feminism

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A weighty issue.

Sunday 5th October, 2008 in feminism, gender by Suzi | No comments

So yesterday I wrote about how much hassle a simple shopping trip to buy new office clothes was. Today is where I write about why my shopping trip can be analysed in a feminist way.

For starters there’s the fact that women like it or not are judged by wider society according to their body shape. In our current climate Fat = BAD and Thin= GOOD. In fact it isn’t just thin but skeletal. We don’t praise people’s natural beauty or their talents, personality of intelligence, we judge them according to their bodies. And this judgement is particularly harsh when it comes to clothes and fashion. This judgement means that eating disorders are on the rise and in a world where people are dying of starvation and poverty, in the richer west women are encouraged to starve themselves, to not eat to avoid the ‘temptations’ of the privilege of food. Before we get into this if you haven’t read Kate Hardings post on Shapely Prose, ‘Don’t You Realize Fat is Unhealthy?’ go read it. It’s ok, I’ll wait. Also add Shapely Prose to your blog feed.

Ok. In yesterdays post I talked about the fact that I’m fat. Not in a negative way but as a statement of fact. I am larger than average, I have big boobs, big hips, big thighs, and a big tummy. What I didn’t mention (thought the bulimia may have given the game away) is just how unbelievably suicidally(and I’m not using that word lightly) awful being fat makes me feel. I quite literally hate myself. So clothes shopping is a fricking nightmare.

Renee at Womanist Musings has talked many times about acceptable bodies in Society (I’m really sorry Renee I couldn’t find the specific link I meant!!) from a racial point of view, and I think she’s absolutely spot on. The same thing applies when it comes to fat- the only acceptable bodies in our society are the thin ones. Fat women have no place. Fat men have less of a place, but fat women are written out or are objects of derision. When women like Beth Ditto get naked on the cover of NME, to make a point about how fat women are treated, whilst there was a lot of positive (and mostly feminist) response, there was also an awful lot of ‘ewww look at the fat minger ewww and she didn’t even shave her pits’ shite going on too. I won’t link to any of it, because well quite frankly it’s hate speech and I’ll have no part of that ta.

The ‘Obesity Epidemic’ is part of the same fat hatred problem- levels of obesity as far as I have read are actually no higher than 30 years ago (check out Junkfood Science for some myth debunking). The problem is society keeps moving the goalposts on what is considered obese. The fact that it is incredibly difficult to purchase clothes over a size 16 on the high street merely hammers home the simple fact that in this society, fat women are considered a dangerous threat. After all, we all know having fat friends will make you fat and we wouldn’t want any of you to die now would we?

It’s hard in the face of so much fat hatred, it’s hard to remember that size is a number, weight is an arbitrary figure and realistically speaking none of it actually matters that much, providing your healthy. I wish I had a solution to this shit- and I have a bit of one. Don’t support shops and businesses that don’t stock a decent range of sizes, don’t spend your hard earned money supporting businesses that promote fat hatred and self hatred and that don’t bother to cut clothes differently according to size. Don’t buy from companies that mock fat people in their adverts and do support shops like Monsoon who do nice clothes, cut for bigger people and support companies like Lush who make gorgeous natural preservative free cosmetics.

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The curse of the double barrell…..

Wednesday 17th September, 2008 in feminism, gender by Suzi | 9 comments

I have been meaning to write this post for a long while now and what with one thing and another over the Summer I just haven’t got round to it at all. This all kicked off ages ago when this was posted over at The F Word and got me thinking about feminist reactions to the marital name change thing. It was further cemented when this appeared over at Feministe. There was another article somewhere where the writer proclaimed their HATE for women who change their names upon marriage to the point when friends of said author do it , she stops talking to them. Sadly, I’ve lost the damn link to it, as it was that particular post that started my boiling ire at the way in which those of us who change our names upon marriage are viewed by the feminist community at large.

Once upon a time I was married. I’m now divorced and cheerfully cohabiting with The Lovely Admin of FemAcadem, but when I got married I changed name from my birth name to my husbands name. I did consider keeping my name, we considered double barrelling our names (however C -K just DID NOT work) and after a lot of thought I took his surname. Do I regret it, seeing as we consequently divorced?? No, not one jot. If Lovely Admin and I get married will I take his surname?? You Betcha I will.

For me , my surname has little significance. At the last count through my life, it has changed 6 times. Of those 6, 4 were at the whim of my Biological Mother, once was when I changed it back to what my birth certificate says, and the final time was when I married my ex husband. Because of this, my surname is merely something to put down on bits of paper. It provides another identifier for people in officialdom to know who I am and marks me out as belonging to a particular family group of people. I have nothing to do with my Father’s family, or my Father, I am, no longer much to do with my ex husband or his family – and personally should I remarry I would want to celebrate that fact that Lovely Admin and I are married and have made such a commitment. To me changing my name seems a good way of indicating our new status, and quite frankly, he has a very nice surname and I’d be proud to carry it as my own.

I’m not much bothered by whether someone changes their name, doesn’t change it, creates a new surname, double barrles both surnames or whatever they do. I think the whole name change thing is something for each couple to decide. For some people surnames are important, for me, it merely marks differing stages of my life.

What is really bloody pissing me off though, is the fact that there are otherwise perfectly nice feminists out there who will instantly denounce any woman who changes her name on marriage as some form of brainless ninny, under the thumb of The Patriarchy who is incapable of having any agency of her own, so obviously is she swayed by teh ebil argumentx of teh menz into renouncing her own surname and taking that of her partner. Quite frankly I find it bloody insulting – there are plenty of women out there, like myself , who have for our own damn reasons chosen to take our new husbands surnames. There are also plenty who choose not too, and plenty who choose to double barrel, or create new surnames, or to take each others surnames and new middle names. The whole point about the Name thing is this : It’s a CHOICE!! If people are thinking about it and deciding that actually he has a nicer surname and they’d prefer it, or it makes getting mail easier or whatever fucking reason they choose, then the rest of us should just bloody well butt out.

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On Gender, Transgender and Cisgender Feminist fighting.

Tuesday 5th August, 2008 in feminism, gender, sex by Suzi | No comments

So I’ve noticed that there is a resurgence in the good ole theme of trans v cis feminist fighting. Radical cisgendered feminists are often  accused of discriminating against transgender feminists and the whole “are trans issues women’s issues?” questioning starts again.

So before I get to the bit where I express my opinions here are some links. First of all, go and read this. Then go and check out the links in this post over at Renegade Evolution. Remember when reading these – check your privilege. There are levels of privilege and cisgendered women have privilege in comparison to transgendered women. Key part of that sentence is WOMEN.

As (cisgendered) feminists we fight against being judged, discriminated against or categorised according to our biological sex. We argue that womanhood is more than biology, that we are more than our genitalia, that we should not be constrained by our ability to or not become pregnant or judged and valued solely by the fact we have vagina’s.We argue that GENDER is a social construct, and that we are socialised into a certain gender according to the gender binary which may or may not be at odds with our biological SEX which is another thing all together. We argue against the binary, pointing out that gender like sexuality is not a ‘pure’ static thing, but fluid and changeable throughout life.

So why in the face of these arguments then, do some groups of feminists insist that trans women are not women and seek to exclude them from women only spaces? I can understand there being some issues about trans men in women only spaces, and Kit over at Today I am a Boy has a great post up about her feelings on transitioning and gendered spaces. What I don’t get is excluding trans women from women only spaces. They too are women and face the same discrimination as cis women and then some more for being trans. That isn’t to mention other discrimination against trans WOC or queer trans women.

To me this discrimination makes those who perpetrate it no better than the system we fight against and seek to change. Maybe because I am a bi/queer woman whose own gender identity is not strictly conforming to my biology, I am more sympathetic to those whose biological sex is totally at odds with their gender. Maybe I’m just a very nondiscriminatory person. I don’t know.

What I do know is that in my not-at-all-humble opinion, trans women are every bit as female, as women identified cis females. I also know that gender is a social construct and is far more fluid than the binary allows socially acceptable gender identification. And I also know that trampling over other underprivileged groups in our fight for equality is the wrong damn way to be fighting.

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Sticks and Stones may break my bones…

Thursday 24th July, 2008 in sex by Suzi | 8 comments

And names are just downright mean, immature and divisive.

I’ve always had issues with body image and fat. Not other peoples necessarily, just my own. Mother with a weird obsession with your waistline and calorie intake and ten years of bulimia and yo-yo dieting in an attempt to be as attractive as well other people who are thin and attractive will do that to you. But these issues have always been my own, and in a self centred way, been about me. When I first started to realise there was a name for that pissed off feeling I got when people treated me like shit due to my genitalia and more the point, that other women got that pissed off feeling too, and some wrote books about it I was relieved. Women like Susie Orbach who wrote ‘Fat is a Feminist Issue’ said stuff that made sense to me about how I perceived my body, how other people perceived my body and why it was just a big ‘Fuck You’ to those people who instantly deem those of us who are too fat/too thin/too short/too hairy etc to be non people.

So when I see stuff like this it really pisses me off. Yes, debate and discussion about pornography, stripping, sex work, burlesque and its place in feminism and feminist thought is important. But a straight up blanket dismissal of women who ARE ‘empowered’ and who do feel good about their bodies doing what they want to do with them? I’m sorry but I can’t agree with that sort of thing.

I have mixed feelings on porn. I’m mostly pro porn, but I can see the point of the argument that says that over sexualisation of women, and the notion that women’s bodies are the property of men, and any body not owned by a man is therefore available, and subject too constant public interrogation, attention and so forth. I get that, I really do.

I just don’t think that banning porn and sex work and effectively demonizing sex and sexuality is the way forward. I think it’s important to remember that actually there are lots of sex workers who aren’t trafficked and didn’t have horrific lives of abuse leading to their sex work, and aren’t drug users and are there because they want to be, because they choose to be, whilst also working to help those who are there and don’t want to be. I think it is important to remember to that these are people that we oh so sanctimoniously blog about. These are women, and men, cis and transgendered living their lives the way they choose. And who the fuck am I or you to come along, tell them they are wrong, remove their humanity by using terms like ‘funfeminist’ in a derogatory fashion.

Yes trafficking is a problem, rape is huge problem, sex workers who are there because they feel they have no other choice is a problem, over sexualisation is a problem. These are issues that as a feminist movement we need to work on, and I don’t want to trivialise any of them. Slut shaming people who are there through their own decisions, who are not in those vulnerable positions however is not the way to do it. Policing the sexuality and sexual behaviour of women who are using their agency to act is not the way to do it, condemning women on the grounds of their conventional attractiveness is not the way to damn well do it.

This behaviour, this condemnation of women who are happy to be seen in a convetionally attractive light, who are happy with their sexuality, their sexual behaviour, their pro porn positions is not Feminism. It is a repeat of the Blondes are Bimbos, Redheads are sluts and all women are mens shag toys  way of thinking. It is not liberating or empowering to condemn the sexual behaviour of other women, just as it is not liberating or empowering to condemn and criticise the bodies and looks of other women, or their personal grooming habits. It’s just plain bitchy.

I don’t have a solution to rape, or VAW, or over sexualisation. I do think that gender dialogue is important, and I do think and truly, truly believe that until we stop tearing each other apart over how we look, or how we have sex, or how we choose to express our sexuality that Feminism as a movement will be stuck in a    rut chasing in circles.

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