessa, Isadora’s sexually voracious now good friend, would have the cultural impact of Fear of Flying.</p>
<p>Jong’s commercial success was, in part, responsible for the arms-length distance the academy long gave her. When Columbia University held a 2008 conference on Jong’s work after acquiring her literary papers, Jong was interviewed by English professor Jenny Davidson. Fear of Flying brought Jong fame and celebrity, but as Jong <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2008/04/14/still-flying">told the Columbia audience</a> the book was both a gift <em>and</em> a “curse.” Jong said she had always wanted to be a poet and professor of literature.</p>
<p>In 2022, Swiss director Kaspar Kasic’s documentary about Jong, Breaking the Wall, was released. Its mix of <a href="https://cineuropa.org/en/interview/429000">archival and contemporary footage</a> testifies to the enduring power of Jong’s story across decades, across languages and culture. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/9fJ8Qdi16hg?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Also in 2022 Jong’s daughter, Molly Jong-Fast, wrote <a href="https://newsletters.theatlantic.com/wait-what/email/539529cd-5645-4e17-b43d-84e768992278/">a piece for The Atlantic</a> as <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-supreme-court-overturns-abortion-rights-landmark-2022-06-24/#:%7E:text=in%20the%20ruling.-,Roe%20v.,Parenthood%20of%20Southeastern%20Pennsylvania%20v.">a new conservative court was about to overturn</a> the right to an abortion enshrined by Roe v Wade. Jong-Fast reflected on how she had grown up with “an automatic assumption of reproductive rights” that her mother “did not have”. </p>
<p>In the pre-Roe years of the early 1970s, Isadora is sexually daring but still terrified of pregnancy. She’s preoccupied waiting for her period to come and sourcing the diaphragms only easily available to married women.</p>
<p>Perhaps this is why, reflecting on the book’s fiftieth anniversary last year, and as women’s rights to bodily autonomy are being rolled back in the US, feminist critic <a href="https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/fear-of-flying-erica-jong-50-essay-elaine-showalter/">Elaine Showalter concluded</a> that Fear of Flying “still speaks to us”.</p>
<p>Jong is now losing her memory to dementia. Showalter also remarks, “even if the author is disappearing, the novel is still there, still funny, exuberant, ambitious and intelligent”. It is a novel that reminds us that great feminist books have always wanted to change not just lives, but the whole world.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/222752/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kath Kenny does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Erica Jong’s 1973 novel about one woman’s sexually daring search for freedom changed lives, and sold around 35 million copies. Though her racism now shocks, much of the book speaks to our moment.
Kath Kenny, Sessional academic, Department of Media, Communications, Creative Arts, Language, and Literature, Macquarie University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/225067
2024-03-12T18:38:37Z
2024-03-12T18:38:37Z
Canada’s inaction in Gaza marks a failure of its feminist foreign policy
<p><a href="https://www.international.gc.ca/world-monde/assets/pdfs/iap2-eng.pdf?_ga=2.63794223.1840653675.1709657832-2101566470.1701624369">“Peace and prosperity are every person’s birthright.”</a> So opened then Minister of Foreign Affairs Chrystia Freeland’s introduction to Canada’s Feminist International Assistance Policy (FIAP).</p>
<p>Launched in 2017, the policy stated that Canada would take an explicitly feminist approach to international assistance, including a commitment to protecting women’s sexual and reproductive rights. Many considered it to be a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0020702020960120">forward-thinking policy that builds on the past work of NGOs and other international partners.</a></p>
<p>However, the policy also revealed shortcomings. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0020702020953424">It was criticized</a> for its <a href="https://www.e-ir.info/2020/02/10/the-growth-of-feminist-foreign-policy/">fuzzy definition of feminism,</a> its <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/11926422.2019.1592002">surface-level engagement</a> with the <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/1229039">overlapping forms of inequality</a> women actually face and for its <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/fpa/orz027">neoliberal approach to feminism</a> that seeks to fix problems within the Global South, with little engagement with how these problems arose in the first place.</p>
<p>And now, as Israel’s offensive on Gaza marches on unabated and the <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/2/29/gaza-death-toll-surpasses-30000-with-no-let-up-in-israeli-bombardment#:%7E:text=The%20death%20toll%20in%20%23Gaza,large%20majority%20women%20and%20children.">civilian death toll mounts</a>, Canada’s tepid response calls the strength and sincerity of its feminist commitments into doubt. Furthermore, the country’s <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-lawsuit-israel-military-exports-1.7134664">continued sale of military equipment to Israel</a> suggests where Canada’s stated feminist values conflict with other political interests leaving Palestinians by the wayside. </p>
<p>On a recent visit to Israel, Minister of Foreign Affairs Mélanie Joly expressed solidarity with Israeli victims of <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/oct-7-sexual-violence-united-nations-reasonable-grounds-1.7133305">sexual violence committed by Hamas</a> and announced <a href="https://x.com/melaniejoly/status/1767189501208666293?s=20">$1 million dollars</a> in support. In addition to funding, Joly also offered RCMP support to help investigate the crimes of sexual violence against Israeli women. </p>
<p>In December, Joly issued <a href="https://www.cp24.com/news/joly-condemns-hamas-rapes-of-israeli-women-after-weeks-of-pressure-1.6677943">strong condemnations</a> in response to allegations of rape committed by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023. </p>
<p>In February 2023, Joly <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/9491196/canada-joly-ukraine-visit/">also pledged millions for Ukrainian victims of sexual assault</a> along with Canada’s support for the investigation and prosecution of sexual and gender-based violence committed during Russia’s war against Ukraine.</p>
<p>Will Canada do the same for Palestinian women affected by military and sexual violence?</p>
<h2>Palestinian women’s rights long ignored</h2>
<p>Joly <a href="https://twitter.com/melaniejoly/status/1760435093342986384?s=20">condemned</a> the sexual and gender-based violence being committed against Palestinian women in Gaza in February 2024, but without explicitly naming who the perpetrators of violence are. </p>
<p>Her statement came after <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/02/israelopt-un-experts-appalled-reported-human-rights-violations-against">United Nations experts</a> expressed alarm over “credible allegations of egregious human rights violations to which Palestinian women and girls continue to be subjected in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.” They cited reports of arbitrary executions, killings, detentions and sexual abuse of Palestinian women and girls by Israeli forces.</p>
<p>Even before the current escalation of violence, Canada’s support of Israel’s actions have long been identified as a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/11926422.2020.1805340">significant limitation of FIAP</a>.</p>
<p>In the policy’s peace and security section, Canada commits to advocate for the “respect and protection of the human rights of women and girls in its international and multilateral engagements.” It also says that ensuring the safety and security of women and girls is one of the key steps to ensuring peace.</p>
<p>In Gaza, this security is not being assured. Israel’s bombardment and tightened blockade has killed more than 31,000 people, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/pentagon-walks-back-austins-gaza-casualty-figures-2024-02-29/">most of whom are women and children</a>. Those who survive live under constant threat and without access to basic medical aid, food and water. Over 85 per cent of the total population of Gaza — about 1.9 million civilians — <a href="https://press.un.org/en/2024/sc15564.doc.htm#:%7E:text=A%20staggering%2085%20per%20cent,proposing%20that%20Palestinians%20should%20be">have been displaced</a> from their homes.</p>
<p>Palestinian women also face increased risk of sexual violence. There <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/22/claims-of-israeli-sexual-assault-of-palestinian-women-are-credible-un-panel-says">are credible</a> reports of sexual violence being used as a tool of war against both Israeli and Palestinian women. </p>
<h2>Reproductive health in Gaza in a dire state</h2>
<p>FIAP identifies a full range of reproductive healthcare <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/9491196/canada-joly-ukraine-visit/#:%7E:text=Canada%20is%20pledging%20millions%20of,Russia%27s%20war%20on%20Ukraine%20nears.">as key to ensuring women and girls’ equality and empowerment</a>.</p>
<p>In Gaza, these rights are besieged daily. </p>
<p>An estimated <a href="https://prismreports.org/2024/02/13/reproductive-rights-organizations-failing-palestinians/">50,000 pregnant women in Gaza</a> are at <a href="https://jezebel.com/miscarriages-in-gaza-have-increased-300-under-israeli-1851168680">increased risk of miscarriage</a>, stillbirth and maternal death. This is in part due to <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-uncertain-fate-of-patients-needing-life-saving-dialysis-treatment-in-gaza-220941">Israeli attacks on health-care facilities</a>. These attacks have led not only to direct casualties, but have also severely restricted access to prenatal and natal care. </p>
<p>Women are <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/01/21/gaza-childbirth/">giving birth without appropriate medical care</a>. This puts their lives and the lives of their babies at risk, contributing to higher rates of maternal and infant death.</p>
<p>The widespread food crisis has also had dire implications for reproductive and maternal health. The <a href="https://www.unicef.org/lac/en/press-releases/intensifying-conflict-malnutrition-and-disease-gaza-strip-creates-deadly-cycle">United Nations Children’s Fund has voiced concern</a> over the nutritional vulnerability of over 155,000 pregnant women and breastfeeding mothers. </p>
<p>Malnutrition can make breastfeeding difficult, if not impossible, and yet <a href="https://apnews.com/article/gaza-aid-babies-hamas-israel-war-e0f843a8f5f1af49efc45f6cb02005a6">formula has been difficult</a> (and for some, impossible) to access. This has been exacerbated by high prices and delays and restrictions on delivery of humanitarian aid. Malnutrition affects maternal health, and can also have long-term consequences for the health of mothers and their children.</p>
<h2>Canada must act</h2>
<p>After mounting public pressure, including country-wide protests, Canadian officials first uttered the word “ceasefire” in December, two months after the start of the war. They did so on Dec. 12, 2023, in a non-binding <a href="https://www.international.gc.ca/world-monde/international_relations-relations_internationales/un-onu/statements-declarations/2023-12-12-explanation-vote-explication.aspx?lang=eng">UN resolution vote</a>.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Canadian exports of military equipment to Israel have not only continued, but have <a href="https://www.readthemaple.com/trudeau-government-authorized-28-million-of-new-military-exports-to-israel-since-october/">increased since October</a>. Global Affairs Canada claims these exports are only for <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/2/9/demands-for-canada-to-stop-supplying-weapons-to-israel-grow-louder">non-lethal equipment</a>. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, they contribute to Israel’s military capacity. They undermine the legitimacy of Canada’s commitments to peacebuilding, and call into question whether its commitments to protecting the rights of women and girls extend to Palestinians.</p>
<p>Canada’s Feminist International Assistance Policy <a href="https://www.international.gc.ca/world-monde/issues_development-enjeux_developpement/priorities-priorites/policy-politique.aspx?lang=eng">claims to be</a> “a reflection of who we are as Canadians.” It expresses the belief that “it is possible to build a more peaceful, more inclusive and more prosperous world… A world where no one is left behind.” </p>
<p>By its own standards, Canada has a responsibility to do more than verbalize support for a humanitarian ceasefire and <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/global-affairs/news/2024/03/canada-announces-continued-assistance-for-people-in-gaza.html">provide humanitarian aid</a>. </p>
<p>Canada’s <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/israel-gaza-london-ceasefire-ontario-families-1.7056926">delayed</a> and <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/10/30/canada-clarifies-its-stand-on-a-humanitarian-truce-00124372">inconsistent response</a> to Israel’s military violence in Gaza represents a failure to evenly apply its own foreign policy.</p>
<p>Canada’s current strategy of <a href="https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/canada-aid-gaza">providing humanitarian aid</a> to assuage the effects of military violence, while simultaneously continuing to <a href="https://www.readthemaple.com/trudeau-government-authorized-28-million-of-new-military-exports-to-israel-since-october/">sell military equipment</a>, points to paradoxes within its foreign policy. An effective feminist foreign aid policy needs political action to address the root causes of poverty, violence and sexual and reproductive harm. In Gaza, this includes military occupation, violence and blockade. </p>
<p>If Canada truly wants to create a more peaceful and prosperous world, they must not leave Palestinian women behind.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/225067/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jacqueline Potvin previously received funding from Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mayme Lefurgey does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Canada’s tepid response to the war in Gaza and the severe harm caused to Palestinian women casts doubt on the sincerity of the government’s Feminist International Assistance Policy.
Jacqueline Potvin, Research Associate, School of Nursing, Western University
Mayme Lefurgey, Research Fellow, Department of Sociology, University of New Brunswick
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/223649
2024-03-08T03:30:49Z
2024-03-08T03:30:49Z
‘Are we dating the same guy?’ These women-run groups are accused of being toxic, but they carry a feminist legacy
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580618/original/file-20240308-22-ccb0yy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=26%2C26%2C8648%2C5748&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In 2022, a social network was <a href="https://mashable.com/article/are-we-dating-the-same-guy-facebook">formed</a> in New York for women to share warnings about their interactions with men on dating apps. These were men who had allegedly lied, manipulated, cheated on, ghosted, used or abused them.</p>
<p>Since then, “<a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/340985311306448">Are we dating the same guy</a>?” (AWDTSG) groups have exploded online across Facebook and other social platforms, attracting anywhere from hundreds to more than 150,000 members depending on the city they serve. </p>
<p>These groups are trying to improve women’s online safety where dating app developers are failing. In doing so, they’re tapping into a long history of feminist initiatives aimed at protecting women from allegedly hostile or predatory men.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580619/original/file-20240308-30-rfd0w6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580619/original/file-20240308-30-rfd0w6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580619/original/file-20240308-30-rfd0w6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580619/original/file-20240308-30-rfd0w6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580619/original/file-20240308-30-rfd0w6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580619/original/file-20240308-30-rfd0w6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580619/original/file-20240308-30-rfd0w6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580619/original/file-20240308-30-rfd0w6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Globally millions of women are gathering in private, online spaces to safeguard their gender against alleged predators.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>How it works</h2>
<p>Globally, millions of women gather in AWDTSG groups. The majority of these private digital spaces are explicit about their intent. The first group to emerge had the unofficial motto: “it’s about protecting women, not judging men”. This has been widely adopted by offshoots. </p>
<p>Posts follow two main themes: unprompted “red flag” warnings about men women have dated, and prompts for “tea or red flags” about potential dates. The men in these posts are identified by name and location, and at least one dating profile screenshot. </p>
<p>Posts can be made anonymously so women don’t risk retaliation, but are vetted by moderators to ensure they comply with group rules. </p>
<h2>Safety is never guaranteed</h2>
<p>Online dating apps are often framed as a necessary evil in the 2020s. They conform to the same conventions as early chatrooms such as <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/in-25-years-since-its-launch-aol-instant-messenger-has-never-been-away-180980086/">AOL</a>, MSN Messenger and <a href="https://www.wikihow.com/Get-Started-with-IRC-(Internet-Relay-Chat)">IRC</a> (internet relay chat), and digital classifieds such as Craigslist and Gumtree. </p>
<p>These sites enabled <a href="https://academic.oup.com/princeton-scholarship-online/book/31347/chapter-abstract/264477895?redirectedFrom=fulltext&login=true">random connections</a> with strangers without any vetting; the onus of safety <a href="https://www.latimes.com/archives/blogs/technology-blog/story/2011-02-24/craigslist-challenges-study-from-rival-that-says-330-crimes-12-deaths-were-linked-to-its-site">was on the user</a>. They have become the source of both heartwarming <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/roommate-wanted-wedding-married_n_5f32d6fbc5b6960c066d35d6">success stories</a>, as well as tales of <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-21872757">murder</a> and <a href="https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2010-jan-11-la-na-rape-craigslist11-2010jan11-story.html">revenge rape</a> offences.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1679123692268187649"}"></div></p>
<p>Dating app developers <a href="https://datingsafetyguide.com/pdf/dating-safety-guide.pdf">admit</a> there are safety risks inherent to their business model – and they’ve yet to adequately address them. Many apps have an optional verification feature, but this merely weeds out catfishes: people using a fake online identity. It doesn’t guarantee safety.</p>
<p>Bumble advertises itself as a <a href="https://www.ibtimes.com/bumble-feminist-tinder-women-reach-out-first-within-24-hours-1858772">feminist</a> app that’s focused on <a href="https://bumble.com/en-au/the-buzz/safety">safety</a>, as women must initiate the conversations with their matches. However, as posts on AWDTSG groups demonstrate, this puts the onus on women <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2020/02/06/the-virtues-and-downsides-of-online-dating/">to be particularly discerning</a>. </p>
<p>Dating app users have to open themselves to random interactions with strangers (and therefore to unqualified risk) just to be able to use the service. One 2022 survey found <a href="https://theconversation.com/3-in-4-people-experience-abuse-on-dating-apps-how-do-we-balance-prevention-with-policing-198587">three in four people</a> experienced abuse while using these apps. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/49-women-have-been-killed-in-australia-so-far-in-2023-as-a-result-of-violence-are-we-actually-making-any-progress-217552">49 women have been killed in Australia so far in 2023 as a result of violence. Are we actually making any progress?</a>
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</p>
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<h2>A history of women supporting women</h2>
<p>Historically, <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-long-history-of-gender-violence-in-australia-and-why-it-matters-today-119927">governments and communities</a> have been reticent to take responsibility for family and domestic violence. In the 1970s, those in the women’s liberation movement understood they had very limited protections from sexual and physical abuse that came at the hands of <a href="https://www.brazenhussies.com.au/aboutthefilm">boyfriends or husbands</a>. </p>
<p>This prompted the liberationists to form <a href="https://daily.jstor.org/consciousness-raising-groups-and-the-womens-movement/">consciousness raising groups</a>. These groups aimed to spread knowledge about the many facets of women’s oppression, and implement solutions such as providing <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0312407X.2023.2228289">refuge</a> for women and children escaping family violence. </p>
<p>Into the 1990s, women and girls started to embrace new kinds of feminism that aggressively prioritised the sisterhood over men, including “<a href="https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/life-and-relationships/the-problem-with-girl-power-feminism-isn-t-meant-to-be-fun-20220824-p5bcek.html">girl power</a>” and “<a href="https://www.feministpress.org/books-n-z/riot-grrrl-collection">grrrl power</a>” feminism. </p>
<p>These branches built on the gains of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/feminism/The-second-wave-of-feminism">second wave feminism</a> which taught women they could, and should, embrace power and step up to solve their problems. That same decade, <a href="https://commons.lib.jmu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1018&context=jmurj">do-it-yourself feminism</a> spawned from the merger of these ideas, teaching women the way to solve societal sexism was to solve it themselves. </p>
<p>AWDTSG groups follow in these footsteps. By providing a space where women can support and empower each other, they fulfil the consciousness raising and DIY aspirations of previous generations of feminists.</p>
<p>They also demonstrate how, even now, there are limited societal protections for women who <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-12-22/background-and-criminal-checks-flagged-for-dating-apps/101803688">have faced</a>, or may face, violence or harassment by men. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1765839165940478221"}"></div></p>
<h2>The counterargument</h2>
<p>Both the admins and members of AWDTSG groups face risks in the process of facilitating these spaces. While group posts mainly remain private, there can be retaliation or even <a href="https://www.minclaw.com/are-we-dating-same-guy-facebook-group/">legal</a> repercussions when someone “snitches” and leaks a post.</p>
<p>In cases where men have discovered posts about them and wish to have them removed, the admins tend to only do this if the man is willing to <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/AWDTSGisToxic/comments/18mwcu3/keep_at_it_fellas/">“rat out” the snitch</a> (which they usually are). This ensures women undermining the group’s aims of sisterhood and safety are named, shamed and removed.</p>
<p>Several counter group such as <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/AWDTSGisToxic/">r/AWDTSGisToxic</a>, <a href="https://endawdtsg.com/">End AWDTSG</a>, and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/625302573086924">victims of AWDTSG</a> have emerged to rail against the movement. They claim AWDTSG groups enable the bullying and shaming of men just for being bad dates. </p>
<p>The goals of both the pro- and counter-AWDTSG groups give rise to <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/dy375q/are-we-dating-the-same-guy-facebook-groups">spurious claims</a>. Each side can end up facilitating forms of “bullying”, “toxicity” and even <a href="https://www.wtkr.com/news/wife-charged-with-husbands-vb-homicide-accused-of-affair-prior-to-shooting-court-docs">serious violence</a> against individuals.</p>
<h2>Grey areas</h2>
<p>Anti-AWDTSG groups claim they support protecting women from <em>truly</em> violent men, but a lack of verification means there are more <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/03/02/dating-same-guy-facebook-groups/">false accusations</a> than true ones. </p>
<p>Last month, a man from Chicago launched a <a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ilnd.449909/gov.uscourts.ilnd.449909.1.0.pdf">lawsuit</a> against the city’s AWDTSG group and several social media sites, including Meta, for defamation. The case seeks to force the host platforms, primarily Facebook, to regulate these private groups to protect men.</p>
<p>Off the back of that, a new group <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/804749828144287">AWDTSG Lawsuits</a> was formed. It aims to bring men together to potentially sue Facebook and the groups it hosts for defamation. </p>
<p>It’ll be interesting to see how the case plays out, and whether platforms profiting from women’s engagement in AWDTSG groups are willing to take sides in this supposed battle of the sexes. </p>
<p>Either way, one thing is certain: the patriarchy’s influence is diminished in a generation of tech-savvy women who wholeheartedly believe the “<a href="http://www.carolhanisch.org/CHwritings/PIP.html">personal is political</a>”. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/tinder-fails-to-protect-women-from-abuse-but-when-we-brush-off-dick-pics-as-a-laugh-so-do-we-147909">Tinder fails to protect women from abuse. But when we brush off 'dick pics' as a laugh, so do we</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223649/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Natasha Szuhan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
These private online communities represent a long-held feminist maxim: to solve sexism requires women to solve it themselves.
Natasha Szuhan, Lecturer, History and Sociology, Australian National University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/224370
2024-03-07T19:24:18Z
2024-03-07T19:24:18Z
Political power in Australia is still overwhelmingly male. But beneath the despair, there’s reason for hope
<p>It’s 2024, but power still looks like a man. Despite Australia’s claim to egalitarianism, achieving equal political participation and representation remains a formidable challenge for women. Concerningly, the persistent and ingrained obstacles in women’s way are affecting the aspirations of the next generation of female leaders. </p>
<p>According to 2022 <a href="https://plan-international.org/uploads/2022/10/SOTWGR-2022-EN-Final-SD.pdf">research</a> spanning 29 countries, including Australia, satisfaction among young females aged 15-24 with their leaders’ decisions on issues they care about stands at a mere 11%. An overwhelming 97% acknowledged the importance of political participation. Yet, only 24% of those aspiring to engage in politics could see themselves running for office. </p>
<p>Worse still, 20% have been personally discouraged from political involvement. This is often because they’re either considered to be <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/05_women_lawless_fox.pdf">less qualified</a> or that they will inevitably <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2015/01/27/the-female-political-career-women-members-of-parliament-still-face-obstacles-to-elected-office">face discrimination</a> and gendered violence. </p>
<p>I crunched the numbers to assess the situation in Australia. While much has been said about the <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjBo7vTp9SEAxU3amwGHUFXBH8QFnoECAYQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fiview.abc.net.au%2Fshow%2Fms-represented-with-annabel-crabb&usg=AOvVaw1oHrBbmWBZQhhBmxEIv6gA&opi=89978449">mistreatment</a> of female leaders, how does this play into the psyche of female constituents? </p>
<p>I found gender gaps have persisted in almost every political measure over the past 20 years. But there’s a glimmer of hope, mostly found online. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/whats-the-secret-to-attracting-more-women-into-politics-give-them-more-resources-222159">What's the secret to attracting more women into politics? Give them more resources</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Politics still unwelcoming and unrepresentative</h2>
<p>Using the <a href="https://australianelectionstudy.org/">Australian Election Study</a>, I examined the gender gaps in political attitudes and behaviours across generations between 2001 and 2022.</p>
<p>The pathway to power for women in politics has never been easy, and it doesn’t get easier once elected. The prevalent discrimination, <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwiVwpWMp9SEAxW8UWcHHb4eCPAQtwJ6BAg4EAI&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Dz8asUgiCjw0&usg=AOvVaw2_nNYywdfZNl9-qQxzlqys&opi=89978449">gender deafness</a>, sexism and overt abuse not only <a href="https://theconversation.com/expect-sexism-a-gender-politics-expert-reads-julia-gillards-women-and-leadership-142725">force women to abandon</a> their leadership aspirations, but also act as signals that discourage young women from corridors of power. </p>
<p>It is therefore not surprising younger generations of Australian women display a diminished interest in politics, more so than older generations.</p>
<p><iframe id="4MuvN" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/4MuvN/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>I found they’re less represented than men in traditional participatory practices, such as discussing politics or attending political meetings. They’re also less likely to contribute money to a party or campaign. Girls in various Western democracies reported <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/249019872_Good_Girls_Go_to_the_Polling_Booth_Bad_Boys_Go_Everywhere_Gender_Differences_in_Anticipated_Political_Participation_Among_American_Fourteen-Year-Olds">similar</a> disinterest. </p>
<p><iframe id="P7Jrx" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/P7Jrx/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>Young Australian women are also less satisfied with democracy than men. They report lower trust in government than their male counterparts and are more likely to believe government is run for few big interests rather than for all. </p>
<p><iframe id="7PvXV" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/7PvXV/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>Discouragement is everywhere</h2>
<p>Politics continues to be off-putting because sexism is normalised in the <a href="https://theconversation.com/in-australian-media-womens-voices-are-still-not-heard-172060">media</a>. </p>
<p>Numerous studies show young Australian women <a href="https://www.plan.org.au/publications/she-can-lead/">think</a> female leaders receive unfair treatment from the media. The gendered media coverage is often characterised by negative portrayals of “<a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0146167210371949">power-seeking</a>” ambitions, scrutiny of fashion choices, judgement based on reproductive decisions, and a <a href="https://theconversation.com/theres-a-big-problem-with-the-murdoch-media-no-one-is-talking-about-how-it-treats-women-leaders-149986">failure to recognise</a> the mistreatment of female leaders (gender blindness). It all serves as a stark reminder of entrenched sexism in our national mindset.</p>
<p>Moreover, there’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-missing-women-of-australian-politics-research-shows-the-toll-of-harassment-abuse-and-stalking-168567">scepticism</a> in the personal circles of women aspiring to political roles. Friends and family can express concerns about their loved one’s safety working in parliament or for a political party. This undermines the progress of women in political leadership. </p>
<p>Women also hesitate to <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-missing-women-of-australian-politics-research-shows-the-toll-of-harassment-abuse-and-stalking-168567">encourage</a> others to pursue political careers due to the potential for facing abuse.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/online-abuse-could-drive-women-out-of-political-life-the-time-to-act-is-now-214301">Online abuse could drive women out of political life – the time to act is now</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>If the political landscape discourages the pool of potential female leaders, it’s understandable gender quotas have had <a href="https://hir.harvard.edu/equal-representation-the-debate-over-gender-quotas-part-1/">mixed success</a>. Labor’s quotas have not been a panacea for attracting young women to politics. </p>
<p>The reality is women <a href="https://theconversation.com/women-politicians-pay-too-high-a-personal-cost-for-their-leadership-201028">pay too high</a> a personal price in leadership positions. Competing work and family roles create high levels of stress and burn-out. This particularly <a href="https://theconversation.com/whats-the-secret-to-attracting-more-women-into-politics-give-them-more-resources-222159">deters</a> young women from running for local government, for example – more so than older women and men of all ages. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580075/original/file-20240306-20-s0fb71.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman uses her smartphone on public transport." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580075/original/file-20240306-20-s0fb71.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580075/original/file-20240306-20-s0fb71.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580075/original/file-20240306-20-s0fb71.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580075/original/file-20240306-20-s0fb71.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580075/original/file-20240306-20-s0fb71.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580075/original/file-20240306-20-s0fb71.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580075/original/file-20240306-20-s0fb71.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Young women are increasingly engaging in political discussion online.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/young-woman-using-smartphone-subway-1060222451">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Bottom-up quest for parity</h2>
<p>Despite these challenges, the 2022 federal election emerged as a pivotal moment in Australian politics, highlighting a <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-explained-the-seismic-2022-federal-election-the-australian-election-study-has-answers-195286">significant shift</a> in the engagement of women and young people. These two social bases turned away from major parties, signalling a growing disenchantment with the established political order. </p>
<p>Young women are actively challenging traditional power structures, leveraging their access to higher education and social media to redefine the political narrative. They are not hesitant to explore political alternatives to the two major parties. </p>
<p>Young women have also been challenging the established political order through getting involved in politics online. They are participating in political discussions, sharing and blogging political information, accessing election information and creating and joining political groups on social media platforms.</p>
<p><iframe id="Dais0" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/Dais0/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/jacinda-arderns-resignation-shows-that-women-still-face-an-uphill-battle-in-politics-an-expert-on-female-leaders-answers-5-key-questions-198197">Jacinda Ardern's resignation shows that women still face an uphill battle in politics – an expert on female leaders answers 5 key questions</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>This has ushered in younger generations of Australian women who are unwilling to accept abuse and harassment as the inevitable costs of political engagement. With increasing education levels and a <a href="https://theconversation.com/australias-young-people-are-moving-to-the-left-though-young-women-are-more-progressive-than-men-reflecting-a-global-trend-222288">more progressive</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/feb/28/australian-voters-are-increasingly-driven-by-issues-rather-than-party-loyalty-and-thats-bad-news-for-the-old-political-order">issue-based mindset</a>, young women are raising their demands and expectations.</p>
<p>This is heartening. We’re starting to see a generation of women who refuse to accept the limitations imposed on them. This development signals a promising shift towards a more inclusive and representative political landscape.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/224370/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Intifar Chowdhury does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Data show young Australian women are less politically engaged than men. Given the negative experiences of female politicians, that’s hardly surprising. But there’s a glimmer of hope.
Intifar Chowdhury, Lecturer in Government, Flinders University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/224153
2024-03-07T19:24:11Z
2024-03-07T19:24:11Z
What are the four waves of feminism? And what comes next?
<p>In Western countries, feminist history is generally packaged as a story of “waves”. The so-called first wave lasted from the mid-19th century to 1920. The second wave spanned the 1960s to the early 1980s. The third wave began in the mid-1990s and lasted until the 2010s. Finally, some say we are experiencing a fourth wave, which began in the mid-2010s and continues now.</p>
<p>The first person to use “waves” was journalist Martha Weinman Lear, in her 1968 New York Times article, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1968/03/10/archives/the-second-feminist-wave.html">The Second Feminist Wave</a>, demonstrating that the women’s liberation movement was another <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/3/20/16955588/feminism-waves-explained-first-second-third-fourth">“new chapter</a> in a grand history of women fighting together for their rights”. She was responding to anti-feminists’ framing of the movement as a “<a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/3/20/16955588/feminism-waves-explained-first-second-third-fourth">bizarre historical aberration</a>”.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/718868">Some feminists</a> criticise the usefulness of the metaphor. Where do feminists who preceded the first wave sit? For instance, Middle Ages feminist writer <a href="https://blogs.loc.gov/bibliomania/2023/08/30/christine-de-pizan/">Christine de Pizan</a>, or philosopher <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/wollstonecraft/">Mary Wollstonecraft</a>, author of <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/a-vindication-of-the-rights-of-woman-9780141441252">A Vindication of the Rights of Woman</a> (1792). </p>
<p>Does the metaphor of a single wave <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/3/20/16955588/feminism-waves-explained-first-second-third-fourth">overshadow</a> the complex variety of feminist concerns and demands? And does this language exclude the <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/718868">non-West</a>, for whom the “waves” story is meaningless?</p>
<p>Despite these concerns, countless feminists <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/317322421_Finding_a_Place_in_History_The_Discursive_Legacy_of_the_Wave_Metaphor_and_Contemporary_Feminism">continue to use</a> “waves” to explain their position in relation to previous generations.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579536/original/file-20240304-28-b6mifj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579536/original/file-20240304-28-b6mifj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579536/original/file-20240304-28-b6mifj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579536/original/file-20240304-28-b6mifj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579536/original/file-20240304-28-b6mifj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579536/original/file-20240304-28-b6mifj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579536/original/file-20240304-28-b6mifj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579536/original/file-20240304-28-b6mifj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A second-wave International Women’s Day rally in Melbourne, 1975.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.naa.gov.au/students-and-teachers/learning-resources/learning-resource-themes/society-and-culture/gender-and-sexuality/international-womens-day-rally-melbourne">National Archives of Australia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-whitlam-government-gave-us-no-fault-divorce-womens-refuges-and-childcare-australia-needs-another-feminist-revolution-202238">The Whitlam government gave us no-fault divorce, women's refuges and childcare. Australia needs another feminist revolution</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>The first wave: from 1848</h2>
<p>The first wave of feminism refers to the campaign for the vote. It began in the United States in 1848 with the <a href="https://www.loc.gov/exhibitions/women-fight-for-the-vote/about-this-exhibition/seneca-falls-and-building-a-movement-1776-1890/">Seneca Falls Convention</a>, where 300 gathered to debate Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s Declaration of Sentiments, outlining women’s inferior status and demanding suffrage – or, the right to vote.</p>
<p>It continued over a decade later, in 1866, in Britain, with the presentation of a <a href="https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/electionsvoting/womenvote/parliamentary-collections/1866-suffrage-petition/presenting-the-petition/">suffrage petition</a> to parliament.</p>
<p>This wave ended in 1920, when women were granted the right to vote in the US. (Limited women’s suffrage had been introduced in Britain two years earlier, in 1918.) First-wave activists believed once the vote had been won, women could use its power to enact other much-needed reforms, related to property ownership, education, employment and more. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579516/original/file-20240304-16-oifdqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579516/original/file-20240304-16-oifdqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579516/original/file-20240304-16-oifdqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=724&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579516/original/file-20240304-16-oifdqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=724&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579516/original/file-20240304-16-oifdqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=724&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579516/original/file-20240304-16-oifdqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=910&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579516/original/file-20240304-16-oifdqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=910&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579516/original/file-20240304-16-oifdqr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=910&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Vida Goldstein.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vida_Goldstein#/media/File:Vida_Goldstein-01.jpg">Wikipedia</a></span>
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<p>White leaders dominated the movement. They included longtime president of the the International Woman Suffrage Alliance <a href="https://cattcenter.iastate.edu/home/about-us/carrie-chapman-catt/">Carrie Chapman Catt</a> in the US, leader of the militant Women’s Social and Political Union <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Emmeline-Pankhurst">Emmeline Pankhurst</a> in the UK, and <a href="https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/spence-catherine-helen-4627">Catherine Helen Spence</a> and <a href="https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/goldstein-vida-jane-6418">Vida Goldstein</a> in Australia. </p>
<p>This has tended to obscure the histories of non-white feminists like evangelist and social reformer <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sojourner-Truth">Sojourner Truth</a> and journalist, activist and researcher <a href="https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/ida-b-wells-barnett">Ida B. Wells</a>, who were fighting on multiple fronts – including anti-slavery and anti-lynching – as well as feminism. </p>
<h2>The second wave: from 1963</h2>
<p>The second wave coincided with the publication of US feminist Betty Friedan’s <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/the-feminine-mystique-9780141192055">The Feminine Mystique</a> in 1963. Friedan’s “<a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/powerful-complicated-legacy-betty-friedans-feminine-mystique-180976931/">powerful treatise</a>” raised critical interest in issues that came to define the women’s liberation movement until the early 1980s, like workplace equality, birth control and abortion, and women’s education. </p>
<p>Women came together in “consciousness-raising” groups to share their individual experiences of oppression. These discussions informed and motivated public agitation for <a href="https://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/HaeberlenPolitics">gender equality and social change</a>. Sexuality and gender-based violence were other prominent second-wave concerns. </p>
<p>Australian feminist Germaine Greer wrote <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com.au/9780007205011/the-female-eunuch/">The Female Eunuch</a>, published in 1970, which <a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-the-female-eunuch-at-50-germaine-greers-fearless-feminist-masterpiece-147437">urged women to</a> “challenge the ties binding them to gender inequality and domestic servitude” – and to ignore repressive male authority by exploring their sexuality. </p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-the-female-eunuch-at-50-germaine-greers-fearless-feminist-masterpiece-147437">Friday essay: The Female Eunuch at 50, Germaine Greer's fearless, feminist masterpiece</a>
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</em>
</p>
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<p>Successful lobbying saw the establishment of refuges for women and children fleeing domestic violence and rape. In Australia, there were groundbreaking political appointments, including the world’s first Women’s Advisor to a national government (<a href="https://www.nma.gov.au/audio/landmark-women/transcripts/landmark-women-elizabeth-reid-181013.mp3-transcript">Elizabeth Reid</a>). In 1977, a <a href="https://www.whitlam.org/women-and-whitlam">Royal Commission on Human Relationships</a> examined families, gender and sexuality. </p>
<p>Amid these developments, in 1975, Anne Summers published <a href="https://theconversation.com/damned-whores-and-gods-police-is-still-relevant-to-australia-40-years-on-mores-the-pity-47753">Damned Whores and God’s Police</a>, a scathing historical critique of women’s treatment in patriarchal Australia. </p>
<p>At the same time as they made advances, so-called women’s libbers managed to anger earlier feminists with their distinctive claims to radicalism. Tireless campaigner <a href="https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/rich-ruby-sophia-14202">Ruby Rich</a>, who was president of the Australian Federation of Women Voters from 1945 to 1948, responded by declaring the only difference was her generation had called their movement “<a href="https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-296328435/findingaid">justice for women</a>”, not “liberation”. </p>
<p>Like the first wave, mainstream second-wave activism proved largely irrelevant to non-white women, who faced oppression on intersecting gendered and racialised grounds. African American feminists produced their own critical texts, including bell hooks’ <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Aint-I-a-Woman-Black-Women-and-Feminism/hooks/p/book/9781138821514">Ain’t I a Woman? Black Women and Feminism</a> in 1981 and Audre Lorde’s <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/198292/sister-outsider-by-audre-lorde/">Sister Outsider</a> in 1984. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/bell-hooks-will-never-leave-us-she-lives-on-through-the-truth-of-her-words-173900">bell hooks will never leave us – she lives on through the truth of her words</a>
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</p>
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<h2>The third wave: from 1992</h2>
<p>The third wave was announced in the 1990s. The term is popularly attributed to Rebecca Walker, daughter of African American feminist activist and writer <a href="https://alicewalkersgarden.com/about/">Alice Walker</a> (author of <a href="https://www.hachette.com.au/alice-walker/the-color-purple-now-a-major-motion-picture-from-oprah-winfrey-and-steven-spielberg">The Color Purple</a>). </p>
<p>Aged 22, Rebecca proclaimed in a 1992 Ms. magazine <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200404030632/http:/heathengrrl.blogspot.com/2007/02/becoming-third-wave-by-rebecca-walker.html">article</a>: “I am not a post-feminism feminist. I am the Third Wave.” </p>
<p>Third wavers didn’t think gender equality had been more or less achieved. But they did share <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1464700119842555">post-feminists</a>’ belief that their foremothers’ concerns and demands were obsolete. They argued women’s experiences were now shaped by <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14680777.2016.1190046">very different</a> political, economic, technological and cultural conditions. </p>
<p>The third wave has been described as “an <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/beauty/meet-the-woman-who-coined-the-term-third-wave-feminism-20180302-p4z2mw.html">individualised feminism</a> that can not exist without diversity, sex positivity and intersectionality”. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579520/original/file-20240304-16-zuvan5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579520/original/file-20240304-16-zuvan5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579520/original/file-20240304-16-zuvan5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=914&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579520/original/file-20240304-16-zuvan5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=914&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579520/original/file-20240304-16-zuvan5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=914&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579520/original/file-20240304-16-zuvan5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1148&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579520/original/file-20240304-16-zuvan5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1148&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579520/original/file-20240304-16-zuvan5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1148&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the term ‘intersectionality’.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">UCLA</span></span>
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<p>Intersectionality, <a href="https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1052&context=uclf">coined</a> in 1989 by African American legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw, recognises that people can experience intersecting layers of oppression due to race, gender, sexuality, class, ethnicity and more. Crenshaw notes this was a “lived experience” before it was a term. </p>
<p>In 2000, Aileen Moreton Robinson’s <a href="https://www.uqp.com.au/books/talkin-up-to-the-white-woman-indigenous-women-and-feminism-20th-anniversary-edition">Talkin’ Up to the White Woman: Indigenous Women and Feminism</a> expressed Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women’s frustration that white feminism did not adequately address the legacies of dispossession, violence, racism, and sexism.</p>
<p>Certainly, the third wave accommodated <a href="https://paromitapain.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/10.10072F978-3-319-72917-6.pdf#page=112%22">kaleidoscopic views</a>. Some scholars claimed it “grappled with fragmented interests and objectives” – or micropolitics. These included ongoing issues such as sexual harassment in the workplace and a scarcity of women in positions of power. </p>
<p>The third wave also gave birth to the <a href="https://www.nme.com/blogs/nme-blogs/brief-history-riot-grrrl-space-reclaiming-90s-punk-movement-2542166">Riot Grrrl</a> movement and “girl power”. Feminist punk bands like <a href="https://bikinikill.com/about/">Bikini Kill</a> in the US, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/nov/28/pussy-riot-beaten-jailed-exiled-taunting-putin">Pussy Riot</a> in Russia and Australia’s <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/mbknev/little-ugly-girls-tractor-album-single-premiere-2018">Little Ugly Girls</a> sang about issues like homophobia, sexual harassment, misogyny, racism, and female empowerment. </p>
<p>Riot Grrrl’s <a href="https://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/riotgrrrlmanifesto.html">manifesto</a> states “we are angry at a society that tells us Girl = Dumb, Girl = Bad, Girl = Weak”. “Girl power” was epitomised by Britain’s more sugary, phenomenally popular Spice Girls, who were accused of peddling “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2021/sep/14/spice-girls-how-girl-power-changed-britain-review-fabulous-and-intimate">‘diluted feminism’ to the masses</a>”.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Riot Grrrrl sang about issues like homophobia, sexual harassment, misogyny and racism.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>The fourth wave: 2013 to now</h2>
<p>The fourth wave is epitomised by “<a href="https://vc.bridgew.edu/jiws/vol25/iss2/10/">digital or online feminism</a>” which gained currency in about <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/3/20/16955588/feminism-waves-explained-first-second-third-fourth">2013</a>. This era is marked by mass online mobilisation. The fourth wave generation is connected via new communication technologies in ways that were not previously possible. </p>
<p>Online mobilisation has led to spectacular street demonstrations, including the #metoo movement. #Metoo was first founded by Black activist <a href="https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/tarana-burke">Tarana Burke</a> in 2006, to support survivors of sexual abuse. The hashtag #metoo then went viral during the 2017 Harvey Weinstein <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/10/28/1131500833/me-too-harvey-weinstein-anniversary">sexual abuse scandal</a>. It was used at least <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0747563221002193">19 million times</a> on Twitter (now X) alone.</p>
<p>In January 2017, the <a href="https://www.womensmarch.com/">Women’s March</a> protested the inauguration of the decidedly misogynistic Donald Trump as US president. <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Womens-March-2017">Approximately 500,000</a> women marched in Washington DC, with demonstrations held simultaneously in <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Remembering-Womens-Activism/Crozier-De-Rosa-Mackie/p/book/9781138794894">81 nations</a> on all continents of the globe, even Antarctica.</p>
<p>In 2021, the <a href="https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/catalog/8564388">Women’s March4Justice</a> saw some 110,000 women rallying at more than 200 events across Australian cities and towns, protesting workplace sexual harassment and violence against women, following high-profile cases like that of Brittany Higgins, revealing <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/nov/29/brittany-higgins-bruce-lehrmann-defamation-trial-evidence-stand-rape-allegations-liberal-party-ntwnfb#:%7E:text=Bruce%20Lehrmann%20has%20brought%20a,Wilkinson%20are%20defending%20the%20case.">sexual misconduct</a> in the Australian houses of parliament.</p>
<p>Given the prevalence of online connection, it is not surprising fourth wave feminism has reached across geographic regions. The Global Fund for Women <a href="https://www.globalfundforwomen.org/movements/me-too/">reports</a> that #metoo transcends national borders. In China, it is, among other things, #米兔 (translated as “<a href="https://www.ft.com/content/61903744-9540-11e8-b67b-b8205561c3fe">rice bunny</a>”, pronounced as “mi tu”). In Nigeria, it’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=we-F0Gi0Lqs">#Sex4Grades</a>. In Turkey, it’s #<a href="https://ahvalnews.com/sexual-harrasment/dozens-turkish-womens-organisations-issue-statement-backing-latest-metoo-movement">UykularınızKaçsın</a> (“may you lose sleep”). </p>
<p>In an inversion of the traditional narrative of the Global North leading the Global South in terms of feminist “progress”, Argentina’s “<a href="https://www.auswhn.com.au/blog/colour-green/">Green Wave</a>” has seen it decriminalise abortion, as has Colombia. Meanwhile, in 2022, the US Supreme Court <a href="https://theconversation.com/us-supreme-court-overturns-roe-v-wade-but-for-abortion-opponents-this-is-just-the-beginning-185768">overturned historic abortion legislation</a>.</p>
<p>Whatever the nuances, the prevalence of such highly visible gender protests have led some feminists, like <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14680777.2020.1804431">Red Chidgey</a>, lecturer in Gender and Media at King’s College London, to declare that feminism has transformed from “a dirty word and publicly abandoned politics” to an ideology sporting “a new cool status”.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-a-sex-positive-feminist-takes-up-the-unfinished-revolution-her-mother-began-but-its-complicated-189139">Friday essay: a sex-positive feminist takes up the 'unfinished revolution' her mother began – but it's complicated</a>
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<h2>Where to now?</h2>
<p>How do we know when to pronounce the next “wave”? (Spoiler alert: I have no answer.) Should we even continue to use the term “waves”?</p>
<p>The “wave” framework was first used to demonstrate feminist continuity and solidarity. However, whether interpreted as disconnected chunks of feminist activity or connected periods of feminist activity and inactivity, represented by the crests and troughs of waves, some believe it encourages binary thinking that produces <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14680777.2016.1190046">intergenerational antagonism</a>.</p>
<p>Back in 1983, Australian writer and second-wave feminist Dale Spender, who died last year, <a href="https://www.historyworkshop.org.uk/feminism/radical-books-dale-spender-theres-always-been-a-womens-movement-this-century-1983/">confessed her fear</a> that if each generation of women did not know they had robust histories of struggle and achievement behind them, they would labour under the illusion they’d have to develop feminism anew. Surely, this would be an overwhelming prospect.</p>
<p>What does this mean for “waves” in 2024 and beyond?</p>
<p>To build vigorous varieties of feminism going forward, we might reframe the “waves”. We need to let emerging generations of feminists know they are not living in an isolated moment, with the onerous job of starting afresh. Rather, they have the momentum created by generations upon generations of women to build on.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/224153/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sharon Crozier-De Rosa receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>
We’re used to describing feminism in ‘waves’, from the first in 1848, campaigning for women to vote, to the current fourth wave, in the age of #metoo. But do waves still work to describe feminism?
Sharon Crozier-De Rosa, Professor, University of Wollongong
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/224965
2024-03-07T19:24:04Z
2024-03-07T19:24:04Z
12 feminist podcasts to make you think, laugh, learn – and even disagree
<p>At one of her early regular live podcast shows in Australia, Deborah Frances-White, host of <a href="https://guiltyfeminist.com/">The Guilty Feminist</a>, defined podcasting as “radio no one stops you making”. That accessibility has led to a proliferation of feminist podcasts.</p>
<p>Podcasting, unlike radio, is open to previously marginalised or minimalised groups in broadcasting. This includes women – and feminists in particular. Even at its most progressive, public broadcasting has rarely found room for more than one explicitly female-centred show, let alone shows that lean into the F-word (feminist).</p>
<p>Podcasting was built on the freedom of the blogosphere and the ubiquity of the smartphone. The form amplified the inherent accessibility of audio. Listening has never required formal literacy. With podcasting and production it was opened up by technological innovation, along with changing standards and ideas around “quality”. </p>
<p>No one is stopping you from making a feminist podcast (outside your objective life circumstances, but <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/a-room-of-ones-own-9780241436288">that’s another story</a>). And if the loftiest aims of feminism are to make a more equal society, it could be argued that podcasting itself is a feminist project.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/15-literary-podcasts-to-make-you-laugh-learn-and-join-conversations-about-books-218792">15 literary podcasts to make you laugh, learn and join conversations about books</a>
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<h2>A smorgasbord of feminist podcasts</h2>
<p>Some podcasts are explicitly feminist. With the word in the title, how could <a href="https://guiltyfeminist.com/"><strong>The Guilty Feminist</strong></a> be anything but? It’s a podcast and a live show where Frances-White and her guests have “candid discussions about our noble goals as 21st-century feminists and the hypocrisies and insecurities that sometimes undermine them”. </p>
<p>But if you read this description straight, you would be missing the joy and humour of the show. Each episode has a theme, and opens with a list of confessions from Frances-White and her guests – “I am a feminist, but …”, to general hilarity.</p>
<p>Guests have included former Australian prime minister Julia Gillard and the extraordinary New Zealand-born comedian Cal Wilson, a frequent contributor to episodes recorded in Australia and New Zealand. Wilson, who died unexpectedly in 2023, brought so much humour and warmth to so many episodes.</p>
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<p><a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/3Q4YOPsPPSPdtehixbEe82"><strong>Australian Abortion Stories</strong></a>, a labour of love fuelled by volunteers and <a href="https://www.buymeacoffee.com/aussieabortions">virtual coffee crowdfunding</a>, is another explicitly feminist podcast. </p>
<p>Hosts Kelsey and Cassidy hold space for women to share their abortion stories, while exploring fundamental issues such as abortion stigma and equality of access. In its mission and form, it is a textbook example of the independent and feminist spirit of podcasting. </p>
<p>But what of a podcast like <a href="https://www.chat10looks3.com/"><strong>Chat 10 Looks 3</strong></a>? Hosts Annabel Crabb and Leigh Sales talk about “books, television, radio, movies, food, politics and whatever else they feel like. Even showtunes.” </p>
<p>It’s no surprise that a social media phenomenon developed around this podcast and others like it, where women – and a good number of self-selecting enlightened men – bring joy, support and a can-do philosophy of helpfulness to their corner of the internet. I’d argue it is recognisably feminism. </p>
<p>The networked nature of podcasting and its widely distributed social media echoes the non-hierarchical methods women traditionally employ to organise.</p>
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<p>Book clubs are a similar example of women networking to combine social connection and talking about ideas. The award-winning podcast <a href="https://www.feministbookclub.com/blog/"><strong>Feminist Book Club</strong></a> identifies as both radically feminist and intersectional. </p>
<p>Their episodes range widely, though, from a recent episode on <a href="https://www.feministbookclub.com/graphic-novels-black-feminists/">Black feminist writers who’ve shaped us</a> to episodes on <a href="https://www.feministbookclub.com/britney-spears-the-woman-in-me/">Britney Spears’ memoir</a> and <a href="https://www.feministbookclub.com/steminist-romance-ali-hazelwood-love-theoretically/">romance featuring women in STEM</a>. It too is a social media phenomenon, and an explicitly political one. The hosts aim for “feminist theory in action” and prioritise marginalised communities, with a broad and encompassing approach to gender.</p>
<p>Australian feminism meets intersectionality in Nakkiah Lui and producer Nicola Harvey’s sensory and superb <a href="https://www.audible.com.au/pd/First-Eat-with-Nakkiah-Lui-Audiobook/B0C5XL6LZP"><strong>First Eat</strong></a> (from Audible), based on the question: what would our dinner look like if First Nations people owned the land?. “<a href="https://www.russh.com/nakkiah-lui-first-eat-podcast/">Part memoir, part docu-series</a>”, it ties into questions of decolonisation and self determination.</p>
<p>Lui, who shares hosting, travelled the world, interviewing women of colour (First Nations women in particular) about their relationships with food. She’s also researched how it has been used to oppress First Nations people. Food and body image have, of course, long been a focus of feminist discourse.</p>
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<p>Also clearly in the feminist space is the ABC’s <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/ladies-we-need-to-talk"><strong>Ladies, We Need to Talk</strong></a>, with Yumi Stynes. With an emphasis on sex and personal empowerment, Stynes brings the fun to feminism, along with straight talk and useful information about a range of issues: from the orgasm gap to the mental load.</p>
<p>And then there’s the girl-boss feminism of Australia’s <strong>Mamamia</strong>, which has a range of podcasts, such as <a href="https://www.mamamia.com.au/podcasts/mamamia-out-loud/">Mamamia Out Loud</a>. While the feminism is sometimes hard to pinpoint, <a href="https://www.mamamia.com.au/about-mamamia/editorial-guidelines/">Mamamia sells itself as</a> “a publisher with a purpose – to make the world a better place for women and girls”.</p>
<p>My friend, award-winning independent <a href="https://shows.acast.com/nobody-dies-here-inside-melbournes-medically-supervised-inje/">podcast producer</a> Michelle Ransom-Hughes, has some of the most discerning ears in Australian audio. Her favourite feminist podcast is an American-made chat show, <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/everything-is-fine/id1491377174/"><strong>Everything Is Fine</strong></a>, aimed at women over 40. According to the show notes, each episode “digs deep into the identity shift that comes with navigating this alternately weird and liberating stage of life”.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.theheartradio.org/"><strong>The Heart</strong></a>, billed as a podcast about power and love, is another favourite among podcast producers. Founded in the bedroom of host Kaitlin Prest in 2014, it is a cornucopia of queer feminist audio and provocative storytelling, but it’s so well crafted, it’s easy to forget its mission is fundamentally a feminist one.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579804/original/file-20240305-26-pjrc7d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579804/original/file-20240305-26-pjrc7d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579804/original/file-20240305-26-pjrc7d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579804/original/file-20240305-26-pjrc7d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579804/original/file-20240305-26-pjrc7d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579804/original/file-20240305-26-pjrc7d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579804/original/file-20240305-26-pjrc7d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579804/original/file-20240305-26-pjrc7d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p>The forensically researched and produced <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-retrievals/id1691599042"><strong>The Retrievals</strong></a>, from the New York Times and Serial Productions, takes the listener into the experiences of a group of women undergoing IVF treatments who experienced excruciating pain. It includes harrowing stories of the gendered nature of industrialised health care – particularly, the problem of women not being believed when they report pain. While it focuses on a group of relatively privileged women, it’s a compelling and sobering listen. </p>
<p>And internationally, women of a certain age are enjoying podcasts (along with the sudden superpower of invisibility) such as <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/wiser-than-me-with-julia-louis-dreyfus/id1678559416"><strong>Wiser Than Me</strong></a>. Here, Julia Louis-Dreyfus interviews – and honours – older women, learning along with her listeners how to live well as you age. Guests have included iconic critic <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/julia-gets-wise-with-fran-lebowitz/id1678559416?i=1000609443615">Fran Lebowitz</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/julia-gets-wise-with-jane-fonda/id1678559416?i=1000608323289">Jane Fonda</a> and 90-year-old comedian <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/julia-gets-wise-with-carol-burnett/id1678559416?i=1000615829276">Carol Burnett</a></p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/australia-tops-the-world-for-podcast-listening-why-do-we-love-them-so-much-208937">Australia tops the world for podcast listening. Why do we love them so much?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Policing women’s voices</h2>
<p>Of course, while anyone can make and distribute a podcast, if it becomes a professional endeavour, there are gatekeepers within the podcasting ecosystem. Spotify’s attempt to build a walled garden of exclusive podcasts might have, ahem, <a href="https://www.midiaresearch.com/blog/why-spotifys-podcast-exclusivity-era-is-coming-to-an-end">hit a wall</a>. But as significant capital flows in and out of podcasting, attempts to corral and contain audiences will continue. </p>
<p>The centrepiece in the Spotify garden is the <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/4rOoJ6Egrf8K2IrywzwOMk">Joe Rogan Experience</a>, a podcast hosted by a man <a href="https://jrelibrary.com/articles/stats/">who mainly talks to other men</a> – and the world’s most expensive podcast. While I argue for podcasting as feminist project, it does operate within the world as it is.</p>
<p>But it sits alongside <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/7bnjJ7Va1nM07Um4Od55dW"><strong>Call Her Daddy</strong></a>, a podcast by a young woman, for young women – and another huge acquisition for Spotify: it’s apparently the platform’s most listened-to podcast by women. There are <a href="https://www.themudmag.com/post/female-empowerment-vs-female-degradation">familiar debates</a> around <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/05/23/magazine/alex-cooper-interview.html">self-proclaimed feminist</a> host Alex Cooper’s feminist credentials as some (outside her target audience) question whether, say, proficiency in sexual techniques are a feminist concern. </p>
<p>But Call Her Daddy speaks to the diversity of both feminism and podcasting, while engaging with celebrity and contemporary culture.</p>
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<p>Another method of pushing back against the voices of young women in particular is seen in the direct policing of women’s voices and <a href="https://theconversation.com/keep-an-eye-on-vocal-fry-its-all-about-power-status-and-gender-45883">vocal fry</a>, which is a style of speech associated with Valley Girls and the overuse of the word “like”, with the voice pitched in a way that can sound inauthentic and creaky.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.thisamericanlife.org/545/if-you-dont-have-anything-nice-to-say-say-it-in-all-caps/act-two-0/">Listeners</a> and critics feel free to complain about women’s voices, though men get a pass for the same qualities. Despite these familiar double standards, women continue to blossom as producers, hosts and consumers of podcasts. </p>
<p>In putting their voices to the world with humour and verve, women are putting the lie to such ideas as “<a href="https://time.com/4268325/history-calling-women-shrill/">women’s voices are shrill</a>” and “women aren’t funny”.</p>
<p>It is no small thing – and a decidedly feminist one – that podcasters such as the fabulous Deborah Frances-White have taken the means of production into their own hands. May they continue to podcast the joy, variety and challenges of women’s lives, well lived.</p>
<h2>12 feminist podcasts</h2>
<ol>
<li><a href="https://guiltyfeminist.com/">The Guilty Feminist</a></li>
<li><a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/3Q4YOPsPPSPdtehixbEe82">Australian Abortion Stories</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.chat10looks3.com/">Chat 10 Looks 3</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.feministbookclub.com/blog/">Feminist Book Club</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.audible.com.au/pd/First-Eat-with-Nakkiah-Lui-Audiobook/B0C5XL6LZP">First Eat</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/ladies-we-need-to-talk">Ladies, We Need to Talk</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.mamamia.com.au/podcasts/mamamia-out-loud/">Mamamia Out Loud</a></li>
<li><a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/everything-is-fine/id1491377174/">Everything is Fine</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.theheartradio.org/">The Heart</a></li>
<li><a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-retrievals/id1691599042">The Retrievals</a></li>
<li><a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/wiser-than-me-with-julia-louis-dreyfus/id1678559416">Wiser than Me</a></li>
<li><a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/7bnjJ7Va1nM07Um4Od55dW">Call Her Daddy</a></li>
</ol><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/224965/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lea Redfern does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Feminist podcasts are having a moment. An expert reflects on 12 of them, from The Guilty Feminist and Feminist Book Club to podcasts that explore women’s lives and stories.
Lea Redfern, Lecturer, Discipline of Media and Communications, University of Sydney
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/225081
2024-03-07T07:47:18Z
2024-03-07T07:47:18Z
‘Inequality serves no-one’: Australia finally has a strategy to achieve gender equality - but is it any good?
<p>As International Women’s Day comes around once more, the latest <a href="https://www.wgea.gov.au/pay-and-gender/gender-pay-gap-data">gender pay gap figures</a> for Australia have made for disappointing reading, including naming those companies where the gap is widest.</p>
<p>Looking at full-time equivalent total remuneration, the gender pay gap in Australia is at 21.7%. Yikes.</p>
<p>As she launched the government’s latest <a href="https://genderequality.gov.au/">gender equality strategy</a> at the Press Club on Thursday, Finance Minister and Minister for Women Katy Gallagher <a href="https://www.themandarin.com.au/241294-working-for-women-australia-first-national-strategy-to-achieve-gender-equality/">called</a> this “an eye-watering disparity”.</p>
<p>So what are the key points in the strategy and what actual difference is it likely to make?</p>
<p>As a guiding principle, one of Gallagher’s strongest quotes from the launch was that “inequality serves no-one”.</p>
<p>The strategy sets out that gender inequality and stereotypes also constrain men, limiting their choices, supports and opportunities. One way to redress this would be to normalise equal parenting and caring roles in Australian society. </p>
<p>Where the strategy is weakest is on how to preserve women’s hard-fought gains during crises and shocks such as the <a href="https://www.unwomen.org/en/news-stories/explainer/2022/02/explainer-how-gender-inequality-and-climate-change-are-interconnected">climate transition</a>. </p>
<h2>So what is the big picture for Australian gender equality?</h2>
<p>In this context, Gallagher said she is determined to get Australia back up the <a href="https://lens.monash.edu/@politics-society/2023/09/13/1386126/climbing-the-ranks-australias-gender-equity-breakthrough#:%7E:text=This%20significant%20moment%20dovetails%20with,political%20action%20to%20empower%20women.">international rankings</a> on gender equality.</p>
<p>I know what you’re thinking: Australia didn’t have a gender equality strategy before now? The surprising answer is no.</p>
<p>There is a 2022–32 <a href="https://www.dss.gov.au/ending-violence">strategy</a> on violence against women and girls, for example, but until now, there has been never been a plan for the broader goal of gender equality, and no plan to address <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/Human_Rights/HumanRightsFramework">human rights</a> since 2013. </p>
<p>And even now, the ten-year strategy won’t start until 2025. Can you imagine defence or infrastructure going years or decades without a strategy? AUKUS has a $368 billion plan between now and the mid-2050s. But key areas of social policy such mental health, gender equality or climate adaptation lapse for years, or are built and unbuilt by electoral change. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, the government is at least to be given some credit for finally giving us one on gender equality.</p>
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<h2>So what’s in it?</h2>
<p><a href="https://genderequality.gov.au/">Working for Women: A Strategy for Gender Equality</a> has a vision of “an Australia where people are safe, treated with respect, have choices and have access to resources and equal outcomes no matter their gender”. It includes a great section on harmful gender attitudes and stereotypes, complete with narratives. </p>
<p>There are also five priority areas for action: gender-based violence; unpaid and paid care; economic equality and security; health; and leadership, representation and decision-making. </p>
<p>Some of the key points are: </p>
<ul>
<li>New federal procurement rules will be developed by the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) so Australian businesses with 500 employees or more will be required to meet new gender equality targets if they want to win government contracts (noting federal public procurement is worth $70 billion). </li>
</ul>
<p>These <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/mar/07/labor-gender-equality-targets-government-contracts-katy-gallagher-national-press-club-speech">targets</a> will focus on the gender makeup of companies’ boards and the workforce; equal pay; flexible working arrangements; workplace consultation on gender equality; and efforts to prevent and address sexual harassment. </p>
<p>This has been proven overseas to be an excellent lever for gender quality outcomes. My <a href="https://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/default/files/publications/research/Gender-smart%20Procurement%20-%2020.12.2017.pdf">research for UK think tank Chatham House</a> showed public procurement accounts for around one-fifth of global gross domestic product. It is estimated women-owned businesses and women entrepreneurs supplied just 1% of this market. </p>
<ul>
<li><p>The federal government will <a href="https://ministers.pmc.gov.au/gallagher/2024/paying-super-government-paid-parental-leave-enhance-economic-security-and-gender-equality">pay superannuation on paid parental leave</a> (PPL) from July 1 2025.</p></li>
<li><p>The government will work towards the goal that paid and unpaid care work must be better valued. Women currently account for 75% of disability carers, 87% of residential aged carers, and more than 90% of early childhood educators. </p></li>
<li><p>The strategy will also tackle structural medical biases that lead to poorer health outcomes for women and girls, especially in relation to endometriosis and pelvic pain, and menopause.</p></li>
</ul>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/government-to-pay-super-on-paid-parental-leave-benefitting-180-000-families-a-year-225178">Government to pay super on paid parental leave, benefitting 180,000 families a year</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580368/original/file-20240307-22-calbu6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580368/original/file-20240307-22-calbu6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=345&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580368/original/file-20240307-22-calbu6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=345&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580368/original/file-20240307-22-calbu6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=345&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580368/original/file-20240307-22-calbu6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580368/original/file-20240307-22-calbu6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580368/original/file-20240307-22-calbu6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">While the government’s strategy has much to recommend it, it needed to do more on the impact of climate change on women.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>But climate impacts could undo it all…</h2>
<p>Where the strategy falls down badly is in the consideration of climate impacts and related disasters on Australia’s progress towards gender equality. </p>
<p>Literally the last page of the report notes that given the unequal impact of crises such as climate change and natural disasters on women, diverse leadership and representation are important. But the strategy doesn’t see climate adaptation as the game-changer that it is, with most current climate adaptation measures in energy, transport, disaster management, finance, climate services and technology fuelling gender inequality outcomes.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, as the minister said in her speech, the strategy points us to a better future for the next generation of girls and women: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>To a little girl who is born today. That by the time you go to school, you won’t have preconceived ideas about “girl” jobs and “boy” jobs. That by the time you choose the subjects you study you don’t self-select out of maths or science and technology if that’s what you’re interested in. That as you grow up, you and your male peers learn about respectful relationships and enthusiastic consent rather than how women should protect themselves and their friends from the threat of violence.</p>
<p>That if you experience the pain of endometriosis or polycystic ovarian syndrome your diagnosis doesn’t take a decade, or that you’re told the pain is in your head and then sent away from the ED with only Nurofen as pain relief.</p>
<p>That you won’t be catcalled when you go for a run or look over your shoulder when you walk alone.</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/225081/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Susan Harris Rimmer receives funding from the Australian Research Council, the Federal Government and Queensland Government. Susan is the President of UNAA Qld and on the board of youth-led NGO Foundations for Tomorrow.</span></em></p>
While there is much to applaud in the government’s strategy, it neglects to deal with the unequal gender impacts of climate change.
Susan Harris Rimmer, Professor and Director of the Policy Innovation Hub, Griffith Business School, Griffith University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/224684
2024-03-01T13:43:13Z
2024-03-01T13:43:13Z
Mugler’s fashion makes women look like goddesses but feminist critics can’t agree if that’s a good thing
<p>Two years after legendary French designer Thierry Mugler’s death, his brand, now under creative director Casey Cadwallader, continues to be committed to its <a href="https://www.mugler.co.uk/mugler-world/heritage-chapter2.html">creator’s vision</a> of <a href="https://www.mugler.co.uk/womens-day.html">“a new woman … fierce, sultry, powerful and enigmatic”</a>. </p>
<p>Mugler became an icon of haute couture in the 1980s, but it was in the 21st century that he shaped mainstream imagination. He spent his last decades dressing mega-celebrities including Lady Gaga and Beyoncé, inventing, almost single-handedly, the style of our current pop divas: what he called the “<a href="https://news.artnet.com/art-world/brooklyn-museum-thierry-mugler-2207033">glamazon”</a> look. </p>
<p>Staples include corseted waists, futuristic metal plates, exaggerated breasts and shoulders, insect-like and reptilian gowns, skin-tight bodysuits and plenty of theatrical opulence. This look remains central to the Mugler brand and is likely to be reflected in designs in the upcoming Fall/Winter 2024-2025 Mugler show at Paris fashion week. </p>
<p>By the time Mugler passed away in 2022, headlines said he had made <a href="https://www.vogue.co.uk/fashion/article/thierry-mugler-dana-thomas">“feminism sexy and powerful”</a> and called him a <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-10437367/A-1980s-Cosmopolitan-editor-recalls-Thierry-Muglers-power-shoulders-liberated-women.html">“visionary who let women mean business”</a>. However, earlier in his career, Mugler was often <a href="https://www.upi.com/Archives/1982/10/24/Fashion-turns-sexy-and-sexist/1013404280000/">accused of sexism</a> and of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1982/09/21/style/notes-on-fashion.html?searchResultPosition=1">being offensive to women</a>. </p>
<p>Despite the evident change in public opinion towards his work in recent decades, the vision that garnered him criticism is still present in the Mugler brand identity and continues to be worth a closer examination. </p>
<h2>Sex subjects or objects?</h2>
<p>One of Mugler’s last critics was feminist scholar Sheila Jeffreys, who accused him of reducing women to <a href="https://archive.org/stream/BeautyAndMisogynyHarmfulCulturalPracticesInTheWestBySheilaJeffreys/Beauty%20and%20Misogyny%20-%20Harmful%20Cultural%20Practices%20in%20the%20West%20by%20Sheila%20Jeffreys_djvu.txt">“objects for men’s sexual excitement”</a>. His designs prevented breathing, contorted the body, hypersexualized women and portrayed them as insects. For Jeffreys, this was all evidence of <a href="https://books.google.com.bz/books?id=nTBdDljmslcC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA100#v=onepage&q&f=false">“extreme misogyny”</a> and of women being treated as things to be bent to the will of the (male) creator, rather than as human beings.</p>
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<p>But many insisted that this was a misunderstanding. Mugler was taking femininity and making it a source of power rather than of subordination. Feminist art historian Linda Nochlin said Mugler’s approach was “so extreme that these women aren’t sex objects; <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1994/07/17/magazine/encounter-whose-vision-is-it-anyway.html">they’re sex subjects”</a>. Journalist Danièle Bott saw him not as objectifying the body, but rather as “embarking on a spiritual quest in search of perfection, a celebration of the <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Thierry_Mugler.html?id=-_pLAQAAIAAJ&redir_esc=y">cult of the body”</a>.“</p>
<p>These designs make women so sexualized that they turn from objects to subjects; so cinched that they are not objectified but celebrated.</p>
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<p>At the recent <a href="https://www.instagram.com/reel/C3Ybx4xN5Kx/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link">Dune: Part Two premiere</a>, American actor Zendaya stunned fans in a vintage futuristic robot suit from Mugler’s archives, complete with see-through buttocks and breasts. The actress was hailed as an <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/zendaya-stuns-in-see-through-robot-bodysuit-at-dune-part-two-premiere_uk_65cf30fee4b043f1c0aac649">"otherworldly”</a><a href="https://www.timesnownews.com/lifestyle/fashion/celeb-style/zendaya-channels-metal-marvel-at-dune-part-two-premiere-in-archival-mugler-article-107742016">“metallic goddess,
”</a>, not a mere sexual object. </p>
<p>Time and time again, Mugler’s designs manage to revive an almost religious attitude of reverence towards women that makes them feel and look powerful. But where does that power come from?</p>
<h2>Divine things</h2>
<p>One aspect of Thierry Mugler’s creative genius was the array of figures populating his shows: mermaids, dominatrices, vampires, Amazons, cowgirls, ancient goddesses, bird-women, insect-women and space-age robots. There was always a new, exciting heroine to delight his audience. But this variety also reflected a fundamental principle of Mugler’s vision: in all these guises, the Mugler woman is fundamentally a fantasy, unreal and shapeshifting. </p>
<p>This constantly morphing quality is what makes a Mugler woman an alluring mystery. This is also why it’s important that her body look impossible.</p>
<p>When Mugler designed an illusion water-dripping, flesh-coloured dress for Kim Kardashian’s 2019 <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BxJMGe2nKrv/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link">Met Gala appearance</a>, the result was so extreme <a href="https://www.papermag.com/kim-kardashian-met-gala-corset#rebelltitem2">the internet was left wondering if ribs had been removed</a>. But the <a href="https://www.harpersbazaar.com/celebrity/latest/a28325846/kim-kardashian-met-gala-corset-pain/">painfully corseted</a> latex was essential. Its strangeness changed Kardashian from a flesh and bone human into a powerful <a href="https://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/fashion/celebrity/a27381769/kim-kardashian-2019-met-gala/">“rain drop queen”</a>.</p>
<p>It’s unclear that this is the kind of empowerment feminists should be after. Philosopher Simone de Beauvoir warned about this in <a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/360348/the-second-sex-by-simone-de-beauvoir/9780099595731">The Second Sex</a>: “As powerful as [a goddess] may appear, she is defined through notions created by the male consciousness.”</p>
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<p>In George Michael’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQ2DVwSVIIo">Too Funky music video</a>, it’s Michael in the roll of cameraman that watches those divine supermodels dominating the catwalk in Thierry Mugler’s creations. Being a fantasy is a heady experience, but it requires an onlooker, a worshipper. And worship is a tricky thing because the power it confers is precarious and unstable.</p>
<p>Fashion critic Marylou Luther <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Thierry_Mugler.html?id=ubiFQgAACAAJ&redir_esc=y">noticed that Mugler</a> sent “super-supermodel <a href="https://www.vogue.com/article/met-gala-first-person-pat-cleveland-as-madonna-eighties-thierry-mugler-show-1984">Pat Cleveland to fashion heaven as the Virgin Mary</a> one season, (…) banishing her to hell as the bride of Lucifer the next”. In her eyes, this was just one of his <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Thierry_Mugler.html?id=ubiFQgAACAAJ&redir_esc=y">“playful irreverences”</a>. But this oscillation is emblematic of the core logic of “woman as fantasy”. To keep being a mystery, a stimulating riddle, she must be ethereal goddess one moment, diabolical vamp the next. </p>
<p>We should be wary here. Being a fantasy is a double-edged sword and contains within it the seeds of both worship and profound hatred. Mugler’s cult of woman as a transcendental goddess is dangerous because it can quickly turn into demonising women and seeing them as the embodiment of evil. In fact, it requires that turn. Eventually even the most sparkling angel becomes boring and predictable.</p>
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<p><em>Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/something-good-156">Sign up here</a>.</em></p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Filipa Melo Lopes does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Thierry Mugler’s extreme contours and lines have been said to empower rather than objectify women.
Filipa Melo Lopes, Lecturer in Social and Political Philosophy, The University of Edinburgh
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/223483
2024-02-26T17:27:10Z
2024-02-26T17:27:10Z
How Tumblr raised a generation of feminists
<p>Like so many millennials, my teenage years on the multimedia microblogging platform, Tumblr, introduced me to feminist politics, which inspired my burgeoning interest in gender and feminism at university. My experiences as a <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/44867867">Tumblr teen</a> at the height of its popularity inspired my book, <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/feminist-fandom-9798765101773/">Feminist Fandom: Media Fandom, Digital Feminisms, and Tumblr</a>, which examines the platform in the early- to mid-2010s. </p>
<p>By the end of the 2010s, <a href="https://www.youngwomenstrust.org/our-research/young-womens-feminism-and-activism-2019/">reports indicated</a> that the majority of young women identified as feminists – a far cry from the <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Repudiating-Feminism-Young-Women-in-a-Neoliberal-World/Scharff/p/book/9781138274099">preceding decade</a> marked by ambivalence and unease, if not outright hostility, toward feminism. </p>
<p>From high-profile celebrities such as <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyuUWOnS9BY">Beyoncé</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9SUAcNlVQ4">Emma Watson</a> declaring themselves feminists, to feminist books dominating the bestseller charts, to feminist commentary in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2020.1762236">Elle</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.3167/ghs.2021.140304">Teen Vogue</a>, popular culture in the 2010s was marked by the sudden and spectacular resurgence of feminist politics. </p>
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<img alt="Quarter life, a series by The Conversation" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/451343/original/file-20220310-13-1bj6csd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em><strong><a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/quarter-life-117947?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=UK+YP2022&utm_content=InArticleTop">This article is part of Quarter Life</a></strong>, a series about issues affecting those of us in our twenties and thirties. From the challenges of beginning a career and taking care of our mental health, to the excitement of starting a family, adopting a pet or just making friends as an adult. The articles in this series explore the questions and bring answers as we navigate this turbulent period of life.</em></p>
<p><em>You may be interested in:</em></p>
<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/why-you-might-start-to-hate-the-influencers-you-once-loved-222659#:%7E:text=Influencers%20typically%20rise%20to%20fame,feel%20entitled%20to%20omitted%20information.https://theconversation.com/why-you-might-start-to-hate-the-influencers-you-once-loved-222659#:%7E:text=Influencers%20typically%20rise%20to%20fame,feel%20entitled%20to%20omitted%20information.?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=UK+YP2022&utm_content=InArticleTop">Why you might start to hate the influencers you once loved</a></em></p>
<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/tiktoks-mob-wife-aesthetic-is-far-from-the-harsh-reality-of-women-in-italys-world-of-organised-crime-222241?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=UK+YP2022&utm_content=InArticleTop">TikTok’s mob wife aesthetic is far from the harsh reality of women in Italy’s world of organised crime
</a></em></p>
<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/instapoetry-is-successful-and-theres-nothing-wrong-with-that-222012?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=UK+YP2022&utm_content=InArticleTop">Instapoetry is successful and there’s nothing wrong with that</a></em></p>
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<p>Feminism, it seemed, had lost its former reputation as an outdated and dirty word. By 2017, feminism was so central to the zeitgeist that it was declared the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/dec/13/feminism-merriam-webster-word-of-the-year">Merriam-Webster</a> word of the year. </p>
<p>Many commentators have argued that feminism’s visibility on social media was instrumental to this revival, ushering in its <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/15/magazine/15fob-q4-t.html">fourth wave</a>. And few social media platforms received <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/21/style/millennials-and-the-age-of-tumblr-activism.html">quite so much attention</a> for their <a href="https://pitchfork.com/features/article/2010s-how-tumblr-culture-legitimized-queer-fandom-frank-ocean-troye-sivan-one-direction/">progressive, queer and feminist ethos</a> as Tumblr. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Beyoncé’s 2013 song Flawless declared her identity as a feminist.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Since its conception in 2007, Tumblr has developed a <a href="https://www.fulcrum.org/concern/monographs/x346d608w">reputation for its appeal to marginalised users</a>, especially LGBTQ+ youth, girls and young women, and people of colour. Widely used for sharing knowledge, community building and personal and creative expression, both Tumblr and its users readily embraced its reputation as a space committed to social justice and the <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/tumblr-reinvigorated/">open, self-governing exchange of ideas</a>.</p>
<p>Why and how, I wondered when <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/feminist-fandom-9798765101773/">writing my book</a>, did this platform in particular play such a central role in the feminist experiences and identities of so many of my millennial peers? Here’s what I found.</p>
<h2>1. Design</h2>
<p>The design and functionality of Tumblr differentiated it from other popular platforms at the time. Unlike Facebook, where explicit <a href="https://ojs.aaai.org/index.php/ICWSM/article/view/14509">identity cues</a> – including your real name, age and location – are required for use, the only identity information Tumblr required of users was their age, email address and a pseudonymous username. </p>
<p>Tumblr allowed users to have a high level of control over their visibility and the way they presented themselves. By virtue of its simplicity, customisability and (initially) <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/23268743.2019.1667048">lax approach to content moderation</a>, Tumblr enabled a greater sense of privacy and freedom of expression than its more popular competitors. This made the site appealing to those hoping to explore identities, issues and interests that could be unwelcome elsewhere. </p>
<p>Tumblr’s anonymity made it feel safer for its marginalised users, inviting curiosity, experimentation and openness in those important first encounters with feminism.</p>
<h2>2. Broad definition of feminism</h2>
<p>Feminists have long <a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/305361/feminisms-by-delap-lucy/9780141985985">emphasised</a> that no single or universal “feminism” exists. Few versions of feminism on Tumblr achieved the <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/empowered">height of attention</a> enjoyed by liberal, white, western, middle-class feminism. But others nevertheless found a footing there, providing insight into the relationship between feminism and anti-racism, queer liberation, anti-imperialism, anti-capitalism and more.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Emma Watson’s 2014 UN speech on feminism was popular on Tumblr.</span></figcaption>
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<p>The wide variety of marginalised perspectives and voices on Tumblr combined to play an <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2011.642890">educational</a> and consciousness-raising role in the lives of its users, offering more complex and critical insights into intersecting inequalities.</p>
<h2>3. Culture</h2>
<p>For many users, Tumblr’s ultimate appeal lay in its mixture of political and educational content and content that was more playful, leisure-oriented and interest-based. </p>
<p>Many of the Tumblr users I interviewed for my book described their Tumblr blogs as a highly personal repository of all of their passions and interests, from personal life to pop culture and politics. As Emily, who is now in her late 20s, recalled: “I got my Tumblr account when I was 14. I remember an acquaintance suggested it, so I checked it out, and it really offered me a place to collate all my interests. I fell down the rabbit hole pretty quickly.” </p>
<p>When we last spoke in 2018, she said that she was hesitant to leave Tumblr, describing it as a “living document of everything I’ve ever been interested in”.</p>
<p>The mixture of personal and political material on Tumblr served an important purpose for young feminists on the platform. No longer was feminism an abstract, academic and detached endeavour. Instead, it was immediate, engaging and playful, embedded into a bespoke timeline compiling users’ every interest, passion and political affinity. </p>
<h2>Decline and nostalgia</h2>
<p>Tumblr’s <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444820979280">controversial adult content ban</a> in 2018 was widely seen as a death knell <a href="https://doi.org/10.1215/23289252-8143407">heralding its demise</a> and signalling the end of an era for a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/2056305119867442">Tumblr feminism</a> marked by the embrace of different sexual and gender identities. </p>
<p>Yet the ban’s partial reversal in <a href="https://staff.tumblr.com/post/699744158019190784/this-is-not-a-drill-our-new-community-guidelines">November 2022</a> has ushered in hopes of a Tumblr revival. These hopes are built on <a href="https://www.wiley.com/en-ae/Tumblr-p-9781509541096">Tumblr nostalgia</a>: a yearning for an imagined past of the platform centring its progressive sensibility.</p>
<p>This yearning is partially driven by doubts about whether today’s popular platforms will harbour the same feminist potential for the next generation. For example, while TikTok has shown some <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2022.2146774">signs of promise</a>, it’s also home to prominent <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2023.2263820">anti-feminist</a> communities and has come under fire from <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/13548565231218629">marginalised content creators</a>.</p>
<p>Moreover, its focus on visibility and exposure, compared to Tumblr’s focus on pseudonymity, makes users vulnerable to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051211021378">networked harassment</a>, which, as many <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2016.1120490">feminists</a> have noted, disproportionately impacts <a href="https://datasociety.net/library/online-harassment-digital-abuse-cyberstalking/">women</a> and gender minorities.</p>
<p>Despite its imperfections, Tumblr’s unique design, culture and sensibility combined to shape a generation of feminists in the 2010s. I don’t see any modern websites or apps that would be able to follow suit in the 2020s. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em>Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/something-good-156">Sign up here</a>.</em></p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Briony Hannell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Since its conception in 2007, Tumblr has developed a reputation for its appeal to marginalised users.
Briony Hannell, University Teacher in Sociology, University of Sheffield
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/222532
2024-02-19T18:27:03Z
2024-02-19T18:27:03Z
Gen Z boys’ attitudes to feminism are more nuanced than negative
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/575604/original/file-20240214-18-jfr8z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C16%2C5599%2C3715&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/three-teenagers-sat-together-128632589">Phovoir/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Young men are more likely than older men to think that feminism has done more harm than good, according to a <a href="https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/masculinity-and-womens-equality-study-finds-emerging-gender-divide-young-peoples-attitudes#:%7E:text=Among%20those%20aged%2016%20to,in%2011%20(9%25)%20women">new survey</a>, suggesting a backward step in attitudes to gender equality. Young women aged 16-29 are also slightly more likely than women aged 30-59 to say that feminism has done more harm than good. </p>
<p>The survey, conducted by King’s College London and Ipsos, also found a growing divergence in attitudes towards feminism, masculinity and gender equality between young men and young women. </p>
<p>On the surface, the findings chime with our experiences of conducting research directly with young people on these topics and delivering relationships and sex education in schools. But in both our work and the survey data, the reality is more nuanced than these headline findings suggest. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1752985389306982709"}"></div></p>
<p>Most of the survey sample — including the younger age groups — do not sit at the more divided extremes of the response options. While 16% of men aged 16-29 thought feminism had done more harm than good, more than double this proportion, 36%, thought it had done more good than harm. </p>
<h2>Who’s a feminist?</h2>
<p>In our recent experience of <a href="https://www.surrey.ac.uk/news/teaching-sex-education-digital-age-dealing-influence-pornography">working in schools</a> delivering and evaluating an educational session designed to address harmful sexual behaviour in schools, we asked the young people how many would identify themselves as a feminist. In response, there were often just two or three hands raised, often accompanied by an odd snide comment from one of the boys. </p>
<p>Both boys and girls seem disinclined to <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14681811.2020.1802242">endorse feminism</a>, with this <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-47006912">perhaps counter-intuitive</a> tendency among young women having been seen for some time. </p>
<p>But when we probe a little deeper and ask if they believe in equality between genders or what they understand by feminism, a different picture emerges.</p>
<p>The young people we work with often have a firm understanding of the inequality that exists between men and women. They typically endorse the idea that people should not be restricted or disadvantaged by their gender, but that possible disadvantage as a result of gender is nuanced and flows in both directions: both boys and girls are affected by gender stereotypes and pressures.</p>
<p>The girls in the room are quick to point out the double standards which, they feel, means they are judged more harshly and experience more social shaming connected to their bodies and sexual behaviour than boys. They talk about the <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Sex-Ed-for-Grown-Ups-How-to-Talk-to-Children-and-Young-People-about-Sex/Hunt/p/book/9780367641337">effect of gender inequality</a> on their ability to make free choices and to feel safe in their day-to-day lives. Unwanted attention, sexual harassment and feeling unsafe are still a rite of passage for teenage girls.</p>
<p>The boys, meanwhile, with the demands of masculinity thrust upon them, rarely consider themselves <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11199-022-01335-9">powerful or privileged</a>. They are often insecure in their bodies, embarrassed and out of their depth – especially in their intimate and sexual relationships where they are expected to take control.</p>
<p>We have found that young people have a straightforward desire <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11199-022-01335-9">for authentic and healthy relationships</a> be that with their same- or opposite-sex peers. They find it difficult to translate these aspirations into reality, however, as they navigate existing social and cultural expectations and pressures surrounding gender and relationships. </p>
<p>Boys and young men, in particular, are pulled between ideas of traditional masculinity and demands to be emotionally self-aware and sensitive. </p>
<h2>The role of adults</h2>
<p>When thinking about young people’s attitudes to feminism, we need to acknowledge that it is older generations who write the social scripts for boys and girls. It is older generations who frame sex, still, as something boys do to girls – as one of us found when interviewing teachers about how they educate <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11199-022-01335-9">boys about consent</a>. </p>
<p>And it is older adults – such as the 37-year-old social media influencer Andrew Tate – who preach that feminism has gone too far. Media coverage of the King’s College and Ipsos Mori survey <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2024/feb/01/gen-z-boys-and-men-more-likely-than-baby-boomers-to-believe-feminism-harmful-says-poll">has emphasised</a> the finding that <a href="https://www.marieclaire.co.uk/news/reports/andrew-tate-feminism-gen-z">one in five</a> young men we surveyed approved of him. But this means that only a minority of boys and young men who said they had heard of Tate had a positive view of him. </p>
<p>More than half of the young men said they found Tate’s views offensive. This finding reflects what we are encountering in our research work: a dwindling <a href="https://yougov.co.uk/society/articles/45735-how-many-britons-agree-andrew-tates-views-women">interest in Tate</a> among young people.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14681811.2020.1802242">our experience</a>, most young people are open-minded, inclusive and tolerant. They are critical thinkers when allowed to think for themselves rather than being fed easy answers by the adults around them or, as seemed to be the case in this survey, asked to select between options framed as competing interests between men and women. </p>
<p>Our research underscores the need for a youth-centric approach to tackling issues relating to gender and relationships with young people that does not tell them what to think, but more how to think in ways that respond to their concerns. The adults in young people’s lives – parents, teachers and others – should think about, and talk to them about, why influencers like Tate gain traction. </p>
<p>Young people need support, based on open and constructive dialogue, to navigate gender and relationships in an ethical, mutual and positive, rather than risk-averse and divisive, way.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/222532/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emily Setty receives funding from ESRC and Leverhulme/British Academy Trust.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jonny Hunt receives funding from ESRC and is a partner of the Sex Education Forum.</span></em></p>
We have found that young people have a straightforward desire for authentic and healthy relationships.
Emily Setty, Senior Lecturer in Criminology, University of Surrey
Jonny Hunt, Senior Lecturer in Applied Social Science, University of Bedfordshire
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/220282
2024-02-15T00:00:55Z
2024-02-15T00:00:55Z
Feminist narratives are being hijacked to market medical tests not backed by evidence
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/575240/original/file-20240213-27-twey75.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=252%2C97%2C6218%2C4210&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/woman-sitting-on-floor-and-leaning-on-couch-using-laptop-Nv-vx3kUR2A">Thought Catalog/Unsplash</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Corporations have used feminist language to promote their products for decades. In the 1980s, companies co-opted messaging about female autonomy to encourage women’s consumption of unhealthy commodities, <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/21/7902">such as tobacco and alcohol</a>. </p>
<p>Today, feminist narratives around empowerment and women’s rights are being co-opted to market interventions that are not backed by evidence across many areas of women’s health. This includes by commercial companies, industry, mass media and well-intentioned advocacy groups. </p>
<p>Some of these health technologies, tests and treatments are useful in certain situations and can be very beneficial to some women. </p>
<p>However, promoting them to a large group of asymptomatic healthy women that are unlikely to benefit, or without being transparent about the limitations, runs the risk of causing more harm than good. This includes inappropriate medicalisation, overdiagnosis and overtreatment. </p>
<p>In our analysis published today in the <a href="https://www.bmj.com/content/384/bmj-2023-076710">BMJ</a>, we examine this phenomenon in two current examples: the anti-mullerian hormone (AMH) test and breast density notification.</p>
<h2>The AMH test</h2>
<p>The AMH test is a blood test associated with the number of eggs in a woman’s ovaries and is sometimes referred to as the “egg timer” test. </p>
<p>Although often used in fertility treatment, the AMH test cannot reliably predict the <a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2656811">likelihood of pregnancy</a>, timing to pregnancy or <a href="https://academic.oup.com/humupd/article/29/3/327/6990969">specific age of menopause</a>. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists therefore <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30913192/">strongly discourages testing</a> for women not seeking fertility treatment. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Woman sits in a medical waiting room" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/575242/original/file-20240213-24-tbgpbk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/575242/original/file-20240213-24-tbgpbk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575242/original/file-20240213-24-tbgpbk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575242/original/file-20240213-24-tbgpbk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575242/original/file-20240213-24-tbgpbk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575242/original/file-20240213-24-tbgpbk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575242/original/file-20240213-24-tbgpbk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The AMH test can’t predict your chance of getting pregnant.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/a-woman-sitting-on-a-bench-in-a-waiting-area-UssKpGyrBzw">Anastasia Vityukova/Unsplash</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Despite this, several <a href="https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/11/7/e046927.info">fertility clinics</a> and <a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2808552">online companies</a> market the AMH test to women not even trying to get pregnant. Some use feminist rhetoric promising empowerment, selling the test as a way to gain personalised insights into your fertility. For example, “<a href="https://www.ondemand.labcorp.com/lab-tests/womens-fertility-test">you deserve</a> to know your reproductive potential”, “<a href="https://kinfertility.com.au/fertility-test">be proactive</a> about your fertility” and “<a href="https://monashivf.com/services/early-intervention/amh-blood-test/">knowing your numbers</a> will empower you to make the best decisions when family planning”. </p>
<p>The use of feminist marketing makes these companies appear socially progressive and champions of female health. But they are selling a test that has no proven benefit outside of IVF and cannot inform women about their current or future fertility. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/dont-believe-the-hype-egg-timer-tests-cant-reliably-predict-your-chance-of-conceiving-or-menopause-timing-207008">Don't believe the hype. 'Egg timer' tests can't reliably predict your chance of conceiving or menopause timing</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Our <a href="https://academic.oup.com/humrep/article/38/8/1571/7193900?login=false">recent study</a> found around 30% of women having an AMH test in Australia may be having it for these reasons.</p>
<p>Misleading women to believe that the test can reliably predict fertility can create a false sense of security about delaying pregnancy. It can also create unnecessary anxiety, pressure to freeze eggs, conceive earlier than desired, or start fertility treatment when it may not be needed.</p>
<p>While some companies mention the test’s limitations if you read on, they are glossed over and contradicted by the calls to be proactive and messages of empowerment. </p>
<h2>Breast density notification</h2>
<p>Breast density is one of several independent risk factors for breast cancer. It’s also harder to see cancer on a mammogram image of breasts with high amounts of dense tissue than breasts with a greater proportion of fatty tissue. </p>
<p>While estimates vary, approximately 25–50% of women in the breast screening population <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4200066/">have dense breasts</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Young woman has mammogram" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/575244/original/file-20240213-22-kbvlxa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/575244/original/file-20240213-22-kbvlxa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575244/original/file-20240213-22-kbvlxa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575244/original/file-20240213-22-kbvlxa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575244/original/file-20240213-22-kbvlxa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575244/original/file-20240213-22-kbvlxa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575244/original/file-20240213-22-kbvlxa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Dense breasts can make it harder to detect cancer.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/young-woman-taking-mammogram-xray-test-75178006">Tyler Olsen/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Stemming from valid concerns about the increased risk of cancer, advocacy efforts have used feminist language around women’s right to know <a href="https://insightplus.mja.com.au/2022/34/breast-density-we-can-handle-the-truth/#:%7E:text=%E2%80%9CWomen%20can%20handle%20the%20truth,need%20to%20know%20that%20truth.">such as</a> “women need to know the truth” and “women can handle the truth” to argue for widespread breast density notification. </p>
<p>However, this simplistic messaging overlooks that this is a complex issue and that <a href="https://ebm.bmj.com/content/26/6/309">more data is still needed</a> on whether the benefits of notifying and providing additional screening or tests to women with dense breasts outweigh the harms. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-causes-breast-cancer-in-women-what-we-know-dont-know-and-suspect-86314">What causes breast cancer in women? What we know, don't know and suspect</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Additional tests (ultrasound or MRI) are now being recommended for women with dense breasts as they have the ability to detect more cancer. Yet, there is no or little mention of the <a href="https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMe1912943">lack of robust evidence</a> showing that it prevents breast cancer deaths. These extra tests also have out-of-pocket costs and high rates of false-positive results. </p>
<p>Large international advocacy groups are also sponsored by companies that will <a href="https://www.volparahealth.com/news/volpara-announces-expanded-sponsorship-of-densebreast-info-org-at-sbi-2023/">financially benefit from women being notified</a>.</p>
<p>While stronger patient autonomy is vital, campaigning for breast density notification without stating the limitations or unclear evidence of benefit may go against the empowerment being sought. </p>
<h2>Ensuring feminism isn’t hijacked</h2>
<p>Increased awareness and advocacy in women’s health are key to overcoming sex inequalities in health care. </p>
<p>But we need to ensure the goals of feminist health advocacy aren’t undermined through commercially driven use of feminist language pushing care that isn’t based on evidence. This includes more transparency about the risks and uncertainties of health technologies, tests and treatments and greater scrutiny of conflicts of interests. </p>
<p>Health professionals and governments must also ensure that easily understood, balanced information based on high quality scientific evidence is available. This will enable women to make more informed decisions about their health.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/young-women-wont-be-told-how-to-behave-but-is-girlboss-just-deportment-by-another-name-132351">Young women won't be told how to behave, but is #girlboss just deportment by another name?</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/220282/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brooke Nickel receives fellowship funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC). She is on the Scientific Committee of the Preventing Overdiagnosis Conference.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tessa Copp receives fellowship funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC). She is also on the Scientific Committee of the Preventing Overdiagnosis Conference. </span></em></p>
Corporate medicine is hijacking feminist narratives around empowerment and women’s rights to market technologies, tests and treatments that aren’t backed by evidence.
Brooke Nickel, NHMRC Emerging Leader Research Fellow, University of Sydney
Tessa Copp, NHMRC Emerging Leader Research Fellow, University of Sydney
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/223010
2024-02-12T20:10:11Z
2024-02-12T20:10:11Z
Do feminists have better sex? Yes, they do
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574542/original/file-20240208-26-s9dix2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=11%2C260%2C7551%2C4784&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Contrary to toxic myths and cliché, feminist women are enjoying pleasurable sex lives</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>You might’ve heard the stereotype that feminists are just angry women who need to find a man who can satisfy them sexually. It is an old trope that has been with us since at least the 1970s. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, just when we think we may have moved on from toxic myths like these, rhetoric reminds us they are still very much around. </p>
<p>United States Sen. Ted Cruz tried to revive this cliché in <a href="https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1737220576190873699">recent comments at a conservative conference</a>. He suggested that liberal women are sexually unsatisfied because liberal men are too wimpy: “If you were a liberal woman, and you had to sleep with those weenies, you’d be pissed too.” He implied that they will only achieve sexual satisfaction by submitting to domineering men.</p>
<p>I have conducted research on the topic of feminist identity and sexual behaviour, and I’ve got news for Cruz and anyone else worried about women’s sexual satisfaction. There is no sex drought for feminist women; they have sex just as often as non-feminists. In fact, feminist women report their sex is more cuddly, loving and pleasurable — some might say better — than those who are not feminists. </p>
<p>Thanks for your concern, Sen. Cruz, but we’re doing just fine.</p>
<h2>Feminists report having better sex</h2>
<p>In 2022, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-021-02158-7">I surveyed a representative sample of 2,303 adults across Canada</a> and I analyzed the responses of the 1,126 women who took part. Respondents were asked about their sexual activities, both alone and with a partner.</p>
<p>I found that women who identified as feminist and non-feminist both reported high levels of sexual satisfaction. However, women who claimed a feminist identity were more likely to report their most recent sexual encounter included kissing and cuddling than non-feminist women. </p>
<p>Among women, 57 per cent of non-feminists said their most recent sexual encounter included kissing and cuddling, compared to 68 per cent of feminists. This data suggests that feminists are not sad and lonely, but they are engaging in loving, enjoyable sex to a greater extent than non-feminists.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574539/original/file-20240208-16-9k7ay3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two women smiling and embracing" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574539/original/file-20240208-16-9k7ay3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574539/original/file-20240208-16-9k7ay3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574539/original/file-20240208-16-9k7ay3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574539/original/file-20240208-16-9k7ay3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574539/original/file-20240208-16-9k7ay3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574539/original/file-20240208-16-9k7ay3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574539/original/file-20240208-16-9k7ay3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Feminist women are more likely to be in social circles where they are more comfortable talking about sex.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The clitoris is where it’s at</h2>
<p>One difference between feminist and non-feminist women that stood out the most in my research relates to the pleasure centre of the female body: the clitoris. Feminists were more likely to report receiving clitoral stimulation in the form of oral sex from their partner: 38 per cent of feminist women, compared to 30 per cent of non-feminist women, said they received oral sex in their last encounter.</p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/0092623x.2017.1346530">Clitoral stimulation is the path to sexual pleasure and orgasms for women</a>, feminist or not. However, sometimes sex — especially in heterosexual couples — pays more attention to male pleasure, focusing primarily on stimulation of the penis through vaginal penetration. Clitoral stimulation, such as with mouths, hands or sex toys, gets less attention. Sometimes we give short shrift to clitoral stimulation, relegating it to foreplay, or somehow outside of what counts as “regular sex.”</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-are-men-having-more-orgasms-than-women-in-heterosexual-relationships-180080">Why are men having more orgasms than women in heterosexual relationships?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Shouldn’t women have as much access to sexual pleasure as men? There is abundant evidence, in the case of heterosexual couples, that there is a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/08912432211073062">gender gap in orgasms</a>, with women having fewer orgasms than men. A feminist sensibility might consider it obvious that women should have as much sexual pleasure as men, and their sexual behaviours reflect that ideal.</p>
<h2>Why might feminists have better sex?</h2>
<p>Many women see <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/social-lights/202103/the-joy-feminism">feminism as a source of self-actualization and empowerment</a>, and the link between feminist identity and better sex might be quite simple: Feminists know what they want in bed and are more likely to feel empowered to ask for it. </p>
<p>Feminists are more likely to be in social circles with other feminist friends, and they might be more comfortable talking about sex and pleasure, giving them a chance to discover what they want from sexual encounters. Indeed, my survey also found that feminist women also pleasure themselves more frequently than non-feminists.</p>
<p>Perhaps they are more likely to have sexual partners who are also feminist. We know that <a href="https://brighterworld.mcmaster.ca/articles/men-who-identify-as-feminists-are-having-more-and-more-varied-sex/">feminist men who have sex with women</a> are more likely to give oral sex to their partners, tending to the clitoral stimulation of their sexual partners to a greater extent than non-feminist men do. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/men-who-identify-as-feminists-are-having-more-and-more-varied-sex-158197">Men who identify as feminists are having more — and more varied — sex</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574496/original/file-20240208-30-gsx5ri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man and woman lie in a bed hugging" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574496/original/file-20240208-30-gsx5ri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574496/original/file-20240208-30-gsx5ri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574496/original/file-20240208-30-gsx5ri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574496/original/file-20240208-30-gsx5ri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574496/original/file-20240208-30-gsx5ri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574496/original/file-20240208-30-gsx5ri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574496/original/file-20240208-30-gsx5ri.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Women who claimed a feminist identity were more likely to report their most recent sexual encounter included kissing and cuddling than non-feminist women.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Heterosexual feminist women might be more likely to have feminist men partners than non-feminists do, so they might have greater access to more generous lovers. Women who have sex with women are also more likely to receive oral sex than women with men partners. </p>
<p>Whether it is through personal empowerment, better communication or sexual partners who are willing to give them what they need, feminists are having sex that is kissy, cuddly and stimulating. </p>
<p>So, contrary to Cruz’s pronouncements on the subject, feminists have sex just as often as non-feminists, and the sex they have is often loving and pleasurable. It’s time to let go of hateful stereotypes. Let’s lean into the idea that satisfying sex should be available to everyone.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223010/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tina Fetner receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. </span></em></p>
Research shows that feminist women are more likely to have sex that is more loving and pleasurable.
Tina Fetner, Professor, Sociology, McMaster University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/222387
2024-02-08T00:55:49Z
2024-02-08T00:55:49Z
Even with a 30% quota in place, Indonesian women face an uphill battle running for office
<p>In the 2019 general election, Indonesians voted more women into the national parliament than ever before. </p>
<p>After the first election of the post-authoritarian period in 1999, women’s representation was a paltry 8.8%, so the rise to 20.9% in 2019 seemed worth celebrating. Indeed, women activists had worked long and hard to reach this point. </p>
<p>Disappointed with the results of the first two elections, they had successfully pushed for a candidate quota, requiring parties to nominate at least 30% women. </p>
<p>This will again be tested in next week’s election. But given the barriers women candidates in Indonesia face, is the quota enough to raise representation?</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/is-joko-widodo-paving-the-way-for-a-political-dynasty-in-indonesia-219499">Is Joko Widodo paving the way for a political dynasty in Indonesia?</a>
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<h2>Representation better, but not enough</h2>
<p>Under Indonesia’s open list proportional representation system, parties decide on candidate placement on the list, but voters can choose any candidate. In the past three elections, the quota has meant that in every electoral district at all three levels of parliament, women had to make up at least 30% of candidates. Additionally, <a href="https://www.insideindonesia.org/editions/edition-135-elections-2019/electoral-in-equity?highlight=WyJwcmloYXRpbmkiXQ==">one in every three</a> candidates on the party list had to be female.</p>
<p>With such a strong institutional framework, it is not surprising that enthusiasm after the 2019 election was <a href="https://www.newmandala.org/why-good-women-lose-elections/">muted</a>. Given the 2014 election had seen a slight fall in women’s representation, activists were relieved. But the result was still well below the aspirational 30% target, and below the <a href="https://data.ipu.org/women-averages">international average</a> at the time of 24.3%.</p>
<p>The results were also uneven, with more than 20% of electoral districts not electing any women to parliament. At the provincial and district level, the proportion of women elected to office was <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1868103421989720">even lower</a>, at only 18% and 15% respectively; 25 district parliaments had no women at all elected to office in 2019.</p>
<p>Why do women find it hard to be elected to office in Indonesia, and is this likely to change in 2024? </p>
<h2>Barriers of patriarchy, money and name recognition</h2>
<p>In many countries, it is said that when women run, they win. The main barrier to greater representation tends to be that women <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/25/upshot/the-problem-for-women-is-not-winning-its-deciding-to-run.html">don’t stand for office</a>. When they do, political parties don’t nominate them, or put them in unwinnable positions.</p>
<p>The quota in Indonesia gets around this problem. It encourages women to run and forces parties to nominate them. But <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/politics-and-gender/article/voting-against-women-political-patriarchy-islam-and-representation-in-indonesia/97BA1999553E22A86FF497F25E49F40B">our research</a> has revealed that women candidates in Indonesia also face significant barriers from patriarchal attitudes held by many voters about whether women should take on political leadership roles. </p>
<p>Support for women’s political leadership has even dropped over the past decade. Meanwhile, Indonesia’s electoral system allows voters to discriminate against women without having to sacrifice party choice, as they would in a majoritarian voting system like that in Australia.</p>
<p>But the challenges don’t stop there. </p>
<p>Indonesia is a new democracy and political parties receive very little public financing. Candidates are expected to raise their own funds to run their campaigns. </p>
<p>The open-list system means candidates run not just against opponents from other parties, but also against their fellow party members, making politics <a href="https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/Democracy_for_Sale/g-KEDwAAQBAJ?hl=en">highly personalised</a>. This has led to a dramatic rise in the cost of elections for individual candidates, with “money politics” coming to dominate election campaigns. </p>
<p>Given that women in Indonesia face high levels of <a href="https://www.weforum.org/publications/global-gender-gap-report-2023/economy-profiles-5932ef6d39/">economic inequality</a>, the cost of campaigns makes competing <a href="https://indonesiaatmelbourne.unimelb.edu.au/campaign-costs-impeding-womens-political-representation-in-indonesia/">difficult</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/indonesia-is-one-of-the-worlds-largest-democracies-but-its-weaponising-defamation-laws-to-smother-dissent-220651">Indonesia is one of the world's largest democracies, but it's weaponising defamation laws to smother dissent</a>
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<p>Clientelism also shapes the kind of women candidates that parties choose and where they place them on their lists. Elite women and celebrities are more likely to be nominated as they can finance themselves. They also have the networks and name recognition that can garner votes. In 2019, <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1868103421991144">some 44%</a> of the women elected to the national parliament were members of political dynasties. </p>
<p>While some of these women are no doubt capable politicians, their dominance makes it harder for women candidates to come through grassroots organisations. Parties also spend less time developing women cadres to run as candidates, preferring to reach out to such “vote getters”.</p>
<h2>What about this time around?</h2>
<p>So what are the prospects for women’s representation in the upcoming elections? </p>
<p>The barriers to women’s election have not changed and are unlikely to change in the short term. As a result, incremental progress is the best that can be hoped for. </p>
<p>Several women politicians were instrumental in the passage of the <a href="https://www.kompas.id/baca/ilmu-pengetahuan-teknologi/2022/05/08/dari-senayan-mereka-perjuangkan-ruu-tpks">Anti-Sexual Violence bill</a> that passed last year. It’s possible that this increased visibility will give women a bump. </p>
<p>On the other hand, gender issues have not been central to the presidential or legislative campaigns so are <a href="https://asialink.unimelb.edu.au/insights/where-are-the-women-gender-perspectives-in-indonesias-2024-presidential-race">unlikely</a> to be uppermost in voters’ minds.</p>
<p>In fact, we may have reason to be more pessimistic. A seemingly minor change to the regulations on quota implementation means that for the first time in three elections, the requirement for a 30% candidate quota <a href="https://www.datatalk.asia/story/detail/68/women-face-tough-path-to-become-legislators.html">will not be applied</a> in every electoral district party list, but instead for the total number of women candidates of each party.</p>
<p>The changes date back to a <a href="https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/indonesia-s-push-for-more-women-candidates-in-general-elections-faces-setback">controversial regulation</a> issued by the Indonesian Electoral Commission (KPU) in April 2023. The regulation allowed rounding down when assessing the number of women a party has on a candidate list. For example, in electoral districts with eight seats, 30% is 2.4 candidates. Previously, a party would have had to field three women candidates. Now, fractions can be rounded down if under 0.5, so in our example, parties are only required to field two women candidates.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-professor-the-general-and-the-populist-meet-the-three-candidates-running-for-president-in-indonesia-217811">The professor, the general and the populist: meet the three candidates running for president in Indonesia</a>
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<p>A coalition of democracy and gender activists appealed against this regulation to the Supreme Court, and they won. But the electoral commission has indicated it will not enforce the court’s decision in this election. Democracy activists say that this means almost 18% of party lists <a href="https://www.kompas.id/baca/polhuk/2023/11/09/17-parpol-tak-penuhi-jumlah-minimal-30-persen-caleg-perempuan">do not meet</a> the requirement for 30% women candidates.</p>
<p>It could be that these changes will have little impact. After all, we know that most candidates are elected from the <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/app5.299">first position</a> on the list. </p>
<p>However, it sets a worrying precedent for women’s representation going forward. <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/politics-and-gender/article/voting-against-women-political-patriarchy-islam-and-representation-in-indonesia/97BA1999553E22A86FF497F25E49F40B">Our research</a> shows the 30% candidate quota for women is widely supported in Indonesia. Yet, it has effectively been watered down without public discussion and against the advice of the Supreme Court. </p>
<p>The actions of the electoral commission, apparently at the direction of a <a href="https://www.kompas.id/baca/polhuk/2023/05/17/komisi-ii-dpr-tolak-usulan-kpu-soal-penghitungan-keterwakilan-perempuan">male-dominated parliamentary commission</a>, underline again how the foundational institutions of Indonesian democracy are being eroded by the political elite.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/222387/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sally White receives funding from the Australian Research Council Discovery Project "Political Representation in Indonesia". </span></em></p>
As the country prepares to go to the polls on February 14, will the low representation of women in parliament improve? Given the systemic barriers in place, probably not.
Sally White, Research fellow, Australian National University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/222009
2024-02-07T10:26:46Z
2024-02-07T10:26:46Z
Do women have to be naked to get into museums? Why female artists continue to be underrepresented in the art world
<p>We challenge you to name, off the top of your head, a few women artists exhibited in museums. If male names come more readily to mind, it’s not by chance: women, in art as in many other spheres associated with a form of power, influence or prestige, are <a href="https://boutique.centrepompidou.fr/fr/product/10092-pourquoi-t-il-pas-eu-de-grands-artistes-femmes.html">far less recognised, exhibited and studied</a> than their male counterparts.</p>
<h2>Female artists’ feeble presence in museums</h2>
<p>The anger over this state of affairs boiled over decades ago. Back in the 1980s, the <a href="https://awarewomenartists.com/artiste/guerrilla-girls/">Guerrilla Girls</a>, a collective of anonymous women artists, took issue with the lack of representation of women at the MoMa’s <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/guerrilla-girls-do-women-have-to-be-naked-to-get-into-the-met-museum-p78793">“International Retrospective of Contemporary Painting and Sculpture”</a>, which aimed to showcase the biggest names in contemporary art. Of the 169 artists chosen, only 13 were women – less than 8%. The feminists would ask a question that would go on to ring into the 21st century: “Do women have to be naked to get into the Met museum?</p>
<p>According to recent research, there are still few women artists in museums. In the United States in 2019, in the 18 largest museums in terms of visitor numbers, <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0212852">87% of the artists exhibited in the permanent collections were men</a>. Similarly, in France, a <a href="https://www.culture.gouv.fr/Thematiques/Musees/Les-musees-en-France/Les-collections-des-musees-de-France/Decouvrir-les-collections/Les-femmes-artistes-sortent-de-leur-reserve/Informations-complementaires/informations/Milieu-artistique/Les-sujets">2021 study</a> lists 93.4% male artists in the catalogues of national public museums.</p>
<p>One might retort that a <a href="https://artherstory.net/museum-exhibitions-about-historic-women-artists-2023/">good number of European exhibitions</a> have been devoted to women artists of late. The Parisians will put forward the Centre Pompidou’s <a href="https://www.centrepompidou.fr/en/program/calendar/event/OmzSxFv">"Women in Abstraction”</a> (May-August 2021) or the Musée du Luxembourg’s <a href="https://museeduluxembourg.fr/en/agenda/evenement/pionnieres">“Pioneers”</a>, while Madrilenians can boast <a href="https://www.museothyssen.org/en/exhibitions/women-masters">“Women Masters, Old and Modern”</a> (October 2023–February 2024), a retrospective of the period from the late 16th century to the early decades of the 20th century curated by the Spanish art historian Rocío de la Villa. In Hamburg, <a href="https://www.buceriuskunstforum.de/en/exhibitions/geniale-frauen">“Ingenious Women”</a> (October 2023–January 2024) traced the careers of women artists from 16th to the 18th century, placing their works alongside those of their fathers, brothers, husbands, and fellow painters.</p>
<p>In fact, such a proliferation only underscores the problem of gender inequality: male artists do not need to be associated with a specific category to be the subject of thematic or monographic exhibitions. They have had nearly the entire space to themselves for centuries. To correct this inequality, efforts are being made to shine a light on women by creating exhibitions dedicated to them. But as an article in <a href="https://www.lequotidiendelart.com/articles/19939-faut-il-encore-des-expositions-100-artistes-femmes.html"><em>Le quotidien de l'art</em></a> pointed out in 2021:</p>
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<p>“There is a danger that this kind of initiative will lump together artists who have little in common other than their gender, and reduce them to the same category.”</p>
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<p>Why are women so rarely represented in museums? The difficulty women artists have in finding their place in art museum catalogues is reminiscent of the difficulty women have in breaking through the glass ceiling in the corporate world.</p>
<p>As this subject is now well documented in management literature, we can attempt to draw parallels with the reasons for the low representation of women artists in museum catalogues and exhibition halls.</p>
<h2>Stereotypes and presumption of unfitness</h2>
<p>A first element of explanation seems to be linked to gender stereotypes, with the presumption that women are unfit to create “official” art. Historically, in France, art was legitimised by the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture, created by Cardinal Mazarin in 1648, which organised a salon, an annual exhibition of official artists, validated by judges from the Academy. It was there that the state <a href="https://www.beauxarts.com/grand-format/quest-ce-que-le-salon/">bought works for display in museums</a>. Between 1800 and 1830, women accounted for no less than 14% of exhibitors at the salon, but only 1.74% in the museum catalogues of the time, failing to break the glass ceiling set by the male experts at the Académie.</p>
<p>Nowadays, women’s access to strategic positions in organisations continues to heavily rely on their male counterparts’ assessment. Since the 1970s, a number of studies have shown that “masculine” characteristics are more widely associated with the ideal type of leader. Despite increasing numbers of women in business and academia, these stereotypes are relatively stable, particularly among men who perceive women as unsuitable for <a href="https://dumas.ccsd.cnrs.fr/dumas-00914558/document">strategic managerial positions</a>.</p>
<h2>“Think artist, think male”</h2>
<p>As <a href="https://www.cairn.info/revue-cahiers-du-genre-2007-2-page-113.htm">Trasforini</a> notes:</p>
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<p>“In art, we associate the author, the man, the maker, while women are the ‘author’ not of a work but of a useful and often collective product.”</p>
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<p>Our instinctive association of artistic genius with the male gender stems from a broader tendency to link leadership roles with men – a psychological phenomenon known as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/women-in-leadership/2015/jul/15/think-manager-think-man-women-leaders-biase-workplace">“Think manager, think man”</a>. Our <a href="https://www.edhec.edu/fr/recherche-et-faculte/centres-et-chaires/chaire-diversite-inclusion/publications/mars-2018-etude-diversite-inclusion-et-leadership">2018 study</a> concurs with this view, highlighting the qualities of a leader are particularly associated with so-called “masculine” characteristics. In contrast, interviewees thought women lacked the agency (determination, confidence, independence, etc.) to be skilled leaders.</p>
<p>This assimilation of man-leader, man-artist feeds a vicious circle that keeps women away from positions of power in companies and ambitious projects in the art world.</p>
<h2>Differentiated access to opportunities</h2>
<p>Even if a small number of women artists manage to be exhibited in museums, historically, they remain mostly confined to less prestigious painting genres (portraits, still life, miniatures). The Académie established <a href="https://www.culture.gouv.fr/Thematiques/Musees/Les-musees-en-France/Les-collections-des-musees-de-France/Decouvrir-les-collections/Les-femmes-artistes-sortent-de-leur-reserve/Informations-complementaires/informations/Milieu-artistique/Les-sujets">a hierarchy of genres</a>, with history painting, depicting heroic figures, and the “petit genre”, depicting intimate or light subjects, at the top, followed by landscape and still life.</p>
<p>Long sidelined from sculpture, the study of the nude and the major genres of painting, several women artists, such as <a href="https://www.connaissancedesarts.com/arts-expositions/conquetes-feminines-elisabeth-vigee-le-brun-et-les-artistes-femmes-du-xviiie-siecle-11134221/">Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun and Rosalba Carriera</a>, nevertheless made their mark in portraiture. However, the more women devoted themselves to this “modest” type of art, the less they were exhibited and the less their works were brought to posterity, i.e. displayed in museums.</p>
<h2>Network and influence</h2>
<p>Beyond the gender of the art, the work and the talent, the recognition and quality of a work depend very much on the opportunities it has to meet the public and the financial and human resources available to the artist. <a href="https://www.culture.gouv.fr/Espace-documentation/Rapports/Mission-EgaliteS">The Prat report</a> (2009) underlines this reality, which is not favourable to women because of their limited access to networks that enable the sharing of know-how, means of production and work tools.</p>
<p>Unequal access to professional networks and influential people limits women artists’ opportunities for development, visibility and recognition. <a href="https://www.culture.gouv.fr/Espace-documentation/Rapports/Mission-EgaliteS">Male social networks</a>, which generate active solidarity, have no female equivalent, or only marginal ones. Access to institutions and exhibitions eludes them while they are still alive; and once they are gone, their work has no access to archives, and so cannot arouse the interest of curators.</p>
<p>Similarly, to access strategic positions in companies, it is necessary to be part of networks of influence in order to forge links, build social capital and be able to seize opportunities and emerge as leaders. Compared with men, women have more difficulty accessing professional networks, which <a href="https://www.onufemmes.fr/nos-actualites/2021/3/2/le-leadership-est-il-une-affaire-de-sexe-">limits their access to leadership roles</a>. Studies show that women also have less access to influential sponsors and mentors who can help them accelerate their careers and <a href="https://www.hbrfrance.fr/leadership/le-leadership-feminin-une-construction-sociale-60341">reach senior positions</a>.</p>
<p>Despite equal access to education, opportunities are still unequal: women artists account for <a href="https://haut-conseil-egalite.gouv.fr/IMG/pdf/hce_rapport_inegalites_dans_les_arts_et_la_culture_20180216_vlight.pdf">60% of school pupils in France, but only 10% of award-winning artists</a>.</p>
<p>It’s time to break this vicious circle that minimises women both in positions of power and in museums, and to (re)ask the question <a href="https://pba-opacweb.lille.fr/fr/collections/ou-sont-les-femmes">“Where are the women?”</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/222009/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Les auteurs ne travaillent pas, ne conseillent pas, ne possèdent pas de parts, ne reçoivent pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'ont déclaré aucune autre affiliation que leur organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>
Notwithstanding the proliferation of exhibitions devoted to women, the question that feminists asked in the 1980s is more relevant than ever.
Hager Jemel-Fornetty, Associate professor, EDHEC Business School
Guergana Guintcheva, Professeur de Marketing, EDHEC Business School
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/219357
2024-01-22T21:21:50Z
2024-01-22T21:21:50Z
Three trailblazing women in media who’ve been forgotten – until now
<p>Men have had their empires. Everyone else has had the hushed, forgotten, erased or overlooked stories of the scientists, witches, explorers, artists, writers and scholars who didn’t fit the mould. </p>
<p>In the field of media studies, there are researchers, academics, journalists and public intellectuals who, often due to their gender, race or politics, have been ignored and marginalised in favour of recognising the “founding fathers” of the field.</p>
<p>Finally, these ghosts are making their way back into academic books, articles, teaching materials and popular culture. Our <a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/9781913380748/the-ghost-reader/#:%7E:text=The%20Ghost%20Reader%3A%20Recovering%20Women's,cultural%20studies%2C%20and%20communication%20studies.">new book</a>, co-edited with Carol Stabile, reclaims the original ideas, essays and scholarship of 19 women and provides an introduction by experts in the field, along with samples of their work. From that 19, here are three we think are particularly worth knowing about. </p>
<h2>Film theory</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/filmhistory.27.1.135">Mae D. Huettig</a> from Los Angeles was the first economist to explain how the US film industry functioned as a vertically integrated factory that was less about dreams and glamour and more about vulgar capitalism. <a href="https://www.pennpress.org/9781512812381/economic-control-of-the-motion-picture-industry/">Her book</a>, Economic Control of the Motion Picture Industry: A Study in Industrial Organization (1944), revealed how Hollywood movie studios produced films cheaply and used their own network of cinemas to screen them. </p>
<p>Huettig argued that Hollywood studios, just like automobile or coal factories, used the same economic model as any industry – dominate the competition and corner the market. Her work ultimately became a part of the 1948 federal case, the <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/334/131/">Paramount Decree</a>. This landmark case addressed the practice of film studios owning cinemas and controlling their film distribution. The decree ended the vertically integrated Hollywood studio system. Production studios could no longer own the cinemas that screened their films, and cinemas were no longer beholden to one studio only. </p>
<p>After a few semesters teaching at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and working at a think tank, Huettig became an activist. Following the <a href="https://crdl.usg.edu/events/watts_riots">1965 Watts rebellion</a>, a civil rights uprising in Los Angeles, she trained minority youths on how to use film to monitor police misconduct. She also campaigned against school racial segregation, police abuse and corruption.</p>
<h2>The importance of images</h2>
<p><a href="https://archives.nypl.org/mss/6197">Romana Javitz</a> from New York was the first librarian to develop an organised, browsable collection of pictures that anyone with a library card could check out from the <a href="https://www.nypl.org">New York Public Library</a> (NYPL). </p>
<p>As the NYPL superintendent of the picture collection between 1928 and 1968, Javitz and her staff collected as many items as they could by cutting out images from old books and magazines. These included photos, paintings, ads, pop art and images of everyday people, places and things. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A statue of a lion outside the grand entrance to the New York Public Library" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569264/original/file-20240115-29-mjbj2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569264/original/file-20240115-29-mjbj2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569264/original/file-20240115-29-mjbj2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569264/original/file-20240115-29-mjbj2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569264/original/file-20240115-29-mjbj2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569264/original/file-20240115-29-mjbj2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569264/original/file-20240115-29-mjbj2m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Romana Javitz worked at the New York Public Library between 1928 and 1968.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/new-york-city-public-library-entrance-345087263">Ryan DeBerardinis</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>Essentially, Javitz foresaw the image-based browsing that search engines provide today. She also anticipated their commercial control but believed that images are an important public resource. In speeches, pamphlets and grant applications, Javitz acted by <a href="https://www.nypl.org/about/divisions/wallach-division/picture-collection/romana-javitz">urging</a> libraries to steward image collections. </p>
<h2>The media and civil rights</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.aaihs.org/surveillance-state-power-and-the-activism-of-shirley-graham-du-bois/">Shirley Graham DuBois</a> from Indiana was an activist, award-winning novelist, editor, and the first black female dramatist. In 1931, she produced the first black <a href="https://ofa.fas.harvard.edu/blog/finding-tom-tom">opera</a>, Tom-Tom: An Epic of Music and the Negro. Graham was committed to using literacy and popular media as tools to free people from race and sex discrimination, whether Black, white, or Native American. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="An old sepia photo of a woman facing the right hand side of the image and looking upwards." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569266/original/file-20240115-23-mz1qdx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569266/original/file-20240115-23-mz1qdx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=815&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569266/original/file-20240115-23-mz1qdx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=815&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569266/original/file-20240115-23-mz1qdx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=815&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569266/original/file-20240115-23-mz1qdx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1024&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569266/original/file-20240115-23-mz1qdx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1024&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569266/original/file-20240115-23-mz1qdx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1024&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Shirley Graham DuBois played an instrumental role in civil rights activism.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.loc.gov/rr/print/res/079_vanv.html">Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Carl Van Vechten Collection</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>During the second world war, Graham worked on military bases giving courses on journalism and photography for black soldiers, helping them to produce their own literary magazines. She was founded the <a href="https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/freedomways-1961-1985/">journal</a>, Freedomways: A Quarterly Review of the Negro Freedom Movement in 1961. It provided a rare forum for discussing discrimination from the early years of the civil rights movement forward. </p>
<p>In 1961, Graham’s background in theatre and education caught the attention of the Ghanaian president, Kwame Nkrumah. He asked her to develop the nation’s first public noncommercial, indigenous television network to promote literacy countrywide. Graham and Nkrumah were forced to leave Ghana after a military coup in 1966, before the network was completed.</p>
<h2>Digging deeper</h2>
<p>The contributions of these women, and the 16 others featured in our book, range broadly from film economics, advertising and library science, to progressive anti-racist journalism, theatre, audience researchers, and more. They show us that there has always been the possibility for progressive, inclusive, intersectional, anti-capitalist, anti-racist and gender-equal thought and action.</p>
<p>Our goal is not to create a “new” canon of media studies. Instead, the goal is for academics and lecturers to use our book in their classes to track their own tradition taking different, more inclusive, and radical routes that could provide fresh insight into the world.</p>
<p>In fact, alongside media and communication scholars such as <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09612025.2021.1944345#:%7E:text=This%20silenced%20avenue%20of%20enquiry,and%20editing%20of%20broadcast%20sound.">Carolyn Birdsall and Elinor Carmi</a>, the book questions the need for a canon altogether.</p>
<p>Other researchers and students need to get their hands dirty, too. They need to dig in archives, read original works and examine dismissed ideas that go against the grain. It is likely that researchers in any field will find important women (and their ideas) hidden as typists, transcribers, or editorial, lab, field, or research assistants. Sometimes they may be left out altogether; all that may be left is their name on a grant application. Finding them takes time and effort. But the results are worth it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/219357/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dr Elena Hristova is Lecture in Film and Media at Bangor University, Wales. As part of the research for this book she received funding from the Rockefeller Archive Center, Sleepy Hollow, and the Department of Communication Studies, University of Minnesota.
</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Aimee-Marie Dorsten, Ph.D. works for Point Park University and is a member of the Union for Democratic Communication. </span></em></p>
Mae D Huettig, Romana Javitz and Shirley Graham DuBois were instrumental in their respective media fields but very few of us will be aware of their individual contributions.
Elena D. Hristova, Lecturer in Film and Media, Bangor University
Aimee-Marie Dorsten, Associate Professor of Journalism and Mass Communication, Point Park University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/220428
2024-01-05T16:14:13Z
2024-01-05T16:14:13Z
How Ireland’s Nollaig na mBan evolved from a day off housework to a celebration of women’s achievements
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/567868/original/file-20240104-19-8i38k4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=16%2C16%2C5447%2C3620&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/group-asian-friends-praying-over-christmas-2224084259">Butsaya/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Growing up in west Kerry, Christmas was (and still is) not officially over until after <em>Nollaig na mBan</em> (Women’s Christmas) on January 6 – candles are lit in windows and decorations are not taken down until the next day. </p>
<p>I’ve celebrated this since I was a child. My grandmother loved <em>Nollaig na mBan</em>, when my Dad would collect her around lunchtime and bring her to visit with her sister in Dún Chaoin, a village in west County Kerry. They would both dress in their Sunday best, my grandmother wearing the colourful beaded necklace she saved for special occasions. </p>
<p>Like <a href="https://duchas.ie/en/cbes/stories?SearchText=Nollaig+na+mBan&SearchLanguage=ga&Page=1&PerPage=20">women all over Ireland</a> on January 6, the two sisters would have a catch up, eat some cake and maybe even have a glass of punch before deciding what other calls they wanted to make to their friends that day. My dad was their chauffeur because <em>Nollaig na mBan</em> was traditionally a “day off” for women after organising and executing a busy Christmas holiday for their families.</p>
<p>For my grandmother’s generation in West Kerry, it was a day to catch up and socialise with other local women who had worked hard over Christmas. After currant cake and chats in various homes, my dad would drive them to one of the local pubs to meet other friends and where there might be some music. The ladies would continue their catch-ups there over sherries and hot brandies – a lovely way to finish up their busy Christmas season. </p>
<h2>Celebrating Nollaig na mBan around Ireland</h2>
<p>The tradition of <em>Nollaig na mBan</em> has been celebrated <a href="https://www.rte.ie/archives/2022/1207/1340521-nollaig-na-mban/">for generations</a> in West Kerry. Elsewhere in counties Kerry and Cork, as well as other <em>Gaeltacht</em> (Irish-speaking) areas it was also common, but in many other communities around Ireland it was not a tradition at all. </p>
<p>In these places, January 6 is more likely known as “Little Christmas” (because would finish the leftovers of larger Christmas feasts) or <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Epiphany">the Feast of the Epiphany</a>, the last of the 12 Days of Christmas. <em>Oíche na dTrí Rithe</em> (the Night of the Three Kings) marks the visit of the three wise men to the baby Jesus. People place the three kings in their Christmas nativity cribs, and often <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/1185674">light three candles</a> in their windows to mark the common lore around the kings turning water into wine on the January 6. As Irish folklorist <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/1185674">Kevin Danaher wrote</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p><em>Oíche na dTrí Rithe,<br>
Sea deintear fíon den uisce</em></p>
<p>(The Night of the Three Kings,<br>
The water turns to wine)</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It’s only been in recent years that I’ve realised how lucky I was to have grown up with such a strong tradition of celebrating women on this day. And from what was traditionally a time when women could visit each other for a chat over the food and drink of their choice, the day has since become a chance to go out, support and celebrate each other. </p>
<p>In 1970, Danaher <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/1185674">wrote of <em>Nollaig na mBan</em></a>: “Christmas Day was marked by beef and whiskey, men’s fare, while on Little Christmas Day the dainties preferred by women – cake, tea and wine, were more in evidence”.</p>
<p>While during the Christmas season foods were heavier, by January 6 people were generally finishing off the bits and pieces of leftover food. Certainly, “dainties” and currant cakes were the norm for my grandmother’s gatherings. And <a href="https://www.irishexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/arid-40778976.html#:%7E:text=There%20are%20many%20Irish%20folk,and%20women%2C%20says%20the%20historian.">the saying</a>: <em>“Nollaig na mBan, Nollaig gan mhaith”</em> (Women’s Christmas, no good Christmas) was sometimes bandied around by men as a bit of a jibe that alludes to the “lesser” foods typically eaten on the day.</p>
<p>When we read about <a href="https://www.farmersjournal.ie/life/features/today-nollaig-na-mban-means-taking-a-day-to-appreciate-the-women-in-our-lives-740590">the origins</a> of the tradition today, many articles focus on the idea that women took the day off from their <a href="https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/nollaig-na-mban-what-is-it-and-how-is-it-being-celebrated/41212081.html">usual housework and chores</a>. But during and since my granny’s time, many women still undertook the usual duties in the morning, putting aside time to rest and socialise from lunchtime onwards.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Black and white photo of a woman standing in front of a sweeping sea view with a donkey." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568022/original/file-20240105-28-iobd5t.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568022/original/file-20240105-28-iobd5t.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568022/original/file-20240105-28-iobd5t.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568022/original/file-20240105-28-iobd5t.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568022/original/file-20240105-28-iobd5t.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568022/original/file-20240105-28-iobd5t.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568022/original/file-20240105-28-iobd5t.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The author’s grandmother in 1942, Com Dhíneol Thuaidh (Coumeenoole North), Kerry. The Schools’ Collection, Volume 0621, Page 413 by Dúchas © National Folklore Collection, UCD is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://duchas.ie/en/cbeg/20688">Tomás Ó Muircheartaigh / Dúchas, National Folklore Commission</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Modern-day Nollaig na mBan traditions</h2>
<p>In the past ten years or so, <em>Nollaig na mBan</em> has <a href="https://youtu.be/X1Wz9i4vkZY?si=giMbbOgG2hxxgFJC">risen in popularity</a> all over Ireland, with city pubs and restaurants from Belfast to Cork advertising special menus and <a href="https://irishwriterscentre.ie/whats-on/nollaig-na-mban-2019/">events</a>. For the second year, a <a href="https://www.independent.ie/entertainment/nollaig-na-mban-seven-events-you-need-to-know-about-in-dublin/a42308933.html"><em>Nollaig na mBan</em> festival</a> is celebrating women in north County Dublin. </p>
<p>Increased awareness of this tradition has spread via social media and other coverage, undoubtedly helping to stoke this enthusiasm. Online discussion around <em>Nollaig na mBan</em> often centres on <a href="https://twitter.com/NGIreland/status/1479063287132209152">celebrating historical figures</a> or creatives, alongside pictures women post of themselves with their female family members and friends. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/N0riRMO0iyM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Women celebrating Nollaig na mBan at EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum in Dublin in 2020 name their ‘Herstory Heroines’.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Today in west Kerry, <em>Nollaig na mBan</em> is <a href="https://www.rte.ie/archives/2022/1207/1340521-nollaig-na-mban/">celebrated with great fervour</a> and in many ways is very similar to my granny’s time, although we tend to gather in local hotels, restaurants and pubs for our catch-ups. Grannies, mums, sisters and daughters often hold brunch and lunchtime meet-ups, while groups of friends and work colleagues might celebrate at night.</p>
<p>January 6 is still a time to remember and <a href="https://twitter.com/NGIreland/status/1479063287132209152">celebrate women</a> in Ireland, but it’s become much more similar to the way International Women’s Day (on March 8) is celebrated: it’s a day to read and share work by <a href="https://irishwriterscentre.ie/whats-on/nollaig-na-mban-2024-bodies-of-work/">female writers</a>, poets and <a href="https://www.windmilllanerecording.com/nollaig-na-mban-at-windmill-lane/">musicians</a>, a day to wear jewellery and clothes by Ireland’s many female designers, whether it’s a <a href="https://www.rte.ie/lifestyle/fashion/2023/0712/1394124-margaret-oconnor-on-designing-for-everyday-queens-of-all-class/">Margaret O'Connor neckheadpiece</a> or <a href="https://www.image.ie/style/irish-design-spotlight-manley-754521">an Emma Manley leather skirt</a>.</p>
<p><em>Nollaig na mBan</em> is a day to remember how far women in Ireland have come since the latew 1970s before which bans against <a href="https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/spotlight/arid-41041625.html">contraception</a> and <a href="https://ictu.ie/blog/marriage-bar-ban-employing-married-women">married women working</a> limited our freedom. But it also reminds us how far women have yet to go in gaining true equality in business and society.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/220428/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span><a href="mailto:agranville@ucc.ie">agranville@ucc.ie</a> previously received funding but not currently from Culture Ireland, Arts Council of Ireland, Ealaín na Gaeltachta, Kerry County Council. She is affiliated with the Board of the Arts Council of Ireland and works at the Folklore Department, University College Cork. </span></em></p>
Nollaig na mBan marks the end of the Christmas season on January 6, but is also a day to celebrate Mná na hÉireann (women of Ireland).
Aoife Granville, Lecturer in Béaloideas (Folklore), University College Cork
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/218711
2023-12-13T19:04:24Z
2023-12-13T19:04:24Z
From sexual liberation to fashionable heels, new research shows how women are changing North Korea
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565055/original/file-20231212-15-fz337w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=131%2C15%2C1793%2C1131&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lesley Parker</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Kang* was 20 years old when she left her official job as a potato researcher in North Korea. She wanted to join the women who had taken up illicit market activities, first to survive the “<a href="https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/how-did-the-north-korean-famine-happen">Arduous March</a>” (as the famine years of the mid-1990s were known), then to build better lives for themselves and their families outside the tight controls of the government.</p>
<p>Kang began trading goods like rice, metals and petroleum to generate an income well beyond what she could have expected from state-sanctioned employment. Eventually, before reaching South Korea in 2013, her most lucrative business was a brokerage service for young women who wished to work in factories in China.</p>
<p>Kang was one of the women who took part in the research for our new book, <a href="https://www.routledge.com/North-Koreas-Women-led-Grassroots-Capitalism/Dalton-Jung/p/book/9780367536961">North Korea’s Women-led Grassroots Capitalism</a>. As she told us,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>What was most rewarding about the work was the money. I could pay for my younger sister’s university tuition, as well as my stepchildren’s. I could even buy [Workers’] Party membership for my husband, eventually making him a party secretary. I felt myself maturing through businesses. </p>
<p>It was as if we were like party officials providing for their children. I could make all that possible with the money I earned.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The emergence of grassroots capitalism in North Korea, through women like Kang, provides a cautionary tale for patriarchal societies everywhere: underestimate women at your peril. </p>
<p>Ironically, we found in our research that by seeking to exclude women from the public sphere and formal economy, North Korea’s government has actually spurred them to become entrepreneurs, with cascading effects on society.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565046/original/file-20231212-15-sehe17.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565046/original/file-20231212-15-sehe17.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565046/original/file-20231212-15-sehe17.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565046/original/file-20231212-15-sehe17.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565046/original/file-20231212-15-sehe17.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565046/original/file-20231212-15-sehe17.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565046/original/file-20231212-15-sehe17.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Little shops have sprung up around Pyongyang, mostly run by women, selling food and other small items.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lesley Parker</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>How did this happen? North Korean authorities continue to oppress the public with a terror and surveillance culture aimed at containing the spread of capitalism. But it is men who have been their main focus – not women. </p>
<p>North Korea’s women, underestimated and operating in the shadows, have become increasingly adept at circumventing official monitoring and controls to create the space to drive significant economic and social change. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565053/original/file-20231212-27-ao9lb3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565053/original/file-20231212-27-ao9lb3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565053/original/file-20231212-27-ao9lb3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565053/original/file-20231212-27-ao9lb3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565053/original/file-20231212-27-ao9lb3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565053/original/file-20231212-27-ao9lb3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565053/original/file-20231212-27-ao9lb3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A woman in a skirt above the knee, high-heeled shoes and carrying a designer-style handbag.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lesley Parker</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Our book explores the complex ways in which North Korean women have exercised their agency through everyday life. Our research was based on 52 interviews with North Korean female defectors, NGOs and several field trips to North Korea and northeast China. Far from stereotypical brainwashed automatons or helpless victims needing protection, we found that North Korea’s women are strong, resilient and creative. </p>
<p>Through acts of covert resistance, they have been driving change in family relationships, women’s sexuality and reproductive issues, and women’s cultural identities. </p>
<h2>5 ways women are changing North Korea</h2>
<p><strong>1) Women are driving grassroots capitalism</strong></p>
<p>Women have become active players in the <a href="https://beyondparallel.csis.org/markets-private-economy-capitalism-north-korea/">emerging informal economy</a> centred on local markets, which pre-COVID <a href="https://www.nkeconwatch.com/category/statistics/">accounted</a> for roughly 80% of household income and more than 60% of people’s food and basic needs. </p>
<p>In short, North Koreans depend on women’s labour, both in the household and the marketplace, to survive. </p>
<p>In most North Korean families, women have become the main breadwinners. This has created more opportunities for women – and challenges for those who seek to control them, including the state. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565044/original/file-20231212-17-1s7r7z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565044/original/file-20231212-17-1s7r7z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565044/original/file-20231212-17-1s7r7z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565044/original/file-20231212-17-1s7r7z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565044/original/file-20231212-17-1s7r7z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565044/original/file-20231212-17-1s7r7z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565044/original/file-20231212-17-1s7r7z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A woman transports goods using a hand-pulled cart in the countryside in the south.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lesley Parker</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><strong>2) Gender roles are shifting</strong></p>
<p>Women have been driving changes that are destabilising two fundamental pillars of North Korea: socialism and deep-rooted patriarchy. </p>
<p>Women’s involvement in market activities has given them access to scarce resources, including money, and a level of public visibility and social interaction previously reserved for men. </p>
<p>Economic independence and a greater say in domestic decision-making have strained long-established family dynamics and challenged broader social norms. As Seol* explains:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>As the rations waned, women took more initiative and went out and worked outside the home. It was the men who stayed home. We began to expect that men should cook
and do domestic work. I think women and men reversed roles.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565051/original/file-20231212-15-v3ur4y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565051/original/file-20231212-15-v3ur4y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565051/original/file-20231212-15-v3ur4y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565051/original/file-20231212-15-v3ur4y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565051/original/file-20231212-15-v3ur4y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565051/original/file-20231212-15-v3ur4y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565051/original/file-20231212-15-v3ur4y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A schoolboy stops for an ice-cream from a street vendor in Pyongyang. Changing family dynamics, with women earning more than men, is causing tension in families.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lesley Parker</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><strong>3) A sexual revolution is underway</strong></p>
<p>The way women experience and approach sexuality, relationships and marriage has become far more complex. This includes delaying marriage and more divorces. Non-traditional relationships are also flourishing, such as premarital and extramarital couplings (which have led to growing numbers of single mothers) and older women married to younger men. A young woman named Bae* told us:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>As I make a lot of money, I have high standards for a husband. While busy with money-making, I don’t have time to think about marriage or get married. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Meanwhile, younger party-affiliated, city dwellers are adopting more liberal attitudes to dating and sex and more romantic views of relationships. As Joo* said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Many young people are dating in public right now. After watching South Korean dramas, young ladies call their boyfriend ‘oppa’ (or ‘brother’) like South Koreans. The young couples are going around with their arms around each other’s shoulders.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Some women have also been strategically engineering relationships with Chinese men as a means of settlement in China, to ensure their safety. </p>
<p><strong>4) It’s all about the heels</strong></p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565048/original/file-20231212-21-71opww.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565048/original/file-20231212-21-71opww.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565048/original/file-20231212-21-71opww.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565048/original/file-20231212-21-71opww.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565048/original/file-20231212-21-71opww.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565048/original/file-20231212-21-71opww.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565048/original/file-20231212-21-71opww.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Women in Pyongyang now wear higher heels and more colourful clothes that in previous years.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lesley Parker</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While appearing to conform to patriarchal versions of femininity, women are actually constructing a new version of the ideal, hyper-feminine, North Korean woman. This is typically a means to access material goods and social rewards. </p>
<p>Through fashion choices and conspicuous consumption, these women are playing a key role in how status is now determined in North Korea. For example, high heels are de rigeur. Bae said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Women are obsessed with high heels. Probably because we girls are short. Whether women live in the countryside or in the mountains, we prefer these shoes, even on unpaved roads.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Like their South Korean counterparts, the younger generation has become more interested in slender bodies and long straight hair. More women have undertaken not only double eyelid surgery, but also dimple surgery or nose surgery. Another woman, Gho, told us:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We young people are just like South Koreans. We watch South Korean TV dramas in secret and wear pants like South Koreans do [laughter], and we dye our hair yellow like South Koreans do.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Through these actions, women are challenging narrowly conceived, domestic ideals of wives and mothers and creating new sets of social expectations and constructions of femininity. </p>
<p>The way Paik* describes her decision to dye her hair and wear earrings is an example of how women are also emulating the country’s fashionable first lady <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ri_Sol-ju">Ri Sol-ju</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Officials used to inspect everybody wearing earrings. But then Ri Sol-ju appeared wearing earrings and now the authorities can’t do much about it. People started becoming rebellious. In North Korea, dyeing hair is not allowed. […] These days, a lot of people dye their hair. </p>
</blockquote>
<p><strong>5) New propaganda versions of the ideal woman</strong> </p>
<p>The state has responded to this social change by shifting the way it presents the “ideal” woman in its propaganda. </p>
<p>For example, it is now promoting women who embody an attractive and dynamic blend of old and new, of loyalty and modernity - including the leader’s sister, wife and now daughter. For example, Ri regularly appears in Prada, Christian Dior and Chanel, or in looks inspired by these designers.</p>
<p>By doing this, the regime is seeking to co-opt social trends to maintain its legitimacy.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565043/original/file-20231212-15-u1vhzr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565043/original/file-20231212-15-u1vhzr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=265&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565043/original/file-20231212-15-u1vhzr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=265&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565043/original/file-20231212-15-u1vhzr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=265&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565043/original/file-20231212-15-u1vhzr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=333&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565043/original/file-20231212-15-u1vhzr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=333&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565043/original/file-20231212-15-u1vhzr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=333&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Pyongyang trendsetters love logo-emblazoned goods.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lesley Parker</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>(*For security reasons, we use pseudonyms for the North Korean women who took part in this research.)</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218711/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bronwen Dalton receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kyungja Jung receives funding from the Australian Research Council and the Academy of Korean Studies. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lesley Parker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Through acts of covert resistance, women have been driving change in family relationships, women’s sexuality and reproductive issues, and women’s cultural identities.
Bronwen Dalton, Professor, Head of Department of Management, UTS Business School, University of Technology Sydney
Kyungja Jung, Associate Professor, University of Technology Sydney
Lesley Parker, Adjunct Fellow, University of Technology Sydney
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/217364
2023-12-05T23:33:08Z
2023-12-05T23:33:08Z
Asher Keddie is outstanding in Strife – but the show gives us an uneven look at girlboss feminism
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563226/original/file-20231204-17-78a47q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=33%2C0%2C7385%2C4938&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kane Skennar/Binge</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The inner workings of magazines, television stations and newspapers have been rich fodder for film and television for decades.</p>
<p>From All the President’s Men (1976) to Frontline (1994–7), Paper Giants: The Birth of Cleo (2011) and The Newsreader (2022–3), we remain fascinated by stories of how our media are made. These kinds of films and series immediately immerse viewers in a precise historical setting and allow commentary on it. This year’s series of The Newsreader reminded us of the divide in Australian culture over the bicentenary commemorations of 1988. </p>
<p>Set around 2012 (when Tinder was a “new app”), Strife is a fictionalised adaptation of Mia Freedman’s 2017 memoir, Work Strife Balance, which told the story of starting her hugely successful women’s website Mamamia in her lounge room in 2007. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/rW7qO8Qj-PE?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>By 2014, the site was attracting 2 million to 4 million women <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/may/27/being-mia-freedman-this-idea-youre-doing-feminism-wrong-i-find-laughable">a month</a> and Freedman was famous. In the mid-2010s she was one of Australia’s most highly visible feminist faces, dropping soundbites on Sunrise and writing confessional essays about her life. </p>
<p>Freedman was relatable yet highly successful, a “busy mum” who was open about her shortcomings and the moments where the “wheels fall off”.</p>
<p>Strife’s Evelyn Johnson (Asher Keddie) is a spikier, colder figure than Freedman appears to be. She is running Eve, a new women’s website, but she’s two months behind on the rent. She has left her marriage and is living alone in a city apartment; she is co-parenting two teenage children with her estranged husband (Matt Day). </p>
<p>Evelyn is singularly focused on making her website work. She is tough on her writers, a bit forgetful about her children’s activities, and doesn’t really know how to cook. Here, the series treads a fine line between making Evelyn relatable and simply foolish: turning up to her daughter’s hockey game with the halftime oranges still in their string bag, or trying to make a last-minute family meal with a slow cooker. </p>
<h2>The art of the confessional</h2>
<p>As the series begins, Evelyn is struggling with writer’s block – not great timing for an editor running a site that is losing money. But by the end of the first episode, she writes a piece called “I ended my marriage over a flat white”. </p>
<p>It goes viral, and Eve has found its formula. </p>
<p>Evelyn tells one of her writers who is nervous about exposing her personal life for clicks “it can be empowering to share if you’re the one telling the story”. </p>
<p>Strife has an impeccable pedigree for a bingeable women’s drama: it was produced by Bruna Papandrea, whose credits include Big Little Lies, and it stars Asher Keddie, one of Australia’s most bankable television stars. Eve’s writers are a diverse bunch, oversharing and endlessly scrambling for story ideas. The series is set in the world of Sydney’s eastern suburbs, full of well-dressed women dropping their kids at private schools in 4WDs. </p>
<p>In other words, it is aspirational – and more than a little oblivious about the privileged world it depicts. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563227/original/file-20231204-30-eefl5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Asher Keddie in a brown suit." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563227/original/file-20231204-30-eefl5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563227/original/file-20231204-30-eefl5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563227/original/file-20231204-30-eefl5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563227/original/file-20231204-30-eefl5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563227/original/file-20231204-30-eefl5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563227/original/file-20231204-30-eefl5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563227/original/file-20231204-30-eefl5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Evelyn is singularly focused on making her website work.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kane Skennar/Binge</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Despite claiming to be a “feminist publisher”, Evelyn shoots down most politically and socially aware story ideas because they won’t “get clicks”. The success of Eve is measured entirely in page views, clicks and advertising deals. Hiring young women to work as unpaid interns also seems at odds with Evelyn’s feminist credentials: indeed, one tells Evelyn she “can’t work for free”. </p>
<p>Evelyn’s relationships with her family and friends are the other main subject of the drama. A quick check of her browser history reveals her son is watching porn; she tries to broach the subject of buying a first bra with her daughter; a friend has put a profile of her husband on Tinder because she doesn’t want to have sex with him anymore. </p>
<p>While all of these topics would work for an Eve confessional essay, the series breezes over them far too quickly to capitalise on their dramatic potential.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-the-personal-is-now-commercial-popular-feminism-online-79930">Friday essay: The personal is now commercial – popular feminism online</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>A uncertain tone</h2>
<p>Strife’s brand of feminism – where empowerment comes from telling personal stories online – is very much of the mid-2010s, when women’s online media were on the rise. </p>
<p>As gender studies academic <a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-the-personal-is-now-commercial-popular-feminism-online-79930">Kath Kenny points out</a>, confessional story-telling emerged at the same time media budgets were being cut: after all, confessions don’t require research or reporting. While this kind of writing can raise awareness of important issues, it’s not enough to solve them. “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/aug/21/girlboss-used-to-suggest-role-model-sexist-putdown">Girlboss feminism</a>” is still with us, unfortunately, but I think we know now that we won’t solve the gender pay gap or domestic violence with mere “empowerment”.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563228/original/file-20231204-25-kpwdsg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Keddie in a newsroom." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563228/original/file-20231204-25-kpwdsg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563228/original/file-20231204-25-kpwdsg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563228/original/file-20231204-25-kpwdsg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563228/original/file-20231204-25-kpwdsg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563228/original/file-20231204-25-kpwdsg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563228/original/file-20231204-25-kpwdsg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563228/original/file-20231204-25-kpwdsg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Keddie’s performance is excellent – but the show is uneven.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kane Skennar/Binge</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Keddie’s brittle performance here recalls her outstanding work in Love My Way, where she wasn’t afraid to make her character unlikeable. Tina Bursill is cool as ever as Evelyn’s mother, and Maria Angelico is terrific as Eve’s editor. </p>
<p>But despite some wry jokes, the series’ tone is uncertain, and Evelyn’s confessions are largely of other people’s experiences. Perhaps if Evelyn was more willing to confront her own shortcomings we’d have the making of real drama. </p>
<p>Strife left me with the jittery feeling you get after spending too many hours in an office in front of a computer screen. Which, considering that’s probably how Eve’s writers feel, might be quite the achievement.</p>
<p><em>Strife is on Binge from today.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/classic-aussie-cinema-and-new-twists-on-old-classics-our-picks-of-december-streaming-218707">Classic Aussie cinema and new twists on old classics: our picks of December streaming</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/217364/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Arrow receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>
The new Binge series Strife is a fictionalised adaptation of Mia Freedman’s 2017 memoir.
Michelle Arrow, Professor of History, Macquarie University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/213887
2023-11-30T19:03:23Z
2023-11-30T19:03:23Z
Friday essay: can marriage be feminist? – a ‘hopeless romantic’ says no, but a same-sex newlywed says yes
<p>Early in my career as a gender studies scholar, I was asked to give some “expert” commentary on whether it was possible to have a <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/the-rise-of-the-feminist-wedding-20130918-2ty18.html">“feminist” wedding</a>. Without any specific research or personal expertise – never a real barrier in dial-a-quote land – I insisted of course it was possible. I provided a handy list of ways a feminist bride could subvert the dominant wedding paradigm.</p>
<p>Since then, I have been contacted by the media to discuss marriage more than any other topic. This is not surprising: marriage is one of those perennial hot-button topics and guaranteed click bait. </p>
<p>However, apart from <a href="https://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/social-affairs/married-first-sight-can-feminist-be-fan#:%7E:text=Zora%20Simic%3A%20I%20don't,which%20involves%20serious%20couch%20time.">sharing my thoughts</a> on my ambivalent love of the reality television show <a href="https://theconversation.com/married-at-first-sight-a-social-experiment-all-but-guaranteeing-relationship-failure-114070">Married at First Sight</a>, I’ve mostly declined these requests. I just don’t have anything new or interesting to say about marriage – including as a feminist.</p>
<p>I’ve never been married, nor particularly wanted to, apart from some idle daydreaming in the early days of new romance. Even then, the fantasy usually involves eloping. Nor, as the eldest daughter of first-generation European migrants, have I ever been pressured to marry. </p>
<p>My parents tied the knot in a registry office, stopping by a photography studio on the way home, to mark the occasion with a serious photograph in which neither smiled. We were too poor to attend the lavish weddings of friends and relatives in the Balkan community, where nothing less than a brand-new white good was acceptable as a gift.</p>
<p>Among my cohort of Generation X friends, hardly anyone got married – unless it was to help secure a visa for international study and travel. The few weddings I attended in my twenties (what should have been my peak period) were usually conducted in a spirit of semi-irony. (It was the 1990s.) </p>
<p>This is not to say my friends were averse to “settling down”. Most of them have had long relationships – some of them very happy ones – with children and houses and shared assets, the whole shebang. </p>
<p>Since marriage equality was achieved in Australia, I’ve had the great pleasure to attend several queer weddings, each one uniquely delightful and moving. There is perhaps no more generative place to discuss marriage as a social institution than at the wedding reception for two people who grew up believing they would never have access to legal marriage. </p>
<p>For every declaration of “love is love”, another guest matches it with a reflection on homonormativity. The historian in me has wished I could have recorded these conversations, but at the time my priority was getting back to the dancefloor.</p>
<p>At these lovely queer weddings, I am sometimes identified as some kind of spokesperson for feminism. What do I think? Is marriage irredeemably loaded with hetero-patriarchal baggage?</p>
<p>Maybe the champagne is to blame, but what pops into my mind at those moments are more trivial episodes in the long history of “feminism and marriage” – like the intense <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/2000/09/07/feminisms-unblushing-bride/a0d72dc5-1c83-4045-ab52-e1e01e1846fb/">media interest</a> following feminist icon <a href="https://theconversation.com/setting-the-record-straight-gloria-steinem-reflects-on-her-legacy-in-my-life-on-the-road-50204">Gloria Steinem</a>’s getting married for the first time at the age of 66, back at the turn of the century. </p>
<p>More recently, we saw former Australian prime minister Julia Gillard retrofit her opposition to marriage equality while in power as some kind of <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-05-16/julia-gillard-same-sex-marriage-feminism-debate/102290962">feminist act</a>, rather than the political manoeuvre it clearly was.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-jilted-lovers-could-once-sue-for-breach-of-promise-did-we-lose-something-in-abolishing-this-law-214840">Friday essay: jilted lovers could once sue for breach of promise – did we lose something in abolishing this law?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Feminism and marriage</h2>
<p>There is, of course, a far deeper and more complex history of feminist thought and activism around marriage, including campaigns for women to acquire or retain their rights to property, paid work and their nationality after getting married. </p>
<p>Some of this history is canvassed in two new books by feminists on marriage. Clementine Ford is avowedly against it, while British feminist Rachael Lennon recently married her now-wife. </p>
<p>Their respective books, <a href="https://www.allenandunwin.com/browse/book/Clementine-Ford-I-Don't-9781761069666/">I Don’t: The Case Against Marriage</a> and <a href="https://www.quarto.com/books/9780711267114/wedded-wife">Wedded Wife: A Feminist History of Marriage</a>, are accessibly written and pitched at a broad audience. Each turn to history, explore popular culture and litter their investigation with personal stories, including their own. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562046/original/file-20231128-27-eamw43.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562046/original/file-20231128-27-eamw43.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562046/original/file-20231128-27-eamw43.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562046/original/file-20231128-27-eamw43.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562046/original/file-20231128-27-eamw43.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562046/original/file-20231128-27-eamw43.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=602&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562046/original/file-20231128-27-eamw43.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=602&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562046/original/file-20231128-27-eamw43.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=602&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Clementine Ford insists she is ‘hopelessly romantic’.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Nix Cartel/Allen & Unwin</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Lennon and her wife “made the decision to marry alongside the choice to become married”. Her wife wanted recognition as a parent of their children “without jumping through legal hoops and navigating additional paperwork”. Lennon, even (or perhaps especially) after having been a bridesmaid six times, knew she “wanted a public celebration”. </p>
<p>Inevitably, with two women getting married, there were “moments of misunderstanding in florists, venues and dress shops”. Together, writes Lennon, they “shook off some of the patriarchal expectations of marriage – though we still felt them”.</p>
<p>Ford, meanwhile, has never been married, though she’s had long-term relationships, including with the father of her son. As a young adult, she worked in a pub that regularly hosted identikit weddings, or “carbon copy festivals of heterosexuality”, seeding a grim view. </p>
<p>In researching her book, however, Ford is shocked when an ex-boyfriend reminds her she once told him if they ever got married, she’d take his surname. As she was in her early twenties at the time, Ford concedes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It did sound like the kind of bullocks I might have said when I was a newly gestating human and enjoying the feeling of watching myself be in love. I’m sure I would have framed it as progressive at the time, probably preparing to brag about it the same way people do about their alternative weddings.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>These days, she rarely goes to weddings as a guest: like her, most of her friends are unmarried.</p>
<h2>From obedience to intimacy</h2>
<p>Lennon and Ford each reference the key text on the topic, historian Stephanie Coontz’s <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/marriage-a-history-9780143036678">Marriage: A History, From Obedience to Intimacy, or How Love Conquered Marriage</a> (2005). The notion marriage should be based on mutual love and desire, and freely chosen by both parties, is a relatively recent and by no means universal idea – as captured by Coontz’s subtitle.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562048/original/file-20231128-29-2yzmes.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562048/original/file-20231128-29-2yzmes.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562048/original/file-20231128-29-2yzmes.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=752&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562048/original/file-20231128-29-2yzmes.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=752&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562048/original/file-20231128-29-2yzmes.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=752&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562048/original/file-20231128-29-2yzmes.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=945&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562048/original/file-20231128-29-2yzmes.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=945&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562048/original/file-20231128-29-2yzmes.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=945&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Rachael L. Lennon.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>“Around 200 years ago, most societies around the world saw marriage as simply too important to leave up to the choice of two people”, writes Lennon, drawing on Coontz. These days, Ford writes, “cultures in which marriages are arranged are sneered at, while the women who still come with a price on their head are pitied. We would never diminish love that way, or women!”</p>
<p>It’s a promising line of argument, but only fleetingly developed because Ford, unlike Lennon, resists cross-cultural analysis or examples, including within Australia. Nor does Ford consider how the mainstream success of the Netflix series <a href="https://www.netflix.com/au/title/80244565">Indian Matchmaking</a> has opened up a wider international conversation about arranged marriages.</p>
<p>Lennon identifies a cultural shift from the late 18th century, evident in the life and work of <a href="https://theconversation.com/jane-austen-is-facing-death-by-popularity-and-men-37908">Jane Austen</a>, as she tracks the rise of the notion marriage should ultimately be about love. Austen’s celebrated novels “set a romantic bar in popular culture”, writes Lennon, “but the social and economic pressures on middle-class women to marry are always present”. </p>
<p>On “a cold evening in 1802”, Austen herself, aged 26 and dependent on the relatively modest income of her father, <a href="https://digitalausten.org/node/26">accepted a proposal</a> from family friend Harris Bigg-Wither, only to change her mind the next morning.</p>
<p>By the middle of the 20th century, Lennon continues, “most young people in Britain would not only aspire to be in love with a fiancé but expect to be”. But, as Lennon foregrounds, the history of marriage – particularly as decreed by religion and the law – is also one of exclusions on the basis of class, gender, sexuality, religion, race or disability. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/aZS2KbLAy5Y?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Ford doesn’t consider how the success of Indian Matchmaking has opened a wider international conversation about arranged marriages.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As the idea of marriage for love became more entrenched in the West, so too did the gender binary, the separation of the spheres, colour bars and anti-miscegenation laws. At the same time, European colonial expansion “restricted and homogenised marriage definitions around huge swathes of the world”. </p>
<p>In 1918, the Australian government, building on existing Protection Acts in all states, passed the <a href="https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-53997665/view?partId=nla.obj-53998321#page/n0/mode/1up">Aboriginals Ordinance</a>, restricting marriage between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people under their jurisdiction.</p>
<p>Ford mostly leaves such histories untouched, making the argument that “as a white woman living in Australia, I couldn’t possibly speak for cultures outside of my own or assert expertise that I don’t have”. </p>
<p>Instead, she purposefully focuses on the “experiences of white, middle-class women” because they “have been instrumental in establishing the idea of success in marriage as a sign of economic status and moral value, which in turn upholds hierarchical power within the patriarchal system”. </p>
<p>Possibly aware she may be negatively targeting her core constituency, Ford makes sure at numerous points to emphasise it is “systemic oppression” she wants to combat and criticise, not “personal actions”. “Contrary to what some may think,” insists Ford, “I am quite hopelessly romantic!” (On this note, in her last book <a href="https://www.allenandunwin.com/browse/book/Clementine-Ford-How-We-Love-9781760877187/">How We Love: Notes on a Life</a>, published in 2021, Ford compellingly argued for an expansive and capacious definition and experience of love.)</p>
<p>The plot and path of marriage gives each author a structure to roughly follow, from proposal to wedding to what happens or could happen next, including divorce. Both point out the “traditional wedding” or “marriage” as we understand it is a recent invention. </p>
<p>Lennon wryly notes history “is not full of men, century after century, popping the question down on one knee in a carefully choreographed performance”. The proposal is a 20th-century invention. For Ford, the most odious forms are the big, flashy public ones. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561756/original/file-20231127-15-hfexsr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561756/original/file-20231127-15-hfexsr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561756/original/file-20231127-15-hfexsr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561756/original/file-20231127-15-hfexsr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561756/original/file-20231127-15-hfexsr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561756/original/file-20231127-15-hfexsr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561756/original/file-20231127-15-hfexsr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561756/original/file-20231127-15-hfexsr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The proposal is a 20th-century invention.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jesus Arias/Pexels</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Ford cites the example of her friend Bridget, whose ex-boyfriend proposed while they were a plane crossing the Atlantic: at “their heart, proposals are an act of entrapment, and there’s nothing quite so inescapable as a tin tube 30,000 feet above the ocean”.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/hidden-women-of-history-kudnarto-the-kaurna-woman-who-made-south-australian-legal-history-185390">Hidden women of history: Kudnarto, the Kaurna woman who made South Australian legal history</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>The first celebrity wedding</h2>
<p>Queen Victoria is described by Ford as one of history’s most successful wedding “influencers”. Fittingly, she features in both books. When she married Prince Albert in a white gown in 1840, she launched a “tradition” of brides wearing white. She also inaugurated the big, expensive and elaborate wedding as the default standard for the aspiring middle classes – and, adds Ford, <a href="https://museumcrush.org/the-art-of-devon-lace-and-how-queen-victoria-revived-a-cottage-industry/">revitalised Britain’s lace industry</a>. </p>
<p>Lennon aptly describes the wedding of Victoria to Albert as “Britain’s first celebrity wedding”. Widely publicised around the world, its influence – via colonialism and the modern press – extended far beyond England itself. </p>
<p>And while Lennon laments the enduring hold that “Queen Victoria’s tiny waist and sexual purity” maintains on the bridal industry in the UK and globally, she also stresses the merging of local traditions and western influences in Vietnam and Japan. In China, India and much of Asia, she points out, “red is the bridal colour of choice”.</p>
<p>The burden of wedding planning, Lennon and Ford agree, continues to fall largely on women – or at least, is expected to. In the run-up to opposite-sex weddings, writes Lennon, “gender looms large, with parties of segregated people coming together to celebrate and prepare”. </p>
<p>Hen nights and stag dos, only a regular feature since the 1960s, have transitioned from “moments of quiet celebration to whole weekends”, perpetuated by a “massive industry telling us to make the most of these moments and opportunities”. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561759/original/file-20231127-27-8c0id2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561759/original/file-20231127-27-8c0id2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561759/original/file-20231127-27-8c0id2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561759/original/file-20231127-27-8c0id2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561759/original/file-20231127-27-8c0id2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561759/original/file-20231127-27-8c0id2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561759/original/file-20231127-27-8c0id2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561759/original/file-20231127-27-8c0id2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Hen nights and stag dos have transitioned from ‘moments of quiet celebration to whole weekends’.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jonathan Borba/Pexels</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Ford is especially scornful of what she labels the “wedding industrial complex”. Its history includes the highly successful mid-20th-century campaign in the US to revitalise the exploitative diamond industry by <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/02/how-an-ad-campaign-invented-the-diamond-engagement-ring/385376/">rebranding expensive engagement rings</a> as an essential wedding-related expense.</p>
<p>Attentive to how marriage has oppressed women, neither Lennon nor Ford shy away from its worst manifestations and most enduringly sexist features. On this front, Lennon casts a wider net, which takes in child brides and bride kidnapping, to cite just two examples that still occur. </p>
<p>Until not that long ago, a woman lost her entire legal identity when she became a wife. (This is a strong theme for both writers.) The law of <a href="https://www.womenshistory.org/articles/coverture-word-you-probably-dont-know-should">coverture</a> was defined by British judge and Tory politician Sir William Blackstone in the 1760s: “the very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage, or at least is incorporated and consolidated into that of the husband”. </p>
<p>With British colonialism, their model of marriage became a major global export, writes Lennon. Ford points out this legacy can be seen everywhere, from “mechanics or tradespeople” who ask to speak to the “man of the house”, through to men who kill their wives and “believe in their hearts that these women belong to them”. </p>
<p>Both draw their reader’s attention to how long it took to get rape in marriage recognised by the law – in Australia’s case, into the 1990s. <a href="https://www.auswhn.org.au/blog/marital-rape/">Criminalisation of rape in marriage here</a> started in South Australia (which partially criminalised it) in 1976, with New South Wales the first state or territory to fully criminalise it, and the Northern Territory the last, in 1994.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561757/original/file-20231127-23-hfexsr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561757/original/file-20231127-23-hfexsr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561757/original/file-20231127-23-hfexsr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561757/original/file-20231127-23-hfexsr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561757/original/file-20231127-23-hfexsr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561757/original/file-20231127-23-hfexsr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561757/original/file-20231127-23-hfexsr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561757/original/file-20231127-23-hfexsr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ford is especially scornful of the ‘wedding industrial complex’.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dimitriy Frantsev/Unsplash</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As feminists writing avowedly feminist books about marriage, Lennon and Ford each pay some attention to feminists who came before them. They include <a href="https://theconversation.com/mary-wollstonecraft-an-introduction-to-the-mother-of-first-wave-feminism-201046">Mary Wollstonecraft</a>, who is widely though not uniformly recognised as the first modern feminist. </p>
<p>She was also no fan of marriage, at least as it stood in 1792 when she published <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/a-vindication-of-the-rights-of-woman-9780141441252">A Vindication on the Rights of Woman</a>, an instant bestseller in England. “If marriage be the cement of society”, wrote Wollstonecraft, “mankind should all be educated after the same model, or the intercourse of the sexes will never deserve the name of fellowship.”</p>
<p>Wollstonecraft subsequently married writer and political theorist <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Godwin">William Godwin</a> – who, as a foundational anarchist, lambasted marriage as a “system of fraud” and the “worst of all laws” – after she became pregnant in 1797. This is interpreted by Lennon as evidence even the strongest and most vocal critics were not immune to “the social pressures and punishments set up to induce marriage”. </p>
<p>Ford celebrates Wollstonecraft’s “wild life”, including “multiple lovers out of marriage”, having a child with one of them and marrying “a fellow radical” who “inadvertently destroyed her reputation by publishing a posthumous tribute that described in detail what a cool bitch she was”. </p>
<p>That Wollstonecraft died giving birth to her second daughter (Mary Shelley, author of <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/frankenstein-9780241321645">Frankenstein</a>) is for Ford a “terrible irony”, given her resistance to “the entrapment of marriage and all the risks it posed to women”.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-how-women-writers-helped-me-find-my-voice-after-divorce-207424">Friday essay: how women writers helped me find my voice after divorce</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Strikingly different</h2>
<p>Despite their shared features, however, Wedded Wife and I Don’t are strikingly different projects. Lennon, a “bisexual, feminist woman from a working-class background in the UK”, was inspired by her own marriage to her now-wife to ponder the institution’s “problematic inheritance”. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561760/original/file-20231127-19-i5tlpv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561760/original/file-20231127-19-i5tlpv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561760/original/file-20231127-19-i5tlpv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=939&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561760/original/file-20231127-19-i5tlpv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=939&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561760/original/file-20231127-19-i5tlpv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=939&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561760/original/file-20231127-19-i5tlpv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1180&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561760/original/file-20231127-19-i5tlpv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1180&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561760/original/file-20231127-19-i5tlpv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1180&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p>A social historian and curator, Lennon deftly blends an “intimate history” centred “on the stories of women and those who challenged gender norms” with a “whistle stop tour of 500 years of modern marriage, within the United Kingdom and beyond”. </p>
<p>At the vanguard of the same-sex marriage revolution, Lennon finds plenty of evidence to support her case that “nothing about marriage is inevitable, natural or fated” – and that it’s perpetually open to adaptation. </p>
<p>While hardly a groundbreaking revelation or conclusion, Lennon impressively backs it up in her jaunty and thoughtful survey of marriage practices across time and place, with special attention to its queer history, legal and otherwise. </p>
<p>And if on occasion, she slips ever-so-slightly into what Helen Fielding’s <a href="https://panmacmillan.com.au/9781743034873/">Bridget Jones</a> (in “singleton” mode) called “smug married”, who can blame her? Lennon’s marriage sounds happy and harmonious, and she mostly resists evangelising for the cause.</p>
<p>Ford, meanwhile, as her title “I Don’t” makes obvious, is having none of it. Marriage is the paradigmatic patriarchal institution and cannot be queered or saved. </p>
<p>“Marriage,” she argues, “entrenches gender inequality between men and women while advertising heteronormative goals to queer people”. She is a “marriage abolitionist” who “cannot in good conscience support an institution that has enslaved women sexually, reproductively, financially and domestically”. </p>
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<p>There is no doubting Ford’s ambition. While aware “you can’t summarise six thousand years of patriarchy in ninety thousand words”, she has a go anyway. The obligatory targets and greatest hits are all there – the Ancients, Christianity, the witch-hunts, the Western legal tradition, Piers Morgan. </p>
<p>So are contemporary examples of dud husbands and fear-mongering misogynist podcasters collapsed into the composite figure of “Kermit McDermit”, as are retro comedians (with “a name like Rocket Dickfingers”) who continue to peddle tired “take my wife” jokes to their receptive audiences. Ford’s contempt for such men is occasionally amusing, but more often tedious. </p>
<p>When dealing with the most challenging material – like accounts of coercive sex and rape in marriage that have been shared with her – Ford is sensitive and suitably outraged. But she stops short of providing the proper treatment such disturbing, yet commonplace phenomena demand. Instead, I Don’t is padded with unnecessary detours and digressions, including a lazy primer on what feminism has been blamed for throughout its history.</p>
<p>I Don’t is an unapologetic polemic, which begs the question of who Ford is trying to persuade. The author of three previous books, including <a href="https://www.allenandunwin.com/browse/book/Clementine-Ford-Fight-Like-A-Girl-9781760633400/">Fight Like a Girl</a> (2016) and <a href="https://www.allenandunwin.com/browse/book/Clementine-Ford-Boys-Will-Be-Boys-9781760878627/">Boys Will Be Boys</a> (2018), as well as a podcaster with a strong social media presence, Ford has established a dedicated readership. </p>
<p>Presumably, some of these readers are like me – self-identified feminists who are, at best, indifferent about marriage. Or if they are married, or plan to marry, or want to be married, such a reader is probably already quite aware marriage has historically been a somewhat oppressive and sexist institution – and often still is. </p>
<p>That they want to get married anyway invites more reflection on its appeal beyond blaming popular culture, society and the patriarchy. Maybe Ford and the publishers anticipate some new readers who are curious about “marriage abolition”. It’s hard to tell. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/is-marriage-modern-anna-kate-blairs-novel-poses-the-question-but-doesnt-answer-it-212346">Is marriage modern? Anna Kate Blair's novel poses the question, but doesn't answer it</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>I Don’t ‘fails to persuade’</h2>
<p>In any case, “marriage abolition”, as advanced by Ford, is a far sketchier proposition than other recent and ongoing feminist mobilisations focused on the abolition of some of society’s most entrenched institutions and structures. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561816/original/file-20231127-21-6k6t4e.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561816/original/file-20231127-21-6k6t4e.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561816/original/file-20231127-21-6k6t4e.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=921&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561816/original/file-20231127-21-6k6t4e.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=921&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561816/original/file-20231127-21-6k6t4e.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=921&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561816/original/file-20231127-21-6k6t4e.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1157&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561816/original/file-20231127-21-6k6t4e.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1157&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561816/original/file-20231127-21-6k6t4e.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1157&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p>For example, feminism aimed at dismantling the carceral system is a growing international movement that includes Australia’s <a href="https://sistersinside.com.au/">Sisters Inside Inc.</a> and is showcased in the bestselling manifesto <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/abolition-feminism-now-9780241543757">Abolition.Feminism.Now</a>. </p>
<p>Books like <a href="https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/products/711-full-surrogacy-now">Full Surrogacy Now: Feminism Against the Family</a> (2019) and <a href="https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/products/2890-abolish-the-family">Abolish the Family: A Manifesto </a> (2022), both by British scholar, writer and activist Sophie Lewis, invite readers to imagine what a world without the family (as it is currently constituted) would look like. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/is-equality-compatible-with-the-nuclear-family-alva-gotby-proposes-a-radical-politics-of-friendship-199420">Is equality compatible with the nuclear family? Alva Gotby proposes a radical politics of friendship</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The best polemics and manifestos dare readers to imagine alternative and better worlds: alas, I Don’t is not one of them.</p>
<p>One major reason I Don’t fails to persuade is that there is a tension between Ford declaring her book the “start of a much bigger conversation” about marriage on the one hand, and as a “profoundly hopeful love letter to women” on the other. </p>
<p>Conversations about marriage are happening all the time – for instance, about <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-ethical-slut-has-been-called-the-bible-of-non-monogamy-but-its-sexual-utopia-is-oversimplified-207425">ethical non-monogamy</a>, living-apart-together, blended families and friendly divorces. But surprisingly few of them appear in Ford’s book. And while plenty of queer theorists share her view that marriage remains fundamentally heteronormative no matter who enters it, she names none of them. </p>
<p>As a genre, polemics defiantly resist the obligations of “balance”. But without the voices of women who, like Lennon and her wife, have reclaimed and reinvented marriage to suit themselves, in I Don’t, Ford runs perilously close to accusing women who decide to get married for whatever reason of false consciousness.</p>
<p>As polemic, the success of I Don’t largely rests on accepting Ford’s two related claims. Firstly, that the “modern woman is told that she needs marriage” and this pressure remains overwhelming. Next, that the stigma of not getting married – of becoming the modern version of a “spinster”, the “Cat Lady” – continues to loom large. </p>
<p>As a “spinster” myself (without any cats), I am part of an ever-increasing cohort of women who will never marry, have never really had any desire to, and have somehow remained largely immune from social pressures – including from the enduring stereotype of the “Cat Lady”. </p>
<p>I embarked on I Don’t sharing most of Ford’s criticisms of marriage. And while I still share them, I also found reading it such an alienating experience that by the end, I was tempted to get married just to prove her wrong.</p>
<p>As an alternative, I would recommend Lennon’s nuanced history, or even better, historian Alecia Simmonds’s recently published <a href="https://www.blackincbooks.com.au/books/courting#:%7E:text=Courting%3A%20An%20Intimate%20History%20of%20Love%20and%20the%20Law&text=In%20packed%20courtrooms%20and%20breathless,of%20love%20and%20the%20law.">Courting: an intimate history of law and the law</a>. In her captivating history of people – most of them women, but not all – who sued their prospective marriage partners for breach of promise, Simmonds audaciously suggests there might be merit in reviving and updating breach of promise in the civil law as a way to advance an ethics of intimacy. </p>
<p>It’s the sort of cleverly developed argument you don’t have to necessarily agree with to be excited by. I just wish there had been more of those arguments in I Don’t.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213887/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Zora Simic does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Zora Simic has never been married, nor wanted to. She assesses two new books about feminism and marriage – Clementine Ford’s polemic against it and Rachael Lennon’s history of its reformation.
Zora Simic, Senior Lecturer, School of Humanities, UNSW Sydney
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/218167
2023-11-23T17:24:26Z
2023-11-23T17:24:26Z
Why the man-hating feminist is a myth – according to science
<p>As part of the “Women Against Feminism” campaign that launched in 2014, social media posts have <a href="https://time.com/3028827/women-against-feminism-gets-it-right/">featured</a> young women holding placards with the message “I don’t need feminism because…” listing various reasons ranging from “I respect men” to “I am not a MAN-HATER”. </p>
<p>This perception of misandry – a hatred of men - is perhaps the most prevalent and enduring stereotype about feminism. By this account, feminism is not really a movement to end sexism and bring about gender equality, but rather it is wholly concerned with dislike of men. </p>
<p>While “Women Against Feminism” was ultimately eclipsed three years later by the #MeToo movement, it reflects a wider reality that stereotypes about feminism have caused women to <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00224545.2019.1644280">spurn</a> and even publicly denounce the movement. </p>
<p>But is it actually true that feminists tend to dislike men? Not according to our <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/03616843231202708">recent research</a>.</p>
<h2>A root cause of hatred</h2>
<p>Research evidence shows that awareness of negative tropes of feminists as “man-haters” reduces both women’s willingness to identify as <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1111/j.1471-6402.2007.00348.x">feminists</a> and their support of <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00224545.2019.1644280">gender equality</a> initiatives. </p>
<p>The idea of the man-hater also animates <a href="https://xyonline.net/sites/xyonline.net/files/2019-12/Marwick%2C%20Drinking%20male%20tears%202018.pdf">hatred of feminism and of women</a> in the manosphere – websites that promote masculinity and misogyny – where it is used to promote opposition to gender equality and to justify acts of violence.</p>
<p>Of course, there are reasons to suspect that at least some feminists might hold negative attitudes toward men. A few even <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/10/french-writer-book-pauline-harmange-i-hate-men-interview">advocate misandry</a> as a rational and authentic response to men’s violent, degrading and oppressive treatment of women. </p>
<p>In a way it would make sense for feminists to dislike a group that threatens their welfare and dignity. And we know that negative feelings toward advantaged groups in society can actually be an important driver of protest and other forms of <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/behavioral-and-brain-sciences/article/abs/beyond-prejudice-are-negative-evaluations-the-problem-and-is-getting-us-to-like-one-another-more-the-solution/F5E01C0515257104E123D5B06D7ED714">collective action</a>. </p>
<p>But feminists, at least those subscribing to mainstream liberal beliefs, often see men and women as relatively similar to each other. And we know that perceived similarity promotes attraction and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/0022-1031(86)90041-7">positive attitudes</a> toward individuals and groups. </p>
<p>Feminists might therefore be expected to have positive attitudes toward men. Such views have been reflected in the words and actions of some prominent feminists.</p>
<p>The writer bell hooks (pen name) <a href="https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745317335/feminism-is-for-everybody/">explicitly called out the suffering of men</a>, particularly men of colour, under misogynistic systems. These sentiments were echoed by Emma Watson <a href="https://www.unwomen.org/en/news/stories/2014/9/emma-watson-gender-equality-is-your-issue-too">at the UN in 2014</a>. </p>
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<p>Despite its longevity and impact, the misandry stereotype has been subject to little scientific scrutiny. The studies that have been done, like most in psychology, are limited by small samples that are often drawn exclusively from populations of university students from the US. </p>
<p>Previous investigations have also been hampered by the relatively few women who identified (at least openly) as feminists in these samples (as low as <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1471-6402.2009.01491.x?casa_token=lkCQjmvHnHAAAAAA:nxml8c6lWc1mtTgJNGnmZ4eQhepiNwALk1weILgS-Hu8FyEEI3OLemerZkXieD4ZUHV7x-FrkLi1">17%</a>). </p>
<p>More recent polling data in the US <a href="https://www.kff.org/other/poll-finding/washington-post-kaiser-family-foundation-feminism-survey/">show that</a> 60% of women and 33% of men consider themselves as “feminist” or “strong feminist”. In the UK, 67% of 18-24 year-olds <a href="https://www.youngwomenstrust.org/our-research/young-womens-feminism-and-activism-2019/">identify as feminist</a>.</p>
<p>What’s more, the measures of attitudes toward men often conflate the overall positivity and negativity with stereotypes and ideological beliefs. For example, researchers may use statements such as “Men act like babies when they are sick,” to measure hostile attitudes to men. </p>
<p>The problem here is that research participants might agree with this statement even if they are very fond of men. They may just endorse specific social stereotypes about how men (over)react to illness. </p>
<h2>Digging deeper</h2>
<p>In our research, we recruited 9,799 participants across the US, China, South Korea, India, Japan, Taiwan, the UK and Poland. </p>
<p>We included various measurements of attitudes to men, and feminism itself - including the extent to which someone identified as feminist, their specific beliefs and their participation or support for feminist social action.</p>
<p>We generally included a way for participants to indicate whether they had positive or negative attitudes in absolute rather than just relative terms. For example, we often included “feeling thermometers” in which participants rated how they felt about men on a sliding scale, ranging from 0 (“very cold”) to 100 (“very warm”), with 50 being neutral (“neither cold nor warm”).</p>
<p>We found that feminists overall had positive attitudes toward men, scoring well above the scale mid-point on feelings of warmth, liking and trust. Feminists and non-feminists barely differed in their attitudes. These patterns were largely consistent across nine countries in three continents. </p>
<p>Similarly, participation in feminist action was associated with anger about the mistreatment of women, but not with negative attitudes toward men. Feminists’ attitudes toward men were in fact about as positive as men’s attitudes toward men.</p>
<p>In some countries, we asked people to tell us how positively or negatively they thought “feminists” felt toward men. This allowed a direct comparison of what feminists actually think and what people think they think - a true test of the accuracy of the misandry stereotype. People incorrectly stereotyped feminists as having more negative attitudes toward men than feminists actually reported.</p>
<p>On average, participants believed that feminists’ attitudes to men were negative in absolute terms. Feminist participants were not quite as wrong about the attitudes of fellow feminists, but still massively underestimated their peers’ warm feelings towards men. Importantly, this finding was replicated with a nationally representative sample of adults in the UK (a gold standard in research into social attitudes).</p>
<h2>Origins of the stereotype</h2>
<p>If the stereotype that feminists hate men is unfounded, where does it come from? Our results suggested two possible reasons. First, believing that feminists hate men is a convenient way to dismiss what they have to say. </p>
<p>This possibility was backed up by the fact that participants who scored highly on a measure of hostile sexism, viewing women as trying to usurp men’s power, were most prone to seeing feminists as man-haters.</p>
<p>Second, even pro-feminist participants made an important mistake. They thought that feminists see men and women as largely dissimilar to each other. In fact, feminist participants tended to see men and women as largely alike. </p>
<p>This makes sense given that women have historically been discriminated against on the basis of fictional gender differences, such as not being “rational” enough for certain jobs. </p>
<p>Ultimately, we hope that by showing that feminism is not synonymous with man-hating, we can contribute to a more informed and accurate discussion about gender relations. </p>
<p>After all, people should be making judgements based on fact, rather than fiction.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218167/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Feminists are about as man-hating as men are.
Aífe Hopkins-Doyle, Lecturer in Social Psychology, University of Surrey
Aino Lilja Petterson, Postdoctoral Fellow of Psychology, University of Oslo
Robbie Sutton, Professor of Social Psychology, University of Kent
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.