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Welcome to Harpy Seminar, a regular feature we plan to have at regular intervals, unless we get too busy to have it at regular intervals, in which case it shall appear whenever we have time and inclination for it. Each Seminar begins with a question, which we discuss amongst ourselves, and we then edit the highlights of our conversation into a post. Please feel free to join in in the comments!
I had intended to do my own thorough dashing of Charlotte Raven’s soi-disant book review at the Guardian, but it was just too wrong and fucked up. So, I sent the link around, and the other Harpies helped me sort it. It’s still wrong and fucked up, but at least we’ve sifted the wheat from the chaff.
PhDork: Okey-doke. So I’m all “whaaa?” about this article, and I think it’s due to Raven’s all-over-the-map writing (although it could be Spring Brain).
The thing is, she does have some good points:
- Self-consciousness is a hallmark of the current age
- Women and girls are getting horrible conflicting messages in mass culture about how to succeed as women
- A consumer mentality is detrimental to a political one
But those legitimate views are all scrambled up with screwy generalizations, like “Thinking women have turned their backs on feminism” and even more problematic ideas like women are just weak and simple, unable to resist the siren song of Sephora (or whatever), and therefore responsible for Katie Price tarting up her toddler.
BeckySharper: She really lost me with her “Thinking women have turned their backs on feminism” and her constant use of a monolithic “we”: “We simply couldn’t be bothered to be political. If we could prove there was no need for it, that would leave more time for deciding between fabulous face creams.”
O RLY? Speak for yourself, sister.
PhDork: What, you got a mouse in your purse? Also: is there such a thing as “the new feminism”? Is this a “wave” I haven’t heard about?
SarahMC: Babies wearing fake eyelashes and women trading in books for stripper instruction videos is not the new feminism. It’s the old consumerism masquerading as the new feminism. It’s obnoxious when people who should know better perpetuate the myth that anyone who yells “Girl power!” is a deluded feminist when in reality s/he is probably just a savvy capitalist.
PhDork: That’s what it is. She should know better. Why is she laying all this blame at the feet of feminists (or good lard, Madonna), rather than looking at how fucked up the larger culture is, and pointing a finger at it, for purposefully trying to undermine women at every turn?
BeckySharper: It’s indicative of a larger belief that feminists are supposed to be the custodians of all Womanity. She seems to believe that when women co-opt harmful Patriarchial bullshit, it’s because feminists aren’t cock-blocking the Patriarchy hard enough. No blame is being placed on the Patriarchy! Or the media! Or advertising! Or politics! Just feminism! Instead of pointing the finger at the underminers, she’s just going to do a little undermining herself.
PilgrimSoul: I actually do think there is a problem with the conflation of political action and self-assertion with consumerism.
SarahMC: A consumer mentality is detrimental to a political one. And that applies not only to women but to men too. There’s been an across-the-board dumbing down and yet all the hand-wringing is about women (and women get all the blame).
PilgrimSoul: This is mostly just crazed ranting. I mean, I’m not sure the sex industry has entirely successfully rebranded itself as a legitimate choice. That strikes me as a pretty reductive analysis, considering that it’s still pretty much the case that putting “porn star” on your resume rules you out of basically all other career choices in a way that “lawyer” does not. Again, there’s this weirdly reductive vision of agency working in reverse here – it’s imagining that patriarchy really wants us as porn stars, when in fact it wants us to do nothing at any time which involves asserting ourselves, including BOTH being lawyers and being porn stars.
BeckySharper: I totally agree with her points about mass culture, the sexualization of girls, etc. But why is it feminism’s fault that such nastiness is proliferating? It should be be the responsibility of all parents–male and female, feminist and non-feminist–to ensure that their daughters aren’t hypersexualized or exploited by a porn-obsessed culture.
PhDork: And for all people, parents or not, to provide alternate messages for girls and boys (and women and men). Which you can do in a zillion different ways.
PilgrimSoul: I find a lot of her “I don’t wanna be a victim!” stuff annoying because it implies that there’s something wrong with meaningfully and seriously addressing the fact that someone has victimized you.
BeckySharper: I totally co-sign on that point. Acknowledging that you’ve been victimized–and seeking redress or justice for it–is not something to be ashamed of. It returns dignity to the victim, and dignity is what’s conspicuously missing from the hypersexualized, “I Wanna Be a Glamour Model” streak of Girl Power Raven’s talking about.
And for the record, societal avoidance of talking about women’s victimization is really JUST A PART OF THE VICTIMIZATION!
Ooh, sorry for yelling.
PhDork: Yelling can be a perfectly reasonable response to stupid crap.
Commenters, you got anything to yell about?
This is really weirdly reminiscent of Nina Power’s book: ‘feminists these days are just narcissistic, consumerist, Spice-Girls-loving, pole-dancing capitalists!’ This seems like an important thing to guard against, but unless I’m missing something about the feminist movement in the UK–or how feminism is being co-opted and branded there–I’m really confused about who she/they are actually talking about. So maybe we should ask the UK Harpies: is there a popular idea of feminism that looks like this, in which hordes of young women identify as feminists in order to justify their purchasing choices or porn-starring?
@Philosophyerin: That’s a really good question. I do business in the UK and have spent a lot of time there, but I’m not British, so I did wonder if there was something about UK feminism that I was missing? I dunno.
I’ve always had the impression–from my business dealings, mainly–that chauvinism is stronger and more widely accepted in the UK (although not infused with the Jesus-y moralism of the US). Are women in the UK fighting a more uphill battle against the Patriarchy than in the US? Or is Charlotte Raven just full of thinly-veiled self-hating crap?
Any British Harpies want to weigh in?
Endora, you there? Plum Pie?
I mean, we get the the “I CHOOSE MY CHOICE!” crap in the States all the time, but who actually thinks that is feminism? Oh, wait, Katie Roiphe, probably.
To be honest the whole article read like a crazed and unintelligent version of Female Chauvinist Pigs. Which is awesome, and doesn’t somehow elide the questions of whether young women are responding to feminism and whether young women are responding to so-called “raunch culture.”
Ok. I read the article and was completely confused by her all over the place style so I’m glad to see that I was not alone.
It’s a bizarre article. I agree that she makes some good points and points to some writers (cough Naomi Wolf cough) who have written some eyebrow raising things about feminism. However her attitude that women embracing materialism over political activism is somehow the fault of feminism is…illogical.
I read the headline and really thought Raven-Symone, Disney star, had written a book about feminism. And became really excited. I’ll weigh in when I’m more coherent..
@thatbrowngirl: I would much rather have read that! Raven-Symone has always struck me as a pretty kickass young woman.
I found the article pretty hard to read. She could use some more structure and separation between ideals.
I was bothered by her black/white worldview. She writes as though there’s no middle ground between indoctrinating your daughter with fake eyelashes and enjoying conditioner that makes your hair manageable. I agree that consumerism and political-ism are at odds, but I’m pretty sure you’re not a big failure if you engage in some consumerism.
Also, I think taking shots at overwhelmed mothers and prostitutes trying to claim a sense of control is cheap.
I’m glad you guys could pull some points out of that rambly mess, I started to get a headache about a quarter of the way down it.
I think BeckySharper hit it on the head with her comment, “It’s indicative of a larger belief that feminists are supposed to be the custodians of all Womanity.”
And while I would LIKE to be able to shake some women until they pay attention and quit working against their best interests, I don’t think it’s a good idea to trade paternalism for maternalism. And it sounds like Raven is advocating for that.
O hai!
So, the hardest thing about commenting on this piece will be knowing when to stop.
Basically, ‘sex-positive’ and ’3rd wave’ feminisms made much less of a dent over here than in the US so the 70s stereotype has persisted to a greater extent, with the result that few women identify as feminists and the words ‘feminism’ and ‘feminist’ specifically, have not been hi-jacked by women attempting to make money. Although we have plenty of empowerfulment nonsense in our advertising, popular TV, pole dancing classes etc.
UK governments (both right and left) perpetuated a myth throughout the 90s of ideology-free policy-making (something which the Brown government, for all its faults is attempting to address). This combined with the economic bubble led to the media to publish many ‘feminism – it’s unnecessary!’ quotes from some professionally successful women, as Raven mentions.
She also seems to be giving a huge amount of import to some very minor blips in pop culture. The Girlie Show ran for 12 episodes. Adults did not discuss the Spice Girls. I can’t remember Frank magazine. Natasha Walters has always been considered a cut-price Naomi Wolf.
Do we have more chauvinism over here? I think… we have different chauvinists and it’s difficult to evaluate such things outside of economic measurements, especially taking into account the specifics of history, politics, race, class, etc. If we’re citing anecdata, I have read many things by US women and thought ‘You put up with WHAT?! You’re expected to WHAT?!’
My perception may be somewhat as my mother identifies as a feminist so I’ve always thought about these issues, rather than having some sort of awakening. Also, I was a something of a riot grrl as a teenager in the 1990s, with a clutch of Babes in Toyland and Lunachicks CDs, spending my birthday money on a copy of ‘Backlash’. I had lots of similar friends too – we all read ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ because Courtney Love talked about it in ‘Nevermind the Bollocks: Women Rewrite Rock’ by Amy Raphael. (A stirring volume.)
Also, can she stop complaining about cupcakes? A month without a patriarchy-bashing tea-party is not a proper month, in my opinion!
When I read this the other day, I have to admit that I gave it a great big ‘meh’ and no further thought, because it struck me as a rambling and not-particularly-original bit of book promotion rather than a good commentary.
Anyway, to answer Philosophyerin’s question: in my experience, the types of girls who aspire to a ‘career’ as a Page 3 model etc. either just can’t be bothered with feminism or don’t identify as feminist because they think it means hating men. Both are pretty widespread positions, unfortunately.
One thing I agree with Raven about is that the UK celebrity culture gives many girls a bad example of what female ‘empowerment’ and ‘success’ might look like. I know a surprising number of otherwise reasonable people who really think Katie Price, Coleen, Jade Goody et al. are people to look up to because they’ve ‘made something of themselves’ or ‘are good mothers’ or other similarly vague criteria. But that’s more a triumph of consumerism than a failure of feminism: They all managed to turn themselves into brands by selling the Cinderella story of hardship-to-riches (with a bit of sex and scandal thrown in) for all its worth.
That being said, I’m not sure how UK-specific that really is: their success is probably not much different from that of Paris Hilton and her ilk in the US.
My perception may be somewhat SKEWED as my mother etc etc.
Sorry harpies, long day.
Also: everything PlumPie said!
Just a quick note on whether the UK is more chauvinist or not – I really don’t know. But I will say that the legal rights of women are generally better in the UK (6 months to 1 year maternity leave and abortions available up to week 22 are the first ones that come to mind).
@Plum Pie:
Basically, ’sex-positive’ and ‘3rd wave’ feminisms made much less of a dent over here than in the US so the 70s stereotype has persisted to a greater extent, with the result that few women identify as feminists and the words ‘feminism’ and ‘feminist’ specifically, have not been hi-jacked by women attempting to make money.
Awesome. Thatreally answers my question, thanks. I guess I’d conclude the upside to “feminism” being hi-jacked by women attempting to make money–if there is one–is that it’s given it a (very little) cache/acceptability? Even if that acceptability is only of some trite empowerfulment form of feminism? I still think the trite form is better than nothing, and it can be used as a gateway drug to the harder stuff!
If we’re citing anecdata, I have read many things by US women and thought ‘You put up with WHAT?! You’re expected to WHAT?!’ That made me laugh, because it’s exactly the response I’ve had to some of what I’ve seen going on when I’m immersed in the UK corporate culture. I guess we’re both responding to the same shit, just in slightly different formats. For me, the laddishness I see in my industry’s UK companies would simply not fly in the US ones: men joking about a female colleague’s breasts/sex life, getting falling down drunk with colleagues etc. And yet at the same time, I’ve observed that my own brand of outspokenness, which has served me very well in New York, would be a real problem if I worked in the UK wing of the industry, where women are still encouraged to play nice and default to being deferential.
@Endora: The Katie Price/Jade Goody as a role model trope REALLY irritates the shit out of me. But I agree that it’s probably the same as Kim Kardashian or Paris Hilton and other sexxxy dumbasses with a homemade porn flick who get rewarded by the US media.
@Endora: I suspect that part of the reason women in the UK have better maternity policies and better access to abortion is that your political/cultural scene isn’t constantly being hijacked by Jesus freaks who want to control every aspect of a woman’s life. The misogyny and paternalism of that crowd really cannot be overstated.
Hell, even when Britain had an openly religious Prime Minister, he wasn’t nearly as obnoxious or intrusive with his Jesus-love as his crony in the White House.
@Becky: You’re probably completely right about the role religion plays. Government and religion are still slightly too enmeshed in the UK for my tastes (the head of state being the head of a religion, ahem), but there isn’t too much real wackiness among the general population.
By the way, it sounds like you know the UK pretty well, but it’s worth asking – are you sure that the reaction to your outspokenness was gender-related? My read (half-American, half-British, lived in both places) is generally that Americans are just much more straightforward than Brits generally (Americans will complain in restaurants, Brits won’t, and British language is full of ‘would you mind’ and ‘if it’s alright’ and ‘so sorry to bother you, but’…in both men’s and women’s speech). And understatement is the name of the game too- I know Brits who have had trouble with that, because letters of reference over here are written much less glowingly than in the US, so what is actually an excellent reference might sound just so-so to American ears. (Of course there is still plenty of straight-up sexism over here too, I don’t mean to deny that!)
(In case you didn’t notice, I find pragmatics fascinating. I could go on, but I’ll save it for another time).
@Endora: No, I’m totally down with pragmatics, too!
I think you’re right that in general outspokeness is rewarded in America but understatement goes over better in Britain. Normal American-style tooting your own horn, complaining, telling someone off, etc. is much dicier in the UK, as you know. So some of that difference is undoubtedly cultural, not gender-based.
What I do notice, though, is that when I visit London with my male US colleagues, my asserting myself in a meeting, or contradicting someone, seems to create more discomfort than when the male Americans do the exact same thing. Tough American businessman? Hard-charging cowboy! Tough American businesswoman? Shrill harpy!
That’s definitely a gender issue. The male-to-female gender ratio is about the same in both US and UK companies in my industry, but when I’ve been in meetings, the women speak up WAY less in London than they do in New York, and the Mansplaining from male execs seems much louder and less openly challenged in London.
I’ve been queried about jobs in London a few times, and given it serious consideration, but one of the things that kept bothering me was that aspect of UK corporate culture. I’m popular with my UK colleages, who find my outspokenness sort of refreshing and enjoyable, but I suspect that’s only because I’m a visitor and it seems exotic to them. If I were working there, I’d have to fit in, and I’m not sure how well I’d do it, or if I could do it without feeling stifled and resentful.
@Becky: Ok, now I see what you mean. And at this late hour, I’m afraid all I can muster as a comment is a great big *sigh*. (I’m a recent graduate who’s working abroad and has a disproportionate number of friends in the public sector, so I can’t really offer my own anecdotes for comparison purposes).
Anyway, I’m off for the night!
That’s a *sigh* at how much remains to be done, by the way, in case that wasn’t clear…
I really felt with this article that C.Raven was projecting her own feelings about her life in the 90s onto all women. Fair enough, she regrets sleeping with Julie Burchill, drinking Classic Coke and wearing a Dolce e Gabanna bra top, but what has that got to with British feminists? Holding Madonna up as some sort of straw feminist is both bizarre and offensive in the sense that of course visible women are held to be responsible for the behaviour of other women, in the way that men aren’t.
It’s also worth pointing out, I think, that in one part of the UK (Northern Ireland), abortion is illegal, and thousands of women from NI and the Republic of Ireland travel to England every year for abortions, so crazycakes.
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