#HeForShe

Don’t blame Emma Watson’s speech for liberal feminist failures.

September 30, 2014

(Cross-posted from Laura McNally)

Emma Watson’s speech isn’t the problem. The problem is liberal feminism.

Emma Watson’s speech at the UN has made headlines worldwide. It wasn’t a bad speech. Like all women, Watson is doing the best she can with the information she has available to her.

Several feminists have already addressed some of the problematic aspects of her speech. Like many, I am critical of the strategies employed by transnational organisations like the UN. I am also critical of liberal feminism.

But as a woman who is most concerned with women’s liberation, I acknowledge that Emma Watson has created more awareness in ten minutes than I could in my lifetime.

So you know what is more problematic, male-centric, and piecemeal than Emma Watson’s speech?

Liberal feminist analysis. Let me give just a few examples:

  • The liberal feminist movement argues sexist objectification and violent pornography can be feminist, but that Emma Watson’s speech was barely sufficient.
  • Liberal feminism frames sexual violence in porn as an empowered choice for women.
  • Liberal feminism responds “not all porn” in the same way sexists respond “not all men” when we talk about male violence and misogyny. Feminists ought to be aware that criticism is aimed at cultures, classes, and industries, not individual people.
  • While we are in the midst of a child porn and pedophilia epidemic, liberal feminism argues we should sell sexy lingerie to 7-year-old girls because children need “sexual choices.“
  • Liberal feminism applies criticism to every industry except the sex trade despite the fact that the sex industry hinges upon classism, sexism, racism and the global trade of violence against girls and women.
  • Liberal feminism prioritises first-world women’s accounts of feeling empowered, shunning women who don’t have the language, resources, twitter or Tumblr accounts to articulate the extent of their oppression.
  • While liberal feminism claims to be “intersectional” it concomitantly evades structural analysis and conceals multiple oppressions with a rhetoric of agency. This is an issue that Kimberle Crenshaw has spoken on recently (1). As if feeling agentic is going to keep the most vulnerable women alive.
  • Liberal feminism claims to want to end sexist stereotypes, but freely labels women “thin-lipped,” prudish, and anti-sex if they dare say any of the things that I have just written here.
  • Liberal feminism has been so concerned about “including men” and being “pro sex” that they have repeatedly published ‘feminist’ works on behalf of male sex predators and attempted killers.

Liberal feminism is not only male-centric in rhetoric, but is institutionalizing and abetting global male entitlement as feminist.

Yet now, I hear, the liberal feminist movement is upset because Emma called upon men in her speech. Pot calling the kettle?

I say, at least Emma isn’t advocating for sex predators, at least Emma isn’t advocating for pedophiles. At least Emma isn’t advocating for men who produce violent pornography. At least Emma isn’t advocating for human traffickers. At least Emma is advocating for women.

Yes, Emma is another white woman adding her voice to a movement that continues to prioritize the perspectives of white people. But does that mean professional white feminists are going to renounce their careers? I wouldn’t expect so. But I would expect that they might consider whether their political analysis serves to amplify or obscure the reality of women already marginalized by the current white-male-centric world order.

Perhaps Emma’s critics can also ponder if liberal feminism is really working to change male hegemony while we continue to be served up diatribes about “finding agency” in oppressive circumstances, by both the feminist academy and its media counterparts. Perhaps they can question whether this liberal, postmodern, anti-structural, a-contextual approach to feminism even means anything for women outside of first-world capital cities… Marketing something as “intersectional” doesn’t just make it so.

It would seem that we can either fight to end patriarchy and the institutions that prop up its existence, or alternately we can work to make patriarchy more acceptable and equitable by selling it as “choice.” One of these options sounds like feminism and the other sounds like corporate strategy. Choice is great… when you are a wealthy consumer.

If the sex trade were a choice that supposedly liberates women, wouldn’t we all be liberated by now? What with pornography making up over a third of the whole Internet, and with the global sex industry estimated at being worth over $7000 billion (nearly ten years ago by the EU). So why is male sexual violence, sexual coercion, sexual assault, global trafficking in children, self harm, objectification and eating disorders as well as suicide rates all on the rise for girls and women in a whole variety of countries?

As it turns out nobody is liberated by these industries and they are rarely a choice. In fact research shows quite the opposite with very few South East Asian women ever personally seeking out the industry. To defend an industry that hinges upon impoverished girls and women’s lack of choice, and instead frame it as being primarily about “women’s choices” shows that liberal feminism is only for women with the social mobility to choose, commonly first-world women. Framing oppressive systems as “choice” is a classist marketing strategy, not an intersectional feminist analysis.

Yes, some women can choose. Some women have the social mobility required to move in and out of different fields of work and that is great. Of course, no woman should be stigmatised for her choices, whatever they may be. But feminist analysis is not just about women with choices. Feminism that only reflects women with choice serves to further silence women who have few or none.

As bell hooks has said:

[Feminism] has never emerged from the women who are most victimised by sexist oppression; women who are daily beaten down, mentally, physically, and spiritually – women who are powerless to change their condition in life. They are a silent majority.

Girls are increasingly surrounded by sex trade influences, with much of the visual culture saturated by pornography, often of young and underage girls. Male entitlement is both global and dangerous. Thai reports show 40 per cent of the sex industry is made up of underage girls. Male sexual entitlement is colonizing the third world faster than trans-national corporations ever could. This local-global industrializing of sexual exploitation is constraining the rights and choices of girls globally. Working to legitimise this exploitation only solidifies the lack of choice for these girls and women.

How then, can liberal feminists bolster these industries and simultaneously claim to fight for choice? Whose choice? Male sex tourists perhaps? And don’t even get me started on just how ethnocentric, individualistic and consumerist the entire notion of “choice” is. From my experience living throughout South East Asia, a deep sense of collectivist culture, filial piety where children are strongly obligated to support their aging parents, combined with poverty; all make the idea of individual choice and empowerment laughable. Poor women living in South East Asia don’t simply log on to seek.com and peruse potential career ‘choices’. Life is just not that simple, despite the supposed binary it is certainly not as simple as victims vs. agents.

An all too common story across Asia is parents who cannot afford to feed their children. They may find themselves forced to send their daughters or sons to the city with the promise of “school and work”, this is increasingly impacting strained rural populations. Are these girls going to be helped by “feeling agency” while they are exploited? Or, perhaps they could benefit from state sanctioned and local development programs, rather than sex predator tourists?

Through conversation, Australian writers have told me that girls in Asia have to “choose” between the garment industry and the sex industry, or otherwise beg. This is an entirely reductionist, ethnocentric and distorted idea of women’s reality overseas. Why is this first-world ‘choice’ narrative homogenizing feminist discourse? What ever happened to intersectionality?

Liberal feminist rhetoric is dominated by first-world accounts of “I think this is empowering so it is.” This apolitical approach evades the statistics and realities of millions of girls and women whose stories we will likely never hear in a feminist bestseller. Feminism has come to mean whatever wealthy consumers want it to mean: “feeling good,” rather than actual change or justice. We seem to forget that the world is not full of women wealthy enough to try out oppressive systems for fun like pole-dance for “sport.” We’ve ended up in a situation where Robin Thicke and Miley Cyrus call their actions feminist. While that’s ludicrous, I can see exactly how they came to that conclusion.

I understand that liberal feminism does seek to change sexist norms and attitudes, but it does so by supporting the industries that ensure sexist behaviour is normative, institutional and profitable. Not only does this garner political legitimacy for sexist industry, but it bolsters the male consumers who can argue their sex tourism and excessive porn use is acceptable or even “feminist.” Empirical evidence shows that first-world male consumers of pornography have higher sexist and rape-accepting attitudes — attitudes that they can more easily enact in locations with fewer law enforcement resources.

I have been told this is all just “good for business,” which sounds more like the perspective of a capitalist, not a feminist. I am struck by recent liberal feminist texts criticizing “neoliberal feminism” (which isn’t actually a thing) while the crux of liberal feminism could not be more closely aligned with neoliberal exploitation of women.

So, is #heforshe going to actually achieve anything with men? At an individual level, I hope so — we certainly need it. What I do know is that, for my friends living in poverty, having men hear about this will likely do more for them than talking about feminist agency or feminist porn.

I understand entirely why Watson’s speech was somewhat piecemeal, problematic and feminist-lite… But that is because she is working with liberal feminist theory, and it’s the best she (or anyone) could do with that body of work.

Watson is simply advocating for girls and women the only way she knows. So all I have to say to her is “Thank you. You did what you could, we have a lot of work to do and we welcome you.”

 

(1) Kimberlé Crenshaw, ‘A Conversation with Founding Scholars of Intersectionality: Kimberlé Crenshaw, Nira Yuval-Davis and Michelle Fine’ in M Berger and K Guidroz (eds), The Intersectional Approach: Transforming the Academy Through Race, Class, and Gender (University of North Carolina Press, 2010).

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Some brief thoughts on Emma Watson UN Speech on #HeForShe by @LK_Pennington

September 27, 2014

(Cross-posted from My Elegant Gathering of White Snows)

I was interviewed by BBC Radio Tees this morning on whether feminism is necessary following Emma Watson’s speech to the UN. I spoke with a male journalist (who clearly doesn’t like feminists) and Angela Epstein who has made a career out of belittling feminism. These are the notes I wrote just before the interview:

Reasons for Feminism:

General:

  1. 2 women a week are murdered by current or former partners – this does not include homicides perpetrated by extended family members including fathers and brothers.
  2. 40 women an hour are raped in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
  3. Women and children are the vast majority of victims and refugees of war yet are veryrarely represented at national and international peace agreements.
  4. 150 women a day are turned away from refuges in the UK due to lack of space.
  5. Women are more likely to suffer ill health and death due to male violence than they are to die from cancer, heart disease and car accidents.
  6. Women still earn less than men for the same work – this gap is wider for Women of Colour.
  7. Last year, a 13 year old girl was labelled “sexually predatory” in all her actions by the attorney responsible for prosecuting her perpetrator of sexual assault – an appalling breach of her human rights which only got national attention due to the work of Ending Victimisation and Blame
  8. 1400 girls were sexually abused, raped and trafficked in Rotherham whilst the police, social services, CPS, and schools did nothing. The media has reported this as if it was a one-off event rather than simply an exemplar of what is happening to girls across the UK every day in places like Nottingham, York and Sheffield
  9. Jimmy Savile was allowed to continue sexually assaulting and raping hundreds of young girls and boys whilst working for the BBC and engaged in “charity work”. He was given his own rooms in hospitals. Staff everywhere knew and no one stepped up to support the children.

More obviously, feminism is important because a young woman stood up in front of an international audience and said women are equal to men. For this, she has had threats of sexual violence through the theft and release of private images and all manner of abuse. This is why feminism is necessary – because women have no right to an opinion in the public sphere.

Reasons for feminism pertaining directly to Emma Watson:

  1. The threat to release of photos of Watson nude which have been stolen and then released publicly: this is sexual violence
  2. Count down clock to Watson being “legal”
  3. the fact that the Daily Mail published an article on her outfit rather than the speech

 

My issues with Watson’s speech:

  • no practical advise on how to change,
  • very little structural analysis: remains embedded in neoliberal discourse on choice
  • the word feminism is important. There is a reason why that word is derided and insulted – it’s because the word has power. It makes it clear why women are trapped in continuing cycles of poverty, male violence and child-bearing and rearing,
  • Watson calls for men’s inclusion but ignores why men do not want to support women’s rights as it challenges their power,
  • real male allies do not need to be coaxed into clicking a button on a website. They are already doing the work by reading and listening to feminists and then putting their knowledge into practise by supporting women’s liberation,
  • We need to stop stroking men’s egos and worrying about their feelings. We’ve had 10 000 years of human history where women have been raped, tortured and murdered. Men have the power to change this and have chosen not too. We need to stop focusing on being inclusive to men and start actively challenging them,
  • This statement is odd: “If men don’t have to be aggressive in order to be accepted women won’t feel compelled to be submissive. If men don’t have to control, women won’t have to be controlled”
    • Women aren’t compelled to be submissive, they have no choice. Men do have a choice to be controlling and they make the choice to engage in this behaviour within the home and within the public sphere. Men absolutely do suffer because of gendered stereotypes but we need to be clear that men who use violence are making a choice to do so – if we think otherwise, we insult all the men who make the choice to act like a decent human being.

I do have criticisms of Watson’s speech but more importantly, I am dancing with joy that she stood up in front of an international audience and said women are equal to men. As a mother of members of the Harry Potter generation, I am ecstatic by this speech. As a feminist, I am happy that Watson stood up and defended women. I do have concerns about her speech, particularly the idea that we don’t need the word feminism, but I am so fucking glad she made it.

Here’s a great post from Clementine Ford on Watson’s speech.

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#HeForShe and the pointless battle to be recognised by @PlanetCath

September 27, 2014

(Cross-posted from Opinionated Planet)

I am really torn with this HeForShe campaign. It’s great that a young woman such as Emma Watson has spoken up, identified herself as a feminist and, in doing so, will introduce a whole generation of other young women to the feminist movement. It’s also good news that sexism, misogyny and inequality is being discussed at UN level. There are many issues that blight women’s lives every single day and we are long overdue for a sea change in male attitudes. It’s exhausting battling this shit every day and our voices are hoarse from shouting about it.
My problem is that I don’t believe that the involvement of the United Nations will do anything to change societal attitudes towards women. The problems are far too entrenched for men to willingly surrender their power. When you have as much privilege as men do, the process of unpacking and examining that privilege is far too much like hard work. Retweeting Everyday Sexism is easy. Adding your name to a petition against domestic abuse takes about five minutes. Adding your voice to a campaign such as HeForShe takes approximately five seconds. Anyone can do that, and proudly pat themselves on the back for being a ‘good’ man.

The real work is in challenging sexism and misogyny. When your mates tell a rape joke, when your work colleagues tell a domestic violence joke, when you witness street harassment, when your women friends are sexually assaulted in pubs and clubs. That’s the real work; challenging other men.

And men don’t see what we see. They understand the, “get your tits out” sexism because it’s blatant and they can hear and see it. What they don’t see is the implicit sexism. The comments that can be dismissed as “just a joke”, the man who talks to your chest, the man who speaks over you, the man who runs the University Feminist society because he wants to ‘help’ women become empowered. They don’t notice when they switch on the radio and it’s predominantly male voices. They don’t notice that the majority of newspaper editors, managers, CEO’s and politicians are men. They don’t think anything when they watch Question Time and see a panel of white, male faces. They don’t understand why you get frustrated when the head of your STEM panel is male, or when you disengage from politics because the ‘greater good’ argument has yet again made women invisible and silenced.

For HeForShe to actually work, we need men to shut up and listen. We need them to WANT to change and I don’t see any evidence that they do.

The sexism in society is not just about the obvious objectification of reducing women to body parts. It’s implicit, it’s quiet, and it’s subtle.

When we have to beg men to imagine that the women experiencing abuse is their daughter, mother or sister then we have a problem. If men can’t support women because, y’know, we’re women then frankly, I don’t want your support.
Read below the line of any article written by a woman and you will see what we experience. You will see what men really think of us. You will see the hatred, the abuse and the dismissive sneering that accompanies any one of us that dares to speak. Go on Facebook and join a discussion about feminism and women’s rights, see the men falling over themselves to explain how we’re getting it wrong, we are campaigning on the wrong issue, there are more important things to worry about. Join Twitter and tweet about feminism. Sit back and wait for the replies.

Essentially, there are a lot of men who can just about manage feminism if it’s done ‘right.’ If the campaigning women are young, white, pretty and slim then you have a chance of men supporting your issue. If you’re old, a woman of colour and fat then forget it.

You have pretty much zero chance of any man wanting to be involved in your campaign. The comments come thick and fast;

“who’d rape her?”

“why are feminists so fucking ugly?”

“she deserves a smack in the mouth, fat ugly bitch.”

And we get angry. We get really fucking angry and this means that we are irrational, emotional, and erratic.

“You need to calm down”

“Why are you so angry all the time? It doesn’t solve anything”

“You won’t get anyone to listen if you’re angry”

So we quieten down. We lower our voices, we ask nicely instead of demanding angrily. Does anything change? No.

So, forgive me if I’m not thrilling with excitement about yet another campaign. Forgive me if I sound negative and weary. It’s because I’ve been here so many times before and we are in a worse situation than we ever were.

All power to Emma Watson. Truly. But don’t be surprised when this campaign fades away into obscurity.

Men aren’t giving up their power any time soon.

Opinionated Planet: a radical feminist blog by women for women on male violence, women-only spaces and sports

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Emma Watson, Feminism and Men by @hhbruichladdich

September 24, 2014

Emma Watson has given a speech to support the launch of UN “He for She” campaign. There has been considerable support, retweeting and endorsement of her speech and in particular the point at which she invites men to be part of the solution. Tweets like this: “Chaps out there. Sign up for @HeforShe and watch this moving speech. Thumbs up #EmmaWatson” (@evaliparova). There has also been some challenge and rejection to precisely this part of the speech. Tweets like this: “As far as I’m concerned, the liberation of women from male oppression will not be achieved by collusion” (@PlanetCath).

By the standards of much of feminist twitterati, her speech was quite tame. She calmly and quietly gave a very few examples along the lines of the most excellent “@everydaysexsim” such as being labelled bossy (age 8) for wanting to direct the play, noticing her classmates (age 15) falling away from sport as they were afraid that having muscles wasn’t feminine and sensitively noticing her male friends (ages 17 and 18) not feeling able to talk about their feelings.

Her approach was thereby as inclusive and caring as it could be. It recognized that gender norms and stereotypes harm men and boys as they do women. She did not even try to make a comparison as to who might have it worse as some of us would. She did not include statistics about males as predominantly perpetrators of violence against women and females as predominantly victims of male perpetrators as some of us would. She did try to challenge the silencing tactic that is used against feminists – that this means they are automatically man-hating. She went out of her way to support the “not all men” are violent and abusive line, indeed she went further and stressed how many fine and upstanding men and boys there were out there, as many of us would not.

This argument about the role of men in feminism has been doing the rounds for many years – it is not new. So many women do not want to be negative about their men – their sons, brothers, husbands, fathers, partners. Some of the refrains in support of working with men sound reasonable and include: They are part of the problem so they have to be part of the solution. We can’t do it without them. Most men are not abusers so we should work with those who can support us. We need their support, we shouldn’t alienate them. They are hurt by gender norms too, if they could be liberated from gender stereotypes, it will help us all. We are not fighting them, they are not the enemy, we just want equality.

The arguments against highlight the fact that what feminism is doing is challenging the power and the status quo. Those who have power and benefit from it in varying degrees generally do not cede it and share it – they protect and reinforce it. So it may be the case that men may find it harder to ask for help, may not visit health care so often, may find it hard to talk about their feelings – but they also benefit from being taken seriously, being respected and having higher status, receiving higher pay, being more likely to be in positions of power on boards, in companies and organisations, in governments etc. Consequently, women have no option but to try to wrest power away from those who hold it. Asking nicely just won’t cut it. So Emma’s approach was very unchallenging you would think. Nevertheless hackers have threatened to publish naked pictures of her in retaliation.

This too is not new. Whenever a woman takes up a public voice to speak on any matter of public policy but particularly one relating to women’s rights there is a backlash. The backlash usually consists of highly gendered abuse to put you back in your place – about your looks and your body, that you should be raped, that you are too ugly to rape, that you need to be taught a lesson and he’s the man to do it. I don’t need to retrace these here, Helen Lewis has admirably done so some while back.

While it may indeed be the case that men suffer from gender straitjacketing too, some of us would argue that we are entitled to demand our rights without apology, without reference to how this affects men, without sorting out all the men’s problems too. The anti-racism movement did not focus its energies on reassuring, including and prioritizing the needs of the white powers nor did it ask for their permission and guidance in how to overthrow them!

That is not to say there is no role for men, just not the role they are used to of leadership and power. Men are very welcome to say that they support us and to consult with us to see in what way they can be most useful to the cause and we will tell them.

We are likely to say stop being violent and abusive if you are and if you are not, then please challenge other men to discourage them from such behaviour as Karen Ingala Smith points out. We are particularly likely to say don’t try and take over our movement, don’t try and lead it, don’t try and distract us and others into talking about you, and certainly don’t presume to try to tell us we’re doing it wrong!

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