Below are the 19 most recent journal entries recorded in Dissenter's LiveJournal:

Friday, April 25th, 2008
1:32 pm	A Short Guide to Australian Women's Writing Women Making Revolution Note: There are currently no Indigenous women writers or other Australian women of colour on this list. I am going to try and put together a list of these writers in the future. Dates listed are the first dates of publication ( Read more... ) (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, April 16th, 2008
11:18 am	Coping Strategies as Opposed to Feminism Edit 6 May 2008: It has been brought to my attention that I left off one very important criterion that I should not have overlooked when putting together this checklist of what constitutes feminist films/literature etc., by which I mean texts which further women's liberation. This has now been added as the final point on the list. I think it is important to differentiate between coping strategies and feminist activities. For example, I would say that slash, which I have written about here, is a coping strategy many women use for surviving within the hostile patriarchal environment. I would say the same goes for most mainstream movies, novels and TV shows. These can be used by women as coping strategies, providing (an appearance of) escape from real life, but often, unless watched with a critical eye, they can be trapping women deeper within the patriarchal mire. Things which we use as coping strategies are not always feminist, or revolutionary, however much we might want them to be. That does not necessarily mean that women shouldn’t watch movies, or read frivolous books, it just means that we should recognise these things as coping strategies and not call it feminism. When I want to identify whether something is feminist, particularly in the realm of pop-culture, fan culture or literature, what I usually do is ask myself a series of questions: -does this raise women’s consciousness (specifically as women, not as ‘people’). -what, if any, aspect of patriarchy does this criticise, and is the problem recognised as being part of patriarchy, or is it disguised as something else? -are women in the text shown as resisting patriarchy (including thought resistance if all other forms of resistance are impossible)? If not, why? -what, if any, alternatives does this show to patriarchal ways of thinking/doing things? Does it imagine or construct an alternative woman-friendly and woman-centred reality or future? -how does this represent men and masculinity? Does it differentiate between the two? If there are ‘good’ men, are they shown as genuinely rejecting patriarchy and masculinity? -if a negative situation is depicted which is shown as having no solution (at least within the confines of the text), is the blame placed on patriarchy, or is it placed on individual women? -does the text show relationships between women as being important? How are relationships between women portrayed? Are they shown as being positive, as having revolutionary potential, or are relationships between women demonised? Do women in the text show allegiance to other women, or to men? Is there only one apparently 'exceptional' woman, surrounded by men, working with men against other women? If there is an absence of relationships between women in the text, i.e. if there is a woman who is isolated from other women, is this shown in negative terms, or is it shown as not mattering? If women do betray each other in the text, is this portrayed as something bad, caused by internalised misogyny and/or internalised allegiance to men and patriarchy, or is it shown as the inevitable, perhaps even biological, result female nature? If a text does not do any of these things, then I do not consider that text to be feminist. That’s not to say that it might not be doing good or interesting things in other ways, it’s just that I think we should remember that feminism is about women’s liberation, and as such, literature and pop-culture which does not further this goal should not be called feminist. I think it’s also important to recognise that one or two ‘strong’ female characters in a show or a novel does not automatically equal feminist, for the reasons that I have given above, namely that feminism is about women’s liberation, and about creating alternatives to patriarchy, and that inserting token women into male-defined and male-controlled fictional worlds does not accomplish this. I also believe, quite frankly, that very few mainstream movies or novels or TV shows could be called feminist at all, even the supposedly ‘feminist’ ones. If you want to find feminist films and literature, you often have to look very, very hard. This stands to reason. The patriarchal mainstream (malestream) is not feminist. It is very hostile to feminism, and it’s therefore not about to go around praising and promoting texts that show it up for what it is. It’s going to bury them and their creators (the real feminist women) in absolute obscurity. I’m just so tired of reading ‘feminist’ endorsements of pop-culture. This is nothing less than a slap in the face to the real feminist creative women who are struggling out there, being ignored by everyone, including other feminists. And I hate to say this, but even many radical feminists seem to devote a lot more time to talking about mainstream movies and novels (giving endorsements) than they do to discussing the work of marginalised radical creative women. Postscript – My idea of feminist filmmaking: Serenades, dir. Mojgan Khadem Radiance, dir. Rachel Perkins Fire, dir. Deepa Mehta Comments Off. permanent link
Thursday, April 10th, 2008
10:46 am	Sexism and Racism on Book Covers I read an article once, years ago, I can't remember where, about how publishers rarely put people of colour on the front of their books, even if the book is about a person or people of colour. I think the article may have specifically been about Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea Trilogy, and how, despite the fact that Ged the wizard is described as dark skinned in the books, he is almost always portrayed as white on the covers of the Earthsea books. Recently, I read The Wanderground by Sally Miller Gearhart, and really loved it, but the cover of the edition that I read had the same problem. Gearhart says in the novel that the majority of women who live on the Wanderground are dark skinned, yet the book I read had a white woman on the cover. And this despite the fact that it had been published by The Women's Press – shame on them! Thinking about this issue prompted me to go through my library (plus raiding a few titles from allecto's shelves), and count how many of the books I own depict women or men of colour on their covers. I got together 32 works about people of colour – novels, short story collections, and poetry collections, some written by people of colour, some written by white authors. 17 of these works have people of colour on the cover, 15 do not. In two cases, works which had black women on their covers sexualised them by depicting the black women naked. Five other works that depicted people of colour showed a black and white character together on the cover. In two cases a white girl and a black girl were shown together, in three cases a white boy and a black girl were shown together. I think this is significant, the white characters acting as legitimating agents for the black characters being on the covers. Out of the 15 works that did not show people of colour of the covers, 12 had photographs or artwork and no people at all, 2 (Dead Europe and The Ice is Coming) depicted people of indeterminate race, and 1 (English Passengers) had white people on the cover. In the case of The Ice is Coming, the cover showed a silhouetted female figure who was again naked. English Passengers by Michael Kneale is similar to The Wanderground, in that the most significant character in this novel is an Aboriginal man, but the cover of the novel gives no indication of this, instead it has a drawing of three English gentlemen standing on top of the globe. So, in conclusion, roughly half of the works I own about people of colour do not show people of colour on the covers, and even with some of the ones that do, black characters are either depicted with white characters, in order to make their presence more acceptable (and to attract ego-centric white readers), while others show black women as naked and sexualised. Books I own about people of colour that depict people of colour on the covers: Plains of Promise by Alexis Wright – cover has photographs of two Aboriginal women, superimposed over Australian landscape Loaded by Christos Tsiolkas – screen capture of a young Greek man, taken from the film version of Loaded Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin – drawing of an African-American man; a portrait of James Baldwin (Note: there are no African-American men in Giovanni's Room, but there is Giovanni, who is Italian.) You Can't Keep a Good Woman Down by Alice Walker – drawing of a black woman Sassafrass, Cypress and Indigo by Ntozake Shange – drawing of a black woman A Daughter's Geography by Ntozake Shange – drawing of a black woman, though she appears to be naked with her hands tied. Allecto has told me that given the themes of the poetry – liberation – it’s appropriate for the woman’s hands to be tied, which I can accept, but I don’t see why she has to be naked, too. The Sea Birds Are Still Alive by Tony Cade Bambara – drawing of a black woman Tangara by Nan Chauncy - drawing of an Aboriginal girl and a white girl Mathinna's People by Nan Chauncy - drawing of an Aboriginal man watching a European ship coming in to shore The Dark, Bright Water by Patricia Wrightson - drawing of an Aboriginal girl Behind the Wind by Patricia Wrightson - drawing of an Aboriginal girl and boy Balyet by Patricia Wrightson - drawing of a white girl and an Aboriginal girl, but the Aboriginal girl is a spirit who is naked, whereas the white girl is clothed Taronga by Victor Kelleher - the main character of this book is a white boy, but he is friends with an Aboriginal girl. Both are shown on the cover Papio by Victor Kelleher - Again, main character is a white boy, but is friends with an African-American girl. Both are shown on the cover Stonelight by Gaelyn Gordon - Two main characters are a white boy and Maori girl, both are depicted on the cover Capricornia by Xavier Herbert - Aboriginal children playing in tidal river or ocean The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith by Thomas Keneally - screen capture of Aboriginal man, taken from film version of Jimmie Blacksmith Books I own about people of colour that do not show people of colour: The Jesus Man by Christos Tsiolkas – about a family of Greek-Australians, cover shows a silhouette of a bird in the sky Dead Europe by Christos Tsiolkas – again, the main character is a Greek-Australian, the book contains many Jewish and Eastern European characters. Cover shows a screaming face of indeterminate race Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie – set in India, has a clock on the front cover The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy – set in India, has leaves and flowers on the cover The Colour Purple by Alice Walker – has a photo of a flower on the cover The Third Life of Grange Copeland by Alice Walker – has a bird on the front cover Horses Make a Landscape More Beautiful by Alice Walker – has a drawing of a horse Gorilla, My Love by Tony Cade Bambara – don't ask me what's on the cover of this…possibly a patch of cement? The Ice is Coming by Patricia Wrightson - children’s fantasy about Aboriginal characters and mythology, cover shows a silhouetted female figure who appears to be naked Coonardoo by Katharine Susannah Prichard - About a white man and Aboriginal woman, cover shows a painting of an outback Australian landscape To the Islands by Randolph Stow - About white and Aboriginal characters, cover shows a river with an island rising out of it The Ancestor Game by Alex Miller - About Chinese and Chinese-Australian characters, cover shows a cityscape Death of a River Guide by Richard Flanagan - main character is a man who has Aboriginal ancestry, cover shows a boat and a river, though the colours used are those of the Aboriginal flag Gould's Book of Fish by Richard Flanagan - about the genocide of Tasmanian Aboriginals, cover shows a painting of a seahorse English Passengers by Matthew Kneale - also about the genocide of Tasmanian Aboriginals, covers shows a globe, a ship and three English gentlemen Note: Books titles in green are those written by people of colour, those in pink are written by white authors, and as such, their portrayals of people of colour are not necessarily trustworthy. Also Note: All of Alice Walker's books mentioned here, plus Bambara's Gorilla, My Love were also published by The Women's Press. They really need to get some more women of colour on the covers of their novels! (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, April 8th, 2008
2:38 pm	Sydney University Researcher Honoured for Book About Lucy Osburn Dr. Judith Gooden, a senior lecturer in the School of Public Health at the University of Sydney has been shortlisted for the National Biography Award in Australia for her book Lucy Osburn, a lady displaced: Florence Nightingale's envoy to Australia about Lucy Osburn, "the woman who founded modern nursing in Australia." The award judges said: "Judith Godden saves from obscurity the founder of modern nursing in Australia. Lucy Osburn was an envoy of Florence Nightingale, and she transformed both standards of patient care and notions of women's work in the colony of New South Wales, running a gauntlet of male intolerance and female distrust. This book is a real labour of love." Link (Comment on this)
Sunday, March 9th, 2008
1:54 pm	It's Okay, Phil Koperberg Will Save Us, or, Why I Don’t Get Middle-Class Liberal Feminists My experience of International Women’s Day this year was both positive and frustrating. I attended a one day women’s conference in the mountains where I live, held in honour of IWD. It was mostly attended by older, white, middle-class liberal feminists, with a scattering of young third wave ‘feminists’ (always fun), and of course, allecto and I there with our radical feminism and stirring up trouble. The morning was really great, because it mostly consisted of different women telling their stories of oppression and abuse, how they came to feminism, what their activism had been over the various years, etc. That, to me, is the stuff of feminist herstory and revolution – women sharing their stories, getting angry, getting inspired, recognising the commonalities (and differences) in their experiences, talking about the practical and common-sense strategies they used and continue to use in their own struggles, how they went about helping other women with their struggles. But the afternoon was very disappointing. There were so many older, educated, middle-class, liberal minded women there, going on about how now that we’ve got Kevin Rudd and Labor in power, we have to start ‘lobbying the government’ and ‘bringing women’s issues to the government’s attention’ and ‘getting more funding’ and ‘doing more research’ and all of this other stuff. And, okay, if that’s what they want to do, if that’s the work that they think is going to be most beneficial to women, then fine, they can go ahead and do it, but that struggle is not my struggle. I am not going to humiliate myself begging for a few crumbs off of the male, misogynist government table, I am not going to waste my time jumping through hoops and messing around with patriarchal bureaucracy, I am not going to be continually curtailed in what I can do and what I can say because I’m answerable to all of these misogynist government departments who don’t want women’s liberation going ‘too far.’ And, aside from all of that, feminism for me does not consist of ‘renovating’ patriarchal institutions and systems, of making them ‘better’ and ‘kinder’ for (some) women. I don’t want more women being treated by patriarchal medicine, I don’t want more women having their minds fucked over by psychologists and psychiatrists, I don’t want more women going into male-style careers and adopting capitalism and globalism, I don’t want into heterosexuality and marriage (or relationships het-style for lesbians), I don’t know if it’s terribly helpful for young women who have no understanding of feminism and no sense of self to go off and get even further brainwashed by patriarchal universities. I want out of all that shit. That’s why I’m a feminist. That’s why I’m a lesbian. And again, if, for those women, that is their fight, then fine. They can fight for what they believe is important, in the way that they believe will work, and I’m not going to stop them. But all of these women were behaving as if government lobbying etc. was the be all and end all of feminism. They either didn’t know, or didn’t want to know, about radical feminism, about lesbian feminism, about ecofeminism, about the struggles of Indigenous women in Australia, about the struggles of women in poor and developing and war-torn countries who are being destroyed by all of the white values so many of these women seemed to favour. But the irony that really took the cake was that, as our ‘activism’ resulting from that day, we were going to present a list of demands to Phil Koperberg, our local MP. Not too long ago, Phil Koperberg had allegations of domestic violence brought against him by his wife and step-daughter. Big surprise – the case was dropped for ‘lack of evidence,’ and all of Koperberg’s buddies rallied around him to make sure he didn’t lose his job. And THIS is the guy we’re going to ask to make the world a better and safer place for women? If Phil Koperberg entered onto our radar at all, it should only have been because we were going to call for his resignation, or set up a protest outside his office at his continuing employment, not ask him politely, in a non-confrontational manner, that, if it’s not too much trouble, would he mind seeing if he couldn’t do something about the fact that women are being raped and murdered in Australia by men. Another thing that really got me about a lot of these women was the way they talked about 1970s feminism in particular, where they all kept going on about Gogh Whitlam (the then Labor Prime Minister of Australia), and how he so generously ‘gave’ women all of these rights and funds – apparently, if you believe the way they were talking – off his own back, because he was such a great pro-feminist man. It had nothing to do with the women who fought and agitated for years in order to win those rights…no, it was all Gough Whitlam, the great hero of Australian second-wave feminism. I mean, honestly, come on. I’ve met Gough Whitlam. Probably a lot of those women have too. He’s no Andrea Dworkin. He’s not even a John Stoltenberg. More like a cross between R.W. Connell and Steve Biddulph. Worst of all were the two third-wave feminists there. Allecto and I both got into clashes with them…particularly a young woman (white, middle-class, university educated) who, when allecto brought up prostitution and pornography as critically serious issues for women, trotted out the old pro-porn arguments: oh no, you’re silencing sex workers, sex workers view their work as a job for which they receive money, and that’s their choice, and you don’t have the right to ‘silence’ and ‘condemn’ those women…To which I replied that SHE had no right to silence and condemn women who had left those industries and spoken out against them, and who specifically targeted the pro-porn and pro-prostitution arguments as being harmful and silencing to women who had been, or were still, in those industries. And allecto talked about how women will never stop being abused by men while women’s bodies are for sale, while it’s acceptable for men watch violent pornography and get off on it, and pointed out all the research that shows pornography causes men to behave more disrespectfully and violently towards women. Then the young woman got all upset and ran away, because we were being ‘mean’ to her. Later on, I heard her bitching about allecto and I to another woman, saying how we didn’t know what we were talking about etc. Okay, if allecto and I didn’t know what we were talking about, why did she have no refuting arguments for the points we raised? Why did she have to run away from the discussion instead of staying and listening to us? If she thought we were wrong, why not come to us after the session and say so, and explain why she disagreed with us, instead of telling lies about us to other women? As usual, there was also all of the mystique and confusion surrounding that perpetual question that has come to preoccupy feminists for the last ten years or so: where have all the young feminists gone? How can we draw young women back into the feminist movement? In answer to this question, the third-wave women said, ‘oh, we have to listen to young women, we have to let young women sort out their own issues, we have to let young women do things in their own way, we have to realise that young women are feminists even if they don’t call themselves feminists and don’t know anything about feminism and don’t do any activism’ etc. etc. – all the usual third wave nonsense. My answer was: the reason young women aren’t engaging is because second wave feminism is being erased. Young women simply don’t know it exists, they don’t know that they don’t have to go and figure all of this stuff out again for themselves, they don’t realise that the second wave material is all still relevant and crucial today. And no one is telling them. Not academics, not the left, not the liberal feminists trying to out-manly the men. Allecto’s answer was: that feminism has been leached of power by universities which have made feminism into an academic abstraction, and that feminism has to get back to being a real, grass-roots movement about real women’s lives and experiences, not academics sitting around in grand isolation spouting theories without knowing what the majority of women’s lived realities are. We were both met with complete incomprehension and hostility. Well, whatever. Third wave feminists are digging their own grave…but I’m not going to be joining them, thanks all the same. NB: R.W. Connell is an Australian sociologist who studies masculinity from a ‘progressive’ standpoint, but who believes that, e.g. the feminist movement has nothing to do with men, that masculinity should not be destroyed but needs to be ‘re-negotiated,’ does not examine how women are socialised and intimidated into accepting male violence and in one of his books makes a remark something like, ‘gee, I wonder why women stay with violent men…they must get something out of the relationship, otherwise they’d just leave.’ Steve Biddulph is a leader of the Men’s Movement in Australia. He bases much of his work on Robert Bly, author of Iron John. (18 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, February 11th, 2008
12:49 pm	The Stone Key by Isobelle Carmody I just wanted to say a big THANK YOU to dragort for sending me Isobelle Carmody's latest book, The Stone Key. It was a real surprise, and a very lovely one! No, I had not bought a copy of the book yet, but I was planning to, even though it would have taken me about three weeks of saving, I'm on such a tiny budget right now. For those of you who might not know, The Stone Key is the fifth book in Carmody's Obertwyn Chronicles. Obernewtyn, the first book in the series (and Carmody's first novel) was published in 1987. Twenty years later, she still hasn't finished the series, though she claims that The Stone Key is the second-last book. We'll see. First of all, the series was supposed to be a trilogy, then it was going to finish with the fourth book…now she's up to the fifth, and says the sixth will be the last. Carmody loves to start fantasy stories, but hates to finish them, seemingly. As of right now, she is writing four different fantasy series, none of which are finished. In fact, she has never finished a fantasy series. Instead of finishing them, she just keeps starting to write new ones. In an interview I found online, Carmody said she was very upset about the prospect of finishing the Obernewtyn books, because they've been a part of her life for so long. Not just the twenty years that she's been writing them, but also prior to that, as Obernewtyn grew out of stories she invented when she was a teenager. I do understand her feelings, also being someone who invents fantasy worlds and then carries them around with me for years, but I also really want to know what happens in the rest of the story. I started reading these books in 1997, so I've already been waiting to know what happens for ten years. And the poor people who first read Obernewtyn back in 1987…they've been waiting forever. Now, if you'll excuse me, I must go and gloat over my lovely new book. *gloat gloat gloat* Current Mood: good (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, February 5th, 2008
2:41 pm	Colonial Women I came across this quote in an article I was reading about Australin colonial women's writing. I don't know why I found it to be so funny, but I did. The quote comes from the diary of Blanche Mitchell. Cat not seen yet. I am afraid it will be a case of 'I never loved a bird or flower etc.' Such is Life, but I don't despair. Cat came back. Fortune favours me. Such is not Life! From: Blanche, An Australian Diary 1858-1861, ed. Edna Hickson, Sydney: John Ferguson, 1980, p. 82. Current Mood: amused (Comment on this)
Sunday, February 3rd, 2008
11:07 am	on rediscovering my clarinet I've always had music in my life for as long as I can remember. My mum started teaching me to play to violin when I was four, on a pretend instrument made out of foam and wood since she couldn't afford a real one. When I was eight, my mum taught me to read music and play the recorder, and I joined a local children's choir in my area. It was a very good choir. We travelled all around Queensland winning Eisteddfods, and in 1992 and 1993 we sung in two big gala concerts at the Queensland Performing Arts Complex in Brisbane with the Brisbane Symphony Orchestra and other choirs. When I was eleven, I started to play the clarinet. And didn't that cause some ructions! Luckily, I was given a school instrument to start learning on, and had lessons for free at school through my primary school's music program, but even so my father was opposed to me learning. Why? Because he didn't want to buy the $10 music book I was required to get, and didn't want to have to drive me to school early one day a week for band practice. Anyway, somehow my mum and I convinced him into it, and I kept playing until I left high school, having private lessons on and off, and joining my high school's band, despite my father's ongoing opposition. When I was thirteen (my first year of high school), I also took up the viola for something different to do. The strings program at my high school was run by a very talented violinist named Mr Chan. All the other teachers in the music program hated him, and encouraged the students to laugh and him and be disrespectul. Partly this was racism, because he was Asian, but it was also because he had more musical talent than the rest of them put together, and his musical career was going places they knew theirs never would. My mum and I were the only people who treated Mr Chan nicely, and in thanks he often gave us free tickets to concerts he performed in with the Brisbane Symphony. On leaving primary school, I had to return my school clarinet, and I managed to convince my father to buy me a dilapidated second hand plastic instrument so I could keep playing, but by the time I was fifteen I was thoroughly sick of it. Somehow, I have no idea how, since she had very little money of her own, my mum managed to save up $1500, and I was able to buy a beautiful second hand ebony wood clarinet with silver plated keys, made by the Buffet company in France. (One of the leading makers of high quality clarinets). Ten years later, that is the clarinet I still have and play. But after I left high school, I went through quite a long period where I didn't play my clarinet. For one thing, I got braces when I was 18 and they didn't come off until I was 21, and braces and clarinets simply do not mix. Then, a year or two after that, some of the key pads on my clarinet deteriorated and needed to be fixed, and I didn't have the money to do it, so my beautiful instrument languished under my bed for another two or three years until I finally got it repaired last year and bought new reeds and a new care kit. Even if it hadn't been in need of repair, I would not have been able to play my clarinet for most of 2005 anyway, as in March of that year I had a bad accident with a sharp kitchen knife and almost completely severed the tip of my left index finger. Luckily, I got my finger stitched up right away, and it healed eventually, but it took a long time. About three months from memory, and even after that my finger was painful to use for another month or so. I am very glad my finger did heal (even if it is rather scarred now), as if I'd lost the tip of my finger, I wouldn't have been able to play my clarinet, or any other instrument, ever again, and that would have been extremely upsetting. But my finger did heal, and my clarinet did get repaired, so lately I have begun to play again, and after going through a very painful adjustment period where my bottom lip and lungs ached from unaccustomed use, I believe I am starting to sound quite good again. I don't have as much dexterity as I used to, of course, but I can play well enough to play the music that I want to play, and I'm having fun. I don't know of any other activity that combines such physical and mental challenge at the same time. Current Mood: happy (Comment on this)
Thursday, December 27th, 2007
1:44 pm	bad, bad, bad fantasy Oh, woe is me! I have been exposed to the horrors of extra-strong concentrate male supremacy. In other words, much against my will, I was dragged off to the cinema to see Beowulf. I really cannot begin to describe how terrible this (mostly computer-generated) movie was. Okay, yes, the original tale of Beowulf is as male supremacist as you can get, with all of the in-built misogyny that goes along with that, but, at least within the (admittedly narrow) bounds of male supremacy, it is still a story that attempts to have meaning, to show characters striving towards something, and it is very sad and evocative and beautifully written. All of that was destroyed by the butcherers who made Beowulf. Every man in the movie, including Beowulf, is portrayed as a lout who thinks of nothing but killing and fucking, which is shown to be a good thing, the stuff ‘true’ heroes are made of, in fact. And consequently, that is all there is to the movie, men going around tearing monsters apart and fucking women in between. Oh, and getting drunk. But there is something far more disturbing about the movie than this lowest-common-denominator interpretation of the story of Beowulf. It is more misogynist than the original. Yes, a movie made in 2007 is more misogynist than a story that was written down thousands of years ago, during a time when women were classed as property and the debate was still going as to whether they had souls or not. It has been a few years since I read Beowulf, so my memory of these things may not be perfect, but from what I remember, there is Beowulf, who slays Grendel, a monster, and who then slays Grendel’s mother, a demon/monster who lives in a pool, and then rules the land quite happily until a dragon comes in his old age, which he must also slay, and does, but at the cost of his life. But in the movie, this plot is altered to make Grendel’s mother the central doer of all evil and curse of the poor little menz. (Grendel’s mother is played by Angelina Jolie wearing gold high heels and not much else. No, I’m not kidding. Clearly wearing Prada is the thing to do if you’re a demon these days). Her tactic is to make herself all beautiful and stuff, and then seduce the poor little king of the land into sleeping with her, which he has no control over at all, naturally, and then to spawn horrible demon children, like Grendel, who go about terrorising the countryside. So Grendel, we are expected to believe, is actually the son of the then-king of Denmark, but luckily gets done away with by Beowulf, a hero from a distant land who likes nothing so much as to fight demons naked (again, not kidding) while all of his Thains look on admiringly. And then, of course, Grendel’s mother gets all pissed off when Beowulf kills her son, and goes on a killing spree herself, so Beowulf must go off to her pool to do away with her. He tracks her down, and when he meets her, does she say something like, ‘hey, you killed my son, I really hate you and want to rip your beating heart from your chest?’ No, she says, ‘ohh, you big handsome man, you. If you’ll fuck me and give me another demon-child, I’ll make you king of this land and give you heaps and heaps of gold. How about it?’ Because, you know, that’s usually how a woman responds to a man who murders her children. Naturally, because she’s all seductive and wearing her shiny high heels bought from the nearest mall, poor little Beowulf is powerless to resist, and falls victim to her unholy shoes. Afterwards he wanders back to the king’s hall, muttering about how the heels and all that James Bond gold body paint made him do it, and when he gets there the king conveniently names Beowulf his heir, bestows upon him all of his possessions including his wife, whom Beowulf has been eyeing, and then kills himself by jumping out the nearest window. So Beowulf becomes king and prances about for a bit all pleased with himself, but then, alas, those troublesome women come along again to spoil all his fun. (Though at least he still has his naked wresting matches with his Thains). Because the queen, the wife of the last king, and now Beowulf’s wife, refused to sleep with her last husband because he fancied a demon over her, and she refuses to sleep with Beowulf for the same reason, ‘forcing’ the poor, lonely little man into the arms of other women. Oh, the hardship of it all! Many years pass, and we come back to Beowulf in old age, now a child-rapist sleeping with a girl who looks about 14, and for no apparent reason, other than being a treacherous female, Grendel’s mother sends her current son (and also Beowulf’s son), a dragon, out to plunder the countryside, forcing Beowulf into his final battle, which kills both him and the dragon. But at least, before he dies, he gets the chance to tell his wife that he always loved her in his heart (because nothing says I love you like mass infidelity), to which she replies, ‘oh my darling, I still love you too.’ The movie ends with Beowulf’s successor, his closest slash-buddy, seeing Grendel’s mother in the ocean beckoning him, while he begins to walk towards her. Yeah, whatever, boys. Next time stick to your computer games, and if naked men are really so appealing there’s always Sim City. *** In other news, I have started reading Northern Lights by Philip Pullman (the book that The Golden Compass is based on), and so far it’s really crap. Boring characters, bad writing and not even one half-interesting idea in sight. And yet it was supposedly voted the third-most popular book in the whole of Britain. The damn thing is about 400 pages long, and I’m only up to page 20 and already I’m bored. So far, there’s been a bunch of men sitting around talking and squabbling for power amongst themselves, blah blah blah, and a girl whose main recommendation appears to be that when a man half twists her arm off as a thank-you for her saving his life (but, you know, she deserved it anyway ’cause she’s female), she doesn’t cry like those ‘other’ (?) girls, who are weak. Ah yes, the old ‘she’s a female character, and I apologise for it because they’re never quite as good as men, but its okay because she’s different from those other females, she’s strong, as opposed to the rest of them, who are weak, and thus deserve to be kicked around and/or completely ignored’ trick. I'm a bit further along now, and the story at least has improved marginally, but naturally it appears that the central evil character of the novel is a woman. And naturally, she is evil because she has power. But all of the powerful men in the novel, even though they go about trying to murder each other and abusing children, they are all good and moral and upstanding citizens. Yawn. Men should be banned from having anything to do with the fantasy genre, they really should. (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, December 10th, 2007
5:32 pm	Rad Fem Wickedary Part III Started by captainvanille, rather fun. The purpose: To define our own world and what we mean by what we say. The rules: Four entries per part; no pro-pornography/prostitution/BDSM/etc. entries; you must tag someone when you post your part or the tag is chosen by the previous radfem; when you've been tagged, you must post an entry within a week or the tag goes to someone else; you must post the purpose and the rules along with your part; you may post acronym meanings and phrases; you may tag someone who is not on LJ; you may request words, but that doesn't mean you're gonna get 'em; you may repeat entries with your added definition; YOU MAY MAKE UP WORDS + MEANINGS AND BE ENTITLED TO HAVING NO ONE LAUGH AT YOU. I also request that you comment in this LJ [ie captainvanille's journal] each time you tag someone, saying who was tagged so I can watch the fun. Part 1 and 2 of the Wickedary can be found here and here. My Words: Male Artist Syndrome – a mental disorder commonly found in men who call themselves creative artists (artists, writers, musicians, filmmakers etc.) whereby the man in question is only capable of thinking and operating on the level of the foreground. His ‘art’ inevitably reproduces the values, ideas etc. of male-stream culture and the Phallic State, and is particularly characterised by misogyny, racism, the erasure of women, the erasure of radically Other ways of thinking/being/feeling, and thinly veiled egocentric self-portrayals. The work of Male Artists is highly prized by other Male Artists, and male supremacists in general, for its lack of thought, which is called ‘depth’ in a classic example of patriarchal reversal. Male Artists are incapable of recognising women as creative beings, especially women who work and create in the Background and refuse to participate in the shallow narcissism and self-indulgent nihilism that passes for creativity in the foreground. The only acceptable role for women who exist creatively on a foreground level is to be the adoring disciples of Male Artists, always ready to listen to them, agree with them, champion them as brilliant, insightful etc., and support and reproduce their ideas. These women are forbidden to have ideas of their own, especially ideas that contradict the Male Artists, or to connect with creative women who have journeyed into the Background and rejected Male Artists and the Phallic State that supports and produces them. Great Misogynists – called the Great Modernists in patriarchal his/story, generally idealised by Male Artists and their followers. In the eighteenth and nineteenth century, the novel was considered to be a frivolous kind of writing that was thus appropriate to be written and read by women. In the eighteenth century, the most ‘important’ texts were non-fiction, particularly history, philosophy, and theology, which women were not allowed to publish, whilst in the nineteenth century, poetry became the most important form of expression, and which again was consequently dominated by men. Left with the unimportant and frivolous novel, many women writers used their fiction as a way of exploring and critiquing women’s place in society, of expressing women’s dreams, values, hopes and fears, and most importantly, as a way of declaring their humanity, their capacity for thought and feeling, their intellect and intelligence, their creative power, in a patriarchy that denied women’s existence as human beings, and denied the existence of any ability in women beyond bearing children, looking pretty, doing housework etc. Examples of authors include: Fanny Burney, Charlotte Lennox, Elizabeth Inchbald, Ann Radcliffe, Jane Austen, Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Shelley, the Brontë sisters, Elizabeth Gaskell, George Elliot. In the twentieth century, realising the gynocentric power of the ‘frivolous,’ ‘unimportant’ novel, Male Artists set about colonising the form and wresting it away from women. They corrupted the values that, because of women, had come to be associated with the novel, like social realism, analysis of character and society, the importance of self-integrity and moral worth, the possibility of transformation, and dragged it into the foreground where its revolutionary potential was deadened. The novel became the carrier of patriarchal values of dissociation, including nihilism, surrealism, alienation, hatred of oneself and others, and hatred, especially, of women, expressed through graphic depictions of sex. This rape of the novel, and female culture and values, was led by the Great Misogynists, authors like Samuel Beckett, D.H. Lawrence, Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, Franz Kafka, Albert Camus, Jean Paul Sartre, and all those Russians with the unpronounceable names (Chekhov, Nabokov, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky). Again, in classic patriarchal reversal, this killing of the novel’s revolutionary potential was pronounced by male supremacists to be the radicalising and revolutionising of the form. Much of this claim of radicalisation was based on the fact that, with men turning the novel into a vehicle for misogyny and male values, it was no longer ‘feminised’ and automatically devalued within patriarchy. The false his/story constructed by the Great Misogynists to obfuscate the novel’s radical women-centred origins continues to dominate foreground discussions of literature to this day, and Spinsters wishing to connect to the true, female traditions of the novel must develop the wisdom to ignore the Male Artists’ bragging (babbling), and see into the Background where radical women writers, past and present, can be found. Rape of the novel – 1) Figurative rape of the gynocentric novels of the eighteenth and nineteenth century, committed by the Great Misogynists and all Male Artists who have followed them since. 2) Literally, depictions of the rape of women (called sex) that occur in the novels of the Great Misogynists, where women are portrayed as degraded and dehumanised sex objects. This tactic was an integral part of destroying the gynocentric novel, in which women authors treated their female characters as thinking, feeling beings with the right to mental and bodily integrity. Writing – 1) Sublime meeting of feminist creative and intellectual thought. 2) Feminist act of resistance and self-affirmation. I tag demonista to do Part IV. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, November 25th, 2007
10:39 am	At Last, No More John Howard A momentous event occurred last night. For the first time in eleven and a half years, the Coalition suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of Labor. Labor needed 16 seats to win this election, and many were doubtful they could do it, but in the end they won by something like 24 or 25 seats in one of the strongest political victories ever seen in Australia. John Howard first became Prime Minister in 1996, when I was fourteen years old. He has been Australia’s second-longest running Prime Minister after Sir Robert Menzies, another conservative leader of Australia who was Prime Minister for eighteen years, from 1939 to 1941 and again from 1949 to 1966. Earlier this year, John Howard had the opportunity to retire from the position of Prime Minister and leader of the Coalition, but he refused. He hung on. And because of it, his political career has ended not with graceful retirement while still in possession of all his laurels, but with a crushing defeat and the shattering of his hold on the minds and hearts of the Australian people. Not only that, but it is very likely that John Howard will lose his own seat of Bennelong in North Sydney to Maxine McKew, the female Labor candidate. That, I imagine, must be more difficult for him to stomach than anything else. Mal Brough, the Liberal responsible for the Intervention in the Northern Territory, also justly lost his seat to Labor. John Howard has torrorised my life since his election victory in 1996 with his woman-hating policies, his homophobic and lesbophobic legislation, his continual sapping of money from public schools and universities, his erosion of workers’ rights. I am not really sure that Kevin Rudd, leader of the Labor party and the new Prime Minister, will be much better, but I am very interested in several other trends seen in this election which I think could make a difference in the future. First of all, the Greens vote went up again this election by another 0.6%, and Bob Brown, leader of the Greens party, was perfectly right to say that Labor won this election on Greens preferences, which puts the Greens in (hopefully) a very strong position to influence Labor and what they do. Secondly, an extraordinary number of the Labor candidates who campaigned and won seats in this election have been women. (Though they didn’t win any seats, it is also worth noting that almost every Greens candidate who ran was female). Thirdly, Julia Gillard, deputy leader of the Labor party, is now Deputy Prime Minister, the first time ever Australia has had a female Deputy, and the closest the country has ever been to having a female Prime Minister. Having a large number of women in parliament, particularly women who are at least vaguely progressive, is something that puts far more hope into me than an all-male Labor victory would have done, and the fact that most of those Labor women won the seats off of conservative Liberal or National men makes the victory that much sweeter. And perhaps even more than voting for the House of Representatives, I enjoyed voting for the Senate this year because I was able to vote for the newly formed What Women Want party. I do not think it likely that they will do very well, but I really do hope that, over time, they become like the Greens, a strong minor party to contend with, who is able to hold the major parties accountable for what they do. Now all that is left to hope for is that the Liberal stranglehold on the Senate is broken as well. Oh, and the complete and sudden death of the ultra-conservative Family First party. (Amongst many other delightful comments, the leader of the Family First party once said that all lesbians were witches who deserved to be burnt at the stake). (Comment on this)
Monday, October 8th, 2007
1:16 pm	Two Hanged Women Last year, I read an excellent short story called "Two Hanged Women" by Henry Handel Richardson. She was an Australian-born author who lived most of her adult life in England and Europe, and (obviously) wrote under a male pseudonym. She was writing around the beginning of the twentieth century. "Two Hanged Women" starts out with a young heterosexual couple heading for their usual romantically-situated seat, but when they get there, they find that the seat is being occupied by two women, which the male partner is particularly disgusted by. The story then switches to the two women. One of them is discussing how she is going to get married, because she's found a 'nice' boy and wants to make her mother happy. The other woman makes it clear from her comments and body language that she believes her friend/lover (could be read as either) is acting out of fear and cowardice, and that it is unlikely anything good will come of her 'choice.' The first woman continues to insist that she's doing what she wants to do, and that getting married will make her happy. Until she gets to the part where she thinks about the wedding night. The thought of having to have sex with a man is so traumatic and unappealing that she decides, no matter how much her society wants her to, she can't make herself marry after all. The story ends with the two women still sitting on the seat, touching each other. Why aren't there more short stories like this in the world? (3 Comments |Comment on this)
10:59 am	Straight Men I was on a train the other day, and there was a group of four guys in my carriage in about their late teens/early twenties, who were going on and on about the usual things straight men go on about: women (who they referred to as chicks), fucking, sport, getting drunk, and how many fights they'd been in. Their discussion about 'chicks' had exactly two dimensions: how physically attractive they were, and what they were like to fuck, or what they might be like to fuck. Listening to that conversation - which is the type of conversation men have all the time - I really do wonder how women manage to keep making themselves believe that men think and care about them as thinking, feeling human beings. I found one incident particularly enlightening, when one guy was talking about a 'chick' he liked who he'd seen at some pub, and one of his friends said, "you should have just gone and talked to her man. Chicks love that shit." Yes indeed. How strange that women should enjoy being TALKED TO as if they are actual REAL, LIVE PEOPLE! Quite unbelievable. Then, of course, they started talking about their dicks, and every one of those guys knew exactly - and I mean exactly - how big all of his friends' dicks were. But then, being straight for men has never precluded them from fucking each other, too. In fact, I think it might be inherent in the definition. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, March 14th, 2007
10:19 am	Playwrights I just finished reading a book called This Way Out, a collection of five plays written by one of my favourite authors, Isobelle Carmody, and some guy called Steve Taylor. Three of the plays were adaptations from short stories by Isobelle Carmody, of the other two, one was written by Steve Taylor and the other by Isobelle Carmody – the first play she'd ever written, in fact. And I have to say this: not only is he a misogynist prick, but Steve Taylor can't write and has all the subtlety and imagination of…hmm let's see…a patriarchal male. Isobelle Carmody's play was disappointing because it too was misogynist, but at least it was still imaginatively written. I don't quite know why her play – Mad Inc. – was so woman hating, since she is usually what I would call quite feminist in her writing, though I don't think she sees herself that way. Most of her protagonists are female, and many of them resist patriarchal society in its various manifestations (such as industrialization, religion, violence, repressive social order) and live outside of its bounds, forging their own paths, and helping others to forge theirs. In Mad Inc. however, it is the two female characters of the play who are supposedly 'evil,' while of the two male characters, one is an innocent child, and the other is meant to be the 'hero' of the piece. Of course, the actual evilness of the two women in the play is questionable anyway. Mother and Serenity have, in Mother's case, committed murder, and in Serenity's case, attempted murder. Their victims were both men who abused women. Wow. Women who hurt men who hurt women. They MUST be evil. Despite Serenity's supposed evilness, she is still by far the strongest and most compelling character of the play, far outstripping Zac, the timid teenager who we are supposed to believe finds his courage and defeats the evil bitch monster. (Or does he find his courage in defeating the evil bitch monster, perhaps replacing the word 'courage' with one like 'manhood' or 'masculinity' or 'male supremacy'). A further serious issue with this play is that Zac is portrayed as mentally ill, and there is some serious attempt made to explore the nature and causes of his illness. Since this all happens within a framework of patriarchal medicine, everything the play says is actually wrong, but the attempt is at least there. Mother on the other hand, who kills her ex-husband after he has left her, is merely shown to be crazy. There is no deconstruction of how she has been socialized to need love and acceptance from men, how women are not allowed to be content and complete within themselves, or the various ways in which her husband might have emotionally abused and manipulated her in order to make her dependent on him. No, she's just crazy, and he left her because of her craziness, and because she was ugly and boring. In short, it was all her fault. Yet Mad Inc. was still miles ahead of Steve Taylor's play, Fans. Fans and Mad Inc. link up to a small extent – at the conclusion of Fans there is the attempted murder of a movie star that is committed by Serenity and which is referred to in Mad Inc. But really, if I'd been Isobelle Carmody, I never would have permitted my play – even if it was as ideologically wrong as Mad Inc. - to be connected in any way with Fans. Obviously, Fans is about fans, and more specifically fangirls. The action of the play takes place outside of the opening of a Hollywood cafe, with various movie stars going in and out, and the majority of the play is three female airheads talking to each other about how fabulous the various male actors are, and wishing they were famous and beautiful so they could date said male actors, and about how they wish they could improve their appearances by having plastic surgery. Oh yes, and let's not forget the verging on mildly pornographic discussion in which one of them alludes to the various sexual favours she'd like to perform for her male heart-throb. Yeah, I can tell that Steve Taylor has a really high opinion of women. And then, naturally, a 'friend' of theirs, a male intellectual, turns up in order to sneer at them in a superior manner and loftily tell them how shallow they are for loving movie stars and living completely consumerist lifestyles. Once again, there is absolutely no exploration into why these girls are behaving the way they are – i.e., patriarchy. There is nothing said about the way in which girls are encouraged to think of nothing except their appearance and finding the 'perfect' man, nothing said about the punishment women experience from both men and other women if they step outside of these bounds. No, little Steve Taylor just lines 'em up and knocks 'em down, no doubt seeing himself as the sniveling pseudo-intellectual superior male artist who comes along to remind these airheads of how worthless they are. Really, the attempted murder at the end of the play is about the only good thing in it that happens. So, in conclusion: Even at their worst, women are still miles ahead of men, and often resist being made to suck despite the extreme tactics used against them. Men almost always suck more. Most of the time, men not only fail to resist sucking, they revel in their complete and utter suckiness, and are generally greatly admired for the sheer scale of their suckiness by other sucky men who rule the art world. Think I'll call up Serenity and say I've got a job for her… Current Mood: thoughtful (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, March 1st, 2007
9:34 am	I've been reading lately about female genital mutilation, which is just an awful subject, but it's also awesome to learn that there are so many courageous women working against the practice in the countries where it is still carried out. I especially love these quotes from a book called Warrior Marks written by Alice Walker and Pratibha Parmar. The woman interviewed is Dr. Henriette Kouyate, a female doctor based in Dakar, Senegal (Africa) who has been working against female genital mutilation since 1955. Pratibha Parmar: Why do you think circumcision persists, despite efforts to stop it? Henriette Kouyate: Many factors are put forward, such as religion, tradition, or hygiene. But the real problem is the need to control the sexuality of women, to control their desires, to try to keep them like children, like someone with no responsibility of her own, who cannot be a human being in her own right. An adult woman is perfectly able to control her sexuality, but circumcision is maintained to control the sexuality of women. And I think that many women no longer accept being treated like children and fight against it. It is a fundamental matter of principle that we refuse to let our sexuality be controlled. Because we are responsible human beings, better able to than men to control our own sexuality. PP: Can you then say that this question comes from the patriarchy - that it is a kind of specific control of women exercised by men? HK: Yes, that's exactly what I am telling you. It's a matter of control. It is the desire and need of men to control the sexuality of women. We now refuse this permanent control. And many people, even men, are beginning to understand this. (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, December 30th, 2006
2:06 pm	Horror Films I've been thinking lately about horror films. Since I've only ever seen about five horror films in the entirety of my life, my knowledge of the genre is limited, but since every horror film I have watched basically followed the same plot, I think my thoughts are probably more or less accurate. I got to thinking about horror films after watching Candyman with my brother when I stayed with him and his fiancée in Queensland. More than the movie itself, however, the interviews with the film writers and directors, and with Clive Barker, who wrote the short story the movie was based on, gave some very interesting and disturbing insights into how they perceived the movie they'd made. All of the writers and directors of Candyman were basically in love with the Candyman, the film's main character, going on and on about the tragic racially-driven murder that caused him to be killed (he was a black slave killed by white men for sleeping with a white woman, supposedly with her consent), and later to come back as a half spirit/half real rampaging murderer. They called him 'heroic,' 'gentle,' 'artistic,' and 'attractive' amongst other things. They had sympathy ONLY for the Candyman, however. His victims, most of whom were women and children (and most of them black), didn't receive a mention. Their only function was to scream a lot and be hacked into little pieces, and for their bloodied bodies to then lie about on the screen for the eroto-necrophlic pleasure of the (default) male audience. The only half way strong female character in the movie is Helen. She is an 'intellectual,' writing some kind of academic book or thesis on urban legends, focusing on the Candyman. The Candyman doesn't like this, however, so sets about tormenting and destroying her. According to the makers of Candyman, though, she wants to be seduced by him, because there is something more worthy and attractive about him than there is about her average-bloke husband, or her intellectual work. According to their logic, she 'finds' herself by giving into fear, and letting herself be controlled by a maniac killer. She resists the Candyman in the end, however, but does so not for herself, but to save the life of a male baby. Even then, what I would see as the Candyman's patriarchal possession of her doesn't end, as after her own death she replaces him and comes back as a similar kind of murderer, forced to carry on his destructive work. The movie-makers' sympathy and identification with the Candyman is very instructive, I think. In a way, the Candyman is patriarchy embodied: a violent, destructive force that particularly turns itself on women, with the specific aim of keeping women living in a state of fear that alienates them from themselves, and at the same time, trying to make women desire that destructive force in others and themselves (a variation of the eroticisation of violence). It is no wonder then, that the all male makers of this movie loved the Candyman, since he was at once them, and their ideal of themselves. But what happens when the viewer of a horror movie is female? A woman who watches a horror movie sees herself being repeatedly dismembered by a male killer. Now, it is important to realise that even though the Candyman (and every other ax-murderer in horror) is patriarchy embodied, women are not taught to see him as such. They are taught to see him as the frightening stranger-man from whom they need to be protected, ideally by another man. Also remember that the female victims in horror movies are usually young and single, i.e., they don't have the 'protection' of a man. Perhaps I am reading too much into this, but I think not. My brother's fiancée for some reason has a deep terror of serial killers (the ones who kill women that is, which is nearly all of them). The idea of the 'stranger man' being the primary killer and raper of women is a theme that is re-hashed constantly in TV and movies across the board, not only in horror, and since it seems to have been successful in frightening my brother's fiancée, I can only imagine that it works on a lot of other women too. It is used to camouflage the fact that most women are in fact raped and killed by men they know, to keep them in a state of fear and dependency on the very men who are in all likelihood the greatest danger to them. As such, I think that 'horror' is an inaccurate term. 'Terror' would be more accurate. Basically, Candyman and every horror film like it is a form of terrorism against women. It is used to keep women in a state of fear by showing them what will happen should they leave patriarchal 'protection.' There is also the dismemberment to be considered. People talk often of the damage it does women see themselves constantly objectified. So what about the damage that comes of seeing ourselves constantly murdered for the entertainment of men, our dead bodies erotic matter for their necrophilic cockocracy? As women are forced to watch their bodies being cut up under the guise of 'entertainment,' so too are their minds and spirits dismembered, their spiraling stopped because they become unable to see themselves as anything other than what patriarchy tells them to be: a dead body designed for men's pleasure, stagnating from the inside out. Oh yes, I forgot to add. It is not only the female audience members who suffer from watching these movies, but also the women who participate in making them. In Candyman, the actress who played Helen was actually hypnotised by the director for the scenes with the actor playing the Candyman, in order to give a 'convincing' performance. She has no memory of making much of the movie, and by the end of it was suffering from the emotional strain of constantly having to efface herself and submit to the dual control of the male director and her male co-star (at least, that's what I think it amounted to). I also remember some story, whether true or not I don't know, that one of the actresses in the Freddy Kruger movies had some kind of nervous breakdown, and started to believe that the horror movies she'd been acting in were real. (Comment on this)
Monday, November 6th, 2006
6:12 am	Gyn/Ecology I've finished reading Gyn/Ecology by Mary Daly. _allecto_ has been telling me for years I should read this book, though she's also been telling me I wouldn't like it because I'd think it's too essentialist. If I'd read Gyn/Ecology in 2003 when she first read it, I probably wouldn't have liked it, which just goes to show how stupid I was a few years ago. The depth of scholarship that this book has is amazing, and Daly's analytical abilities are not only exceptionally keen, but often very funny. I also love the creative aspects of the book - it almost has a fantasy novel feel at times. Her use of words is also brilliant - her dis-covery of their origins, her redefinitions of words, her consideration of social connotations as well as dictionary meanings. I think all feminists should be immeasurably grateful that she chose to devote her outstanding intellectual abilities to developing radical feminist theory instead of being co-opted by patriarchy, despite the fact that this meant suffering marginalisation and persecution for her entire academic career, ending with a forced retirement in 1999. And, if Gyn/Ecology is an essentialist text, then it's not a type of essentialism that is unintelligent or self defeating. Daly recognises that femininity is a construction, and she argues against endorsing a female identity that is based on patriarchal femininity. (And she deconstructs feminists who create simplistic reversals of patriarchal ideas, e.g. she says that substituting 'womb envy' for 'penis envy' does no good because that is still a type of thinking that categorises women by the biological function that patriarchy has deemed to be the main purpose of their existence). She also recognises that there is a difference between men and masculinity, and that it is the social role which causes problems, though she also posits that men are jealous of women because of their naturally creative energies, and must therefore destroy or harness those powers for patriarchal purposes. As I said, a few years ago I would have had problems with this kind of argument, but I don't know whether I do so much now. Even if this is verging on essentialist thinking, in most cases the process of socialising men and women into masculinity and femininity is so successful that it is difficult to separate the two, and, let's face it, men overwhelmingly do steal energy from women constantly, in all kinds of ways, all over the world. In Gyn/Ecology, Daly is also very focused on centreing women, and I think this can, at times, make the book appear essentialist when it isn't. She argues that the only way to end the sado-masochistic world wide state of patriarchy is for women to opt out of the system altogether in every way possible, and turn away from men and towards other women. More than this, however, women have to turn away from inherently destructive patriarchal thinking, and develop new ways of thinking based on creativity, feminist analysis, self affirmation, and affirmation for other (freed) women. This idea, I think, makes people very nervous. Free thinking women roaming about the place and banding together? Much too much of a challenge to patriarchy. Usually, other, less radical solutions are posited, like 'fixing' relations between men and women (meaning, let's shuffle things around a little bit and make token concessions whilst leaving the basic unequal power structure in place. Which is fixing I guess, just not of the type that is being claimed.) Personally, I like having a self-centreing approach to life, in which I primarily only interact with other self-centreing women. It means I don't have to put up with insults to my intelligence, I'm not constantly objectified, every aspect of my body/clothing/appearance isn't transformed into a central issue of critical importance, I don't have to engage with a popular culture that is inherently woman hating, I don't have to be anyone's sex slave/domestic slave/punching bag/unreturned emotional support buttress, I don't have to waste time listening to offensive arguments about how women like being oppressed, or about how it's really liberating to be a prostitute. So...I'm thinking that after I get my PhD I'll get a job at a university and propose a course called "Radical Feminist Ethics" full of texts by Mary Daly, Andrea Dworkin, Gayle Rubin and co. What are the odds it will get approved? (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, September 19th, 2006
3:41 pm	have we left the dark ages yet? Yes, this is my third journal entry for the day, which is excessive, however, I simply had to write about this because it made me MAD. My university website has links to various articles on research and other things being carried out by the university. This highly offensive article has just been published. The description of the article posted with the link said: "A national survey of sexual practices has shed light on what is the most likely way for women to reach orgasm and enjoy sex." Yes, in the twenty-first century female orgasm is still a great mystery that must have light shed upon it by academics in order to be understood. Note that the research findings are that most women engage primarily in penetrative sex with men, and that men are much more likely to reach orgasm during sex than women. And yet why aren't women having orgasms? It's not because they aren't receiving the right kind of stimulation, it's because women aren't as sexual as men and don't want to have sex as often. Where do I start with pointing out the flaws in that argument? Apparently, regardless of whether they want it or not, these women are having sex, and not getting sexual pleasure from it. If there is force or manipulation involved, combined with a lack of clitoral stimulation, is it any wonder that these women (a) aren't having orgasms, and (b) aren't enjoying sex. ( Read more... ) Current Mood: infuriated (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, September 11th, 2006
3:55 pm	The Miles Franklin Award The Miles Franklin Award is Australia's major literary award, being both highly prestigious and well publicised within the country. It has been given every year to an Australian novel since 1957. There were two years (1973 and 1983) where no award was given, and two years (1962 and 2000) where two novels were jointly given the award. Another year was skipped due to a change in the process of award giving. This means that a total of 49 novels have won the Miles Franklin award. 38 of those novels have been written by men, 11 by women. Only two women have been multiple award winners – Thea Astley, who has won the award four times, and Jessica Anderson, who has won it twice. In fact, Thea Astley has won the Miles Franklin award more times than any other Australian writer, but very little critical attention has been paid to her work, and even less has been paid to Jessica Anderson. In contrast, nine male writers have been multiple award winners of the Miles Franklin Prize: Patrick White (2), George Johnston (2), Thomas Keneally (2), David Ireland (3), Peter Carey (3), Tim Winton (3), Alex Miller (2), Christopher Koch (2), and Rodney Hall (2). Many of these writers have prestigious critical reputations, and in some cases popular appeal as well. Patrick White, Alex Miller, Peter Carey and Tim Winton are considered major Australian writers, with Winton and Carey both appealing popularly to Australian and overseas readers. George Johnston and Thomas Keneally have had considerable critical reputations in the past, and still have popular appeal. On a slightly smaller scale, Christopher Koch is also an object of interest for both literary critics and leisure readers. The majority of authors who have won the Miles Franklin award have been of western European descent, and overwhelmingly the subject matter of these novels is to do with establishing, exploring, and attempting to legitimise, white, masculine, Australian identity. There are two notable 'exceptions' to this rule. In 1995, the Miles Franklin was won by a novel called The Hand That Signed the Paper, supposedly written by an Australian with Irish-Ukranian ancestry called Helen Demidenko. However, it was later revealed that the author's real name was Helen Darville, and that her parents were English. The affair was then added to Australia's rather long list of literary hoaxes and scams, and the country's already battered literary self esteem took yet another blow. Kim Scott was the first indigenous person to win the Miles Franklin Award in 2000 for his novel Benang. Even though this is an important novel, I am inclined to believe that it partly won the prize because it is thematically similar to most of the other award winners, being a novel about masculine identity written by a male author. In this case, the masculine identity just happens to be black instead of white. Ironically, the Miles Franklin award was established by Australian author Miles Franklin, who was both female and a feminist. Sadly, she was also a nationalist and therefore couldn't avoid believing in a white, masculinist Australia on some level, even though she also attempted to resist it. Her specification that the Miles Franklin could only be awarded to a novel that dealt in some manner with Australian life is also probably in part what has led to, and encouraged the continuance of, giving the award to masuclinist fiction that upholds Australia's sexist culture. A very sad state of affairs. ( Click here for the full list of Miles Franklin Winners ) (2 Comments |Comment on this)