Accomplished women October 2, 2007
Posted by Zenobia in class matters, gender stereotyping.trackback
I’m noticing a certain narrative around feminism that I’m not sure I like. In fact, I find it kind of discouraging: the idea that most of us came to feminism because we’re somehow special, because we were always tomboys, we read lots, we were smart in school, whatever. We were different from the other girls, we didn’t do what was expected of us, and as a result, we turned towards the only logical conclusion: feminism.
Accordingly, we’re following in the footsteps of the female role models in the books we grew up with, which we so like to read (as book-reading women, who would never look at a women’s magazine unless we’ve thought of a witty name for them first), who are smart, strong, perfect, witty, possibly attractive but in a unique way, tomboyish, and the rest of it. We’re applying a literary model to ourselves that ranges from Jane Austen heroines to George in the Famous Five, via Harriet the Spy, Roald Dahl’s Matilda, Hermione in Harry Potter, and many others that we grew up identifying with. Of course, there are more complex things going on there too, but all of these heroines are unique and clever and somehow different from their peers. Often they spend their time recording their remarks in personal diaries, reading their beloved books (believe me, I love literature, but book-fetishism and that general bookworm atmosphere that seeps from the walls at Waterstones just makes me want to burn them all – memorise them, have them in some disembodied form, whatever), or otherwise disdainfully observing their peers.
There are several problems with that. The first, of course, is that if women really got to be like that by default, there would be no need for feminism. What I’m challenging here is the assumption that these qualities somehow make us noteworthy, and are somehow innate to us and mark us out as special – perhaps chosen for feminism. It might not be said in so many words, but it’s often present just by virtue of the fact that it goes completely unquestioned.
Often, the suggestion that some women might not meet that set of criteria is even taken as an insult to women as a whole, if you so much as say “there aren’t many women authors / musicians / scientists” instead of “it’s difficult for women to become authors / musicians / scientists”. They’re taken to be the template for “the intelligent woman”. To suggest that the vast majority of women, in fact, aren’t like that at all, is to call all women stupid. The fact is, most women don’t even want to meet that set of criteria, which is, let’s face it, very narrow and very culturally specific to the Western bourgeoisie: they’re not so much assessments of someone’s knowledge or experience, more their ability to fit into their social class. And hell, even the eccentric woman, or the unusual woman, is very white, middle-class ideal. Most of the fictional characters mentioned above are the creations of fairly conservative authors. That’s not a diss – particularly not of Jane Austen – merely an observation.
In fact, it might be useful to bring in another fictional character here to help make a connection, the product of a group of more progressive, left-leaning authors: Lisa Simpson. Lisa is supposed to be the smart Simpson, and in fact has all of the characteristics of all the heroines mentioned above: she gets straight As, and nobody understands her. However, Lisa doesn’t really live in a world populated by bumbling fools who don’t understand her even though she thinks she does: it’s clear that everyone is as smart as her, even Homer, only how smart characters appear is inversely proportional to how much power and influence they have. So naturally, Lisa, being an eight-year-old girl, is allowed to be the smartest – with the possible exception of her baby sister Maggie.
Of course, the Simpsons isn’t reality, but it makes a very pertinent observation. To take another example, let’s get back to Jane Austen. While her heroines often break the mould in some way, the society women in her books often refer to themselves and their peers as “accomplished women”: they speak several languages, play an instrument, draw good portraits, have scintillating conversation, or look good and have good manners – sometimes combinations of all of those. Fast forward to 21st century feminism, and what are we celebrating? Women who read books, have high-powered jobs, play sports, speak several languages, and generally kick large amounts of arse. Yet is there any less need of feminism than in the time of Mary Wollstonecraft? Emphatically, no.
In fact, if I had to pick a fictional character I was most like as a child, it would probably be Lisa Simpson, forever demanding more grammar tests at school, believing myself to be smarter than my peers, feeling horribly jealous whenever anyone beat me at composition or music, even down to the choice of snarky remarks. Yet one of the most ego-bruising (and ultimately liberating) realisations for me has been to realise that I’m not special or smarter than other people. Most of my accomplishments are unremarkable, or they were placed in my lap because I was born into a middle-class family. Often I was even steered towards them because they were gender-appropriate, or would help me to get a cultured, educated husband, whether that was conscious or subconscious, all the while believing that I wanted none of that, and certainly not a husband, flowers, or a wedding cake. Or I could be “one of the few women in a male-dominated profession”, thus superior in some way to all other women, and possibly dress eccentrically and enjoy my own company more than that of other people. Yes, sometimes I might have even steered myself in that direction. How does that make me different from Caroline Bingley? So, I use less rouge than her BBC TV adaptation, and I certainly hope I’ve been less snooty to people over the years, although I can’t be 100% sure of that, with the things I’ve thought about bin men, factory workers, my classmates at school, and yes, even people of different races, even different sexual orientations (even, or especially, when I’ve questioned my own sexuality), and even other women.
But you don’t get to reject privilege and fight for equality until you recognise your own, and that means recognising all of your internalised racism, classism, sexism, and homophobia. And that means recognising that they might still be there, and that you didn’t magically become right about everything once you became a feminist. Feminism isn’t about some of us being born superwomen and demanding that the world recognise us as such. It isn’t an exclusive club. It’s about freedom for all women, not just the smart ones with the secret handshake and the book club. Not even if we build a special treehouse.
Shit!
I’ve now got that “oh dear, I recognise myself in this” feeling. Hmmm. I may post on this.
Thank you for making me think
Hmmmm yes some tough questions here! I definitely identify in that I was also a kid who never fitted in a school and who’s gender performance was always “wrong,” no matter what I did. Maybe feminism gives some of us a way to make ourselves feel a bit special and maybe we need that a little … but it’s obviously a bad thing if it leads to general looking down on other women who aren’t special feminists. At what point do we start being the very cliquey cool girls we hated so much at school?
Also, a lot of the achievements we think of as feminist achievements are actually marks of privilege, and things that a smart middle-class woman would be expected to do anyway - you look at elite dating agency ads, matching international businessmen with heiresses, and it’s all there, the several languages, directorship of several companies, love for literature and classical music, all of it.
And anyway, I usually find the stuff that makes me similar to other women more liberating than the stuff that would make me special.
Besides, feeling special is too much like the feeling I used to get when looking at cashiers and people who worked in shops(losers, drones, etc.)It’s really enormously classist. I was brought up to feel like a special loner, but my less privileged friends were usually brought up - and told by teachers - to believe that they wouldn’t amount to much.
And there’s the point about empowerment too - middle-class women are maybe not the least empowered, but they’re in the most comfortable situation and less likely to do anything about it. So, I can go on the internet and call myself a revolutionary socialist feminist, and I can even get a T-shirt with Rosa Luxembourg on it that says “this is what a revolutionary socialist feminist looks like”. I know where to get one. But it doesn’t make much difference how revolutionary I am if I just talk about it on the internet, or use it as part of my identity.
I’m not sure about this one, to be honest. I don’t really identify with the typical feminist childhood you describe, and have certainly never thought I was special or set apart from everyone else. Yes, I love to read, and find it hard to understand people who choose not to read, but I don’t see that as a particularly feminist trait. Obviously, if you decide you are a feminist you are likely to read a lot of feminist writing.
When I write letters of complaint and take other actions in the line of feminist ‘duty’, I don’t think I’m particularly doing it for myself. I’m doing it for future generations, so they won’t have to put up with the things that we do.
I think you’re describing a stereotype. I think we should be trying to do away with ‘feminist’ stereotypes, but having said that we can’t suddenly be something that we’re not. I’m a mum who doesn’t work outside of the home. I have been feminist since I was a teenager and I’m now in my mid-30’s. Now I feel more strongly about the cause than I have ever done before, probably because I have more time to reflect on things that are happening, and more experience too. We are not well off, my husband is a gardener, we get by.
All I’m trying to say is, I think it’s more important to focus on the issues and what we can do about them, rather than what we are like as people or how we are seen by others, if that makes any sense. We all need to just get on with the job. x
I disagree, I definitely think we need to address our prejudices and our connections to the ideology we’re trying to do away with.
Besides, it was actually a post about a trend I’ve noticed in a lot of feminist blogs, and a set of trappings which I’ve fallen for myself in the past, and probably still do for all I know. It’s more about the stuff from our background we embrace almost unconsciously, not the stuff we decide to do deliberately.
And of course I can’t guess what the experiences of each of the individual several thousand feminist bloggers there are out there, so there is going to be a certain amount of generalisation.
If it doesn’t apply to you, and you’re a fantastically tolerant person who isn’t at all affected by her origins, social class, or any other factors, then good for you, but unless you are constantly and simultaneously being channelled into the minds of a significant number of feminists in the Western hemisphere, I don’t see how your husband being a gardener exactly invalidates my point. At best, it means nothing I said applies to you directly, which is fine.
I wasn’t trying to invalidate your point. I was trying to join in the discussion and give my opinion on the article you wrote.
That’s fine Debs, but you weren’t really giving much of an opinion, you were pretty much just saying that you disagreed with me purely on the grounds that what I said doesn’t apply to you.
You’re allowed to disagree. However, I’m not even sure you got my point (which is fine too, maybe I wasn’t clear enough). I’m mainly talking about middle-class privilege, the fictional characters we grow up with, and how all of this affects us.
I will respond to your point about feminist stereotypes though - I agree they should be banished. But the one I mentioned in my post is one of them, and I do see a lot of feminists, particularly bloggers, embracing it, as I have done myself. It’s not really a stereotype commonly used to debunk feminists or make them all out to be hags, like a lot of other stereotypes. It’s one that we tend to wholeheartedly embrace.
I wasn’t saying anything as simple as “feminists who read are bad and intolerant” either. Just that, to put it bluntly, literature deserves better than to be used as a badge of superiority by a bunch of ladies who lunch.
I’m not saying that feminists are all ladies who lunch either. Just that white, Western feminists have centuries’ worth of these old habits behind them, and it’s hard to get rid of them. In fact, sometimes we’re just so used to them we don’t even notice them.
Mainly, I was responding to the number of bloggers I’ve seen describing themselves as smart tomboys, and comparing this to a lot of fictional characters, and wondering if they were aware of exactly what they were embracing.
What you’re given to read as a kid and what you read later on can have a huge influence on how you view yourself later on.
I know this is kind of an easy thing for me to say, but I’d suggest you re-read my post if you want to elaborate on your opinion, because this sounds like a lame excuse, but I really don’t think you got what I was on about.
“Feminism isn’t about some of us being born superwomen and demanding that the world recognise us as such. It isn’t an exclusive club. It’s about freedom for all women, not just the smart ones with the secret handshake and the book club.”
I did read the post, and I got your point entirely, and in my comment I agreed with your conclusion (quoted here), or thought I did, though it seems I didn’t do a very good job of it! I do have a different point of view on some of the points you make, and it seems, a different way of expressing myself too! I did not mean to sound critical, it’s a good post.
Okay, I’ll point out the bits where I think you got the wrong end of the stick
Yes, I love to read, and find it hard to understand people who choose not to read, but I don’t see that as a particularly feminist trait. Obviously, if you decide you are a feminist you are likely to read a lot of feminist writing.
A lot of people do think that reading marks them out as feminists though - understandable, I guess, because traditionally women aren’t supposed to be smart, etc. Although traditionally, women do read a fuckload of novels. And yeah, obviously, it’s a bit of a prerequisite to at least take some feminist theory on board.
When I write letters of complaint and take other actions in the line of feminist ‘duty’, I don’t think I’m particularly doing it for myself. I’m doing it for future generations, so they won’t have to put up with the things that we do.
See, 1) I’m not sure how that’s relevant here, and 2) I don’t think anyone really does it for themselves. I mean, you get satisfaction out of it, but it’s also a risk to take. But where, exactly, did I say that feminists do these things for themselves? I wasn’t really describing what feminists do, more the way we view ourselves and how it affects how we think.
you can’t suddenly be someone you’re not
Yeah, precisely my point. We’ve had centuries of these values and role models and expectations, we grow up with them. We don’t suddenly throw them off when we become feminists.
I don’t really care whether you were criticising me or not (knock yourself out if you want, my skin is thick :p). I just get the impression, from your comments, that you feel that you’re not at all affected by your surroundings, your culture, other people’s expectations… which would be a bit of a supernatural feat.
Sometimes things shouldn’t matter, but they still do, and they affect a lot of people. That’s why they have to be addressed and dealt with.
“I just get the impression, from your comments, that you feel that you’re not at all affected by your surroundings, your culture, other people’s expectations… which would be a bit of a supernatural feat.”
I didn’t say or imply that, as to do so would be utterly ridiculous.
The point I was trying to make was this: I don’t feel that the books I read growing up, or the shows I saw, affected my choice to become a feminist. I don’t even think I ‘became’ a feminist; I remember having ideas when I was very young that you could call ‘feminist’, and I guess they never quite got hammered out of me. I gave you information about my family etc to show you I am not anything special. No degrees, no job, just a housewife and mum.
If I feel this way, yet still identify as feminist, there must be many other women who feel the same, too, which is why I thought it was important to make my point.
This is all reminding my of an article that’s on the F Word at the moment “Who me? I’m just a housewife.” about how women can feel excluded or looked down upon by feminism. I think it’s relevant to this discussion.
Anyway, I don’t know whether I’m just not explaining myself very well today, but I did read and fully understand your post, I just wanted to present a different point of view. I think we’re a bit at cross-purposes here so I’m just going to bugger off now - enjoyed your post though x
This is all reminding my of an article that’s on the F Word at the moment “Who me? I’m just a housewife.” about how women can feel excluded or looked down upon by feminism. I think it’s relevant to this discussion.
So, basically, we agree?
Cause I was saying that privileged, white feminists often forget that their experience doesn’t apply to the majority of women.
Er, so we’re cool I guess. It just took 80,000 words to establish that fact. Whatever.
I can identify but for me it was never gender based but maybe more class based, council estate kid with single mother on benefits, reading books sure did single you out as ‘’special” (definately not for the positive) and I suppose I did get into that mindset as a result.
Nothing kicked my arse out of it more than taking an interest in feminism and finding all the other ‘’special” but well educated and privelaged women. That sure does make you feel inferior, especially if you decide to communicate on a forum where the general attitudes tend to be ”this opinion is right as I have knowledge gained from X book/source to back me up therefore your opinion based on personal experience or viewpoint is wrong” .
Shamefully I have to admit it sent me scuttling away with my tail betwen my legs but it did give me more of an insight into myself and feminism as a whole and I’ve ventured back but I can imagine a lot of women don’t.
Also I think the dialogue with Debs unwittingly proved your initial post to be more than correct.
I just wanted to say that though I agree with what you said, it would perhaps be useful to consider that those “non-feminists” have something we feminists don’t. They are more socially accepted than we are.
We grow up being “special” for the good and the bad. Maybe feminism is a way of turning the bad, like being a social outcast, into “bad for a reason”.
That’s definitely true in my case. When I look at non-feminists I see women who have lots of friends, who engage in socially accepted behaviour and are, therefore, socially accepted, who don’t dwell on “How on EARTH will I find a boyfriend if I’m a feminist”.
For me, they have something I don’t. Being another one in the crowd can be pretty rewarding.
Just wanting to add my two-pence.
Nothing kicked my arse out of it more than taking an interest in feminism and finding all the other ‘’special” but well educated and privelaged women. That sure does make you feel inferior, especially if you decide to communicate on a forum where the general attitudes tend to be ”this opinion is right as I have knowledge gained from X book/source to back me up therefore your opinion based on personal experience or viewpoint is wrong” .
Yeah, I can more than believe that. For the record, I grew up on an estate in a Parisian suburb, I say I had a middle-class childhood because my dad started making oodles of money in the early 90s, which continuted for a short period of time, but considering I’m a secretary living with a call-centre worker, I’m not exactly driving three Mercedes at once to my job as a high-powered executive or anything. I do, however, walk and talk pretty much like a middle-class person, and I notice the difference between the way I’m treated in discussions, and the way people who are more obviously working class are treated.
I can believe that openly reading books in a Council Estate would mark you out as different as well. That said, I know quite a few people on Council Estates who read plenty of books and are self-educated, but if they did it in public there would probably be projectiles coming their way. That said, different doesn’t mean special or smarter. I know some people who got extremely high test scores in school, but the school thought they were from rough backgrounds, and no one gave a shit about them, so they ended up not going to uni, working at shit jobs, and believing themselves to be uncultured and never even touching a book. I think intelligence isn’t so much innate as dependent on how you’re treated and what people’s expectations are - hence my Lisa Simpson example, really.
As for the dialogue with Debs, I was more frustrated because my post was saying “privileged feminists have this and that attitude”, and Debs seemed to be saying “I somewhat disagree, because I’m not privileged and I don’t have that attitude”. Nothing to do with her experience being irrelevant to feminism in general - it’s relevant, it’s just not any more universal than what I was describing. In fact, my point is that privileged feminists tend to treat it as universal, and it’s not.
I also wasn’t describing so much a typical feminist childhood, more of a typical set of middle-class values. Obviously, feminists can, and should come from all walks of life. In fact, I’d say it entails giving up a certain amount of privilege, or at least being aware of where that privilege comes from, particularly, and I should have emphasised this in my post more, if it’s the type of privilege that’s exchanged for true equality.
I just wanted to say that though I agree with what you said, it would perhaps be useful to consider that those “non-feminists” have something we feminists don’t. They are more socially accepted than we are.
I don’t know. I see what you’re saying (see my point above about exchanging equality for certain privileges). But feminism is about all women, not those who are marked out as social outcasts from birth. I just can’t think of it in terms of “us” and “them”. Besides, there are far, far greater inequalities that can make you a social outcast than just reading a copy of the Second Sex on the bus.
Yeah, wondering how you’ll get a boyfriend who won’t buy you stupid flowers and lingerie is a big one, it was for me. But you can work with it, it’s not exactly the greatest form of discrimination.
I just wonder how much of feminist identity actually depends on feeling like social outcasts. How many of us like to feel we’re more persecuted than the pink, fluffy women who watch soap operas?
For instance, I keep quiet about my politics in the workplace, but I’m not sure how much of me likes the fact that if I spoke up people would be outraged. Or believes they’d be outraged at all - who’s to say they wouldn’t just think I was extremely silly?
I must admit that I have been patronising in the past about women who don’t define themselves as feminists, and that I’ve often thought of myself as someone who has “seen the light” about patriarchal attitudes and women’s oppression. The fact is not all women have the same opinions as me, or the same experiences. Sometimes however, you do have to leave aside relativism and continue working towards goals that are good for women whether we/they appreciate them or even acknowledge them or not. If this movement is altruistic and really for the good of all women and not just self-defined feminists then it’s important not to need or demand positive feedback but just to stick to one’s principles.
I do also think that a bit if introspection by individual feminists is vital. I have always been a feminist and I’ve always felt passionately about women’s rights. I haven’t always lived as if those rights apply to me as much as to everyone else. There’s no point lecturing other women about how they can and should leave abusive relationships if we don’t apply the same logic to our own lives.
On a similar topic, I think it was useful for me to read up on both the challenges faced by ethnic minorities and particularly by black feminist in a political arena that is deeply divided by education, knowledge and opportunity. It’s not okay to ignore race issues in feminism because although it is about women, there are definitely different perspectives that have to be considered or we risk blaming ignorance, which is the unwitting trump card of a lot of men - I sometimes excuse them for their stupid opinions because they haven’t thought enough about what they mean. I don’t want to use the same tactics!
[...] I didn’t fit in, I was a bit of a tomboy and read a lot, I was special. I wrote about it before here . It’s only a sugar-coated way of saying ‘The world isn’t good enough for me’. I’m not [...]