In an article featured in a new anthology, then re-printed in the New Statesman, Suzanne Moore told her readers that “the desired body for women is that of “a Brazilian transsexual”.” What then came after was a bucket load of abuse, telling Moore that she was transphobic and not a real feminist.
This desire to denote what is and is not a feminist is something that often comes up in order to throw the argument of a person with whom one disagrees into disarray. But is it always called for?
Moore’s argument, after the abuse she received for her “throwaway” line, as she described it, is that “Everything I wanted for my daughters and yours is being denied them: housing, free education, employment.” In this sense, why are we tearing blows out of each other when in fact there is something significantly more important going on in the real world?
On Twitter she noted: “Not one trans activist has engaged with economic argument or attack on welfare. Why not?”
While many are happy to sit and have very academicised debates about language and “privilege-checking”, the government is tearing down the markers of civil society. Identity is important, for sure, and Moore doesn’t care whether “you were born a woman or became one”, the difficulty that the coalition are making for women at the moment is worth an infinite amount more time than semantics.
Let us, for example, take this popular notion, championed by many today, that “my feminism will be intersectional [meaning: understanding oppression within society, such as racism, sexism, homophobia, and religion-based bigotry, as not acting independently of one another] or it will be bullshit!” I’m certain that the most committed feminists who prioritise combatting prejudice of all stripes accept that intersectionality is, at best, a bolt-on extra to feminism proper.
Feminism itself is the ability for women to resist the expectations of them in a society that is unequal. Intersectionality crowds in many other social ills that need fighting against generally speaking, but in theory runs the risk of confusing people as to what it means. If by intersectionality one means being an active participant in several fights to achieve harmony for everyone (what, say Caitlin Moran calls “Thumbs up for the six billion”) then let’s just say this.
But ultimately calling people out on their disregard for intersectionality, then advancing the argument that they are therefore not a feminist, is a peculiar exercise.
The same argument occurs when we look at “privilege-checking”, and particularly where it has been used to shun the work of Moore and Moran (calling them transphobic and then levelling the accusation at them that they are not checking their cisgender privilege – which is the privilege one has of identifying as the gender that societal norms has classified them as, for example the simultaneity of having a penis and identifying as male also).
At the heart of “privilege-checking” however is a kind of narcissism and desire to exercise guilt, which arouses a great many problems of itself. First of all “privilege-checking” assumes that we can only understand things we have direct experience of, as Tom Midlane recently put it. This just needlessly problematises solidarity and divides those who are fighting the good fight against societal injustice into blocks of oppressed and non-oppressed. The protest space is necessarily subjective, sure, but it is also a space for fighting the greater good in union.
Looking deep into one’s soul and seeking self-privilege is peculiarly individualistic and contrary to the spirit of protest.
Secondly, I suspect it only serves to underline a guilt which, stripped down, is ultimately hubristic. I’m reminded of how Pascal Bruckner defined guilt in his book on the subject, as a substitute for power for the middle class European individual in a post-empire age, or a way to appear to reverse the co-ordinates of power relations in society, when in fact the presence of guilt firmly keeps those relations in place.
In this sense guilt only divides people from the guilty (non-oppressed) to the non-guilty (oppressed).
In her defence of “privilege-checking”, Zoe Stavri claims that: “It is utterly urgent that we listen to those who we claim to be fighting for and avoid contributing to any continuing oppression.” In itself of course those fighting the good fight should listen to the voices of those who are affected most by a particular oppression, but what has this to do with the ultimately pointless self-flagellation of checking one’s self for privilege – surely it is clear to see how this exercise stems steadfastly in to an exercise of needless privileged self-pity.
Of course if you are, for example, Caitlin Moran, and neglect to privilege-check when addressing particular subjects, you can expect to be told that your feminism is not real. This is what the Vagenda editors Rhiannon and Holly were criticising when they spoke out for Moran’s popular feminism. They pointed out that:
“Achieving “intersectionality” is impossible unless you can communicate clearly, with everyone. Moran at least speaks a language that we all understand. And how many other feminists can you credit with that?”
Moran, in her book How to be a Woman, shows precisely how to make a simple feminist argument that doesn’t drift off into postmodern obscurity. In calling for women to be true to themselves she says:
“If what you read in magazines and papers makes you feel uneasy or shitty – don’t buy them! If you’re vexed by corporate entertaining taking place in titty-bars – shame your colleagues! If you feel oppressed by the idea of an expensive wedding – ignore your mother-in-law, and run away to a registry office!”
I myself am more inclined to say if reading magazines and papers makes you feel uneasy then it is time to challenge those institutions much like one would be challenging male colleagues who frequent strip clubs. But the point Moran is simply making, in her inimitably punchy and accessible way, is that in the fight for dignity and equality we must all ensure that societal expectations, based on outdated and outmoded dictation, are quashed.
Moran, in How to be a Woman, makes this essential point in another way too. While working as a music journalist for Melody Maker she came in to contact with the Riot Grrrl movement in America – a post-punk, female-dominated genre that had a message to spread about inequality and female dignity.
The problem was in how it expressed itself. The movement chose not to talk to mainstream press outlets and to distribute their literature at obscure punk shows. But Moran felt this was not reaching the right audience, such as those girls and women “in council blocks, listening to Radio 1, fantasising about New Kids on the Block.”
In this sense the postmodern feminist left does a similar thing, casing its protest in a language most are unfamiliar with, thereby ensuring it remains necessarily hierarchical.
Caitlin Moran is not only an essential feminist, to be read by experts and non-experts alike, she provides a corrective to other strands of feminist thought. Reading How to be a Woman, I realised that it wasn’t simply a popularising of Germaine Greer’s The Female Eunuch, but a correction of its flaws.
She does this by rejecting the opinion that everything has to be viewed through the grand totality of patriarchal dominance. In the same way that the cigar in a dream can often just be a cigar, not a penis, so a heel worn by a woman does not have to be symptomatic of her being at the beck and call of men – instead she may want to wear them, as Moran notes, because “they think they make their legs look thinner”.
Perhaps, one might argue, this is a consequence of the totalising effect of the patriarchal order, but the important thing to note is that this is not often how it would be experienced. What Moran is saying is that the intention and the act of wearing a heel has very often been called out erroneously by feminists such as Greer, and it is a critique that is not necessarily useful looking at it today.
Inherent to dismissing Moran and Suzanne Moore as un-feminist is snobbery, followed by a desire to academicise the real lives of women living in an unequal society, and to maintain the differentiation between oppressed and non-oppressed via the vehicle of narcissistic guilt. My own feminism does not share this desire, and my feminism will be egalitarian or it will be bullshit!
44 Responses to “Comment: On Feminism and the Suzanne Moore Controversy”
CFE
It’s amusing to observe this storm in a PC teacup, and hardly surprising that it’s happening. The whole leftist “equality” ideology is built on lies. To be a leftist, you must deny truth, and to (pretend to) believe lies.
The races are not equal. The sexes are not equal. Cutting of a man’s genitalia does not make him a woman. Some men are better (at anything you care to mention) than others. European men hate to see their women with Negroes or Asians. The sexually disabled are not equal to the sexually healthy.
Ash
You seem to have a very peculiar idea of what ‘leftist “equality” ideology’ is all about. Nobody believes, or pretends to believe, that all people are equal in all respects – e.g. that men and women are equally tall, that black and white people are equally at risk of developing skin cancer, that disabled and able-bodied people are able to perform any given activity equally well. What most people (not just leftists) now accept, however, is that all people are of equal moral value and should have equal rights. Whatever differences there are between black and white people are not such as to justify treating black people as slaves and white people as free. Whatever differences there are between men and women are not such as to justify denying women the vote, or access to education. And so on.
Ash
You seem to have a very peculiar idea of what ‘leftist “equality” ideology’ is all about. Nobody believes, or pretends to believe, that all people are equal in all respects – e.g. that men and women are equally tall, that black and white people are equally at risk of developing skin cancer, that disabled and able-bodied people are able to perform any given activity equally well. What most people (not just leftists) now accept, however, is that all people are of equal moral value and should have equal rights. Whatever differences there are between black and white people are not such as to justify treating black people as slaves and white people as free. Whatever differences there are between men and women are not such as to justify denying women the vote, or access to education. And so on.
Vagina Riot
I used to be a fan of Julie Burchill’s column when she wrote for the Guardian! Yeah, I was young, but she often made me laugh. I’ve always considered myself a feminist, however I am now the mother of a transgender child: a “chick with a dick” if you will. This whole furore has left me feeling utterly sickened. If Burchill, Moore or even Greer think transgenderism is solely about “getting dicks chopped off” they are hugely ignorant and misinformed and I challenge any “feminist” to come and live with me for a week and see what our family has to deal with every day and witness what our child has to endure. Our child was born a boy but identifies and has always identified from the time she could walk and talk, as a girl. She doesn’t think she’s a girl. She is a girl. But she has had to struggle to convince us and everyone around her of what she know’s to be true and authentic and innate. Her definition of self is not according to the genetalia she was born with but an acute awareness of an innate sense of self and gender identity. And to think that so called feminists would try and deny her that?
Only a fool could imagine that trans activists and allies are not engaged with education, housing, health, welfare and the economy. These issues affect trans people and their families as much as the next person. How pompous, ridiculous and irrelevant do you have to be to imagine we don’t engage alongside everyone else? Opinion is only valid if it is based on truth, experience and facts and not a vile, bigoted, ignorant perspective.
Melvin Polatnick
The social life of an Alpha male is not complex, he sees
each woman as self-centered and goal oriented. As one in demand the Alpha male
fully controls the situation, he pays little and gets a lot. Most women are
left in tears as the Alpha male moves on to fresh pastures, many times leaving
behind an unsupported litter. The opposite is true for the wimp; he bears the
burdens of the Alpha Male. Most unwed mothers find a wimp to help support
themselves and the children of the Alpha male. Unfortunately 80% of men are
wimps who would rather pay for the wanton pleasures of the Alpha Male than stay
single and masturbate in their mother’s basement.