Quick Post: 'Male' as default

I was reading through a news article today when I spotted this little image:


Looks fairly unassuming and inoffensive, right?

Read it again.

'His'.

Oh, STV link-image-designer. I realize that it would take up an awfully large amount of space in that little box if you were to type 'his or her', and 'hir' still hasn't quite made it into common parlance, but would it kill you to type in 'their'? Lots of people use it as a gender-neutral term. It's only two letters longer. It doesn't break the flow. Most importantly, it doesn't imply that all MPs are male. This probably wasn't your intention, but it's there. When I and many others read 'his', we don't think 'person', we very specifically think 'man'.

Really, this is the 21st century. Despite being in the minority, Britain has had a number of non-male MPs and MSPs for a good while now - by the time I was born, we'd even had a female prime minister, and her time in power was hardly forgettable. There's no excuse, in this day, age and country, for using 'he' as a supposedly neutral default.

What marks a feminist?

[NOTE: I'M LEAVING THIS UP FOR NOW, BUT I'M INTENDING TO MODIFY IT SLIGHTLY - LARGELY BECAUSE I GOT SIDETRACKED AND CONVEYED SLIGHTLY THE WRONG MESSAGE. It's posted on Feministing somewhere, where someone's comment alerted me to the fact that I was, in terms of my intended message, talking bollocks.]

There are several saying out there which talk about how a true friend will support you through the hard times as well as the good, stick by you even when they disagree with you, that sort of thing. I've been drafting a couple of posts and they got me thinking about some feminist acts I've encountered recently:

• On the news last night, I saw Zahra Rahnavard, wife to the Iranian presidential candidate and reformist Mir-Hossein Mousavi, stating her view that women should be allowed to choose what they wear without fear of recrimination by people like the current morality police. She herself was fully covered, with not a hair visible, though many of Mousavi's supporters are less strict about their headscarves.
  
• I have a few devoutly Christian friends who would never terminate a pregnancy unless their lives were at risk, but have no qualms with other women choosing otherwise.
• Feminists all over the place decide not to remove their body hair as both a political statement and personal preference, but don't chastise other feminists when they choose to be clean-shaven.
• Stay-at-home mothers are often uncritical of the decision of other mothers to join the workforce. Don't let the Daily Mail fool you, these women aren't in the minority.
  

It's all very well to be a feminist, or to follow any political or religious movement because it happens to agree with your own personal choices. But sometimes I just feel that the true feminists among us are those who, regardless of their own beliefs and practices, are willing to trust other women to make their own decisions in life without simultaneously making judgements and demoting them as 'less good' because of their choices. Opposing all attempts to restrict our freedoms, even if you yourself may never make use of them, preferring to spread honest information to allow others to make up their minds as you did rather than force everyone to follow your own line of thought. Allowing women to make truly free decisions.
In essence, supporting every woman's right to choose - in ALL areas of her life.

What would YOU define as truly feminist?

Full post tomorrow

But for now, a memento from Monday's protest in Glasgow and a message to all the anti-choicers out there:

Cheer up

A muppety video, 'Put Another Log On The Fire'.



Bumped frae Feministing.

Why I'm a Feminist

On Saturday the Glasgow Feminist network held a public participatory reading at Borders entitled 'Why I'm a Feminist'. Instead of coming along and having an author or scholar do all the talking, people brought along books and materials that opened their eyes to the fight for gender equality.
I searched around for something by Ensler or Dworkin or Greer or... well any of the feminist authors in my bookshelves that would sum up my reasons, but no-one truly represented my reasons for being a feminist. I then forgot about it until the day, and with nothing else to read I wrote down my piece on both sides of an A4 sheet and jumped on the subway into town without editing or re-reading (looking back, I'm proud that I remembered my statistics correctly!). Here it is with added references.

I wasn't always a feminist. When I was a little girl I just assumed I would be treated fairly... or better than boys because they were smelly and I was pretty and a princess and everybody loved me, of course - but even then there were signs that I was wrong. An example of this is the nursery picture books I loved. There was mummy the housewife or the beautiful queen, and there was daddy the farmer, baker, banker, king, outdoor hero, he-who-saves-one-from-the-big-bad-wolf. The princess would love being pretty, was chastised for messiness and a temper (also known as an opinion) and always needed a prince for lifelong happiness. Lastly, the doctors were men and the nurses were women. Always.
I internalised all of this. I hated trousers and Lego because those were for my brother and told Dad that I wanted to be a nurse "because that's what girls do". He told me that was good and nursing is an honourable profession, but girls could be doctors too. I didn't believe him. (I recently discovered that, around this time, my mum finished her job as a research Biologist not only because she wanted to see her children more but also because she was being given a hard time at work since giving birth to us.)
Then I entered the real world. A world where famous chefs are men but we'd never dream of giving a boy a toy kitchen or iron or anything domestic because it's too feminising. A world where Wal-Mart pulled a line of T-shirts featuring a girl saying 'Someday a woman will be president' because it was in some way 'anti-family values' yet kept the one of a boy shoving an 'uppity' girl ("Problem solved!") despite the worldwide epidemic of domestic violence. A world where I'm told to be scared to go out after dark, even though statistically I'm 10 times more at risk of victimisation from an intimate whilst my brother's more likely to be, and has been attacked by a stranger when out. Where the woman who married Steve Wright, the Ipswich murderer, was recently asked if she thought that if only she'd had more sex with her husband, he wouldn't have seen and killed those women. Where my bodily freedom is government-controlled, whether I want to plan or end a pregnancy. Where I'm 'asking for it' if I get raped whilst drunk even though the majority of rapists are inebriated when they attack, yet that somehow excuses them. Where I'm still likely, in our modern country, to be paid less and given fewer opportunities than my male counterparts, where male violence against women causes more deaths and disabilities to 15-44 year olds than cancer, malaria, traffic accidents and war put together, where almost a third of the British public say violence against women is absolutely fine and half - 50%, one-in-two! - say domestic violence is a private matter that should remain behind closed doors where we can't hear or do anything about it - and where people who say they want this all changed for the better are called man-haters, crazy, or worst of all, ugly fat spinsters *cue mock distress*.

I don't have the answers to this. I believe that my position is perfectly logical and morally right, and I want people to know that when half the population of the world is poorer, less healthy and more frightened than the other, I care. I want REAL equality, new attitudes, men proud to be sensitive and women proud to be assertive; people being who they are as opposed to what they are told they should be.

And I'm going to med school this year.
Your future doctor is a feminist.

Ugh

Upon reading a blog post over at The F-Word on the subject of last names, I was reminded of a small incident that occurred a few weeks ago concerning my title. I was at the job centre filling out forms when my advisor turned to me and said...

"You've missed your title. Is it Miss, Mrs, Ms...?"

"Ms."

"So you're divorced?"

*huh? WHAT?!*

"... No. I've never been married."

"Okay then."

I then watched, a little shocked, as she wrote down my title: MISS.
I didn't want to hang around, and was a little tired and couldn't be bothered arguing. But considering that the title 'Ms.' is supposed to be neutral and can be chosen by women regardless of their married, single or divorced status, AND HAS BEEN SO FOR QUITE A WHILE, this kind of ignorance is unforgivable.

Politics

While it was no surprise to learn that Gordon Brown will be running the country for the next few years, our new Deputy Prime Minister was a little more unexpected. Harriet Harman won the race by an approximately 0.6% lead, finally pulling ahead of Alan Johnson in the final round of voting.

Ms. Harman has been described as 'Labour's in-house feminist', and in her acceptance speech said that she would work for equality of women as well as men, among many other things. However, some of her comments were a little confusing. She said that she realised the need for more women in power in order to have a truly representative and fair government, but then went on to say that, as women need more opportunities, she would be 'championing the family'. Now, does that mean she'll work for childcare, to allow more women to pursue a career? Is she somehow assuming, because or despite her own position as a professional working mother, that all women want families if they don't already have them? Why were 'women's rights' equated so flippantly with 'family rights'? They may be closely connected, but they are by no means one and the same. What, exactly, did she mean? Mwezzi doesn't know. Hopefully her intentions in this area will become clearer.
Despite these initial musings, I'm not going to dismiss her out of hand. After all, she has campaigned for more female MPs, paid parental leave and has been critical of the party's stance on women's rights - definitely a good thing to keep in mind when mulling her speech over. Her other policies, including improving youth work and apologising for the war, and her focus and willingness to go against the grain if she opposes something are all promising. The only thing left to do now? Wait and see how she performs in her new role. Good luck to her, I say.

Feminism 101

If you have a general question about feminism and its large issues, from 'is it victim politics?' or 'why not tell them to defend themselves against rape?' then head on down to the Feminism 101 blog and have a snoot around.

What kind of a feminist ARE you?!

Is a question I occasionally get. I shall try and answer that before I answer the more unusual question later.

Okay, let's see. Well, first up, I'm by no means fixed in all my views yet. At 17 years old, I've not been properly 'into' the movement for very long at all, but women's issues have always grabbed and held my attention.

Books

In terms of literature, my personal feminist collection is sparse, consisting of Female Chauvinist Pigs, A Brief History of Misogyny (a current favourite), The Beauty Myth, Price of Honour (next in line for reading) and The Female Eunuch. Interestingly, it is that last one, the one so highly praised by seemingly every feminist I come across, that I found the least engaging. I never finished it, so I cannot comment on it completely, but as your average girl on the street, a mostly male group of friends and no background in the feminist 60s-80s period in which the book was published, I found it difficult to fully relate to. Perhaps someday I'll read it completely with a different eye. Meanwhile, it was Ariel Levy's flawed and much-criticised paperback that got me hooked. Her arguments are far from perfect, and she does sometimes come across as having little respect for people who do actually enjoy and embrace 'raunch culture' as a true reflection of their sexuality, yet as someone who does find such a society both intimidating and dull (if it could be possible) as well as alienating, I was heartened to find someone who - at least to a certain extent - saw it as I did. Despite everything people have said against the book, for me, it was as good a starting point as The F-Word was in finding out what feminists are saying here and now.
However, I don't think that 'blame the slags' is a good philosophy.

Discrimination and the 'isms'

I have always been an avid reader, and always enjoyed a good story. When in primary school and nursery I could usually be found in the book section, and the picture books were my earliest source of information about the world apart from my actual day-to-day experiences - and in the books that I saw, the doctors were always male and the nurses were always female. Our family doctor, similarly, was and still is a man, and on our occasional visits to the hospital we would be surrounded by female nurses - so I assumed that the books must be right. So when my dad asked me once what I wanted to be when I grow up, one of the first things I said was 'a nurse'.
'Why? Don't you want to be a doctor?'
'Only men can be doctors.' I replied matter-of-factly. Regardless of the intention of the books, this was what I had learned. This was sexism, accidental or not. I also learned that families always consist of Mum, Dad, and minimum of two children and the family pet(s) - I didn't know what divorce was until I met my best friend, I didn't know that women can love women and men can love men until a family friend passed around some wedding photos. I assumed that EVERYONE gets married at some point. Girls must try and look pretty all the time, while boys go out and rip the knees of their trousers climbing trees. I learned that white people marry only white people, Asians marry only Asians and so on. Hopefully, the books have become more representative since then.
Now that I'm older I am told that women are damaging the family by going out to work, but men aren't (I OBJECT!) - reinforcing the picturesque nuclear families in those picture books. Every now and then, a study tells me that I find maths challenging purely because I'm female, and the roughly 5:1 ratio of boys to girls in my maths class is discouraging. Immigrants are destroying our way of life. Black single mothers should be blamed entirely for their family's breakdown. Et. Cetera.
I wish I'd been shown more accurate depictions when I was younger. Maybe not all stories of family breakdowns and cancer, but even just a few mentions - a few female doctors or male nurses, a child with parents who are co-habiting - something. I wish people would stop reading the fucking Sun. I wish that people would stop automatically trying to pin the blame upon a single group whenever something goes wrong. I hope that things will improve. I look forward to it.

I was going to go on longer with this, but I've found a way to summarise it all. Feminist Critics made a list of the things that they believe feminism has got right and which they agree with - it basically says everything about how I see things. When I analyse something, these are the basic premises that I start from:

1. There is a gender system

Males and females are socialized into masculinities and femininities. Masculine and feminine behaviour is not simply determined by biology.

2. The gender system is damaging

Masculinities and femininities can be damaging and dehumanizing to both males and females.

3. Women are oppressed

Women have suffered various types of systematic mistreatment throughout history, and continue to do so in the present. This mistreatment is unjust. If it can be called “oppression,” then women suffer gender oppression.

4. Sexism exists

Sexism—hateful, contemptuous, bigoted, or discriminatory attitudes based on sex—is real. Sexism can be institutionalized socially and politically. The feminist identification and critique of misogyny has mitigated misogyny, though institutionalized misogyny still exists.

5. Males have unjust advantages

Males have some systematic advantages over females that they do not have a right to.

6. Marginalization of the experience of women

Prior to feminism, the experience of women was marginalized in academic and scientific disciplines, and in public discourse.

7. Sexuality involves power dynamics

Under the gender system at least, sexuality is intertwined with power dynamics. E.g. male-dominant, female-submissive, and male-active, female-passive. These power dynamics are not limited to heterosexuality. The link between power dynamics and sexuality can be damaging to people.

8. There is something wrong with pornography

Pornography can be dehumanizing toward both its users and towards its participants. Even if pornography can be defended on legal grounds, these liberal arguments doesn’t protect it from moral critique.

9. There is intersectionality of oppression

Gender oppression and oppression based on race, sexual orientation, or class, can combine multiplicatively into oppression that is more than the sum of its parts.

10. Beauty standards can be damaging

Beauty standards and objectification can be damaging to female self-esteem. It would be both practical and moral to change images of beautiful women in the media in certain ways.

Overall, I think feminism is a positive force, and one I gladly associate myself with. Yes, there have been times when we've 'got it wrong' as it were. All movements have their highs and lows and sub-groups of differing opinions which occasionally clash. But don't throw out the baby with the bathwater. I hope I can 'grow into' the movement over time, I want to learn more, and I want to see it succeed it improving conditions for women (and, hopefully, everyone) worldwide. I want to be a part of that.

London's Feminist Library needs YOU

LAST CHANCE TO SAVE YOUR FEMINIST LIBRARY (London)

The following notice is being circulated. Please feel free to pass it on.


Forthcoming Event

Feminist Library : LAST CHANCE TO SAVE YOUR FEMINIST LIBRARY (London)

Dear Feminists

The management committee of the Feminist Library is calling an emergency meeting on Saturday 24th February 2007 to decide on whether to close the library for good. This meeting is a last ditch attempt to rally feminists to support our library and, if we are not able to come up with a solution, to discuss finding another suitable home for the collection. Those of you who
have not been in touch for a while might like to know that the collection now also includes 75 boxes of material that was the Women’s Health Librarythat we rescued from being thrown in a skip over the summer.

For a number of years the Feminist Library has existed in a state of permanent emergency, with a dwindling number of volunteers to take part in running the library, a precarious financial situation, uncertainty about its location, and a lack of womanpower to pursue crucial funding applications.

The current group of volunteers is no longer able to sustain the situation, and the library will be forced to close without an injection of new volunteers. Therefore the meeting will have a dual function: to decide on whether or not the library will continue to stay open, and to gather
experience, advice and new volunteers to reinvigorate the management committee, or help the committee find a suitable home for the collection if the decision is taken to close.

The meeting will take place at 11am at the Feminist Library on Saturday 24th February. There will be the opportunity to look around the library and to chat to us, followed by a more formal discussion.

Please distribute this invitation to attend as widely as possible. Feedback from the many feminist groups and individuals who have an interest in the library is very important to us, as well as the need to get extra help.

As a basis for discussion at the meeting, we are preparing a short document on the library’s current plight and what our future options could be. If you would like to receive a copy before the meeting, or have other questions, or are considering volunteering, please contact us by email
(feministlibraryappeal@gmail.com) or post (Feminist Library, 5 Westminster Bridge Road, London SE1 7XW). If you wish to speak to us by phone, please include your phone number in your message and we will get back to you as quickly as possible, although it may take a few days. RSVP is preferred but not essential.

Yours
Charlotte, Gail, Jess and Polly on behalf of the current management
committee

The Feminist Library
5 Westminster Bridge Road, London SE1 7XW
Email: feministlibraryappeal@gmail.com
Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/feministlibrary
Registered Charity no. 272410


It's highly unlikely I'll be able to attend, but I'm shocked that I'd never even HEARD of this place and am only now being told that a) it exists and b) it might not exist by the time I actually get a chance to visit London for the first time (goodness knows when that'll be). If you can go, if you think that preserving the opinions of women is important, then head down there and spread this message.

From their 2005 newsletter (PDF warning, but a good example of what they do):

The Feminist Library is the largest lending and reference library of contemporary feminist material in the UK. Established in 1975, the collection includes approximately 10,000 books, 1500 journals, 1200 articles, 1750 pamphlets and ephemera.
The library specialises in literature about the women's movement and holds archives from the Women's Liberation Movement. It houses both fiction and non-fiction books as well as a selection of journals from all over the world.
Much of this material is not available in other libraries. The collection includes books on/by working class women, black women, women of colour, Irish women, Jewish women, lesbians, older women and women with disabilities.
The Feminist Library provides information about women's studies courses, services and current events.