Have a little faith, Fay...

Fay Weldon recently published an article in which she claims that feminism has turned women into wage slaves.

"The downside of feminism", she says, "is that women are now expected to go out to work...Once it was only the men who were wage-slaves, and now it's the men and the women too".

Oh, Fay. Herstorian wishes you had more faith in feminism! It's like the Dalai Lama saying "Well the downside of world peace is..."

Weldon does praise feminism for offering the "least worst" method for reforming society: "And least worst is feminist society, which is more or less what we're getting now. And people are on the whole happier than they were before. Although everybody's much more tired"

Not a stunning endorsement from such a ground-breaking feminist.

Weldon is right to call attention to the problems with the modern family and the current organization of labour. Work-life balance, the need for two-incomes, the cost and availability of childcare, the decline of social capital are all feminist issues that need to be addressed. But blaming feminism for these issues is thinking so lazy it is on par with arguments that the current economic crisis is due to too many women in the workforce taking up jobs (instead of bankers who, dissatisfied by the size of their cocks, compensate by making risky investments and giving themselves massive bonuses).

The fact that women are 'wage slaves' now too is not an inevitable, unfortunate result of the feminist movement. And it doesn't mean that we should give up on feminism. Herstorian sees it as evidence that the feminist project is far from complete. In a truly 'feminist society' everybody, male or female, would be able to make a decent wage working decent hours. They wouldn't have to choose between raising a family and having an inspiring, challenging career. If thus far the feminist movement has been about allowing women into male spaces then its project now should transforming those spaces. Only then can we truly call our society a 'feminist society'. But to do so we need to have little more faith in what feminism can do.

Don't forget about the men...

Several universities, including Manchester University and Oxford, have recently launched 'men's groups' - exclusive male groups that will "celebrate and explore the concept of masculinity". Not surprisingly, this has provoked outrage by many. Prominent feminists say these men's groups undermine efforts to achieve equality and that society in general is already male-oriented. Herstorian says: it's true that most social spaces are male-oriented. Which is exactly why we need men's groups to discuss masculinity and traditional gender roles. Alex Linsley, founder of the men's group at Oxford explains:

"There is so much conflicting information for men. There is massive confusion as to what being a man means, and how to be a good man. Should you be the sensitive all-caring, perhaps the 'feminised' man? Or should you be the hard, take no crap from anybody kind of figure?

Neither of those are particularly useful paradigms. But there's perhaps things we could learn from both perspectives."

If feminists really want to achieve equality, then they have to develop a more nuanced, complex understanding of the subordination of women - namely, how it is made possible by dominant female and male gender archetypes. Social equality for women is unlikely to be achieved simply by overthrowing old notions about what women should do, be and want. We need a similar revolution in how we think men should behave and what we think masculinity should mean.

Time is a feminist issue...

Herstorian apologizes deeply for her long absence. She has been working loads at a uninspiring, ill-paid bar job. This leaves little time to sort out the problems of the world.

But then again most women in the world spend their time doing uninspiring and ill-paid - and usually exploitative, dangerous, or abusive - jobs. Isn't it ironic that it is just these women that we need to hear from the most? These women have a perspective on gendered inequalities that is invaluable. And thus, usually invisible.

Anyways, no more moping, let's crack on. Jill Berry, president of the Girls' School Association, recently said that girls need to be taught to be 'realistic' about the difficulties of being both a good mother and career woman. Berry does well to highly the difficulties of balancing work and family. But why shouldn't men be taught to be 'realistic' about the difficulties of being a good father and a 'career' man (by the way career men are never called career men; they are either just men or - if they are good at it - good providers)? Most importantly, though, Herstorian wishes Berry had advocated a' dose of realism' for the state and society. She casts the difficulties of balancing work and family as an individual, female issue instead of as a crucial issue that affects society en masse and requires a mass solution. We need to provide more social services to help women - and men - to manage careers and family more easily. Flextime, job sharing, and state-sponsored childcare is a start. But to really make a difference we need to make it socially acceptable for men to be equally responsible for childcare and the running of a successful home. That is the 'dose of reality' we need. If we don't, we risk losing the brain power and social capital of half of the our population.

Herstorian needs back up....

Check out Piyali Bhattacharya's column on South Asian feminisms here. And not just because she's Herstorian's friend.

Biggest Sex Slavery Inquiry Fails to Net Single Trafficker...

....and biggest Herstorian inquiry of major media coverage of sex trafficking fails to find single article that incorporates a female perspective. Today's Guardian contained two articles concerning sex trafficking and sexual slavery in the UK. In these articles, Nick Davies reports that Operation Pentameter Two, the UK's biggest anti-trafficking operation to date, failed to find any traffickers.. Out of 406 arrests, 153 were released without charge or with a caution for a minor offense, 73 were charged with violating migration laws, 76 were convicted but for non-trafficking offenses. Only 96 people were arrested and held, and only 67 were charged. Of those 67 only 22 were prosecuted. In sum, only 15 traffickers were arrested and prosecuted as such. From these numbers Nick argues that the scale and nature of sex trafficking into the UK has been greatly exaggerated. Well this is just great! A feminist issue Herstorian can stop worrying about! Thanks, Nick!

Unfortunately, Nick's logic is as faulty as Jan Moir's (see 19 October). Davies reels off numbers but fails to give an adequate account of just how police investigations into sex trafficking is actually undertaken. Police forces frequently have little knowledge or understanding of the nuances of sex trafficking and thus can often fail to recognize a trafficker or a trafficked person. Police action on sex trafficking usually takes the form of raids on massage parlors or brothels, such as the Soho raids in 2003. In these raids anyone suspected of being trafficked (read: any foreign woman) is arrested and held in police detention. They are then interviewed by a police officer or a immigration officer to see if they have been trafficking. Is it really likely that a foreign-born woman, who may be illiterate or have very limited English, would be able to stand up and say "Hey I've been trafficked, yes I have! That's my trafficker right there!"?!?!? It is unlikely that a trafficked woman, who may have been raped, beaten, or otherwise abused, would be emotionally, mentally, financially or physically able to open up to a stranger in a uniform, especially one with the ability to deport her.

She may not even realize that she has experienced a rights violation punishable by law. Think about it. The line between smuggling and trafficking is blurry. Very rarely is a trafficked woman actually abducted in her home in the middle of the night and kept in chains. A woman may have may have decided to migrate voluntarily but was then captured, tricked or coerced in the migration process. Migrating is expensive and dangerous for disadvantaged women. Usually women rely on third-parties to aid the migration process (such as procuring visas, loaning money for transport). They arrive in the country of destination with "debts" in the tens of thousands and so are in effect held as indentured sex labour until their "debts" are paid off. The 2003 UN Protocol on the Trafficking of Persons recognizes situations such as this, where a person is coerced or tricked into migration or sex work, as trafficking. But is it likely that a trafficked woman would be up-to-date on the niceties of international legislation regarding human trafficking?

This has huge ramifications for the identification and prosecution of traffickers, which rely on victim testimony. If victims are unable or unwilling to report, identify, or testify against their traffickers, then it doesn't surprise Herstorian that only 15 traffickers have been prosecuted. This doesn't mean that the sex trafficking and slavery phenomenon is exaggerated. It means we don't have adequate means yet of addressing it.

There's nothing smart about Jan Moir...

There's nothing Herstorian hates more than gay-bashing....except maybe bad statistics. Last Saturday's Daily Mail ran an article by Jan Moir arguing that there was "nothing natural" about gay Boyzone member Stephen Gately's death in Mallorca last week. At the end of her article Moir states:

Gay activists are always calling for tolerance and understanding about same-sex relationships, arguing that they are just the same as heterosexual marriages. Not everyone, they say, is like George Michael.

Of course, in many cases this may be true. Yet the recent death of Kevin McGee, the former husband of Little Britain star Matt Lucas, and now the dubious events of Gately's last night raise troubling questions about what happened.

So Moir's argument is, basically: Gately was gay and died, Kevin McGee was gay and died. Hmmm... I guess, being gay is no good. That's just bad maths. Every statistics professor on the planet starts off the course with the same example of bad stats: Everyone who has eaten beans has died. Therefore, beans are fatal. Moir needs a refresher course in basic stats. Actually, just plain old logical thinking would do the trick.

She goes on to bash Gately's elements of "gay" lifestyle, citing such activities as smoking pot and clubbing - as if heterosexual people never smoke pot or go clubbing. Why, when a gay person does it, does it suddenly have something to do with his or her sexuality?

Poor Polanski....

Ruh-roh. Last week, film-maker Roman Polanski was arrested in Switzerland for the 1977 rape of Samantha Geimer. Having plead guilty to 'having sex with a minor', Polanski fled the U.S., fearing the judge would reneg on his plea agreement. He has been 'on the run' ever since - by the way, 'on the run' has meant living the good life in France, having lots of sex (hopefully consensually-and with people old enough to spell 'consent'-but one never knows). His arrest has been greeted with a suitable level of outrage from artists, writers, philosophers, politicians and journalists around the world. Yay! Justice is served.....

Wait a minute though....they seem to be outraged that Roman was arrested at all..... "Free Roman Polanski?

Surely these petitions are the work of back-water, unenlightened, hill-billy misogynist cavemen? Hmmm... Woody Allen? Herstorian doesn't understand. Oh, that's right. It's Woody Allen. He enjoys getting frisky with his adopted daughter. Don't worry. Didn't you know that artists with penises can do whatever they want? If they've got a solo exhibition or an endorsement from The Times or an Academy Award under their belt it's not disgusting, ladies, it's bohemian and enlightened. Anyways, Woody MUST be a one-off....

Wait a minute....Salman Rushdie? Milan Kundera? These aren't backwards hicks stuck in the Stone Age. These are our intelligentsia. These are our great thinkers. What is going on?

The Polanski case, and particularly the intensity of support for him from so many areas of seemingly enlightened public life, just reveals how little progress we've actually made in creating a world in which women can live free of the violence of sexual assault. And by violence, Herstorian doesn't just mean physical force, but the psychic and emotional violence of coercion, of manipulation, of threat or of the abuse of a position of power. Herstorian's answer: we need to start thinking more deeply about what the terms we use to describe rape, consent, power, or responsibility actually mean - and whether they are actually adequate descriptions of the way women move through the world, experience their bodies and interact with men. A more stringent definition of responsibility in the Roman Polanski case could leave no doubt - even in the mind of Salman Rushdie - that Polanski is a criminal and should be punished accordingly.

On a brighter note, now that Herstorian no longer has any respect for Salman Rushdie, she no longer feels obligated to suffer through Midnight's Children.