The Purity Myth

I recently finished the Purity Myth by Jessica Valenti. It was amazing, definitely a 5 out of 5.

Valenti writes in a way that I like, sarcastic humour and viewing issues from both sides. Let’s start with a visualization: A world were women are not judged because of whether they have sex or not but whether or not they are good people. Sounds pretty good to me. Though the “Virginity Movement” (to use Valenti’s term) wouldn’t have it that way. They believe in retro gender roles. Surprisingly they don’t really want to get rid of the hypersexualized culture, or rather they could not exist without it. Our culture gives women one of two places, virgins or whores. No inbetween, no grey area, just black and white based on sex. Sounds like fun doesn’t it?

She spends a good amount of time talking about abstinence-only education. Did you know that over 80% of Abstinence-only programs contain lies (all her stats are for the United States).

The strangest thing is that though her book focuses on the United States and seemingly ‘radicle’ right wingers I can see the things that she talks about. I grew up in a WASPy little town and to this day I am still startled when I find out that some of my friends aren’t virgins (though after the initial shock it doesn’t matter). And I didn’t even go through the indoctrination that some people go through, just through my interactions with culture. Even my sister, who goes to a Catholic High School, receives an abstinence-only education. This means that she has no working knowledge of birth control, or even avoiding STIs, should she ever need it. Can’t say for certain if they lie, though.

Women need to be judged on moral character, not on sexual character.

“Whose Counting” and Who Counts?

A reflection on the article “Whose Counting” by Sara Ahmed done for my Feminist Theories class.

I recently had a discussion like this one about queer theory. A prof here believes that difficult problems need difficult language and thus his class is reading the more complex, abstract and at times confusing theorists. It is my personal belief that though this kind of theory should exist and that at times new language, not necessarily difficult language, is needed as this type of theorizing encounters new problems not previously address. I do not believe however that this should be the only type of theorizing that is privileged as such. I think that because feminism (and queer theory for that matter) deal with issues that affect the general population it should be accessible to everyone regardless of literacy of education. Granted not all theorizing can be accessible to everyone everywhere, but as Ahmed points out, things like poetry and children’s stories could be, and in my opinion should be, included in the umbrella of theory.

I also think that critical theory should be taken into account when studying the criticized theory. For example, Ahmed sites that black feminists have criticized white feminism. I believe it is important when studying white feminism one must understand the criticisms of that approach. I believe that because the lives and experiences of women are fluid so too must be the theory that attempts to explain it, hence my agreement with Ahmed’s term ‘theorizing’ as opposed to ‘theory’. To truly understand a theory I think that one must understand the difficulties with that theory as well.

Is it possible that what is considered feminist theory differs from place to place, or even person to person? For me I feel that what some may call ‘queer theory’ could fit under the umbrella of feminist theory because queer theorizing has a direct effect on my life. Though I could understand how some women could see that post-colonial theorizing or theorizing on race could also be put under the umbrella of feminist theorizing, who actually gets to say what belongs there?

I think one of the things that Ahmed only briefly mentions is a discussion of the politics of publishing, especially in the academy. One possible reason for the privileging of complex theory maybe that those in the academy, especially those who give tenure and are in administrative positions, feel that anything that is not complex do not belong in the academy. Considering that many administrators in the academy are male is it possible that feminist with in the academy are being guided into only producing those theories which will be acceptable to the university administrators?

Also third wave feminism has seen much more self publishing, especially via the internet. Should these blogs and zines be considered important to feminist theory? Also these could be an example about how feminism is fluid as even 15 years ago we didn’t have the resources we do now to self publish and communicate our personal ideas to so many people around the world. As well there are many movements which do not have formal academic theory behind them. Some of these movements, especially grass-root movements have many people taking part. Aren’t these movements producing theory? Shouldn’t everyone be able to take part in a movement whether or not they are formally educated?

Also should theorizing be called feminist if the theorizer does not identify his/herself as feminist? Also if a theorizer calls his/herself a feminist does that automatically mean that all of his/her theorizing is feminist?

*Sigh*

So many questions and not so many answers…..

Rape is Disease … Just Covering Your Ears Won’t Make It Go Away

I was dismayed today when I read yet another article about rape. I guess its good that it is being talked about within the media. Sort of. Kind of. Not really at all… except for the most sensational stories.

This article in particular detailed how a teen girl was allegedly raped and forced to work by her aunt. She was under ”Cinderella-type conditions” … not exactly the usual conditions of rape.

More disheartening than the sensationalism used by journalist and by Yahoo for placing the story on their homepage was the dicussion happening in the comment section of the article. There was a blatent disregard for the victim, for rape, and for feminism, even by those who claimed knowledge of the concept of rape and feminism.

The first was the accusation that the girl fabricated the rape to make her own story so sensational. I am not naive enough to believe that this never happened, nor that it will stop happening but until there is some more hard evidence accussations like that should not be thrown around. This is also the reason why I hate the word ‘allegedly’, though I do understand “innocent until proven guilty”.

Also there seems to be this idea that feminism and feminists are propegating the ‘myths’ that “there is still inequality” and that “rape is rapant”. These unfortunately are not myths. Rape is prevalent in our culture, our media, our psyche. Ordinary men *can* and *do* rape (some also are raped). Ordinary women are raped (some also commit rape). Rape is about many, many things, power, sex, and anger to name a few.

Another thing that irked me is that feminists are seen as man-hating dykes. Personally I like men, I wouldn’t sleep with one, but I generally like them. Sometimes they irk me, just like women irk me sometimes. Frankly men are also effected and hurt by social constructs, just like women, though not always to the same extent. I tend to find that the reason that people hate feminists seems to be because the change that we propose scares them. 

Rape won’t go away if you just pretend that it’s not there. And neither will we.

The Pervasiveness of Gender

I had kind of a strange experience today.

I was at the little food shop run by the Student Union today. I was busy using my debit card and the cashier (a female) who was helping me told the next customer “It will be quicker to go to the next cashier because I am still helping him (pointing at me).”

I thought this was weird but brushed it off. Then the debit machine was being weird, just took a long time. When it finally went through I mentioned that I was worried and the 2nd cashier (a male), not the one who was helping me, told me that it was their fault not mine. Then the woman standing beside me said “Oh ok, so we can yell at you (pointing to the cashier) and not him (pointing to me)”.

Now let me just say this, I don’t blame them for this slip up of gender pronouns. I am wearing a tie and my fedora today (yay for Necktie Tuesday). Also I had a pea coat and a scarf on generally obstructing the shape of my chest. My voice was also a little more hoarse than usual as I have a bit of a cold. Overall I might seem more male than I usually would.

I did find it strange that they were both talking about me in 3rd person and that neither of them would look me in the eye. Almost as though I was different and separate, only the guy would look at me and talk to me. I’m not sure it was because everyone thought I was a man or that it was because everyone thought that I was trying to be a man.

More than anything this incident makes me mad because it just shows the pervasiveness of gender in our culture, right down to our very language. There are no pronouns for those of us who don’t “perform” gender “properly”, to use one of Judith Butler’s ideas (though not her wording). One must either be male or female or else you just end up sounding pretentious using words like ‘one’. I believe that our culture (and others) needs an actual unisex pronoun, instead of just using the masculine as such. By using ‘he’ as unisex it erases the femaleness of an object making it completely male.

This can be seen with adrogenous things, my favourite being the trickster Loki ‘he’ actually has both masculine and feminine aspect but by labling ‘him’ ‘him’ the maleness overcomes the femaleness. Thus ‘he’ loses an important aspect of ‘his’ character.

We need something more than he and she.

First You Must Love Yourself

I firmly believe that in order to have a good relationship with anyone you must first love yourself. Well at least like yourself a little bit.

There’s so much presure on women to please everyone else around us. The thing is we have no control over how other people feel. We must do what makes *us* happy. When we are happy it is easier to help others to be happy and to see what we are doing that is only hurting ourselves.

A big proponent of this discourse is porn. It’s all about pleasing the man. The orgasms are fake and most things are done to please not only the man in the film but also the male viewers. To me, sex, like relationships, should not just be able pleasing one person it should please both parties invovled. Mutual give and take.

Also a good relationship is built on communication. Another thing that mainstream porn seems to lack. Instead we are shown that abuse is ok. That we are only valued for our bodies, that our minds have little or nothing to do with it.

To the women out there I say explore! Learn how to love yourself. Teach others to love you. Talk to them. Tell them what is on your mind. Find someone who listens to you and that you listen to.

Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it. ~ Maya Angelou~

Why Mulan Isn’t Feminist

Don’t get me wrong. I happen to love Disney Movies, but they aren’t very feminist. I bring up Mulan in particular because I am watching it right now.

It does raise questions about gender roles. Or maybe not questions, it points them out. How odd that the gender roles of ancient China mirror those of today, with a few exceptions (I hope?). But generally Women are still expected to have children and men are still expected to the protectors.

Yes I know that generally this is just historical fact but for me there is not enough questioning of these “facts” to make it seem like it is anything more than just “this is the way it has always been but maybe you can break away from it”.

The first song is all about how the women are hoping to bring honour to their families by marrying a good husband. The songs in the army are about being a man. There are two extremely strict genders in this movie. Men are not women, or girls, they are brave, they fight, and women who are weak stay at home. There is no space for someone like Mulan who doesn’t fit. She cannot please the matchmaker and so tries to become a man. Once it is discovered as a woman she dishonoured and left in the mountains. She fits neither into the role of male or female.

But wait! you say. Mulan runs away from home, poses as a man and saves China. There must be something feminist in that. At least showing girls that they can do anything. Well… yes and no.

Yes in that she over comes many obstacles and is finally triumphant.

No in that she does what she does only out of duty to her father. Selflessness is generally regarded as a female trait. She is not allowed to just be herself in the army. Instead of having to get all dressed up and go to the matchmaker now she must perform to the standards of the Chinese army and be sufficiently “man enough”.

Still she does redeem herself. But when does this redemption happen? Only after she has returned to her role as woman. Once again the reward she receives is honour for her family which she promptly gives to her father. More selflessness rhetoric.

I believe that her return to womanhood is important, as well as her love interest in the Captain Li. It shows that deep down, despite everything she is just a girl and eventually she will learn her lesson and return to “normal”. I believe that this is amazingly illustrated in the Grandmother’s final question of “Will you stay forever?”. As if it doesn’t matter that Mulan obviously exhibits military skill she will get married and raise a family just like every other girl.

Grandmother’s last statement also shows that though Mulan may have challenged society its values have not changed. Mulan is a national hero but yet it is still not accepted that a woman will do anything but marry. She is an anomaly. Nothing more.

To me this movie seems to have less of a rhetoric of “Look girls you can do anything” and more so “Yes girls can do anything but eventually they will recognize their true womanhood and conform”.

This is a sad sad rhetoric for our time. What we need is someone to challenge and change societal values. Someone who is more than an anomaly but part of a larger movement which critically looks at gender roles and revises them, perhaps even making them more fluid.