Mind the Gap

The 25th Disability Blog Carnival is up at If the World Had Wheels.

Briefly, I’d like to point out some of the many problems with Joanna Moorhead’s interview with Geri Halliwell in yesterday’s Guardian, and with the trend of the Guardian getting these women and trying to badger them into calling themselves feminists.

For a start, I don’t give a flying fuck whether Geri Halliwell calls herself a feminist or not. In fact, if it was just a case of her personal identity, I’d be all for it. Since there’s more than personal identity at stake (something the Guardian, and indeed a lot of feminists, seem to have forgotten), I’m not sure she’s the kind of person I want on my side, considering what “skills” she has to contribute to the cause. Although, she’s doing about as okay as a former Spice Girl could, I guess.

My main issue, though, is with the Guardian. Geri said some pretty bad stuff in that interview. Most obviously, she used “lesbianism” in a pejorative sense. She also did that irritating “let’s disown the bra-burning” thing. Now, I’ve seen footage of that shit, and I think there was nothing wrong with it, in fact it was pretty damn great. But no digressions now. She also thinks feminism would emasculate men, and that we need to reclaim our femininity. Of course, I mean, she’s Geri Halliwell. But even cutting her some slack, those are all far, far worse things to say than “Gee, I’m not really sure I’m a feminist, really…”. Also, the Guardian did the same thing with Carmen Electra a while ago. And feminism isn’t even remotely part of her job description. It’s cool if she wants to be a feminist, but I’m certainly not going to lose sleep over it if she isn’t.

It’s important not to be afraid of the word, of course, and to use it and be proud of the history behind it. But not everyone wants to identify as feminist, quite often for very good reasons of their own. And most of those who aren’t feminist, or choose not to self-apply the word, are still contributing plenty to society, and good enough for them. I don’t think Missy Elliott is remotely a feminist, but she’s doing a lot more for the cause just through being excellent at what she does than a whole truckload full of Pinks, Pipettes and Dittos.

Besides, doesn’t it say something about how passive and traditionally feminine the Guardian thinks we all should be, that we should attach so much value to what we are, and how we come across, rather than what we think and do?

The 46th Carnival of Feminists is up at Cubically Challenged.

I wanted to post about this last week, but I’m glad someone (namely Kira Cochrane of the Guardian) mentioned the fact that French rock star Bertrand Cantat is coming out of jail shortly, after serving four years of an eight-year sentence for accidentally killing his partner Marie Trintignan, with nineteen not-accidental blows, after becoming jealous when she received a text message from her ex-husband.

However, unlike Kira, I’m not so much interested in the legal ins and outs and speculation as to what would have happened if a woman had killed her husband. I’m more interested in the reaction of his fans.

I happen to know that a lot of them are not very forgiving when some random guy turns up in the news for raping and killing women. Yet they are very forgiving of Bertrand Cantat. Why? Because they feel he’s not a natural-born killer, he’s not one of these bastards who beats his wife every night and then hits her a bit too hard one day and kills her. He’s a good guy who happened to have one drink too many one night and lost his rag. You can point out all you like that the only difference is that he’s famous and has been baring his soul to interviewers for years, whereas all you generally know about Mr X from Sarcelles who beats his wife is generally just that, plus his name, skin colour, occupation, and whether he drinks a lot or possibly kicks his dog. An article in Le Monde a few years ago said that people were treating Cantat a bit like a big brother who’d gone astray, and that’s kind of true.

It’s also a little chilling, when you see the same people’s reaction to Marie Trintignan’s role. Whereas Cantat is largely blameless according to fans (and I don’t mean just his, I mean rock fans in general), the view with regards to Trintignan is that she was drunk too, she was hysterical (whereas what he had was more like a kind of virile anger), and damn it, it takes two people to fight, so you know, she kind of asked for it (some mentioned that she cockteased him or that she was having affairs or whatever). Some even regret that Cantat will never be able to put out another album because of “those stupid feminist organisations who would lynch him”, not to mention “that damn Trintignan family”.

Of course, disagree with any of this, and the response is “No one knows anything about how he feels right now, so let justice take its course”.

I don’t generally get worked up over news stories, particularly when it comes to treating celebrities like they’re more important than other people, but I’m finding these reactions, on the whole, a little distressing. And it’s not just celebrities, having grown up in a small village with plenty of gossip, I remember hearing of one case where a man hanged himself, and the general opinion was that it was because of his wife being so terrible - strangely analogous to reactions to Courtney Love when Kurt Cobain killed himself. Not that I’m a fan of Courtney, mind you.

It’s all the more interesting when you change the woman’s role from a sexual partner to a mother, sister or daughter, or the individually defined man to a shadowy wife-beater stereotype.

I’m not entirely sure what I’m trying to say with this. Maybe that it’s quite chilling how the media can manipulate our love of gossip so easily. Or that people have such opinions of women and men in the first place. Or that there are broad, moral character traits almost biologically assigned to each sex. It’s all very Biblical.

I’m re-posting this now we’re getting closer.

The 33rd Carnival Against Sexual Violence is up at Abyss2Hope

For more information: bristol_feminist(AT)yahoo(DOT)co(DOT)uk

Cruella has a great post up about the Dove campaign.

This advertising campaign seems to make feminists feel rather guilty for criticising a case of the beauty industry misappropriating a few feminist ideas for very unfeminist ends. Cruella’s post is good for alleviating any misgivings on that score.

A free activist conference for feminists of all ages and political backgrounds. Saturday 20 October, University of East London.

More here.

You may remember the case of Ashley at the beginning of the year, the young American girl given radical treatment and surgery to stunt her growth and prevent sexual development. This case generated an enormous amount of debate.

Now Feministe alert us to a similar case here in the UK.

From the BBC:

The mother of a severely disabled teenager has asked doctors to give her daughter a hysterectomy to stop her from starting menstruation.

Alison Thorpe, 45, from Essex, says 15-year-old Katie, who has cerebral palsy, would be confused by periods and they would cause her indignity.

Doctors are now seeking legal approval before carrying out the surgery.

The disabled charity Scope said the operation would set a “disturbing” precedent for other disabled girls.

If approved, it will be the first time in the UK a hysterectomy is carried out without it being medically needed.

Zuzu at Feministe comments:

The question, of course, is whether this decision will be for Katie’s benefit. And I just can’t say for sure, with such limited information. But I can say for sure that this case raises a lot of red flags for me. There’s also the issue of bodily autonomy, which is a particularly fraught subject in the disability-rights context, one that was argued with a great deal of intensity in the case of Ashley, a Seattle girl referred to as a “pillow angel,” whose growth was stunted surgically (which included the removal of her uterus and breast tissue so that they would not interfere with the hormone therapy or cause her discomfort) so that she could remain a size that would allow her parents to care for her at home and be able to transport her easily so she could be included in family activities. (For some perspectives on the ethics of this choice, see Blue and Planet of the Blind and Lindsay Beyerstein).

As with the Ashley treatment I’m sure this case will result in a chorus of “You can’t criticise the parent’s!” which is odd, because people seem very happy to criticise parents on almost every score, but when they want to give unnecessary surgery to a disabled child who can’t consent, then it seems to become improper to criticise their actions.

Katie’s mother makes it clear that she’s not advocating the treatment, it’s entirely a personal decision, but the problem is that if it goes ahead it does set a disturbing precedent. How will it be possible to say “no” to the parents of other disabled young women? Where do you draw the line?

There have always been disabled women like Katie, and presumably the majority of them have menstruated and reached sexual maturity. Are we seriously suggesting that their lives are rendered unbearable by this experience? On what real evidence of misery is this very serious decision being considered? There’s also the concept of menstruation as something nasty, traumatic, painful and undignified which underlies the case and which I think is very problematic. Not all women experience menstruation as something that seriously damages the quality of their life and why should we assume it would be so terrible for Kate? Also, the point is made in the BBC article that, if it is a problem, there are other ways of preventing menstruation which are not as painful, invasive or traumatic as major surgery, so I do wonder what this is really all about.

Further reading:

A couple more posts from Miss Crip Chick and Brownfemipower.

See also:
UK Disabled People’s Council.
Scope.