patriarchy

Tiger Hills

mandy — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 10:00:00 +0000

We used to argue as young literary critics that it wasn’t possible to have feminist romantic writing: the terms were contradictory by their very definition. Love stories were necessarily fissured by unequal relations of power, vulnerability, and injustice. This has always been troubling to me, as a diehard romantic, a firm believer in love stories, and a feminist. It was a niggling worry, too, as I read, and was instantly absorbed in, Tiger Hills.

Tiger Hills spans over fifty years, in the lovely region of Coorg in south India—from the last few decades of the nineteenth century until the buildup to the Second World War. It follows the destinies of two large clans from neighbouring villages, but the fulcrum of this epic novel is surely Devi. The story follows her life, from the heavily symbolic moment of her birth, and evolves around her relationships with three men: Devanna, who becomes her close friend and almost-sibling when his mother returns to their village from her marital home, and then dies; Machaiah, the larger-than-life "tiger killer" of the neighbouring Kambeymada clan; and Appaiah, Machaiah’s son. These individuals and their passions for each other, inextricable from the physical and cultural landscape of Coorg (belonging in the novel is almost always used interchangeably for person and place), form a gripping and emotive narrative.

The story would not be without Devi, and yet ironically, its three parts are named after the men in her life. The beauty of the story lies in the way fate, a strongly patriarchal family and custom, and the foreclosing of choices for Devi over and over again are interrogated by Devi’s own will and restlessness with her situation. At points in the story she recedes into an overly romanticised backdrop, and yet, the crucial turns the plot takes are when she emerges from this passivity, and fights for spaces and moments of happiness. What also keeps you drawn to the narrative is how the characters grow and change, both with tumultuous events that happen in their lives but also, subtly, with the movement of time and the accumulation of hurt and loss. So Devi’s changing relationship with Devanna is quite fascinating to follow, from close friendship to bitterness and repulsion, and these must intertwine in the end to reach a point of acceptance, despite painful past circumstances.

An excessiveness in language and plot notwithstanding, and a thinning hold over the reader’s attention, especially towards the last third of this expansive novel, Tiger Hills is a love story that absorbs you. It makes you angry when Devi—so willful, ostensibly strong, and controlling—seems trapped in her own life, giving in to the silences that patriarchy necessitates, and not articulating the injustices she suffers. But if it is frustrating, it also reflects our own love stories. and seems to understand the complexity of relations that come with love: the intense vulnerability, the often painful negotiations we make along the way, and the tenuous hold we ever have on happiness.

Written by: Disha Mullick, September 16th 2010

Velvet Jihad: Muslim Women’s Quiet Resistance to Islamic Fundamentalism

admin — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 08:00:00 +0000

By Faegheh Shirazi

University of Florida Press

Central to Islamic scripturalist assertion, or "Islamic fundamentalism" as it is often referred to, is the notion of the ideal Muslim woman, whose status, roles and functions are defined by rules and norms deriving from a narrow, restrictive and patriarchal reading of the Islamic scripturalist tradition. The ‘ideal’ Muslim woman in Islamic ‘fundamentalist’ discourse is defined as being submissive to male authority, while being modest and virtuous in a patriarchally-defined sense. She is to be carefully controlled and monitored, at all times, by patriarchal authority. The spread of Islamic ‘fundamentalism’ throughout Muslim communities has had seriously negative consequences for Muslim women’s rights and status. Not surprisingly, groups of Muslim women across the world have begun mobilizing against Islamic ‘fundamentalism’, some on a secular basis, using secular human rights arguments, others, working within a broadly-defined Islamic tradition, employing Islamic arguments for achieving gender equality and challenging patriarchy and misogyny in the name of Islam.

Velvet Jihad provides a fascinating general picture of the status and conditions of women in Muslim communities around the world faced with the challenge of Islamic scripturalist assertion. Shirazi admits that patriarchy is, of course, not a Muslim-specific phenomenon, but argues that the forms that it takes in Muslim communities and Muslim-majority countries makes it particularly problematic and difficult to oppose in that it is generally sought to be legitimised in the name of religion. Hence, challenging such patriarchy is a particularly arduous task as it is easily branded as a challenge to religion itself. The book catalogues a long list of hurdles and restrictions that millions of Muslim women across the world are subjected to in the name of Islam.

With abysmal levels of education, and being economically heavily dependent on their men folk, it is not surprising that vast numbers Muslim women simply have no choice but to accept their lot. Many, as Shirazi tells us, even accept this as mandated by Islam itself. Yet, Shirazi tells us there is what she colourfully calls a "velvet jihad" astir in across numerous Muslim communities spearheaded by bold Muslim women who are now vocally and stridently challenging all forms of oppression in the name of Islam. She likens it to the "velvet revolution," a peaceful movement of resistance that brought down communist dictatorships in eastern Europe in the late 1980s.

What, then, are the means that assertive Muslim women (and there are many, as Shirazi documents) are today adopting to fight patriarchy and misogyny in the name of Islam? They fall into two broad categories. Some Muslim women, who may be defined as "Muslim feminists," are seeking to oppose patriarchal laws, rules, and practices using modern human rights arguments, such as secularism, freedom, justice, and democracy, linking up with reformers, both men and women, both within their communities and countries and at the international level, to highlight the oppression of women in the name of Islam. Shirazi describes numerous such Muslim women’s groups across the world which are using this approach, with varying degrees of success. This strategy might not, however, have much resonance with religious-minded Muslims, who could easily be made to be believe that such arguments for women’s rights are not just "un-Islamic," but, rather, represent, as it is often put, an "anti-Islamic, Western conspiracy." Indeed, that precisely is what Islamic conservatives and radicals never tire of arguing.

A more culturally-rooted, and, therefore, for many practising Muslims, perhaps a more acceptable way of shaping demands for gender equality and of critiquing misogyny and patriarchy in the name of Islam, Shirazi points out, is represented by the phenomenon often labeled as "Islamic feminism." Not all the women (and men) who are engaged in articulating an Islamic feminist discourse and politics might, however, identify with that label, given the political and ideological baggage associated with the term feminism. Be that as it may, Islamic feminism, Shirazi shows by drawing on empirical evidence from extensive fieldwork in Africa, Asia, Europe, and America as well as a massive corpus of literature available on the Internet, is today a growing challenge to the authoritarian, deeply-patriarchal versions of Islam zealously upheld both Islamic conservatives and ‘fundamentalists’, who, despite their differences, are almost unanimous on the "women’s question."

Citing the works—both literary as well as practical—of a vast number of Muslim women scholars and activists as they seek to counter patriarchy in the name of Islam, Shirazi concludes that their valiant efforts, derided and fiercely opposed by powerful patriarchal forces, truly herald the arrival of a velvet jihad, one that can play a key role in not just championing Muslim women’s rights but also in fashioning more compassionate and just understandings of Islam while critiquing and standing up to violent, authoritarian, patriarchal mullahs and Islamists who claim to represent Islamic authenticity. That, in short, is what this inspiring book is all about.

A longer, more in-depth version of this review can be found at CounterCurrents

Written by: Yoginder Sikand, August 19th 2010

Kanyadaan (5/14/2010)

admin — Mon, 24 May 2010 16:01:00 +0000

Directed by Ethnic Cultural Theatre

Seattle, Washington

It is with much anticipation that I attended the opening night show of Kanyadaan, a play written by Vijay Tendulkar and directed by Pratidhwani’s Agastya Kohli. The reasons for my enthusiasm were multifold; for one, I’ve been a fan of Agastya’s (and Pratidhwani’s) work for a few years now, and second, I had personally worked with all members of Kanyadaan’s talented cast in last year’s incisive political satire, Ek Tha Gadha, Urf Aladad Khan. But most of all, from what I knew of the play (and the playwright), it promised a complex plot of important societal concerns that the actors, no doubt, would find challenging to portray, and the audience, perhaps, would find equally challenging to process.

Given the challenging complexity of the characters, the performances by the cast were considerably accomplished. Jayant Bhopatkar, playing Nath, fills the stage with his booming, bombastic monologues that reek of a nauseating brand of “democratic” patriarchy. Nanda Tewari, as Nath’s wife Seva, plays beautifully, his complicit complement in maintaining the status quo, carrying that curious blend of feminist independence and practical subservience that is so characteristic of many of us empowered (Indian) women. But the actors who held my eye the most were Aditi Chaubal, playing Jyoti, and Ankur Gupta, playing Arun.

It couldn’t have been easy to step into the shoes of an abused woman, trapped between her idealistic upbringing and her misplaced muse, or those of an oppressed dalit flitting between mouthfuls of crass expletives and self-flagellating, indulgent remorse. I found my heartstrings empathetically connected with Jyoti throughout the play, beyond reason – beyond the need to understand, judge, or admonish her. And, quite paradoxically, I found Arun’s condition just as poignant; he too was an anchor for my heartfelt attention, once again, beyond my need to understand, judge, or admonish him. Both Aditi and Ankur came out on top, bringing forth with surprising ability the complexity and contradictions of these two central characters, each of whom manifests the societal conditions and conditioning that Tendulkar wants us to consider.

Bhushan Mehendale, playing the support role of Jyoti’s brother Jai Prakash, embodies to great effect the emasculation of his father’s domineering presence and the confusion and repressed frustration of an under-expressed youth. Even C.P. Ramakrishnan and Ravi Sathyam, appearing briefly as insolent sidekicks of Arun, demonstrate with their body language alone that no role is a small one. The performances left no doubt in my mind that Kohli selected a great cast and nurtured the best out of them.

In terms of storyline flow, on occasion the rapid-fire pace of the deliveries disabled me from stopping to ponder, to read more between the lines, to connect more fully to the complex characters, especially with Jyoti’s and Arun’s. I missed the whitespace – the larger canvas that might have better held and cradled the complexities and contradictions portrayed – and for this reason alone, some of the turns in the plot may have come across as somewhat simplistic and not-so-believable. Yet, a tight cadence was necessary to keep the intensity and tension of the storyline; so, achieving a fine balance was undoubtedly no mean task.

My heartfelt kudos go to director Agastya Kohli and the entire cast and crew of Kanyadaan, for taking on this challenging subject and play, and for orchestrating yet another thoughtful production for the Seattle Indian diaspora.

Cross-posted from Pratidhwani

Written by: Shahana Dattagupta, May 24th 2010

To Kill a Tiger: A Memoir of Korea

admin — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 17:01:00 +0000

By Jid Lee

Overlook Press

Spanning five generations, this memoir explores the author’s upbringing and the sociopolitical climate of Korea during the last century through the anecdotes and interpretations of her family. The tales come mainly from her father as told to her mother. (Fathers, we learn, would only discuss such matters with their sons and sometimes their wives, but never with their "unworthy" daughters).

Historical lessons such as these are strewn throughout the text, interspersed with details from Lee’s day-to-day life as a child and teenager and anecdotes told to her by her family members (although most are the author’s own). These are all enhanced by the inclusion of black and white photographs of her family and community placed in nearly every chapter.

Lee presents us with analyses and divergent points of view regarding the Korean War, the Japanese-American-Korean triangle, and what’s gone on in South and North Korea for the last century. Lee also presents us with a brief history of the Korean Feminist movement, which was a joy to read about.

To Kill a Tiger is heavy on Confucian family structure and dynamics. We learn that Lee always came last after her brothers: her Big Brother and Less Big Brother, along with her Father, always got the best foods and the biggest portions, whereas Big Sister, the author, Little Sister, Mother, and Grandmother got the least nourishing foods and the smallest portions—especially Mother and Grandmother. Lee's upbringing is a stifling way of life, so oppressive and palpably rendered by the author that it floated off the page and painted my experience of the memoir, sometimes making me shake with disdain. This is particularly true in the passages told from the viewpoint of the author, a vehemently feminist child who argued and fought for her equality in repeated bursts of frustration and anger, way before she ever knew what feminism was or that anyone might agree with her.

Despite many entertaining sections, the book becomes very tiresome to read after one realizes that the drawn-out conversations between Lee and her family members (her mother in particular) do not appear in just a chapter or two, but consistently throughout. We continually receive a one-sided view of decades of Korean history and politics, often unofficial because the facts have ostensibly been covered up by the government. These portions discuss Korea’s strained relationships with Japan and the United States, the torture of political prisoners and women systematically raped in wars, and other tremendously delicate matters. Not only are these dialogues interminable, but they are also unreliable.

We also read redundant arguments between the author and her misogynist father regarding her worth as a female. I understand that Lee wants to make clear the derisive and poisonous attitude of her male family members towards her and women in general, but it quickly becomes like a broken record.

I had to skip entire pages in order to get through this memoir, which I lament because the premise of this book is promising and intriguing. Alas, it sorely disappoints.

What I applaud is this: It is a story of a tough, feminist kid who goes through hell and emerges victorious against everyone’s expectations. Lee triumphantly gives patriarchy the finger and fulfills her dreams, giving women everywhere—and especially those languishing in a sexist society more oppressive than that of Western culture—hope for everything they wish to accomplish.

Written by: Natalia Real, February 13th 2010

Muslim Women Reformers: Inspiring Voices Against Oppression

admin — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:01:00 +0000

By Ida Lichter

Prometheus Books

Ida Lichter’s Muslim Women Reformers ambitiously highlights the work of Muslim women around the globe involving an array of interrelated issues, including lack of gender equity in education and the workplace, domestic violence, human trafficking, biased family law practices, and rape with impunity. Many of these problems stem from the socioeconomic inequality experienced globally by women of all backgrounds, and problems that transcend class and religious boundaries. In other instances, misogynist traditions have persisted because local and national authorities, in a gross affront to the majority of Muslims, pass abuses off as Islamic practices.

The book is organized by country, with the largest number of women representing Afghanistan, Iran, and Saudi Arabia, localities prominent in current U.S. political discourse. However, it is worth mentioning that the nations with the largest number of Muslims are actually Indonesia, India, and Pakistan. The reformers’ biographies are preceded by a very brief background section describing important historic events in the region. In terms of methodology, Lichter, a psychiatrist by training, does not give many specifics about her selection process or research methods.

The biographies are brief but moving; many of these women are literally risking their lives in order to work for change. Lichter also included biographies of a half dozen men, offering a hopeful sense that allies can help to transform a view of masculinity that allows the demeaning of women. The biographies are presented as summary reports without a lot of analysis; for someone unfamiliar with the issues at hand, this brevity can be misleading at times.

An encouraging aspect is the inclusion of transnational efforts to eradicate the practice of honor killings. This practice is not a teaching of Islam, but an example of the very worst patriarchal violence. Eliminating this practice requires cultural change backed by political will, and this work represents an area where the Qur’an and the Hadith (sayings of the prophet Muhammad) could eventually bring positive change. Those who justify honor killings may not give up “tradition” for a Western interpretation of human rights. However, reform could happen by relying on the early history of Islam, when Muhammad laid down harsh tribal customs in favor of practices that protected women in that historic context. In this light, the custom clearly is un-Islamic.

One omission felt problematic. The sections on Canada, France, and the U.S. lacked background pages. Creating this difference in the presentation of material seems only to aggravate existing dichotomies between North America and Europe and the rest of the world’s Muslims. Furthermore, the issues facing Muslims in these nations are complex and well worth an introduction. By neglecting to include background on France, the author assumes readers are familiar with the history of France and its former colonies, as well as the anti-Arab racism that plagues the country. (These issues were highlighted this summer, when France was again in the news for its laws against wearing hijab in public.)

The broad scope of Muslim Women Reformers is a weakness. By including women from so many localities, the author had to sacrifice depth of discussion, giving the book the dry feel of an introductory text. The stronger sections of the book are those with the most voices represented, and if I had been editor, I would have suggested Lichter develop that strength and focus the book on those nations.

Written by: Lisa Rand, November 24th 2009

The Madwoman of Bethlehem

admin — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 09:03:00 +0000

By Rosine Nimeh-Mailloux

Second Story Press

Before I started to read The Madwoman of Bethlehem, a story about a woman’s struggle against her patriarchal culture, I wondered whether it would be depressing. It wasn’t. From the beginning, when Rosine Nimeh-Mailloux sets up the present, where Amal is incarcerated in an asylum for women, the writing captivated me.

Yes, the main character, Amal, is born into tough Palestinian life as a female, subjected to her mean grandmother and later, drunken husband, but I never once feel sorry for her. She gives off the energy of a feisty spirit and does not give up. It doesn’t matter how terrible the situation is; we all have the choice to fight or give up.

As Amal’s history is slowly revealed, the author also provides background of the other characters, so that the reader gains understanding of the complex context they exist in. It isn’t just Amal who is expected to obey her husband, but all women, according to Allah. By treating Amal as a servant, she will learn proper behavior—or so her family believes.

Amal refuses to accept the ancient view that women belong to men to do with as they please, she argues that her family betrays her by trading her off to get her sister a nice deal. Her view falls on deaf ears, but she does find an ally to turn to during her journey to acceptance.

So many girls and women in many cultures from around the world have been betrayed by their families under the guise of the old “it’s for your own good” philosophy. This novel is inspiring despite this typical letdown. I have spent years resenting my own family’s strict patriarchal ways, but after reading Nimeh-Mailloux’s novel, I know that I have to accept that it is simply their belief system, not mine.

Amal the character may be fictional, but she is based on the lives of women in the author’s family. She is also the voice of oppressed women in today’s world. She is me and you when we learn to stand up to abuse against women and children.

Whether you’re looking for a bit of inspiration or simply a good page-turner, you’ll find it in The Madwoman of Bethlehem. I didn’t want to put the book down. It is an emotional trip, from tears to laughter and back again.

Written by: Nicolette Westfall, November 20th 2009

Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement

admin — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 16:58:00 +0000

By Kathryn Joyce

Beacon Press

When I attended a production of Jesus Christ Superstar as a wee lad of fifteen, I marveled at the song-writing, vocal skills, and daunting cross that loomed amidst a gloomy set design. Being then (and now) agnostic, I was appalled by the religious persecution depicted. I have always been puzzled by the penultimate utterance of Jesus. In the Book of Luke (King James version) 23:34, it is written, “Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.”

I can’t forgive the Christian patriarchy movement subjects of this superbly crafted and deeply troubling new book, for their bad faith, cognitive dissonance, and behavioral misdeeds carry heavy consequences. Whether or not they know what they’re doing remains an open question. Kathryn Joyce’s gripping new account, Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement, is about Christians who want literally to take over and remake the world by outbreeding everyone else, warping the minds of school-children, justifying bigotry with transparent illogic, and systematically denying civil rights. That most of the violence is committed quietly and privately against women and girls, most of whom accede to it with joy and penitence, will give even the most devoutly and egalitarian Christian reader pause. “Forgive them for they know not what they do.” Christian patriarchy movement members who feel imperiled by Jews, lesbians, Muslims, atheists, gay males, feminists, foreigners, and the less fecund seem conveniently to have forgotten these words.

The book’s twenty chapters are divided into three gendered parts—“Wives,” “Mothers,” and “Daughters”—in each of which Joyce deftly explores the bizarre ideology and political-economy of feminine subservience. The resulting dystopian communities in real-time and on-line in cyber-space rival those depicted in novels such as Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid's Tale, George Orwell’s 1984, and Sinclair Lewis’s It Can't Happen Here. This ain’t fiction, however. As befitting their understanding and practice of “complementarian theology,” as opposed to the alleged unnaturalness and godlessness of egalitarian gender relations, men and women in the Christian patriarchy movement believe equally (but differently) in the inherent inferiority of Eve (the Original Sin), females (on biological and spiritual grounds), Jezebel (in terms of sex) and women (who have hearts and minds). Sisters are in the process brainwashed into becoming meek and quiet supporters of their brothers, wives are instructed to remain sexually available to their husbands 24/7 (and forego any contraception), and mothers who don’t home-school their children commit them to Satan. Insofar as submissive females require degradation—the more public, the better—virtually every page is painful to read.

Woe unto the woman who proclaims “domestic abuse” or reveals a less than godly husband. Quiverfull opens by recounting the attempted rehabilitation of the disgraced megachurch founder, Ted Haggard, whose initial denial and then avowal of his use of methamphetamine and male sex workers were ripe with possibility. “Complementarian” theology demands that it be not Haggard but Haggard’s wife, Gayle, who bears the brunt of Christian condemnation from low and high places.

Few books have so affected me. This is not the sledge-hammer account I might have written. With equal parts curiosity and compassion, Joyce explains how and why tens of thousands of American women have “chosen” forms of subservience that bankrupt and humiliate them, that crimp their mental development and that hurt them physically and lead sometimes to social leprosy. Each female interviewed firmly and confidently speaks her motivations and explains her anti-feminism while gleefully ignoring the Malthusian outcome of unfettered fertility.

My sole criticism is that Joyce praises the “openness, generosity, courage, and patience” of her key informants with whom she (sometimes, usually, inherently?) “sharply disagreed,” but without revealing any of those disagreements. Joyce’s secular feminist aesthetics and politics are “clear” enough in mind but not in body: how did she manage the flesh-crawling creepiness and awkward silences without every day saying “that’s obviously horseshit” or “I wouldn’t wish this lifestyle on the daughter of my worst enemy?”

That Quiverfull opens with Gayle Haggard’s exemplary case should rouse outside observers of this noxious fundamentalism not to sit on their hands. As she points out, “to follow these ideas to their conclusions can mean, in very real ways [as women], to disappear.”

Written by: Lawrence James Hammar, Ph.D., June 15th 2009

Secret Son

admin — Sun, 03 May 2009 22:48:00 +0000

By Laila Lalami

Algonquin Books

Having read Laila Lalami’s short fiction collection Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits, I was thrilled to find out she was working on her first novel, Secret Son. Often when I read first-time novelists, I notice some difficulty with dialogue (my own biggest downfall when I’m writing fiction), awkward clichés, and pages of text that don’t really keep the story moving. Lalami managed to escape all these snares and Secret Son is a joy from the beginning to the end.

On her personal blog, Lalami says she was recently asked why the main character is a man, and her response is “Youssef c’est moi”. One might ask just how a woman writes a book about a man, and if the book qualifies for a review from a feminist perspective. If you ask this, you need to read Secret Son.

The story is set in Morocco and tells of Youssef El-Mekki’s coming of age. Youssef is a young man who lives in the slums of Casablanca. He believes the story his mother has always told him: that his father died in an accident when he was very young. He lives as a fatherless child in a patriarchal society. The shocking discovery that his father is not only alive, but also rich, is a seeming fairy tale come true. His mother Rachida warns him that his heart will be broken, but Youssef moves away from her and into an apartment offered by his father. It is not so difficult to imagine the direction the story takes, and eventually Youssef is sent back to his mother after his father’s wife finds out about his existence.

There is commentary on the desperation of life in Casablanca for poor young men who feel drawn into the “family” of fundamentalist leanings or the escapism of drugs. The difficulties posed when living in multiple cultures and the self-discovery of an alternative way are explored when Youssef’s half-sister Amal studies in the U.S. and falls in love with a non-Muslim Latino. The truth of Youssef’s birth and his mother’s precarious living situation reveals an all-too-common truth of a class-conscious society, where the higher classes abuse the women of the lower classes and then discard them.

Although Youssef is the main character, the exploration of women’s roles—and the often stifling and hypocritical expectations put upon them—is a theme throughout the novel. Amal’s rebellion against her father and cultural norms—by insisting on studying in the United States and living with a non-Muslim, non-Arab man without marriage—is a perfect foil for Rachida’s story of love and betrayal by Youssef’s father Nabil, and the ultimate rebuilding of her life.

One of the most interesting things for me as both a writer and reader is the way the story’s narrative actually changes when different characters are speaking. For example, we see the initial meeting between Youssef and Nabil first through Youssef’s narrative and later through Nabil’s. When Nabil reminisces about the meeting there are inconsistencies between the two descriptions. In another area, a visit by Amal to Rachida also varies markedly between the two versions.

Unlike some books, the narrative does not clearly delineate that this part is from one point of view, and this other part is told from another. Instead, the story unfolds organically and it is up to you to catch these interesting discrepancies. I asked Lalami if it was intentional, and she explained: “The technique of using inconsistent dialogues in different points of view is absolutely willful on my part, and in fact I had to stop my copy-editor from trying to make it consistent. You are absolutely right that this is something that reinforces the fundamental fact that we each hear different things in a conversation.”

Lalami’s first novel is a jewel that takes her previously published short stories out for a longer spin and produces a beautiful and moving expose of Morocco’s duality—a duality that exists for many who are straddling two differing cultures. Lalami has taken the threads of several stories and sewn them together into one whole that shows how our lives entwine and how our choices change each other in both tangible and imperceptible ways.

Written by: Aaminah Hernández, May 3rd 2009

Yes Means Yes!: Visions of Female Sexual Power and A World Without Rape

admin — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 11:29:00 +0000

Edited by Jaclyn Friedman, Jessica Valenti

Seal Press

The Apostate: My initial reaction when I heard about the Yes Means Yes! anthology was mixed. It seemed that the problem of rape was being used for a catchy slogan's sake (the catchy slogan being a play on the anti-rape "no means no" rule), and not because it made any real sense. I wasn't sure where you could go with that—connecting sexuality with rape culture in a way that was meaningful for actual cultural change and impact on women's lives.

Professor What If: The introduction notes that the book intends to offer “a frank and in-depth conversation about forward-thinking ways to battle-rape culture,” and the book truly does contain many frank, in-depth conversations that formulate ways to rethink not only preventing rape, but also re-shaping the way we approach sex and sexuality. While the reasons behind the book are laudable, I find the claim that valuing female sexual pleasure will stop rape the book puts forward a bit too simplistic. Although the book nods to the complex socio-cultural factors that perpetuate rape culture, it stops short of really grappling with how rape is a by-product of our patriarchal, militarized, commodified world. I do think this is a very important book that makes crucial contributions to re-thinking sexuality, but it is only part of a much needed conversation we need to have—both in books and in blogs—about eradicating rape culture.

The Apostate: I think rape culture should have been expounded upon more. I don't think people understand the difference between rape and rape culture, and that wasn't really addressed, which gave rise to some of the confusion around why anyone thought Yes Means Yes! would stop rape—the writers didn't think it would! They just want to dismantle rape culture, which is a bigger and more amorphous thing than the specific crime of rape, even if rape takes place within the context of rape culture.

Professor What If: I was impressed with the broad coverage of the book and the diversity of voices. I especially appreciated those pieces that emphasized anti-rape activism must include teaching men not to rape and helping men to recognize rape. Jill Filipovic’s piece, for example, was very effective in examining the social-cultural contexts of rape culture and the need to include men in anti-rape activism and education. I also liked the inclusion of queer, male, fat, sex work, and BDSM perspectives.

The Apostate: My favorite essay was Thomas MacAuley Millar’s. It really dismantled the perceptions of sex as something that is done to you, as a woman, rather than something you (enthusiastically) participate in. That is not a concept enough people understand; and although I get it, I have never seen it articulated so well as Millar did. His essay was beautifully written, cogent, with a great metaphor about sex as music. The commodity model of sex is one of the biggest hurdles women face, if they act like they are free to pursue their pleasure. People don't think their pleasure is really part of the picture at all, since women are the object, not the subject. And another thing: I had never realized how "no means no" continues to frame the sex as between a predator and prey, as Julia Serano defined the terms.

Professor What If: Many of the authors argued against the 'power over' dynamic that shapes our thinking about sexuality by emphasizing mutual consent, doing away with the competition model of sex, ensuring certain partners (namely women) are not objectified/dehumanized, etc. I think this re-thinking of the power dynamics in relation to sex/sexuality are crucial. However, they must also be addressed in relation to those politics of domination that shape our society—patriarchy, capitalism, sexism, racism. Also, I wonder about the subtitle “visions of female sexual power.” Do we really want to rethink sexuality in terms of power? Doesn’t this go against the mutual consent/pleasure model the book upholds?

The Apostate: The emphasis on sexual assault—and personal stories of pain and damage around that—got overwhelming in the second half of the book. The joy of enthusiastically consenting sex got lost in there. I think that focusing on how rape and sexual assault affect women's lives is very important, especially as so much of this reality is not captured in statistics or on the news, but perhaps sex as pain should not have predominated quite as much.

Professor What If: I think an analysis of rape in same-sex or non-heterosexual relationships is missing. In keeping with this notion, the book frames women as rape victims, not covering boys and men as also victims/survivors of rape. For example, as rape within systems like the Catholic Church and public schools is prevalent, this seems a key omission. How could the rape culture condoned by religious establishments or the military be addressed via the “yes means yes” paradigm? In ways, the book leaves out the institutionalized aspect of rape and focuses on “individual rape scripts.” In so doing, it doesn’t fully examine those social structures and institutions that shape sexuality and perpetuate rape culture—the family, the church, the law, the military, etc.

The Apostate: The overall feel I got from the book was very "alternative." It was very citified, and very margins-of-society, written by people we don't hear from on a daily basis in mainstream coverage. Those voices are all the more crucial for being so marginalized, and also because it is on the margins of society that the worst abuses happen. That said, I think it lacked a certain degree of balance. I did think it covered a wide range of issues and perspectives—except for married, heterosexual, middle class sexuality and the sexuality of older people. The only reason I would have liked to see that balance is to "normalize" these issues for the mainstream; so much of this sort of thing is hidden, under wraps, and allowing only the margins to speak out about it gives the deceptive impression that the problem of rape culture is not the problem of all women—which it most certainly is.

Professor What If: I love blogs and blogging, but books are not blogs. Rather than trying to make the two mediums the same, I think we should value each medium (print v. online) in its own right. I found the “hyper-link” structure did not translate well into print format. Further, in keeping with the “blog format” of the book, many of the pieces were written in the less formal, talky style of blogs. Javacia Harris, for example, writes “Don’t get me wrong. I’m certainly not anti-sexy—I’ve been to my fair share of striptease aerobics classes.” This style seems too light for the aims outlined in the introduction and this style allows comments like these to be tossed out with no analysis of the wider cultural contexts that defines normative notions of “sexy” and results in the very existence of striptease aerobics classes in the first place.

Too often the attitude that framed the arguments in the book is that any choice is ok as long as you know why you’re making it. This “sexual empowering choices model” is too simplistic. This is partly due to choosing a “blog style” for the book—a style that makes the book seem a bit too light given the subject matter at hand. While blogs work in a conversational, of-the-minute style, books allow for more thoughtful, hard-hitting, heavily researched writing. Both have their merits, but trying to write a book that functions like a blog makes me wonder about the purpose of going the print publication route; if one is not going to take advantage of a book format (and go into deeper analysis/research), stick to a blog (and indeed, the editors have a blog of the same name now up and running.

The Apostate: I also thought the hyperlink theme was a little redundant. I liked the idea to begin with, but I ended up skipping the lists at the end of each essay and just read linearly. I did glance at a few and thought they didn't always make sense; they tended to include a quarter of the book each time, after every essay. A thematic unity among pieces kind of fell into one's head automatically, so I didn't see the necessity of that. As for the authors being mostly bloggers and part of the blogging community, I do think that it was perhaps a little insular and self-referential. For someone outside that community of bloggers, perhaps a lot of this stuff would be very new—some context is missing and some pieces are more bewildering than others. But overall, the hyperlinking style is easily ignored and doesn't detract, even if it doesn't add.

Professor What If: Examining the many factors that contribute to rape culture is helpful in addressing the pervasiveness of sexual violence. However, I still found there was a bit too much emphasis on what females do/do not do. The introduction notes that often what is missing in analyses of rape is the rapist. This book, with its focus on "yes” and on female’s “owning” their sexuality also under-analyzes rapists, instead focusing on women’s need to familiarize themselves with “enthusiastic consent.” In a strange way, the book thus keeps the onus of changing rape culture squarely on women’s shoulders. Many of the solutions seem a bit too individualized—as if becoming sexually empowered and educated will be enough to stop rape (or at least stop it from happening to oneself). While many of the texts offer useful, concrete suggestions to move towards a world without rape, I think more analysis of how the politics of domination upheld within patriarchy, capitalism, and militarism (all which profoundly shape our world) was needed. Also, we need to examine how intertwined violence and sexuality are in contemporary society—violence is so pervasive that it cannot be extracted from sex/sexuality. All of the enthusiastic “yes’s” in the world won’t change this.

The Apostate: A lot of issues being talked about are really not discussed in our society and they need to be. And I was totally won over by the thesis of the book—that a woman's right and enthusiastic consent to sex were central to how sex and sexual violence are perceived. I’m really glad to see a somewhat mainstream book about women's experiences and hopes for a positive, enthusiastic, feminist ideal that also includes women as sexual creatures: horny, lusty, and slutty. Jaclyn Friedman's essay about overt sexuality really spoke to me on that front.

Professor What If: The book is a really good first step towards re-thinking rape culture. Like Valenti’s other books, it will speak to many young feminists. However, being the theory-loving academic that I am, I found myself writing in the margins comments such as, “But where is the theory?” For that reason, I really liked Lee Jacobs Riggs account of our “sex negative” culture and the ways she also addressed the prisons/the criminal legal system and other oppressive systems. I would have liked more hard-hitting pieces like the ones by Coco Fusco and Miriam Zoila Perez (which were my favorites). Too often elsewhere, I came across the word “probably” being used to assess information. In the end, I also found the attack on second-wavers off-putting. Why does this have to be one of the defining characteristics of third wave texts? We need to get over the feminist blame game. No one “wave” has all the answers, and I think sometimes third wave feminism fails to address it’s own shortcomings.

Written by: The Apostate, Professor What If, February 16th 2009

The Lyrics

admin — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 01:45:00 +0000

By Fanny Howe

Graywolf Press

Fanny Howe’s poetry collection, The Lyrics, includes poems that thrive on the lyric poem’s conventions; the poems include both the personal world of the speaker, as well as the universal world. Each poem is also a lyric by itself; each lyric comprises The Lyrics spoken about in the title. It is not uncommon for Howe to include first person plurals; the result is a collection that addresses the emotional journey of not just its speakers, but the people around the speakers.

If ever there was a poem serving as an atlas or guide for this collection’s reader, it is the poem “28.” from the first section of the book, “The Days.” This poem represents the journey that the reader, speaker(s) and poet are taking. Howe writes:

*A day is a freely given poem; it can be short or long. Contradiction, coincidence.

An emotional experience. Perseverance through hell.

A series of events you must not forget. Twelve sunsets, twenty nine dawns, all in one.

An epiphany. How long your hopes last

Until the next poem.*

This poem explains both the terrain of the poem’s conception and focus, as well as the terrain of human experience. The poems in this collection deal with “contradiction” and “coincidence” and how each “epiphany” leads to another “series of events.” The poems are short, but together they make one large poem. These “lyrics” are subtitled with numbers, as each forms the bulk of a larger poem. As the aforementioned poem is contained under “The Days,” it is both its own poem, as well as a piece of a larger poem. The lyrical poem’s “emotional experience” is what drives the collection’s pieces, but, oftentimes, the poems circle around subject matter just as humans see the world.

Gender has a prominent place in Howe’s book. If this collection is about the journeys we take and the accompanying emotions, then gender is a logical issue to include; afterall, Howe is not only a poet, but also a female poet. In poems such as “5.” - in the section titled, “Home” - power and equality are spoken about in the situation Howe presents. She writes about “the long pause” when “men and women/struggle with equal strength” and how, eventually, the man will “drag me through the streets” and how he “dropped me and the children at a station/Like statues he had cut, baked and broken.” Here, gender is spoken about explicitly. The male figure uses and abuses, and the female speaks as if beyond the grave of how “I must have been insane.” Here, Howe demonstrates the ways in which men and women have interacted, and how violent a traditional space, such as “home,” can be.

Patriarchal culture is also discussed in terms of war. In her poem, “6.” - in the section titled “School” - she writes how “humans and horses together” are “one thing.” Here, the culture is brought to an animalistic level; horses and humans, “pricks/in their pants…/draw up plans/for the continuing slaughter.” Here, the patriarchial violence is highlighted to draw attention to the culture’s violence. For this poem to exist in the "School" section insinuates the way in which violence and patriarchal culture are things that are learned.

The poems in Howe’s collection explore the world in which people live and the elements that affect each collective and individual experience. The poems contain inversions, repetition and an elliptical take on subjects such as religion, education, nature and gender. The world is broken into pieces, but the whole is created through each “lyric.”

Written by: Lisa Bower, July 19th 2007

PJ Harvey's Rid of Me: A Story

admin — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 11:47:00 +0000

By Kate Schatz

Continuum

Rid of Me is the latest addition to Continuum International’s 33 1/3 series, which takes seminal albums of the last 40 years and allows writers of various bents to write about, around, through and over the music that informs the books. Rid of Me takes its cue from PJ Harvey’s album of the same title and appropriately veers away from its surface toward an unusual and fictive adventure into the irreverently dark psychology(ies) that made the album popular in the first place.

There is a tendency in reviewing an interdisciplinary project like this, to weigh the “derivative” text (Schatz’s Rid of Me) against the original work (Harvey’s Rid of Me), but it’s been awhile since I was really into the album (even back then it wasn’t one of my mainstays). Not to mention that to evaluate the book in this way would too readily presuppose that it is necessary to have some insider knowledge of the album in order to appreciate Schatz’s book (which is, frankly, not true), and it also tends to overvalue the original album instead of considering the generative potential of the intermingling of creative forms.

Certainly, for the knowing reader, the lyrics are weaved into Schatz’s text, but what is more interesting is the way that the story disembarks from the album through a detour into the troubled backstories of two “characters” (Mary and Kathleen) mentioned on the album. In Schatz’s story, having struggled in a patriarchal world that disavows their subjectivity, both Mary and Kathleen are escapees bound together in their troubled pasts as much as in their desire to leave the world that traumatized them behind. As their histories and scarred psychologies are revealed to us through dream, hallucination, flashback and narration, I became increasingly unsure of the boundaries between reality and hallucination, between utopia and dystopia. I suspect this suspension of disbelief, evoked by the text, is meant to mimic in the reader the tenuous link between self and world that both Mary and Kathleen experienced in their lives, and continue to struggle with even in their escape. The implication is that one cannot really leave trauma behind, but can only watch it burn and “go on,” and, in this sense, the story is as much about female love and reconciliation as it is about the violence and struggle of being a woman in a patriarchal world.

Written by: Kate Morris, June 27th 2007

HELP! I'm Living with a (Man) Boy

admin — Sat, 19 May 2007 13:57:00 +0000

By Betty McLellan

Spinifex Press

Seems like writer and feminist psychotherapist Betty McLellan has heard my cries. Help! I’m Living with a (Man) Boy tackles what really needs to happen in dealing with the men (or boys) in your life. As a mother of two - one by birth and one who suddenly morphed into my own personal man/boy after we said “I do” - I think McLellan hit the head on the spot: “Poor men.” Okay, don’t jump out of your seat quite yet.

McLellan takes a new approach to typical problems that women encounter in their relationships with men - “men are sold a lie… believing they are superior” - and she wants to put an empowering spin on typical self-help books for women. Rather than advising women to grin and bear it or, better yet, fix themselves, she empowers women to take charge of these relationships and shape those boys into the men that are hiding under that little boy demeanor.

McLellan packs a punch with her true-to-life advice, mixed with a light and humorous touch. What happens when the man of your dreams turns out to be a child? McLellan urges women to take a look at the behavior of children and place those behaviors in a body resembling their dream man to truly understand them. So what’s that mean for those of us living with these boys? And what’s the relationship fix? McLellan doesn’t promise that this advice will always work, but she does discuss the joy of a mutually respectful, honest and loving relationship and how to help the man/boy in one's life get there.

Written by: Megan Blair, May 19th 2007