Cherchez la Femme - Part 2

Ok, so I utterly failed at writing up Cherchez la Femme the next day. And yes, I am a lazy and haphazard blogger. Also, beyond an immediate whole-hearted endorsement of the evening, as I pondered the event, and discussed some of the ideas with friends and loved ones over the following view days, it took me some time to organise my thoughts. For feminism is complex, it operates in many different spheres simultaneously: personal, professional, social. It touches on understandings of free will, and the role of the environment in shaping subconscious associations, and how you understand yourself as an agent in the world. The degree of responsibility you feel towards others. And I am constantly flummoxed by the murky and mysterious ways in which these ways of knowing and of being interact. As someone dear pointed out to me recently when genuinely curious as to why I would feel so strongly about a feminist cause, my life doesn't show any signs of having experienced disadvantage based on my gender. So why am I so upset?

But I don't want to have an emotional or intellectual outpouring here, nor get too philosophical. Nor will I go into the detail of the night itself. Mel has already done so as articulately as anyone could wish. I enjoyed the night thoroughly, and thought it entirely worthwhile. That said, I'll be honest, I wanted some answers from Cherchez la Femme, and I didn't get them. I got a lot of ideas to ponder instead. And later on, I got questioned about the case for feminism and female disadvantage. Because all the women at Cherchez la Femme were educated, employed, stylish, assertive.

And so the best possible response I can offer to anyone, man or woman, who may wonder what need there is for feminism in our Australian society today, is a simple imaginary exercise.

• Imagine you have grown up in this world a girl. 
• Think about what things adults might have said to you as a child. How important is it to be told you're pretty? How often do you hear that, as opposed to some other praise?
• Imagine you wanted to run around and get muddy and swear and yell. How might that have been responded to by your parents and teachers?
• Imagine reading some of the most exciting profound literature of your youth about wondrous worlds beyond your door. What do the men in these books do? How about the women? How many of the adventurers and protagonists and heroes are men? You're not one.
• Imagine the schoolyard and fighting for the sought after downball courts. Would you win them? What would it take?
• Imagine going into the 7-Eleven to get some milk for your Mum pretty regularly. You pass newspapers, chocolate bars, and a rack of magazines with breasts all over them. You're only little, do you stop and wonder why there are no magazines with men on them? Or is it simply that those ladies are pretty?
• Imagine learning history at school. History is the story of things men have done. There aren't really any women in history. No one seems to notice. You don't. At least, not yet.
• Imagine that despite playing sport all week, when you turn on the television all the players are men. You're not one.
• Imagine being at high school.  Imagine you always do better on tests than the person you have a huge crush on. Do you think he's cool with this?
• You're told to be polite and ladylike to your superiors. You're told that this will be necessary if you want to get ahead in the world. You're told it's not fair but it's just the way it is. Polite and ladylike means non-confrontational.
• Imagine the hierarchy of popularity amongst your friends is determined by their degree of popularity with the opposite sex. As in, whoever the boys like best is who the girls will also defer to. If you haven't already, you may start to say to yourself, what the fuck?
• Imagine that you're not allowed to do things your brother is because you're more likely to be assaulted. Everyone acknowledges that it's not your fault that you're more vulnerable. But you have to take responsibility for it. You are told to dress modestly, act discreetly, not take risks. People say this because they love and care for you. Truly. Who then is left to complain to?
• Imagine that critiquing the bodies of your gender is a passtime that is done by your friends, your peers, the media and society both publicly and fairly constantly. 
• Imagine reaching for the new remote and trying the wrong button, only to have it gently but firmly taken from you before you even get a chance to look at it twice.
• Imagine a world in which young women will opt to be photographed in porn-style poses for a clothing store or a website; they find it empowering. You know you're not a kill-joy that you wouldn't find it empowering at all, but others may not see it that way. But many of those others are the intended consumers of those images, and you are not.
• Imagine you can get a job as easily as a man can. Imagine knowing that despite working your arse off and being damned good at your job, you are paid statistically less than you would be in the exact same role if you were a man. Your boss would be offended if you suggested as much to him. Probably almost every woman's boss would be. But the women are still paid less, including you.
• You're less likely to be promoted regardless of performance. Your reproductive organs make you a risk to a business, regardless of your plans for them. This is fairly commonly accepted.
• You're less likely to both have a family and reach the upper echelons of your field. Your partner isn't.

Please, if you haven't already, imagine some or all of these things.  Imagine that you are generally very happy. You are in a loving relationship of equals. You are respected by your friends, colleagues and family. You work hard. You have fun. And you have a problem with the way the female gender is constituted in the world. This is what it is for me to be a feminist. It isn't always angry and ranty, but sometimes it is. It isn't whingy and it isn't anti-fun, unless your idea of fun requires an imbalance of power. It isn't blaming the men or the women of our generation for creating these power dynamics, but it does require the men and women of our generation to take some responsibility for changing it, and for men this means changing it away from their advantage. It is an act of recognition that there remains a problem. 

So do it. Imagine you have grown up, and live, as a woman in the world. And then tell me whether there's still a need for feminism in Australia.