Gemma Arterton on 'stampy and shouty' feminism

Gemma Arterton says she doesn't like 'stampy and shouty feminism'. When I first heard this, I wanted to stamp and shout at her, in my rude and nasty way.

A soft and gentle approach to feminism - if only someone had thought of that before! The Suffragettes could have saved themselves a whole of of bother if they'd politely asked for the voter rather than chaining themselves to railings and making all that trouble.

Gemma Arterton, looking wistfully up at something or other.
Photo by Danny Harrison via Flickr Creative Commons

The actor, who's currently playing the original feisty bit on the side, Nell Gwynn, was interviewed about her current role in the Telegraph.

If you just read the headline, you'd think that Arterton is speaking out against feminism. She's not. She identifies herself as a feminist and has spoken out about increasing opportunities and pay for women in her industry. She told the Guardian, in 2011, "I don't know why it's still a taboo to be a feminist. I think people think you're going to have a big old hairy muff and be mouthy and spit on men."

A feminine approach to feminism

Fair enough, she want a gentler, maybe more feminine approach to equality. I get that, and there is something to be said for her approach. Arterton is a successful actor, at the top of her game. Women like her, in positions of power, can slowly and gently improve the situation for other women. My problem isn't her approach to feminsim, but her attitude towards people with a different approach, and the language she uses to describe it.

Feminism is a movement and an ideology with wide arms, It has room for all kinds of attitudes and approaches. There is room for Gemma Arterton and there is room for more militant and radical ideas.

But  the words 'stampy' and 'shouty' are reminscent of the ways people who are against women and women's equality have portrayed us for centuries. They recall historically negative portrayals of women as 'shrill'. 'gossiping', 'scolding', 'nagging' and 'hysterical'.

Forgetting where you came from...

Gemma Arterton is a successful actor and she'll be earning a decent amount of money. It's thanks to feminism that her earnings go straight to her, that she doesn't have to hand them over to her male relatives. She can make decisions about what acting jobs she wants to take - nobody else makes those decisions for her.

Arterton and lots of other women don't want to be seen to be rude and nasty girls. But we owe it to our rude and nasty forbears to, just sometimes, stand up and be a little bit stampy and a little bit shouty.

You can read the full Telegraph interview with Gemma Arterton here.

Strident, obsessive and sexy PhDs

Do you feel like your brains overshadow your beauty? Well weep no more. Amazon is selling a Sexy PhD costume, for women who want to make the most of ALL their assets.

This story has been cropping up all over social media, reported by i100. The story isn't the costume itself, but the review comments that follow it on the page, written by a range of 'Lady PhDs' who express their relief that sensible husband-hunting attire has now been provided for the thinking woman.

As a 'Lady PhD' myself, I was partly drawn to follow the links because the costume had the wrong hat. This is entirely beside the point, but anyone with a PhD knows that the hat is very important. Here's what it should look like. Quite sexy, I think you'll agree.

Anyway, so I read the story and enjoyed the comments.

I thought it was kind of funny that the headline of the article was 'Women with actual PhDs review sexy PhD costume on Amazon' - why the 'actual'? It sort of implies some incredulity at the idea of women having PhDs. But that's just me being touchy, I know it is.

Sexy costumes and comments

I don't really care if they're selling a sexy women's PhD costume on Amazon. It might be worse if they were selling a sexy men's PhD costume and not a women's one, because that might suggest women aren't clever enough to have PhDs, or that women with PhDs aren't sexy. Or something.

The thing that did get my feminist back up, was not the costume, or the comments on Amazon by 'Lady PhDs'. It was the comments left on the page of the article. This was one of the more articulate, the other were variations on the theme:

'It's a costume. Get over it. If you have an actual PhD you should understand the concept. Does your strident, obsessive feminism have to bleed through everything in your lives? Grow up.' Mr Grevy

What's bitten Mr Grevy? Can't he see that these women were just having a bit of gentle fun at the expense of an objectifying/objectionable (delete as preferred) costume?

Does our strident, obsessive feminism have to bleed through everything in our lives? Well now you mention it, yes it does. That's kind of the point of being a feminist.

Strident and obsessive

Having a belief, or a philosophy should bleed through everything you do, because it affects the way you view everything around you. Loving feminism is not like loving cheese. I enjoy a nice bit of cheddar, but I am very capable of going days at a time without touching the stuff.

(That's actually a very bad example because I've now realised quite how much cheese I eat. If I want to get into that costume, I'm going to have to cut back on the yellow stuff).

But I live feminism. Every day I drive my own car, live in my own house, spend my own money and go out to my job, which pays me, hopefully the same as it would pay a man if he were doing my job. These things would not be possible without feminism - it pervades everything I do.

Feminism-bashing is commonplace on the web. This is just one more example. Why do Mr G and his ilk feel the need to have a go at feminism? There is clearly something deeply offensive to them about the idea that their mothers, sisters and girlfriends (is that last a little optimistic?) should be treated as their equals. Who knows where that could end - we'll want the right to vote next.

You can read the article, and comments here.

We're definitely not wasting our time with feminism

By Jim Ankan Deka, via Wikimedia Commons

Just a few days ago I was asking 'are we wasting our time with feminism?' On the same day that I wrote that, a 16-year-old girl from Calcutta died, after being gang-raped and set on fire.

She was raped twice. The second time was the day after the first, when she came home from reporting her rapists to the police. That's when they also set her on fire. She died of her injuries two months later, on New Year's Eve.

Changing India for women

Last New Year's Eve I wrote about the rape and death of another young Indian woman on a bus in Delhi: 'Rape - not a serious crime in India'.

The strength of the outcry at the Delhi bus attack was impressive, with men and women protesting, demanding justice and remembering the victim. Here are some pictures of the protests. 

People asked whether this would change India for women. But of course an entire culture isn't going to change over one case, or even one year of protests.

And this new case, one of many in India and elsewhere in the world, shows how little has changed. This 16-year-old girl, instead of being protected after reporting her ordeal, is left to face a further attack, that results in what must have been horrific injuries, and the loss of her life.

It screams that, despite what happened a year ago, and despite the strength of the protests that followed it, rape is still not taken seriously in India. The message to would-be rapists is that gang-raping a 16-year-old is OK. It's only if you do it a second time, set fire to her, she dies and the world starts to take notice that the authorities might start to bother you.

While there are still large parts of the world that have this cavalier attitude to what happens to women's bodies, then feminism still has much work to do.

New lessons in life and feminism

I have been away. I haven’t been able to continue this blog for ten weeks, because in that time my life has changed beyond all recognition.

My story, which I won’t tell in detail, is that when I was 20 weeks pregnant, my husband left me for someone else. My story is neither unique nor uncommon – men have been leaving women ‘in trouble’ for all time. There are plenty of women out there who have been through this, and plenty of unsuspecting women and girls for whom this lies around the corner. I only hope that my unborn child (a girl) is not one of them.

The thing that happened to me has made its mark on my whole philosophy. Things I believed, and argued for, have crumbled away. I am now 30 weeks pregnant, and here are six things I have learned from this experience.

A word of caution - my thoughts have changed on a lot of things recently, and they may change again.  Basically, I reserve the right to change my mind - I think we all should.

1. You can never really know what’s going on in another person’s mind

No matter how close you are to someone, how in tune you may feel with them, and what you have given to them, you can’t ever know what is actually going on.

One of the beauties of human existence is our ability to surprise each other, but it is also one of the scariest elements. Every day we put our faith in other people, in small and large ways – we trust the bus driver not to change lanes and drive into the oncoming traffic. But we know neither what he nor the person we eat breakfast with every day is really thinking, nor what they are about to do next.

2. Your whole life really can change in an instant

This is one of these things you hear. You think that things like this don’t really happen to you, then they just happen. My entire future, and the life I had planned for my child really did change beyond recognition in the space of a few moments. You can’t prepare for it, so there is no lesson to be learned from it, but despite all those newspaper stories of death and destruction, I didn’t know it before and I do now. My life felt robust (it wasn’t), not easily dismantled (it was).

3. Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus

A close friend told me that the further I went through pregnancy the more I would realise that men and women are completely different. I didn’t believe her.

I haven’t actually read this book (I probably should), but as I understand it, the central proposition is that men and women are completely different creatures from different planets. It was quite a central part of my philosophy of life, and my feminism, that this wasn’t true.

I believed that we are all human beings, that men and women do have biological differences and these can make us behave differently, but that fundamentally we’re all people. I was wrong. We’re completely different and pregnancy is the point where that becomes unavoidable – some men can be supportive, they can listen, and they can help, but they have no idea what it’s really all about, when our entire bodies are willingly taken over by this other being, which consumes our blood, our air and our food from within. This isn’t men’s fault, they just don't get it. If I had known this before, maybe my life would have turned out very differently.

4. Pregnancy and feminism are uncomfortable bedfellows

Pregnancy eradicates some of the outward signs of feminism – I always have been fiercely independent and able to look after myself physically, economically and emotionally. Pregnancy takes some of this away, it makes us dependent on others.

I am physically weaker and slower, therefore more vulnerable than usual. When my child is born, she will be dependent on me to the extent that I will be unable to work for some time. Fortunately I live in a wealthy, liberal country with maternity pay to help with this, but as a single mother, I will undoubtedly struggle financially.

Pregnancy also gave me a need for security and stability, which I didn’t recognise as having experienced before. I saw this most strongly when I lost it. It’s not an exaggeration to say that I have gone from feeling like a strong, independent woman, to an abandoned and vulnerable girl. I both need and want to be looked after, and the idea of that not happening is terrifying.

Does this mean I’m no longer a feminist? I don’t think it does, I think it just means I’m pregnant. But if I’m a feminist who isn’t a strong and independent woman, what am I and what is a feminist when there’s no girl power in sight?

5. Feminism is for women, and only women

I believed that men could be feminists too – particularly those brought up by strong women to believe in equality. I don’t actually think this is true. Like it or not, the battle for gender equality is a battle of the sexes, with men and women on opposing sides.

Biological differences mean that men are better able to rape and inflict violence on women than the other way around, and we get pregnant, they cannot. These three factors put us at a natural disadvantage, more vulnerable to sexual, physical and emotional abuse.

Men can sympathise with our predicament and support our emancipation, but while they still have this threefold power over us, which can never easily be removed, they are also our greatest threat. They can encourage feminism, but they cannot be feminists, unless they are somehow able to relinquish this unequal power.

6. We shouldn't blame single mothers

I feel pretty ashamed to be bringing a child into the world that I’m not sure I can support. The single mothers talked about in the Daily Mail are painted as feckless and selfish individuals, who spend years taking money and resources from the state because they were stupid enough to get up the duff. But I can promise you from where I’m sitting, that very few women would choose to be going into this without a partner to support them. And I haven’t even got to the hard bit yet, where I have to actually care for a child.

My grandmother had known my grandfather just a few days when she decided to marry him and leave her family in India to follow him across the world to a new life in London. My partner and I had notched up 11 years together before we married, and another six before we started a family. Which relationship would you expect to last the course? But my impetuous grandparents literally lived ‘until death do us part’, whereas after years of caution, I’m up the creek without a paddle.

Love is a rocky road, and sometimes things don’t work out the way you’ve planned. It really can happen to anyone, and most single mums probably didn’t want it to be this way.

First women

The conductor for this year's Last Night of the Proms will be a woman for the first time in the event's 118 year history. Obviously this is excellent news. It's taking out one more shard of the glass ceiling that prevents women from rising to the top of so many professions. And it's a sign to other women and girls that their gender does not need to stop them.

The woman to brave the splintered glazing is Marin Alsop. I've written about her before. I'd never heard of her until I went female conductor hunting, but then I've only ever heard of about four conductors, and half of them are probably dead.

Being the first lady

As far as I know, I've not been the first woman to do anything, but I imagine that this 'first woman' label is quite irritating. You worked hard and you got there on your own merits, but somehow you're being proclaimed as leading other women to where you are. There's also a hint that it was inevitable that a woman would get there eventually, it was just a matter of time, and it happened to be you.

I imagine that many people in this position would rather be known as the Prime Minister/Nobel prize winner/conductor than the first person to do it with a pair of tits. This 'first woman' business detracts from the fact that you're doing what you do best, and you do it very, very well.

There's the first time something happens - the first man on the moon, the first Nobel prize, the first man to climb Everest. Then after a decent interval, long enough to show how very hard it was, the first woman gets there. Hopefully we'll reach a point where these 'firsts' become just as likely to be accomplished by women as men, so we no longer feel the need to talk about the first woman and first man to do something - just the first person.

First women and feminism

We have a tendency to see first women as feminist icons, because they are going where only men have gone before - see my thoughts on Margaret Thatcher from last week.

But I can see that being proclaimed the first woman in this irritating fashion might actually have the effect of turning women off feminism. Maybe that's why Maggie disliked feminism. Maybe she felt that being the first female prime minister was about as relevant as being the first person in her family to have twins (I made that up, it may not be true).

All that said, Marin Alsop is a different kettle of fish. In her interview on the BBC website, she says the there needs to be 'more opportunities for women to be seen in these types if leadership roles' and explains that she has herself established a fellowship scheme for young women conductors. She ends by saying that she is 'appreciative' of being the first woman.

It's good that, unlike Maggie, she's doing something to hold the gate open to the women who follow her. But I wonder if she's a teensie bit irritated about being asked how it feels to be a woman, and wishes she could just get on and do her job.

It's sad that it's still so exciting for a woman to take a big public job like this. I hope that changes soon.

Shoes, Bras and Fantasies

Recently I was reading Caitlin Moran's book How to be a Woman. It's mainly really good - lots of fun and a few insights about feminism that have made me think. My main criticism is that I wasn't particularly interested in the long autobiographical sections about the author going to parties and getting very drunk with famous people. It sounded fun, but just not relevant to most women's lives, which surely is what the book is supposed to be about. Anyway...

There were two particualy interesting points that I have been thinking about (apart from the bit about yellow shoes going with everything, which I plan to try out).

1. It takes to your thirties to get good at being a woman

By the time you get to your 30s you have finally become quite good at being a woman - you're doing OK with your job, you own at least three dresses, etc. etc., says Ms Moran. In my case, I have come to terms with the handbag as something useful and pretty to put stuff in, rather than a symbol of femine dependency; I have learnt how to apply eye make-up without looking like I've been punched; I have discovered what a bra is meant to look like when it fits; and I have and earned enough money to have several of said bras in pretty patterns. Most importantly, I believe that I am attractive - not in a jaw-dropping boys walking into things and dribbling kind of a way, but in a sort of acquired taste for some people who might like that kind of thing.

Moran's point is that you get to this age and you are on the decline, tits moving south, fertility declining, hair going white/grey (not quite yet), wrinkles appearing. Cheerful things like that. I suppose it suggests that the business of being female, and doing it well is so incredibly difficult and complicated, that it takes fifteen years from puberty to learn how to do it. Maybe I will spend the next fifteen learning it was a colossal waste of time, or maybe I will just be able to enjoy my handbags, dresses, underwear and yellow shoes, safe in the knowledge that I am not contributing to the repression of women by doing any of these things.

2. Fantasies

The second thing I want to talk about from Moran's book is fantasies. I don't mean this in a fun, sexy way, I mean it in a weird psycho way that is actually quite tedious, so you may want to stop reading now. I've given you a picture of some pretty shoes and mentioned bras a couple of times - you can go away happy.

The lovely Caitlin talks about day-dreaming fantasy relationships with casual acquaintances, which go into a minute level of detail and incorporate the beginning, duration and ending of the relationship. Often the relationship ended badly, though no fault of her own, but leaving her with smouldering feeling of resentment to the other person, that spill over into actual life. I do that, and I thought it was just me (I love reading books when the author describes a thing that I do that I thought no one else did, it's a beautiful feeling of  not-anloneness [or is that just me?]).

I have long become used to imagining a disagreement with a colleague over some small issue, that resulted in a screaming row and left me feeling off-kilter and resentful towards them, before I even arrived at the office. Occasionally I have confided in my (real) beloved about these situations, to be met with incredulity. He doesn't do this. But what he and I do isn't necessarily a yardstick for the whole of humanity. The fact that Moran and I do this, isn't much more conclusive, but she seems to have gathered more circumstantial evidence on this (she asked her friends) and suggests that it is something common to women.

Moran's theory is that women test relationships in our heads with these scenarios, and when they don't work out we have thus saved ourselves the trouble of pursuing the person/relationship for real. Since my arguments are generally with colleagues and aquaintances, I'm not sure this bears out. I don't know what it says, other than that a lot of women seems to do this really odd thing, that can actually be quite stressful, and doesn't really serve musch purpose, since the level of invented detail we put into the scenrios we imagine make them unlikely to ever come true. It's like our brains just constantly need extra and more complicated things to think about, or that life doesn't provide us with enough angst, so we invent new, fantastical confrontations. What's going on there?

Women and children first

I just listened to Jeanette Winterson's short Radio 4 series on the Titanic. The last of the five short programmes was a look at the aftermath of the disaster. It's well known that women and children were prioritised for lifeboat spaces when the ship went down, but I didn't know that this was used to throw back in the faces  of the suffragettes who were campaigning (women over 30 got the vote in Britain in 1918, six years after the Titanic sank). They were basically told that they should be grateful for this kind of gallantry that meant their lives were saved, and accept their place.

Something that I've always found troubling is that in championing a cause you have to take the good and bad that comes with it. If we are truly equal to men, then, as much as practicable, we should have the same rights, but also the same sacrifices, we shouldn't be discriminated against, either positively or negatively. What is most troubling about this is that it is easy for me to say - I am one of the luckiest women alive: I have lived a priviliged cared for life, I am educated, free from abuse, independent with a fantastic job, with my own money, free to make my own choices and do as I please. Is it really for me to say what women in a lesser position should accept. Because if you haven't been given the luxury of education and cannot exercise the kind of freedom and independence that I can, isn't being given a seat on a bus by a man the least you should expect? Didn't these kinds of women deserve to have their lives saved?

Is it wrong for a man to give up his seat on a train for a woman? Is he showing her respect or is he disrespecting her gender?  It's no good pretending their are no differences between us. I was born a feminist, although I never would have owned it. I don't know where my convictions came from, but I spent the first 25 years of my life refusing to acknowledge any differences between myself and the boys/men I knew. At times I wondered if I was more a misogynist, hating women for wearing pink, talking about hair and make up, being weaker then men, having periods. But in my own small way I have fought against discrimination. And I hope that I fight against it still. For the last eight years I have finally begun to celebrate our differences, embracing a muted form of girliness that has finally led to my current aspirations to motherhood.