For various reasons this blog is going into retirement.
It may come back from retirement at a later date.
‘Radical’ Feminism? Sunday, Mar 2 2008
Philosophy and Politics 11:56 pm
On Friday night I attended a debate put on by the Oxford Radical Forum, entitled “Feminism: Radical or Socialist?”. It was a really lively, engaging and em-passioned debate, and it really got me thinking…hence i’m putting up a few thoughts that i’ve had time to crystallise since Friday.
The debate – although it became pretty wide-ranging in the end - was between two ’socialist’ feminists – those who believe that transcending capitalist society is the most important factor in ending the oppression of women – and two ‘radicals’ – those who believe that while capitalism perpetuates female oppression, it is not the fundamental problem, and the root causes go far, far deeper; that if socialist society were achieved tomorrow women would still be on an unequal (moral) footing with men. (I am not going to defend the claim that women are oppressed in modern, Western societies. I take that claim to be quite obviously true to anyone who bothers to think and look hard enough).
The first thing that hit home for me in the course of the discussion came from the radicals, who responded to a question I posed about the limits of feminism, and whether it really just becomes ‘compassionate humanism’, i.e. something that any well brought up, morally well-balanced person should be getting behind – male, female or whatever.
What was really interesting was that both radicals agreed in principal, but pointed out to me something that I had completely overlooked: in my question i discussed the issue of rape and sexual violence (originally raised by the radicals) and said that it was a problem for everyone in society – and they agreed with that. But what they pointed out was the levels to which violent crimes are a product of social attitudes and environment. That is, I was unquestioningly thinking of rapists as ‘isolated psycopaths’ - what the radicals pointed out really well was that the levels of rape in western societies are greater than can plausibly be allowed for by a percentage of violent ‘unreasonables’ that will exist in any society, and will always be a problem. Rather, it has to be the case that there is something wrong with society as a whole which leads to so many men (and we’re talking here about 80,000 rapes a year in the UK, with - believe or not – barely 5% of reported cases ending in prosecution) being disposed to act violently towards women, including but not limited to rape. And for that reason, feminism has a part to play over and above humanism, because it is addressing a problem facing specifically women, because they are women.
For me this was compelling because not only have I decided that the radicals were right, but it made me realise to what extent i’d gotten comfortable in my academic, ivory-tower thinking about ethical issues, and had ceased to look at, for example, the levels to which violent and ‘unethical’ behaviour is not only socially determined, or constructed, but also socially accepted (think about the fact already noted that a mere 5% of rapes end in prosecution).
(A similar realisation occurred to me when there was a short tangential discussion about uses of the word ‘natural’, particularly in relation to homosexuality. I have in the past scoffed at arguments that homosexuality is ‘un-natural’ because it seems such an irrelevant point: driving cars is ‘un-natural’, so is wearing clothes, nothing follows about the status of these human practices. What the radicals pointed out was that the fight over homosexuality being considered ‘natural’ or otherwise is important for practical reasons. That is, if the idea that homosexuality is natural can be sufficiently established, then many reflexive homophobic attitudes are cut off at the root. For sure, it may be the case that naturalness is in truth irrelevant conceptually, but practically it is a live, and very much an important, issue).
The second thing I walked away from the debate thinking was that ’socialist feminism’ in a fairly untenable position. To see this, consider that they appear to me very much to be in a dilemma. On the one hand the socialists wanted to say that the main problem facing women was class-based gender inequality, and that if we progressed towards a classless society, women would be immeasurably better off – hence transcending capitalism should be the number one concern for feminists. Yet they were of course forced to admit that gender inequality – and the resultant oppression of women – had existed before capitalism, and that (for example) power-relation within, say, families that led to female oppression would not disappear simply because the means of production and wage-earning cease to be predicated upon class stratification. But it seems to me that given these two facts, ’socialist feminism’ either dissolves into something which isn’t really feminism, or if it remains feminist, fits the ‘radical’ label far better.
For if it is maintained that transcending capitalism is the most important thing, then the feminism starts to look like an added incentive for transcending capitalism, rather than the fundamental motivating factor. On the other hand, if it is conceded that capitalism is only one problem facing women, and that many other equally and perhaps more important ones exist, then it becomes unclear what ’socialist feminism’ is, and why one should not just be a ‘radical’, or some other brand of, feminist. Now of course, one could be a radical feminist whilst also being a socialist – that is, wishing to transcend capitalist society and holding radical feminist attitudes, indeed both ‘radicals’ on the night described themselves as such – but the point is the feminism doesn’t get defined through the socialism, so to speak. Both are kept sufficiently separate as political goals and commitments. And that to me seemed the overwhelmingly more tenable (as well as attractive) position.
Thirdly and finally, what really hit me was the extent to which in certain respects ‘radical’ feminism isn’t really radical at all. Of course, that needs to be qualified: I take the ultimate aim of radical feminists to be a society in which gender ceases to be any more a defining characteristic of individuals than is, say, height or hair colour. That is, we transcend the ‘gender binary’ that dictates that all human beings must be ‘men’ or ‘women’, and that along with that division (which I am increasingly convinced is socially imposed rather than simply biological, as the intuitive reaction would suggest) the social expectations and pressures associated with being a ‘man’ or a ‘woman’ are left behind. Of course, that is pretty radical – but that’s radicalism at the end-goal, conceptual level. What interested me was the extent to which the radicals practicalproposals – about the fair treatment of women, attitudes and stances to issues such as prostitution, the treatment of women in all professions, social attitudes towards sexuality, the frankly appalling treatment of women by the judicial system in all cases of (especially sexual) violence, the changing of prevalent attitudes to women as sex objects and correspondingly to attitudes about rape, etc – are if anything a straightforward, simple and logical extension of the moral compassion that we (by which I mean society, and in particular well-brought up men, i.e. not pig-headed selfish bastards) already claim to adhere to. And what this comes to is the realisation that in many ways ‘radical feminism’ is radical only because society is so far behind where it should be. I take that to be both an interesting – as well as a deeply worrying – conclusion.
Bye Bye The Sun Sunday, Mar 2 2008
Current Affairs and Politics 9:50 pm
Unfortunately for The Sun, it turns out that Loony Lefties still inhabit Balliol JCR – and by the looks of things, there’s quite a few of them.
Tonight I brought a motion to the JCR General Meeting proposing that we cease to buy The Sun with collective funds. After a relatively short debate, the motion was passed by overwhelming majority. By overwhelming I mean that it wasn’t even worth counting votes (done via raised hands) because support was so evident – though as a rough guess I’d say the ratio was about 5-1 in favour.
Gutted for the rugby team
Sod Off to Nauseating Jingoistic Idiocy Sunday, Mar 2 2008
Current Affairs and Politics 10:15 am
Frankly I am sick to death of hearing/reading/seeing about Prince Harry the Terror of the Taliban.
So he went to Afghanistan. Big deal. If you’re in the army, and there’s a war, then you go. I hate the way he is being portrayed as some sort of hero, some sort of confirmation of the greatness of Bitain given the fact that he is ‘our’ Prince.
I find it very hard to believe that he will have been anywhere near serious sources of danger – imagine the scandal if Prince Harry was killed in Afghanistan by enemy forces without the British people even knowing he was there. But regardless of that, it just seems insane that this is being given and is receiving so much attention. I mean, if the story was “incredibly rich, over-privileged and not very bright posh kid ends up in total shit hold fighting for his life, what a reality check” i wouldn’t mind so much. What I really cannot abide is the story as “brave Prince [a symbol of much that is anachronistic and wrong with 'modern' Britain] reminds us all of our [mindless] patriotic duties, and the expectation that we [unquestioningly] glorify the existence of [not just] the monarchy, [but also of this particular idiot who is so stupid that a few years ago he didn't understand that it's not OK to go dressed as an SS officer to fancy dress parties] – and on top of that, don’t forget that war is romantic and something to be justified”.
In short, this is not 1914 and you’ve no excuse for pretending nothing’s changes since then. Harry is not a Hero.
