Why I still think “men hate women” is inadequate…

I’ve been away on holidays…oh the bliss. I stopped thinking through work issues, I stopped debating with myself about whether or not I have a problem with the idea that “men hate you is the name of the problem”, stopped thinking through what I needed to do around the house, or dwelling on the excitement and anxiety about going back to uni…I went to the beach, I ate of the bbq, I laughed and swam and read and hung with the kids and with my lover. It was a phenomenal break.

I got back and looked at my blog and realised I’d left right in the middle of my thinking through whether or not I felt saying “men hate you is the name of the problem” is helpful or sufficient as a means to grappling with issues of gender and gender violence. Again, I really wanna be careful to be clear that in lots of ways I get that stance, and I think it’s kinda valid – when you look at the violence stats, when you read the way that self-identifying feminist men talk to feminist women whenever the woman says something they *disagree* with, when guys you work with make another *funny* joke about women being gold-diggers, or marriage being a life sentence…it’s pretty fucking hard some days to say “Well, perhaps “men hate you” is not accurate, helpful or sufficient”…but…it’s less about how Teh Menz might feel…in my experience, lotsa Menz will get it, or will listen, go away, think and respond respectfully even when you’re saying men hate women and give them your evidence…but mens reaction has nothing to do with why I object to it.

It’s about the fact that it seems insufficient…men hate women? Some do…they also hate people from other racial backgrounds, or people from a class background different from their own, or same sex couples, or cross-dressers, or transgendered persons. Lots of women carry this hate…this is *not* to diminish the issue of violence and masculinity…but…when Leigh Leigh was raped and killed, girls covered for the guys involved. Whenever there is a debate on rape, there is inevitably a woman or ten defending these *boys*, decrying the girls who somehow *invite* this violence…these women hate women as well…and before you rush to differentiate, I get it…they hate women because they’ve been raised in a culture, in a society that devalues women…just like the men who hate women…so, then, this would imply to me that the problem goes far deeper than “men hate women”, and, unless someone can point me in the direction of some writing that convincingly shows me otherwise, I would suggest that naming the problem as “men hate women” rather than that looking further, obscures the fact that the production and maintenance of a binary system of gender which produces horrendous violence against a diverse range of bodies and beings, and in differing ways.

“Men hate women” does not cover racialised experiences of gender violence, class experiences of gender violence, it doesn’t cover violence against any body that doesn’t “perform” gender to the approval of the observer…perhaps the person asserting was saying “men hate women is the name of the problem…and of course the problem when we look at it long enough is the construction and maintenance of a system of gender which has untold violent ramifications on a range of bodies, particularly transgendered bodies”…but then, to me…gender construction is the problem behind misogyny and violence against same sex couples or those who transcend or transgress a strictly ordered performance of one of two acceptable genders.

Furthermore, I don’t think that we can seperate the violence perpetrated in the name of gender from the violence perpetrated because of “race” – the same system of science which has hunted down, studied, revealed the “truths” of gender, even if it must surgically produce the very *truths* it seeks to portray as naturally occuring, has also hunted down, studied and revealed the “truths” of *race* – I am in no hurry to undermine the horror of gender violence, but I don’t think as a white woman I can sit here and say that “men hate women” adequately covers gender violence as experienced by women of colour.

So I guess a number of things have come out of this for me:

One, I am a woman with a great many privileges – while I’m a single mum with a special needs child from a working class background my privilege astounds me on a regular basis…I want to write on this topic in a way which flags and recognises my own privilege, which doesn’t claim to be “neutral” or “objective”, but which acknowledges the specificity of my experience and views.

I want to write a bit about exactly how *objectivity* and *neutrality* are claimed and utilised in order to assert and reinforce privilege, *superiority*, to shut down debate and to silence opposing views.

I want to read more from women of colour, particularly, as an Australian woman, from Indigenous authours, female and male. Whenever I do, I am shaken a little more, more alert to my privilege, thinking more about my obligations, my privilege, my responsibility and assumptions, more connected to the violence in my history as a white Australian and aware of my complicity in its effects and continuation.

I want to engage more in the work of transgendered theorists and authors. I’ve just finished a book which is a collection of transgendered voices and experiences, and it’s been a profound and profoundly moving experience which has confirmed and clarified for me why I see “men hate women is the name of the problem” as inadequate. I also think I am in love with Riki Wilchins.

I wanna stop typing right this second and go spend the rest of the night with my son and my boyfriend.

On having “faith” in humans

I came across a debate over the differences between radical and contemporary feminism the other day, triggered by a specific call for submissions for a feminist text. The post itself was interesting and well worth a read, as, in my experience has been anything by this author, and can be found here. The catalyst for this post though, was my response to a specific comment which said that women failed to realise that men hate women. I sat stunned and thought, ”God, is that what it comes down to? Is that the conclusion I’ve been fighting off, but secretly know to be true?”. So I went for a walk and I thought about it…and I decided that even when I feel like it’s an inescapable conclusion if we look at the stats and the stories…that I don’t believe it. That I won’t believe it. So the following is my attempt to explain why. People might want to have a go at me for saying I don’t want to disrespect the belief that men hate women…fine. Have a go at me, don’t harrass the woman who said it . The reason I say I don’t want to disrespect the view, is because I can see how a person could come to that conclusion – there is a fair amount of evidence to support it. Please, if you’re reading it here, direct any criticisms of this view to me and not to her (also: harrasment ain’t cool, no matter how much you disagree, so keep it civil). There is a lot of empirical data which would seem to back it up. My rebuttal comes not from saying there’s no *evidence* to support that view, but rather from an objection to the generalisation it requires and from the violence I see inherent in this kind of generalising, categorising and defining. Not least because I see the power of destructive manifestations of masculinity as in part operating from the same logic.

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I am not trying to disrespect your belief that men hate women. I just wonder whether that belief gives us any way “out”. Masculinity is constructed in opposition to the construction of femininity, bred to fear and loathe it. However saying all men *anything* is of concern for me, if for no other reason than if we can posit that “all men x”, then equally it can be posited that “all women y, and all “gays”z and all “blacks” a, and all “whites” c”.

Whenever we generalise and categorise and attribute certain characteristics to a “class” of people, violence seems certain to follow. Indeed I think there can be violence in the very act of categorising and defining.

There are times, when I look at the statistics of violence, abuse and disrespect directed at women by men that I feel like this is *true*, like MEN HATE WOMEN. And yet…I am raising a boy child. I am sleeping with, laughing with, loving a man – not a saviour, not a saint, just a human being…and the *fact* that this man listens to, learns from and loves me (and here I mean love in the very best sense, yes, love as a feeling, but also love as a verb, as a choice, as a gifting, showing love in many ways with acts and words and with kindness and laughter) doesn’t *disprove* the fact that masculinity is violent and oppressive, that masculinity has produced a culture where rape is used to silence, to belittle, to humiliate…that it has produced individuals and societies which disrespect and harm women…I just wonder…if we believe that men *hate* women, because they are men, and because we are women…are we not throwing our hands in the air and saying nothing can be done? Where are our options, our ways out?

If on the other hand, gender constructions damage all of us (and yes, definately to greater and lesser degrees and in vastly different ways) and language and discourse, and *masculinity* and *femininity* are problems that produce violence and individuals and structures who disregard the autonomy, rights and needs of other humans, this at least gives us the room to work on challenging and deconstructing gender, gives us some hope for making changes. I dunno. Maybe I sound like a naive, ignorant git. But…as an atheist this is the faith I have to have, my choice to embrace “messianism without a messiah”- that there are changes that can be made, that it is discourse, culture, religion and science that fuck us up, that being born with a penis doesn’t mean that you are biologically destined to hate everyone with a vagina, or everyone you deem “unworthy” to *have* a penis, or homosexual men, or anyone who transgresses the boundaries of gender.

I struggle with this, as I often panic over the *fact* that since a penis can (and so often is) used as a weapon, that every where I look there are human beings equipped with a weapon that they could, if they so chose, use against others to harm, to humiliate, to degrade, to assert power. I feel desperate over the state of the world knowing this. It makes me ill that there are many areas of the world in which this *weapon* is deployed coldly, callously, en masse, as a tool of war, and in every part of the world, that there are family homes in which it is wielded in secret, relationships where it goes from being a part of a body which gives and recieves pleasure, to a tool of pain, times where it is used against strangers not as a command in war, but for “fun”, for punishment, for violence for the sake of violence… I despair over this, and I fear for us all, myself, my friends, the women I don’t know, women trapped in civil wars, and boys growing into men that could be corrupted to a point of such revolting callousness and disrespect – and I don’t understand it. But I can’t bring myself to say that ownership of the penis=biologically inescapable hatred for women.

I don’t know…maybe this does make me a fool. And perhaps it is true that all *deconstructing gender* won’t make a licking difference to the use of rape as a tool of war. However, I can’t see how (and I am willing to listen to an explanation of how it might) taking the view that men hate women will make a difference here either. Sadly I am only a hair’s breadth from agreeing with the view that men hate women when I ponder what the hell *will* make a difference to the many and varied ways in which rape is utilised to punish, to keep scared, to violate, to overpower, to hurt, to humiliate…

I just know that I am uncomfortable with the ramifications of enforcing categories of people, and effacing the differences between people in that category, then ascribing certain attributes to “all” of the people *within* that group. This, it would appear, is the way that so much of the violence of modernity has worked.

So perhaps we need to acknowledge the specificities of rape(s). That rape as a tool of war, as a *command* which must be obeyed, is linked to, but differs from rape in other scenarios, in that it requires its specificity to be acknowledged if we are to even begin thinking through how we might possibly protect people from it. We will need to acknowledge issues of race in rape, for example the perception in Australia, that men from certain cultures are more ready to rape *our girls*, which cause hostility to certain members of our society, ignores the many gang rapes committed by *anglo aussies*, and does little if nothing to actually keep women safe, prevent rapes or intervene in the violence inherent in the ways we *do* masculinity. Also, what of other issues of race involved in rape? Where white men raped/rape Aboriginal women not only because they are women, but because they are Aboriginal, to degrade on the basis of race as well as gender?

In mentioning some of the complexities inherent in any discussion of rape and how to begin even thinking through *undoing* “rape culture”, I am not for a second holding myself up as someone having the answers. I don’t even know all the complexities, being that the privileges of my life have sheltered me from having to know some of them. It’s just immensely complex and I don’t want to reduce the problems of rape to only those I know about/understand, or position myself as some “expert”, some neutral, objective “authority” who gets to make bold blanket statements  – because I see the danger inherent in that…

I just don’t see how the conclusion that men hate women will help us to resolve these issues. Even when I am at my most down, most vulnerable to this belief – I can’t believe it. I choose not to believe it. If I believe it, then I see no way forward. If I believe it, then I can see no good in men. If I believe it, then given the power men have in society, we’re all doomed. If I believe it I think I really will go crazy. If I believe it, then stretching on forever, all I can see is hate, punishment, violence, retribution, no escape, no options, no possibilities. I look at my son, I look at my lover, I look at my male friends, and I see that while masculinity has a powerful hold over men, while masculinity pressures men to devalue and disrespect women, that men make choices, that men are human beings, capable of civil and respectful behaviour, capable of loving, capable of kindness, capable of good no less than women. Sure, many men continue to choose hate. But to categorise them as *all the same* and to attribute a hatred of women to them all is bleak…and not only is it bleak, but the act of categorising and attributing is defeatest, disrespectful, devoid of hope and buys into the very violence masculinity operates by, thus disabling us from deconstructing and debunking this violence.

Excuse me, but I believe this argument is yours!

So, pretty soon I’m going to need to take a break from the blogging about all the shit surrounding gender and sexuality that pisses me off (and I’ve not even covered the tip of the iceberg so far). I’m coming in to a pretty full-on year, and for the last little while I’ve been feeling a bit overwhelmed – with apprehension about the pressures of the next few years of study while working and raising my son, with thinking through all kinds of future options, and with processing lots of stuff from the last couple of months. And in the middle of this, the frustration and anger I feel over the fact that gender issues get dismissed by so many people, and so aggressively at that, is beginning to seep into my personal life and affect my overall happiness.

I was going to take a break starting immediately, until I was in the waiting room of the doctors surgery. ABC radio had a story about a car festival thingy down south (didn’t catch the exact name) where there’s been an escalation over the last few years of groups of men getting aggressive and demanding that female attendees expose themselves for the fun of the men. This stuff is being blogged about in the U.S, and it’s all a bit scary really. There are some women saying they don’t mind, and others saying “Great. How lovely for you. Only that reinforces to the guys that they can shout at ME and expect me to do it”".

In this particular radio interview they were discussing an example involving a thirteen year old girl. In the midst of this they discussed the phenomena in general, with the interviewer saying, nonplussed “Makes you wonder why these guys even take their girlfriends”…hold the phone! This makes them sound like pets on leashes. Perhaps the woman was taking her boyfriend/girlfriend/kids, perhaps she was there on her own. Many women love cars (and power to them, I’d rather shoot myself in the foot, even without the shouting arseholes) – so let’s not jump to conclusions that the only times women are present at these types of events or *should* be present is when they are feigning interest for the sake of their menfolk.

But, if we leave even that aside, the next caller was a woman, who sounded a little older (somewhere around fifty-ish if I had to guess), anyway, there was some background chatter in the surgery at this point, all I could hear was her anger. Imagine my surprise (or, rather more sadly, not surprise at all, just the familiar disappointment) when I realised that she was not angry with the men for their vile behaviour, but at the women who took offence or complained! She was LIVID! (Same old bullshit of “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen”, and don’t dress to look sexy if you don’t want harassment, which roughly contextualised amounts to “If you don’t like being sexually harrassed and frightened, stick to a Tupperware party, you great big asking-for-it hussies!”)

The interviewer stepped in to remind her that in fact we were talking about a thirteen year old girl (and let’s for the sake of time and not driving ourselves COMPLETELY mental, leave aside the fact that this implies that older women have less to complain about). The caller then said (and you must imagine for yourself the palpable indignation and contempt flowing across the airwaves as I can’t provide audio for you) “Phh, yeah, right…thirteen going on twenty FIVE! I mean, the way these girls dress sometimes…then they’re surprised at the attention they attract”

That’s right dear, feed the girls you know Barbies, Bratz, Hi Five and music videos, encourage them to dress like *proper* girls, and then BLAME them for being harrassed at a young age. You know what? It doesn’t MATTER what you wear – at thirteen I got around in big baggy overalls – I had like six pairs of the fucking things, I was timid and shy and in no way thought of myself or sought to present myself as in any way sexual, and was constantly getting the attention of middle aged perverts saying “Show us yer jugs” and “OOOOOhhhh, LEGS up to HERE”. What the fucking FUCK? And PLEASE…I dressed like this just cos I was a big ole nerdy Christian and I wore the overalls cos I was fashion clueless and thought they were kinda “neat” –but if I’d fitted in more with society’s pressures, if I’d dressed more “sexy-like”, like the cool girls does that for a SECOND mean that I *deserve* sexual harrasment?? What about the eight year olds you see whose parents dress them in mini skirts and micro shorts? Do they deserve harrasment?

So away from me and back to the scenario at hand. This woman was more than comfortable to brand some thirteen year old she didn’t know, had never met, had never fucking seen, a total gagging-for-it slut in the making in order to defend the behaviour of jeering, leering, beer-sodden arseholes screaming for pussy and tits as above reproach. Nice one lady. And the thing is, your hear this sort of shit ALL the fucking TIME. And it’s THIS, this in particular that makes my blood BOIL. That we don’t leave the responsibility for revolting behaviour at the feet of those who dish it out, but we find ways to blame those affected.

So, before I go on my break, before I take some time away to just *be*, to try to remember that not everyone is as much an arsehole as this, though so many are, let me set out a little bio if you will, a little timeline of the stories of people I know who have been affected in the more clearcut and violent ways, by the upshot of constructions of masculinity and femininity, so that I might give people a clearer understanding of why I’m a feminist, why this shit matters so goddamned much to me, why it might occasionally become something I dare to feel personally furious  over, and why I won’t just put it down, walk away and play *nice*.

Hm. Locked in a cubby house at the age of I think five and told I’m not allowed out til I give my cousin a “root”. Got away. Lucky me.

Another cousin sexually abused for years by his male cricket coach.

Best friend raped and stabbed at eleven because the guy next door pretended to be disabled so she’d help him.

Watched my uncle kick the ever living shit out of my cousin while I screamed at him to stop and no one stepped in cos they didn’t want to “make it worse”.

Cousin’s grandmother got raped as she got out of her car in the driveway.

Girls in highschool who “drank too much” at the local beach parties ended up branded as *sluts* after the guys they had classes with “took turns on them”, but it was never ever called rape.

Had a boyfriend punch me in the face and kick me in the back because he didn’t like what I was saying.

Got stalked by my ex to the point where I dropped down to a size eight, my size eight pants fell down and my hair came out in chunks. Had the cops insist I *go outside and sort it out* with him even though I’d run in there to hide because I didn’t feel safe. Had the cops then refuse to help me fill out an AVO application.

Cousin’s friend’s dad drives her into a cliff face on the highway because he’s angry at his ex because they are getting a divorce. Both die, while the mum is on the phone listening to her daughter scream about how frightened she is.

Throw in a handful of friends with abusive fathers, friends who have been gay bashed, an aunt who was raped repeatedly by groups of her relatives from the age of three, a great friend facing discrimination and harassment for being gender queer, a few cases of sexual harassment in the office, a guy who decided to continually call and get in my face ad menace me because I chose not to go on a date with him (because he creeped me out – good call).

And this is in my life, my privileged little life as an Anglo white girl in a “good suburb” in a safe country.

I could go on and on and on. The one thing I’d like to point out is that those who mock the correlation between the types of violence mentioned and gender are those who would seek to refute the power of constructions of gender by recourse to biology – you know, the old “men act this way cos of our gonads” chestnut.

Have a think people – it’s THIS view that leads to the view that all men are arseholes, all men are rapists – if violence and aggression are caused by possession of a pair of testicles, and men, statistically speaking are far more frequently the perpetrators of violence, violence against men, women and children, then lookout people – ALL MEN ARE BASTARDS. Funnily enough, feminism, always accused of such a view says nothing of the sort.It says that constructions of masculinity and femininity are the problem, and it kinda expects people to be smart enough to notice the totally fucking OBVIOUS difference between “Gender constructions are fucking us all up in many, varied and violent ways” and “All men are bastards, we hate them”.

So when I get back, rather than railing over the fucked-up-ness that is so many people’s attitude to feminism and gender, which is totally warranted, but leaves me sad and exhausted, I think I might take some time to write on gender construction and gender performativity, as I think writing on the theoretical aspects which actually concieve of ways out of this mess, might help to write about this stuff without making me despair of humanity. I mean really, to look at all the stats of men hurting each other, men hurting women, men hurting themselves, then say “It’s all down to the testicles” gives no way out, no solution, no conclusion to be drawn other than that men are biologically destined to be aggressive, violent, self harming arseholes. This, thanks all the same, is the stuff that comes from MRAs and anti-feminists, not from feminists. Having a look at the MRA websites of late, it’s their arguments which degrade men, and reduce them to animals bound by their biology, not mine, and not feminism’s. What a bleak fucking view of humanity. What a sad, disgusting, pathetic picture of what our lives can be. Feminists fully expect that men are utterly capable of behaving like decent human beings. Feminists acknowledge that gender constructions damage us all, and are looking to question and re-evaluate these constructions for the benefit of men and women.  

What the hell is so wrong with that??

Shit, run

From the “and here’s another example of how I’ve made an idiot of myself” vault:

 A few years ago there was a kid from the Central Coast who was going for a walk when an electricity cable came down. It arced around wildly and it hit him and he died. That story creeped the shit out of me, so I’m kinda observant around powerlines.

Anyway, one day I had dropped my son off at school and I was walking to the bus with two friends. There were some guys arsing around with the power lines, and there was a big clanking noise and a shout and I thought one had come down, so I grabbed them both by the back of the shirt and yelled “SHIIIIT, RUUUUUN” and we scampered for a bit, before realising that in fact, it hadn’t come down and now there were a whole lotta workmen laughing their arses off at us.

 Well, I copped it pretty consistently for a long while afterwards, and fair enough…but to my mind had it come down, the early warning would have been handy.

Anyway, after a year or so of remembering this and cringing and laughing at myself, a year or so of telling myself it doesn’t happen, that it’s all perfectly safe, we walk home from the doctors today, past a group of men working on the power lines. I fight my dislike of walking underneath, and tell my son “It’s ok, they know what they’re doing” when he makes an edgy comment. We get inside the apartment and sit down and there’s this HUGE buzzing, a building crackling noise then bangs and explosions, I look out the window and there’s massive flashes of light and some shouting from the men from around the corner. Scared the SHIT out of me. Probably nothing to what it did to the bowels of the dudes working just around the corner. They were fine, being around the corner, but had I been walking underneath, even if I hadn’t been hurt (I reckon at the very least all the hair on my body would have stood on end) I would’ve been reduced to a screaming crying wreck.

 I’m just glad this time I’m inside. You know, I try not to pass on hang ups about danger to my son, but that poor kid just draws bad luck. He had a phobia of lifts, I convinced him they were ok, he’s been stuck in two. He had a phobia of bees, I convinced him bees were ok, he’s been stung by two. I tell him the electricity guys know what they’re doing then he witnesses a fairly phenomenal explosion. I don’t know about him, but it’s reinforced my discomfort at walking under power lines that make wierd noises.

The inevitable *backlash* such as it is.

I do believe it’s started…the inevitable backlash against the writing. Now, let’s be clear…with a hit total of about 1100, the “backlash” such as it is, is hardly a Tsunami of angry comments. It’s just that to this stage my comments have been either positive or neutral. So far I have had people read because they are interested, or at least curious. Now comes the reading and commenting from the anti-feminists.

SO…I should make my comments policy chrystal clear – I will have one up within forty-eight hours. But to break it down: there are, as I have said previously here, plenty of ways for you to get your misogynistic rocks off if that’s what you’re into. My blog is not a space for that. If you would like to engage in a discussion, feel free to post. If you’re just trolling, I will both delete you and spam you. Deal with it.

 One other thing. I’m afraid, dear commenter from “Exposing Feminism” (oooh-er! Feminisms deep dark “secrets” exposed, for the *first time ever* – let me guess: “Feminists hate men, feminists hate sex, feminists hate women, feminists hate fun, feminists hate love, feminists wanna steal your money, feminists wanna steal your kids, feminists, feminists, feminists blah, we hate feminists, they’re so SCARY!!” - that about sums it up right?)

I mean I had a glance at your website, and a cursory scroll down your listed “articles” shows your politics. Let’s be honest here. I declare my politics upfront. I’m a lefty, interested in social justice and equity – this is a site for me to rant, to poke fun, to engage in discussions over what exactly is pissing me off on any given day. So, given that you are publishing under the guise of “just being *honest*”, “telling it like it *is*” why not proudly proclaim your own politics? Why not climb the nearest mountain, spin in joyful circles and shout to the world “I am a bile filled, woman hating conservative who wants to tell everyone else exactly how to live their lives!”? Is that not more *honest* than pretending your *observations* are just objective neutral “truths”? Cos you *know*, just as I do, that every *fact* you present as evidence that women *have the upper hand* has a powerful, empirically sustained counter-example, and that your *facts* about the legal system *favouring women* are not, in fact, quite as black-and-white simple as you like to pretend. Do you think you’d lose readers? There are PLENTY of bile-filled, women hating conservatives who wanna tell people how to live their lives who would continue to read you and say “Preach it!”. In fact, I can probably refer you on to a few.

I guess I am finding it both hilarious and bizarre that you, with your own website, and your own women-hating links would bother to read mah itty-bitty rant site, would bother to comment, and would dare to *correct* me on what it is that I, as a feminist get tarred with over and over again. I mean, yeah, feminists also get tarred with all the *what EVIL things “feminists” *do** crap too, but, excuse me, I think I am actually qualified to state this clearly, seeing as how I’ve read it over and over again: FEMINISTS ALSO GET TARRED WITH “feminists are ugly, hairy and smelly” – I promise I will get to the other stuff as well, but this particular piece, as you will note from the title, the body of the text and the link given and discussed, was specifically about “Beauty Myths” regarding feminism. Therefore, if you don’t mind, I think I will discuss that rather than accepting your *correction* as to what the *anti-feminist thing *is*

You’ve got your site, I’ve got mine. Feel free to ask questions and engage with my writing, but *correct* me again, when in fact you are not right in proclaiming that anti feminism *is* only about what you say it is about, or comment just to get traffic at your bile-peddling site and you’ll be deleted and spammed. So what? Gonna write a piece about how *De big bad Feminazi wouldn’t let me bully her, Mummy!* ? Get over it.

The anti feminist thing – part one: Beauty Myths about feminists

The anti feminist thing is really kinda wierd. I mean, the feminists I know are these dynamic, sexy, funny, brilliantly *alive* women. I wish I could put up a photo catalogue of these women for you so you could see them, see their different styles, see the laughter in their eyes, with a little description next to them, such as: This is [...], she’s the one with the deadly curves, the long silky hair, the big eyes, the penchant for corsets and 1920’s hats and skirts. She’s a postgrad student who has had several gorgeous male lovers, and is into fashion and movies, books and television. This is [...] who is funky and alternative, who sports dreadlocks, but loves a good eighties love song, who works hard, and who laughs more than any other person I’ve ever met. She writes poetry, and has joy in her heart, despite her upbringing. She’s a postgrad student with a passion for live music and took a lover for a short period of time and handled the whole situation with grace and good humour. This is [...] who is a tall, striking lesbian with a passion for Japanese fashion and a streak of defiance, who wears enourmous costume jewellery. And on and on and so on and so forth. Teachers with a passion for giving children an education to inspire a love of learning, refugee advocates, students of development studies, poets, beautiful, sexy, funny, warm, incredibly alive women – none of them with odour issues, none of them with hate in their hearts, none of them “anti-men”, although plenty of them prepared to say that masculinity causes problems for all of us, and who won’t put up with bullshit just cos they’re “expected to” being women and all.

It’s nuts, this persistent bullshit that feminists all look the same, think the same, dress the same and have the same attitudes on hair removal/makeup/high-heels and fashion as each other, or that we are defined by these attitudes. For example, and it’s *only a friggin example*, it’s not a prescriptive thing, like this is what feminists *should* be or are or whatever…I LOVE shoes, shoes can stop me in my tracks, I have a shoe rack with strappy black heels, little pink kitten heels with a huge fake diamond on the front, tall elegant burgundy heels with a strap, and my favourite firetruck red, pointy toe-d, four inch stiletto heeled leather pumps…I also have Birkenstocks and Havaianas. Which am I gonna wear when I’m going to the shops, taking my son to the museum, or on an average day at work? The flats, cos I don’t wanna cripple myself before my time. But…I dunno…I’m trying to think this through…

 There are so many *beauty* myths about feminists (aside from all those other myths). One major one seems to be that we all look and dress the same (and apparently, according men’s mag Zoo, as discussed in this link: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=6820  we all *smell the same*, ie bad, cos we’re angry, angry hate-filled women, angry at the world *for no good reason*, loathing, despising, hating the poor menz *for no good reason* and apparently therefore angry at hygeine and pleasant smells).

But, given that I know many, many feminists, and those that make the above assertion do not, generally speaking know many, many (or usually any) feminists, I think I can say that this much is untrue. Sure. Plenty cut their hair short, or shave it. Who gives a shit? What’s wrong with diversity of hairstyles? And this diversity doesn’t prove the anti-fems point that we *all* have shaved heads.

So, some cut their hair off cos they’ve got a bit of a tomboy style and don’t give a rats about being fashionable, some in that adorable, high maintenance pixie style that shows up their gorgeous bone structure (damn em!), some shave it to make a point, some for fun, some for ease of care, some for Why-The-Fuck-Not, some grow it long, put it up with sparkly pins, some let it do its own thing, some straighten it, some pay good money for dreadlocks and hair extensions. SOME DO ALL SORTS OF COMBINATIONS OF THE ABOVE COS THEY AREN’T DEFINED BY THEIR FUCKING HAIRSTYLE OF THE TIME!!!!

I enjoy the company of these wonderful, colourful, vibrant women, those with the allegedly *outrageous* dressing style, those with the shaved head and piercings, those with the tats, those with the hair extensions, those who play dress ups in corsets and skirts, those who have the latest styles in their wardrobes, those who don’t give a rats about what they’re wearing and those who adopt many differing combinations of the above. I also have never had the experience of choking on any one of their armpit odours (sorry, but Zoo’s obsession with this has stuck in my brain as particularly fucking stupid).

Anyway – I’ve been staring at this painting of Dora Marr, a Picasso portrait of his lover. For me, she’s a bit representative of what I love in my life, and the things I’m striving for in my life, the portrait is of an independant woman, of considerable talent and renown before she met Picasso, she took him as her lover quite soon after they met. In this portrait, she’s painted in vibrant hues of yellow, pink, green and grey, and she’s looking at him with this warm expression of knowing, of desire, of life, of self possession and of desire and good humour. And I love it. For some reason my eye is continually drawn to it…something in the colours and her expression has this portait as a bit of an icon for me (and for me personally) right now…I see this woman in her vibrancy, her good humour and graciousness, her fiestiness and spirit, her meeting the eyes of the world a far more accurate reflection of the way I see myself, and the vibrancy, diversity and colourful balance I strive for in my life, than in something so fucking self-congratulatory and trite as yet another bullshit mens mag “hairy-legged, smelly feminist” beat up.

She doesn’t accurately represent the styles and tastes of all my feminist friends. I’m not arguing to have Dora Marr’s personal aesthetic replace the stereotype of feminists or anything. But in no way does Zoo’s portrayal of feminists stand up to any investigation whatsoever – feminists are women of many styles, many backgrounds, many sizes, shapes, and fashion views. Some of them are visually striking, in a range of different ways, some refuse to adorn themselves in any way. But each of these women has a passion and a grasp of ethics and the multiple *meanings* of their lives, and a livelihood that makes them a pleasure to know, and an inspiration to me. And I guess this is what the Dora portrait reflects to me – one the one hand, I want to work to ensure that at the end of my life I’ll see a woman of self possession, and a diversity of brilliant colours and experiences like those captured, and on the other, that diversity of colours, the depth of the portrait, the nuances, the many different layers represent for me the beauty made up in the richness and diversity of the talents and loves and passions and styles of my feminist friends. Zoo can do exactly what it’s designed to do and fuck itself and encourage others with similar attitudes to do the same. No matter how many times they say it, their attempts to bind and define feminism in terms of “ugliness”, “disease” and ”hate” do not actually lastingly alter the truth that feminism has many strands, many views, many faces, and many styles and that feminist women, no matter which *aesthetic approach* they take are bright, strong, powerful, vibrant and alive, and bound to make a difference in this world, and as such are much more accurately reflected in like the colours that make Dora so beautiful than in any ugly piece of untruth some mens magazine would have us believe.