# Destroy the Point
It is hot, my life remains in the lavatory and I have no icecream. More to the point, my #Helen100 date scheduled for tonight cancelled and so I am left alone on a Friday. With my empty muff and head.
Frankly, I’d rather write more about the former but its neglect cracks open the latter; and she is bordering upon madness at this hour, the close of International Women’s Day.
Don’t. Even. Talk. To. Me.
Seriously, don’t.
Anyone who knows me even a little makes sure to avoid the topic of gender in my company. Actually, one of the #Helen100 tried it in a pub in Coburg last week but we’ll get to that story – which ended with me raging “I couldn’t possibly fuck a biological essentialist; not even one with an EH Sedan”– in the fullness of time.
That guy didn’t know me. If he did, he’d know my ideas about gender come more from Judith Butler than they do from, say, Growing Pains. He’d know that an express route to my trousers is to talk about the seams that join Freud to Marx. He’d know my relationship with feminism is long, ardent and difficult.
Feminism. It keeps me awake at night. Yeah, I got problems. But not so many, I’d venture, as an Australian feminism that produces twaddle like this. For International Women’s Day, here is a piece that considers the special qualities women might bring as leaders of professional media.
WHAT? What? WHAT?
Are women better media leaders?
Rebekah Brooks is the answer. Marissa Mayer is the answer. Gina Rinehart is the answer. Fucking NO is the answer.
That professed feminists can think – just as the man in the Coburg pub did – that women have “special” qualities that they might bring to enterprise is fucking beyond me. Women are not nicer. Women are not a civilising influence. Women are just as capable of avarice and stupidity as anyone.
This “If Only Women Ruled the World” shit has no place outside the Hallmark Corporation. Ascribing a Marian grace to my gender might work in the Catholic Church but it really shouldn’t have any function for those who do not worship the Blessed Virgin.
Women are not gifted, either socially or biologically, of anything special. If we believe that they are, then we must also accept the possibility that the gender could be marked with unpleasant characteristics. If we believe that women are “better negotiators” or “great multitaskers”, we can also easily believe that they are “not very good with money” or some shit.
I find any work that even considers the idea that privileged white women do things in any way that is markedly superior or different to the things done by privileged white men so ineffably deluded I want to take ALL of the Alanis Morissette CDs purchased in the 1990s and make a sculpture of an enormous plastic masturbating woman and win the Turner Prize with a piece I have called Enormous Plastic Masturbating Woman Wins the Turner Prize.
Anyhow. The writing. One of many pieces of crap I saw today. I know little of its author Jenna Price. However, I certainly do know how to Google and, as a Media Professional, could easily pretend I have been aware of the lady’s work as an activist and academic for some time. And, in a way, I have as she is one of the architects of the local “movement” known as “Destroy the Joint”.
No. Destroy the Joint is not a competitive league of doobie smokers nor is it the work of those who especially like to eat spring lamb. It is, in fact, the locus for much feminist “action” and so, for my dateless purposes here tonight, a good site for inquiry.
Look. If you don’t know about it, read this hagiography. In short, the campaign sought to reignite feminism through a social media critique of traditional media.
For mine, Destroy the Joint began, very quickly, to Destroy the Point. As a fairly rash user of social media myself, I made the view known to tens of followers that I found the exercise distastefully onanistic. The fast cycles of uncritical rage that greeted a number of purportedly “misogynist” incidents – the average comedy of Daniel Tosh, the dressing of children in inappropriate clothing, the naming of a racehorse as a woman – brought to mind the usual pace of my own visits to RedTube.
We sit in front of screens and we suspend our thought to enhance our desire and then we mash our own genitals to the point that they explode in a brief but ecstatic frenzy of nothing especially productive. It’s a sad little ragegasm we need to repeat seven times a day in the absence of genuine congress.
I do not mind a good wank but I have little patience for a bad one and this mean and dessicated DTJ masturbation must, at some point, cease. The expense of this libidinal energy cannot be calculated. We are spending our climaxes in tiny online moments when, really, they are due elsewhere to fuck the system.
Feminism is the struggle against masculinsed violence and feminised poverty. Or, the acknowledgement that physical violence is enacted disproportionately by men and poverty is experienced disproportionately by women. That’s it, really.
And don’t give me that “there are many feminisms” shit. Yes, of course there are and my experience of gender is markedly different to that of a lass (or lad) living, say, in Maputo. But, for the sake of fuck, at SOME point, we have to agree about our basic aims and get off this DTJ-endorsed fap-wreck before we all perish from the carnal stink.
There are two chief DTJ problems and the first is that it feels like a cultural studies tutorial from 1991. I know what it is like to be absorbed in the novelty of semiotics and that “Angrily Calling Out Sexism Wherever You See It” is habit-forming. The behaviour is compulsive and sometimes, you know, it makes you act before you think and you get it wrong. SO wrong. I recall, for example, this moment in which DTJ ally Anne Summers called a urinal shaped like a mouth “misogynist”.
That the mouth urinals purchased by a Sydney restaurant were very clearly referencing the famous John Pasche Rolling Stones male mouth logo was immaterial; the lavs are on display at a Rolling Stones museum in Germany.
And, that these latrines had been present for years just a kilometre away in Oxford St in the bathroom of a club for homosexual men was not deemed relevant, either. Didn’t matter. Here, recourse to logic and facts would mean a pause in the fun, fast online work of screaming “MISOGYNY”.
In one social media conversation, a DTJ “pledge” told me I was a misogynist for “supporting” (N.B. if one is not objecting along with DTJ then one is supporting rape et al) this “crap”. As a great fan of Marcel Duchamp’s readymades, I couldn’t have been happier when she told me that “a urinal could never be art”. HA HA HA.
How am I the only person reminded here of the Piss Christ shame of the nineties with Summers and DTJ cast as George Pell? The idea that art (yes, even low or middle-brow art; and that includes Sexist Comedians) needs absolution from the Feminist Cardinal is, to me at least, anathema.
(Was it a similar frustration with dummies that drove both Greer and Paglia to publish on the topic of visual art?)
So. Yes. Bad cultural studies practice is the first problem. The second problem is that DTJ and her associates actually believe they are healing the faithless.
Look. Here’s the thing: telling people they are being disadvantaged is a tricky business, Caroline Chisholm. There’s something dangerously missionary in an approach that seeks to draft sisters to a Crusade chiefly at war with nonsense on the behalf of hollow gods. You are make-believe-slaying paps that snap pregnant celebrities. Oooooh.
Are these your true adversaries? Do you REALLY think The Patriarchy will cease to function if you boycott a bar or a performer or a clothing store? Are you jamming the gears of capitalism by defending Chrissie Swan?
No, honey. You’re not.
Baby, what are you fighting for? I presume the rationale is that by talking about “Everyday Sexism”, Everyday Women will join the struggle.
No. Don’t think so. People aren’t that easily led or recruited I know the ALP deludes itself that the electorate can be nudged to good by marginal lies and marketing. Don’t make the same mistake. Tell your constituency it is the struggle against masculinised violence and feminised poverty. They are bright and brave enough to hear it. It is arrogant and unhelpful and even alienating to suppose that they are not.
If you want to politicise someone, here’s a thought: talk to them about politics.
You don’t need some ridiculous spin about inappropriate plumbing or sexist wallpaper or whatever the fuck it is this week to apprentice folk to The Struggle. You need to read some macroeconomics, bitches, and spread the fucking word.
Hey. I’m right. I was, in fact, appointed feminism’s door bitch. And, no, you can’t come in if all you have to talk about is The Need For More Women CEOs and Less Sexism in Ads.
I am, however, flexible about double denims.
March 9th, 2013 at 2:09 am
hi Helen!
So, how do we get from acknowledging that “feminism”, as it currently stands, is fairly BS, to changing anything?
I also don’t think that, by virtue of our vaginas, that women “do” shit differently. And that would be so simple if that were the case, because then you could just “add women and stir” and fix shit.
But women are, literally, half the problem. The patriarchy.
When lib fem most likely reinforces the structures it purports to dismantle (because it relies on the same discourses), how do we acknowledge and begin to redress to fucked gender performances that mean “women write like women”?
Once we’ve read Butler, where do we go?
(I already like eating chicken skin)
March 9th, 2013 at 2:26 am
Hi Carolyn and how lovely to make your acquaintance.
Butler, of course, is not the answer. I’m detecting that you, like me, are Such a Nineties Bitch and were enthralled by queer/gender/cultural theory until you realised that there wasn’t a whole lot we could do with that perspective in terms of activism?
Look. Honestly, I’m not well-read enough to answer. I have the vague feeling I should go back and read Anti-Oedipus more carefully and come up with an understanding of material psychiatry that helped me see the world in terms of the marketplace AND desire.
But, really, you know, all I am urging – at its simplest level – is a back-to-basics approach. As I’ve said. Feminism is about masculinised violence and feminised poverty. I GENUINELY believe that the fixity on frou-frou such as Sexism in Advertising and Misogyny in Wallpaper does nothing but give a short erotic blast to middle-class feminists and make them feel like they’ve done something. Other than state the fucking obvious.
Really, it is the socialis in me who is disappointed. I am so sick of prizes and awards offered by financial institutions on IWD. I am sick of everyone forgetting that this is a day about labour history. I am sick of everyone thinking that the appointment of a lady CEO means anything but another victory for capitalism; a system under which wmen are oppressed as an economic class.
I am sick of ladies magazines masquerading as feminism. For mine, they’ve just replaced the word “diet” with “body image”. That some very good people are deluded into thinking this sort of conversation makes a difference depresses me.
Oh, god. It just all feels like propaganda to sell me face cream.
March 9th, 2013 at 2:29 am
What would a back to basics approach look like now?
March 9th, 2013 at 2:44 am
Labour rights. Childcare. Welfare justice. A science-based approach to violence. Stuff for which the State can and should be held responsible.
lobbying. That’s the main course. The rest of the stuff is dessert.
IN short, change the material conditions of lives.
March 9th, 2013 at 7:01 am
Hi Helen,
Don’t sweat the little stuff, big picture, focus people? something like that? Anyway thats the way I read it, I suppose I figure in the end any publicity an all, but I’m starting to see the backlash already to that. a whole new generation of anti-feminists….
Writing a post on a fb page, stating what is only your opinion, does not a better world make, but for some reason it does seem to bring joy to some. Sigh. Well as long as double denim is kept flexible, cause I look awesome in double denim, just saying.
Cheers
March 9th, 2013 at 7:08 am
Hi Helen,
Like any normal person I’m terrified of engaging with your rhetorical skills, but I’m interested to know what you think of the proposition that someone like Alan Jones does a lot to undermine the material conditions of marginalised people’s lives by spewing bigoted shit from a high place, contributing to a body politic more likely to spit at anyone who looks different and elect Tony Abbott, so that getting rid of Alan Jones and a few fellow fucknocks might make a real difference to things like labour rights and welfare justice; a proposition which seems to me the best rationale for groups like DTJ.
I don’t have strong feelings about double denim. I guess I support your right to wear it.
March 9th, 2013 at 7:23 am
Thanks for your question. M.
I don’t feel entirely under-qualified to answer this question given that radio was my industry for more than half my working life.
I was always a mad reader of the survey books and know a thing or two about the shape of Jones’ audience. They are older persons who listen for long periods (this accounts in part for talk-back radio’s high figures; young people simply don’t have the same time or inclination to listen t radio for such long periods) likely to be rusted-on Coalition voters.
In short, Jones is giving the people what they want. There are no surprises.
And I believe we could say the same of a current liberal feminism in Australia. Unsurprising, centre-left rage spoon-fed to a sluggis demographic unlikely to change their views.
In the end, bot parties are preaching to the choir.
As for Jones being a Man of Great Political Influence. Those days are so long gone.
Even if we agree with your proposition that Jones can cause a scintilla of harm (and really. all these turds are voting for Abbott in any case) my inner-libertarian disagrees with the idea of a group of Upright Ladies deciding what is and isn’t Suitable Entertainment for the masses by switching on their boycott tree.
March 9th, 2013 at 7:27 am
That’s such utter rubbish Helen and so disappointing to someone that grew up looking up to you as a teen (yes, in the 90s). Calling out sexism in advertising is wrong? Because it gives you an icky feeling? Because you feel it’s been done before? Because it doesn’t cater to your educated sensibilities?
There are countless men and women in bogan land that just don’t see a problem in sexualising women in the media. They do not understand why treating a woman (or a man) like a piece of brainless meat is a “bad thing”.
You speak as a woman swamped in privledge (I hate using that word). You’re “shuddering” at the realities you’re oh so bored la la la with feminism.
I watch porn as much as the next person, and there is a big difference between watching two people fuck in order to get off and an advertising campaign that reinforces tired gender roles.
You should be encouraging young women to challenge this imagery all the time instead of bitching about how boring it is on the Internet.
March 9th, 2013 at 7:31 am
Oh hi Helen! I love you a little bit and I am straight. Is that feminism? It feels a bit like it I think.
March 9th, 2013 at 7:35 am
N, I’m sorry you take offence here but I am not sorry in the slightest for what I have said about an organisation that just yesterday graciously accepted a prize from one of the nation’s major financial institutions. If a stamp of approval by one of Australia’s big banks doesn’t tip you off that something is wrong with the state of pop feminism, then I don’t know what shall.
As for your accusation that I AM A SNOB. Hey honey, I’m no the one attributing stupidity to “bogans”. I dare to problematise the tertiary educated middle-class soft-left and you call ME a snob? FFS.
I have set out very clearly my objections to the reflex, high-speed thinking of liberal feminism. I was not talking about porn by the way, but using it as an analogy to comprehend how speed and desire muddies thinking.
To this end, perhaps you could slow down and read a piece I spent some time crafting again. And you might see that my point is not to trash feminism but to advance it from a place of useless, damaging self-regard.
March 9th, 2013 at 7:42 am
Great rant! Thanks Helen, very illuminating.
I was quite enthralled by gender studies in the 70s. The only non-violent revolution going around, I thought. Still do, even allowing for the fact my patriarchally deified status as a white, middle class (and now middle-aged) male put paid to “my” feminist activism.
Nowadays I focus on the essential stuff, like: What would wifey like for dinner? And, What’s the ending to the tale about the bloke and the EH sedan?
March 9th, 2013 at 7:48 am
Next week, Charles. I need some emotional distance before I commit it to text!
March 9th, 2013 at 8:14 am
I enjoyed this and understand now why not to get into gender discussions with you.
So what exactly can a middle class, tertiary educated, soft left feminist who actually wants to make a difference do? Real question.
March 9th, 2013 at 8:24 am
Join a union. Read a book. Understand Land Rights. HEAPS LOVE HEAPS
March 9th, 2013 at 8:46 am
The phrase “something dangerously missionary” certainly crystallised a doubt I’ve had about DTJ.
March 9th, 2013 at 9:33 am
I must admit I was one of those ill informed wankers that bandied the #destroythejoint hashtag around without thinking too much about what I was doing. It seemed like a fun thing to do because everyone else was doing it too. Now, I feel like a collosal toss pot.
I realise now that its a bigger issue than I first thought. Its something I could actually do something about and use a bit of brainpower on.
Cheers Razer
March 9th, 2013 at 9:50 am
Case, such is the pornographic speed of the internet. I gave spoken too quickly too often as well and been seduced by the chance to hate-climax.
I think the thing is just to take things slow. Especially for the big things.
March 9th, 2013 at 10:01 am
Hey Helen,
I absolutely love this piece. You are a gifted writer and have made me seriously sit back and ponder your words. It’s made quite an impact on me, actually (even a teeny bit teary) – as I now rethink my journey.
I am a 42 yr old high school Drama teacher and mum of two young girls. Just over a year ago I started a blog because I could see the effect the current culture was having on our youth, first hand. I wanted to get in their ear while I could and just ask questions.
The feminism path I have taken has always been one for BALANCE – and it is most certainly out of whack at the moment (as it always has??).
The Capitalism Beast is feeding on our most simple and natural urges, tapping into something sinister and gaining a ridiculous profit from them, mainly to the detriment of our youth – the ones with the least power of full-cognitive decision making.
They keep going after a younger and younger target and it’s predatory. This is where I’m at – the grass-roots – but I also question us ‘grown-ups’. I was 15 in 1985 and although those feelings and urges were the same, I feel the quest to make a buck has now tipped us into bad territory.
I think this is what leads us to what you have so succinctly said – more violence from men and more ‘poverty’ for women. I write it in inverted commas because I think that this poverty can be sadly showcased in too many ways.
Dominance and Submissiveness seem to be the flavour and women are EQUALLY to blame for this current state of affairs – which is the reason I started my blog – to slap the (white middle-class) women out of their coma. Am I? Fuck knows.
I agree with you about a woman CEO. It just means she’s a ball-breaker like all her male comrades – she wouldn’t be there if she weren’t. She is just another cog conforming to the patriarchy. I WOULD like to see more women in power but just to balance things out. NOT rule the world – a ridiculous notion that would see us with a spectrum full of new problems.
I have been a party to many an email to call out violence against women. I think the t-shirt company that created Keep Calm and Rape t-shirts going under is a good thing, as that is one less walking billboard inciting hatred against women and creating this ‘it’s just a joke’ mentality that many seems to hold close to their bosom. But I also know that with the downfall of one, means it will be replaced ten-fold.
So what’s the solution, Helen?
I find myself disheartened on a daily basis, write when I can, read different essays and perspectives when I can, but ultimately feel quite ineffectual in all this most of the time.
Thanks Helen. I respect you and this piece and hope I can make a difference, even if it is a small one out in the suburbs.
Paula x
March 9th, 2013 at 10:11 am
Holy shit Helen Razer is awesome!
March 9th, 2013 at 10:16 am
I adore and affirm that you want to DO something Paula. As do I and – unfortunately – my only genuine skill (and an unevenly enacted one at that) is as a professional communicator.
I think you and I have very different projects, though. Perhaps it is as a result of an adult working life spent entirely in professional media that I so eagerly oppose a view that you seem to hold about the power of the media.
And this – with unfeigned respect – is my advice to you: to consider that believing uncritically in the cause-and-effect of media (and this would include advertising) is as deleterious to our idea of gender as so many suspect.
My point being, really, is: let’s never forget history. Gender disparity ain’t something that happened with the advent of mass culture. It;s been going on for 4 millennia. Give or take.
History is important. Reason is vital.The lifelong refusal to settle for “solutions” is key. As you have noted, late capitalism takes a different, slippery form and just when we feel we may have assessed how to stay one millimetre ahead, it has changed its form.
Can I say that, as a person of your age, I am so happy that you are teary. I like that about midlife. I like that we can be moved in our hearts and in our faculties for reason all at once. If we can work this shit out, we’ll get somewhere with our big ambitions and bigger emotion.
x
March 9th, 2013 at 10:17 am
Terrific stuff Helen. That there is about 10 op Ed /tweets / Facebook rants about the latest stupid muttering a of a stupid man (Jones, Koch etc) to every 1 op Ed / tweet / Facebook rant about the recent changes to single parent payment is a terrible reflecton on the state of feminism in this country. There are so many women in our community who aren’t listening to the radio or watching the telly because they’re too busy working two shitty paid jobs or are suffering at the hands of a violent spouse or whatever form male violence and female poverty takes for them. But don’t worry ladies, we boycotted some AM radio advertisers so everything’s going to be ok. Sorry ladies, couldn’t lobby the government on your behalf today, was too busy getting a bus to a tv studio to scowl at Kochie.
March 9th, 2013 at 10:18 am
See now I think I might want to discuss gender with you, but not… like that. Stipulating that I am writing this comment when I just woke up and haven’t had my ADHD meds yet, which, among other things, means now I want to talk about gender and feminism and the ideological transitions between the nineties and now, I mean, what the fuck has happened to us when Germaine goddamn Greer is going to bitch about the first female Australian Prime Minister’s dress sense, I mean, what?
Although, on reflection, it occurs to me that some of the foundation of my conceptual framework on gender came *from you*, in that, as I recall, one of the first texts I ever read that gave me any kind of of *philisophical underpinning*, that *put into words* a notion of gender as something more complex than “boys have penises and girls have vaginas”, was a book, that I still have, called “Everything’s Fine: A Beginner’s Guide to Thwarting Primary Nihilism” by one Helen Razer.
I’ve lost track of what I was going to say about feminism because my housemate got up and talked to me. This comment, I think, will resume when my medicinal dextroamphetamines kick in.
March 9th, 2013 at 10:21 am
WORD ANNE WORD
March 9th, 2013 at 10:22 am
By no means, resume linear thinking. I is entirely overrated, Sami. x
March 9th, 2013 at 10:36 am
“And this – with unfeigned respect – is my advice to you: to consider that the cause-and-effect of media (and this would include advertising) is as deleterious to our idea of gender as so many suspect.”
Spot on. I will.
I agree history is key and I try to educate with it too.
I have to do some serious rethinking. It’s such a massive monster to get my head around, but your words have ignited a fire.
I believe a good cry is just as necessary as a good laugh! Such a ‘girl’ of me! Hahaha!
BTW I once spoke to you on air for 10 secs on Triple J about female ejacualtions. Good times ;) x
March 9th, 2013 at 10:39 am
I am oppressed by DJT bullies who would have me shot at dawn and my clothes burnt for daring to write such un-PC provocations as these!
Help me, H, how can a man tell a woman with her head up her arse that she has her head up her arse without being labelled a despot?
March 9th, 2013 at 10:41 am
Helen seeing your recent tweets on the topic I have been thinking come on Razer give me something more than 140 characters to state your argument and indeed you have in what is, once again, a beautifully crafted piece. I sort of understand how even the cleverest and most thoughtful people can get caught up in the current “movement” – that first top of the head reaction to constantly call the behaviour rather than focus on the main game or as you so succinctly put it “… the struggle against masculinsed violence and feminised poverty” I also acknowledge that some of these same people do produce thoughtful and thought provoking pieces which take the discussion beyond Alan Jones and racehorses. However once banks start handing out awards and other white middle class institutions start nodding approvingly, one must stop, think, take a deep breath and refocus. Your efforts in keeping it on topic are most appreciated.
March 9th, 2013 at 10:44 am
Great piece, Helen. PS have you seen this article? http://www.srfood.org/index.php/en/component/content/article/1-latest-news/2703-empowering-women-is-shortcut-to-tackling-hunger-un-expert-on-right-to-food
March 9th, 2013 at 10:52 am
You nail it here: “Women are not gifted, either socially or biologically, of anything special.”
I can’t bear to read any of this Destroy The Joint stuff. It’s pure dross.
My view is this:
(1) women are not taking responsibility for their experience of life;
(2) taking responsibility means creating one’s life in the face of circumstances, adverse and not; the circumstances are the conditions of the game;
(3) the usual complaints are matters of content; the real action happens at the level of context. Until we address who we are being at the level of context, the more things change the more they will stay the same.
Thanks for the passionate, rigorous post.
March 9th, 2013 at 10:54 am
Hi Helen. I will start by saying in reference to an earlier comment that given my year 10, 1978 western suburbs education, I would probably be considered by some to be a mature age bogan. I do not watch porn, I have great respect for the medical proof supporting the virtues of masturbation and although I could never quite put my finger on it (no pun intended) the DTJ campaign has always made me feel a little queasy. Somewhat surprising maybe for a generation whose feminist views and the way we interacted were reinforced by Puberty Blues. Love your article and will be reading it again slowly so I can of course get the full gist of it. Bogans sometimes need to do that. Having said all that, I agree we have forgotten the point of feminism. Certainly there has been great inroads made since 1978, one thing that has not changed much is that women themselves are our worst own enemy. Feminism needs to be more intelligent and purposeful. That is all.
March 9th, 2013 at 10:56 am
dear helen i am a man but i feel like im not represented by men im not gay nor am i feminist ive sucked a few cocks in my early years but that was just curiosity now i dont feel particularly worried by local social causes because they are that exactly im wondering can you help me devise a plan to have the isrealis out of paLISTINE OR BRINGING HOME TROOPS Aussie that is sorry bought the caps also i would like us to koin together in the fight against the doctors drugging the nation with anti depressents whilst we are at it could we go to n ireland were im from and sort out all the ingrained mahogany and social differences there there are also trobles in africa im worried about and of course the drones killing people willy nilly i worry about my daughter in the sense that she may indeed become lost in a world were gender becomes the starting point for revolt be it right or wrong when there is so much wrong now il excuse myself im gonna do the dishes and the washing this morning my wifes been working all week i stay at home and do the child thing and think about wars mainly get anti depressants and become libidnally useless and increasingly more meh but i hear ye im a ninties whatever to i hear you
March 9th, 2013 at 11:01 am
Helen, interesting read- thanks. I know it is a critique of lib feminism and not an instruction manual but your answers on ‘what to do’ seem to focus on feminised poverty (eg join a union) and not how to address violence against women of all classes. What do you think are the causes of violence against women across classes, countries and cultures, and what action do you think can be taken now to address this. I would like to see some of that energy you use to so deftly attack the (misguided) actions of others to offer more than glib responses as an alternative.
March 9th, 2013 at 11:04 am
“I find any work that even considers the idea that privileged white women do things in any way that is markedly superior or different to the things done by privileged white men so ineffably deluded I want to take ALL of the Alanis Morissette CDs purchased in the 1990s and make a sculpture of an enormous plastic masturbating woman and win the Turner Prize with a piece I have called Enormous Plastic Masturbating Woman Wins the Turner Prize.”
1. I’d buy that for a dollar.
2. Privileged white women = privileged white men? If yr able to ascribe a common status, perspective or behaviour, in general terms, to individuals in terms of race and class, why not gender?
March 9th, 2013 at 11:20 am
Helen, thank you for this post. I have becomes increasingly dismayed at what I see as simply ‘feminism for the sake of feminism’ taking over my Twitter feed. More often than not, the point seems to be quickly lost (or it was never there to begin with). In fact, often I think the only aim of these crusades is to recruit as many ‘outraged’ participants as possible in order to occupy as many Twitter/Facebook feeds as possible. People get caught up in the rush of being a part of this ‘community’ (myself included, having hastily typed up a few #destroythejoint tweets in my time), but fail to consider what it all means. I’ve come to realise that in most cases, it means nothing.
Personally, when I look back over the last 12 years of my working life, I can’t say that I have been disadvantaged in any way for being female. Perhaps it’s a result of the industry I work in. I’ve had female managers and male managers. Some have been fucking terrible. Some have been great. But I don’t think that any of them have been ‘good’ or ‘bad’ based on their gender. Not once has gender been a factor in whether or not I’m considered to be good at my job. I’m good at my job because it’s something that I’m skilled in, and something that I’ve gained a lot of experience in. Some of my jobs have had bad pay, while others (like my current role) have not. In the cases where the pay has been not great, it’s a more of a reflection on the workplace as a whole rather than men being financially rewarded more than women. I’ve worked hard, but I don’t think I’ve had to work any harder to ‘prove’ myself because I’m a woman. Granted, I don’t have children, but I have to say that my work–life balance is pretty fucking good.
When I HAVE experienced gender-based discrimination, it has, funnily enough, come from ‘feminists’ online who think that I don’t fit neatly in their restrictive feminist mould. The biggest example is the criticism that I’m not aiding their feminist cause by making my own clothes (apparently I’m aspiring to be a 1950s housewife or something). The reasons I sew are that I’m small and have trouble finding clothes that fit well; and that I don’t particularly want to financially contribute to ‘disposable’ fashion (an industry that DOES exploit women who are living in poverty). Amazing women like Peta Pledger support and encourage such endeavours, and for that I am grateful.
Where feminism can make a difference is with young girls living in endless cycles of poverty. None of this is going to be helped by spending our time retweeting sometimes witty but often pointless brain farts.
(I apologise that this is so long.)
March 9th, 2013 at 11:30 am
directed here by bernard keane tweet, thinking OK, might be worth a look, not knowing what it was about, had not checked social media for some days, i’m guessing it was intnal wimmins day recently… and, oh look, how female of me to anecdotise my reaction,
but anyway,
loved this piece, read it in as if sipping a nice champagne. i feel cleansed. because, i have this issue with some of the things i read from young so-called feminists, illustrated by some of what i read by DTJ supporters. but i am unable to craft my feelings of ill-at-ease, and the occasional out-and out chagrin i experience, in sensible language.
this piece has gone some way in that direction. hence my own burden is lighter. i will be looking forward to further rants on your part. signed,
one dull first wave feminist, still grappling with what 3rd wave feminism means for us all.
March 9th, 2013 at 11:34 am
Me too Case, me too. Thanks again Helen for food for thought. The proper nourishing kind.
March 9th, 2013 at 12:09 pm
Hi Helen,
Your article made me quite sad. It sounded like “my feminism is better than Destroy the Joint’s feminism.” In striving for equality people should not be competing or putting each other down. I have no problem with Destroy the Joint. I have two teenage daughters and I AM disappointed with the image of women that is portrayed to them in the media. I am happy with what Destroy the Joint stands for. I am sad someone I thought of as pro equal rights would think it appropriate to try to put them down, for what, trying to make people aware of everyday sexism. As I said, your article made me quite sad.
March 9th, 2013 at 12:10 pm
Oh, Helen
As a fellow fortysomething refugee from a failed humanities education I hear you. And I’m right with you until the socialism bit. As my idol Deirdre McCloskey (who started out life as Donald, BTW) said, in probably the best blog post ever written (though this one comes a close second:
“How do I know that my narrative is better than yours? The experiments of the 20th century told me so. It would have been hard to know the wisdom of Friedrich Hayek or Milton Friedman or Deirdre McCloskey in August of 1914, before the experiments in large government were well begun. But anyone who after the 20th century still thinks that thoroughgoing socialism, nationalism, imperialism, mobilization, central planning, regulation, zoning, price controls, tax policy, labor unions, business cartels, government spending, intrusive policing, adventurism in foreign policy, faith in entangling religion and politics, or most of the other thoroughgoing 19th-century proposals for governmental action are still neat, harmless ideas for improving our lives is not paying attention.”
Read the whole thing.
March 9th, 2013 at 12:22 pm
Well said.
You’re fuckin’ alright, Helen.
March 9th, 2013 at 1:16 pm
Hey Helen,
Great article. I was wondering what you meant by “science-based approach to violence.” Could you expand upon that?
March 9th, 2013 at 1:18 pm
You have ignored the fact that there is a relationship between sexism, including sexism featured in advertising, and masculinised violence, specifically rape.
The objectification of women in advertising breeds notions that women are not humans and do not have autonomy of their bodies, thereby inducing a masculinised culture of sexual assault and rape. This cannot be disputed.
Men need to be taught not to perpetrate sexual violence and if that means that feminist campaigns target small wins such as sexism in advertising, then this is a good thing and should not be scoffed at.
Eradicating masculinised violence and poverty are certainly the most important fights for feminists, but these are overwhelmingly large tasks. Rallying for these small wins by contrast are tangible and immediate actions feminists can take, which ultimately do have implications on improving the larger issues at hand.
March 9th, 2013 at 1:25 pm
This is very interesting and I’m all at sea. I agree and disagree at once, and alternatingly with each sentence. Everything makes sense and then I’m not sure I understand at all. I have no insightful discussion to add but the fact that I’m compelled to comment says something. I will likely think about the ideas in this post for quite some time, if not the rest of my life (I’m hardly exaggerating).
The point you are making hereabouts:
“Women are not gifted, either socially or biologically, of anything special.”
Is something I have long believed and been unable to quite put into words.
March 9th, 2013 at 1:49 pm
Yo’ Hellz,
Congratulations. Twice now you’ve steered my unfocussed, lazy feminist thinking into an utter, uterine glugged mess. I am confused. You raise points sharper than Gaultier’s closet door handles. Free Pussy Riot are my idea of feminism’s pop culture. If you are the door bitch to feminism, I was the white fool begging to get in “is my friend in there y’all an’ Helen, I think she’s got my handbag and my interwebs activism is in there”, knowing full well I didn’t have a friend in feminism, I’d sidelined myself watching some incredible people in action. I wanted to get in and figure WTH, what the helen, is this movement all about!?! The early wave of DtJ, before it reared itself to baby sick yellow, was humour. I threw in that I’d have rather muled heroin than given birth to Alan Jones. Even before I knew Helen and I don’t know Helen, the idea I have of Helen is a decent one even when sometimes she could do with a large spank of a fry pan on the bot-bot. May I? The stab in mainstream feminism’s back for me was DtJ accepting an award from NAB as you point out. It left a cheap, foul feminism combo taste in my mouth. I still keep an eye on them on the sidelines, I still keep an eye on it all. I’m still looking in and around and I’m confused as fuck and I know Helen’s starring at me right now and is about to grab me by the frontal lobe and throw me out. “YOU’RE NAME’S NOT DOWN, YOU’RE NOT COMING IN”. Help, Helen.
March 9th, 2013 at 2:43 pm
Don’t say you’re over-rated, Helen. Apart from anything else, I have no desire to go to Melbourne, so obliging me to visit Melbourne just to spank you in some fashion literal or metaphorical will irk me. Not to get RuPaul on this shit, but
a) if you can’t love yourself, how the hell you gonna love somebody else
although also
b) this assumes there is consensus on how you are rated, a thesis I think is unsupported (even by me, as there are ways in which I think you are awesome, ways in which I find your viewpoints a tad unfortunate, and many, many ways in which I have no opinion because I don’t exactly know you very well).
ANYWAY ALL THIS IS A DIGRESSION.
The problem with attending to superficialaties in your feminism is not the attendance itself, although I am dubious as to how, exactly, achieving the removal of some clearly masculine-design lips-shaped urinals from a gay club is going to contribute in any way to dismantling the kyriarchy, rather than, say, reinforcing the stereotype of feminism as anti-fun, reactionary and kind of stupid and thereby reinforcing anti-feminist sentiment. Cough.
The problem is more that calling out Alan Jones is firstly redundant, and secondly pointless. Everyone knows he’s a misogynistic prick; his listeners and advertisers are okay with that, and you’re not going to make anyone go, “Oh! I hadn’t realised! This changes everything!” Sure, it’s satisfying, and it’s important to keep awareness of his putrescence in the general zeitgeist, but getting activist about it, and similar things, isn’t helping, and it’s wasting potential. It’s fun, but it’s sort of the active feminism equivalent of empty calories; fun is all it really offers.
Everyone has only so much time and energy to devote to Fighting The Power. We all have shit to do, after all. And if you spend that time bitching about Alan Jones, then you’re not spending it doing anything that’s actually worth doing. If you’re going to call out a media whore for sucking patriarchy cock, call out Germaine fucking Greer, because she’s not supposed to be working for them, whereas it’s Alan Jones’s raison de career.
If you want to make a real difference to the world, this isn’t it. Changing the world is less glamorous, less fun, and less easy, and involves talking to people who don’t already agree with you, to boot.
And just for the record, it involves inviting men to the party. I don’t want to dismantle the Patriarchy and replace it with a Matriarchy, because women are not inherently superior to men. On the one hand, my grandmother, as close to a genuine saint as I have ever known to exist in this world, was a woman. Lots of lovely people are women. On the other hand, Margaret Thatcher, Bronwyn Bishop, Julie Bishop and Pauline Hanson are also all women, and women who actually sought power at that, and all of them are horrible people.
Women are, on average, better at communication than men is arguably true; men are, on average, better at spacial reasoning than women. But take a random man and a random woman off the street, and you might well find that she could hand him his nuts in fight, but he can talk her out of it.
I mean, if our choices were between a man and a woman as Prime Minister, the “women would lead better” argument suggests I should vote for the woman. But if the choices were in fact Amanda Vanstone and Andrew Denton? I’d like Mr Denton to see how he feels about branching into politics, thanks.
It’s why I have more respect for groups like Men Can Stop Rape (mencanstoprape.org) than things like Take Back The Night. Grand gestures are all very well, but achieving things takes ongoing work.
(I used some pretty gendered language here. I will only add this: http://www.oglaf.com/amazonlinguistics/1/ )
March 9th, 2013 at 3:10 pm
Thanks for sticking up for us “Bogans” Great article by the way, really made me think!
March 9th, 2013 at 3:11 pm
I AM a bogan.
March 9th, 2013 at 3:16 pm
This article was fabulous and certainly got me thinking!!!!
When DTJ first emerged, I loved the way it used humour to kind of expose the archaic views of Jones et al. I found it subversive, and got quite swept away- liking the page on facebook, following on twitter etc etc.
I first started feeling vaguely queasy about it, when DTJ started posting articles about the names of cocktails at a bar, and then Matthew Newton and Chris Brown, and reading the threads that followed, and the kind of ubiquitous hysteria of MEN ARE VIOLENT AND BAD AND SHOULD BE CASTRATED!!!! Wait, what? How as a movement are you furthering any cause, or enacting any real, positive social change by slamming celebrities?
Your article definitely made me think! Loved it.
March 9th, 2013 at 3:19 pm
Your points are well made Helen, but isn’t there a link between improving women’s overall economic position and increasing the number of women CEOs?
You might mount an argument that CEOs overall are overpaid and over-privileged, and I might not disagree with you, but that would move the discussion toward a more general discourse on wealth distribution than the position of women in particular.
March 9th, 2013 at 3:20 pm
Please allow me to destroy the point, or at least veer off it, for a minute:
As a typical pinko, I am inclined to broadly agree with your advice to join a union. Problem is, given the shape of the workforce, the vast majority of women—particularly mothers—are going to end up giving their fees to the SDA, and increasing the political sway of Joe de Bruyn. Nothing good can come from that. And nobody appears to be attempting to bring that fucker down from the inside. Of course, most of the delegates and virtually all of the members are completely unaware of de Bruyn’s überconservative Catholic vision for the country, and have their hearts in the right place, but their numbers can still be used to add false legitimacy to his cause.
I dunno; it’s tricky. Thoughts?
March 9th, 2013 at 3:23 pm
Thank you for the pink-stink. But can you all please stop looking at me like I know anything?? :-)
I think it is okay for me to complicate and problematise the project of lib-feminism without offering an alternative, you know. Isn’t it?
March 9th, 2013 at 3:46 pm
Don’t know what to make of you Helen Razer, sometimes you strike me as a detention seeker and others as someone just taking the piss. Ah the mystique. Anyway this old feminist warhorse has found it amusing and interesting reading your rant and its responses. In my experience a penis has often been a definite advantage. I agree that we have to create our own context and have the guts to live in it. It’s been both a thrill and a challenge but now I’m getting tired of the same old same old. Things wouldn’t be necessarily better if women ran the world, but gees I’d love to give it a crack (no pun intended) for a while!
March 9th, 2013 at 3:54 pm
I think I’m a little from both Columns (a) and (b), Gen.
March 9th, 2013 at 4:18 pm
The bogan thing is part, I think, of why the patriarchy is less important than the kyriarchy, i.e. the whole structure of privilege under which we currently live.
I’m not interested in dismantling the patriarchy for the rich white women while they still get to sneer at bogans. Bogans are fine.
When people sneer at bogans, what they seem to be sneering at ACTUALLY is not the cultural qualities of the population of the inner suburbs. They’re sneering at poor people, and assigning their poverty to inherent inferiority, as well as dismissing the suggestion that their poverty is a problem – they’re only bogans.
I’ve met people who do this stuff, and their views are toxic. I grew up poor, but my family gets sympathy because we’re well-spoken and, well, not bogan.
I used to work for telephone directory assistance. I had customers compliment me on my excellent “private school” accent – and get flustered and occasionally ANGRY when I said thank you, but I went to a government school. Which I did – one that had nicknames among Perth teachers like “Bogan High” and “Balga by the Beach”. Balga being one of the most bogan suburbs in Perth. But my parents didn’t grow up in Australia, and my mother was a Drama and English teacher, so my accent tilts away from ocker. (Also, she was from the Eastern States, and Australian accents get broader the further east you go.)
They got angry at me for having the accent I have without having gone to private school. Because, I suspect, I sounded like a Good, Nice Girl, and not the kind of worthless poor bogan who has to go to *public school*.
I’ve also known people like that at uni, and those people tended to argue, if this sort of thing came up, that any uni student who took offence at negative comments about bogans wasn’t actually a bogan, because they were at uni, after all. They would, I imagine, also discount Helen as one, because bogans don’t understand long words or use computers.
Fuck that. Seriously. Establishing a cultural disguise for stigmatising poor people can eat a bag of dicks.
March 9th, 2013 at 4:30 pm
Nail. Head. Hit.
Tired of tip-toeing around the craptacular wank that is DTJ. I feel like shouting at Jane Caro et al, ‘come back to me when you have grasped the basics of gender in political economy’. Don’t like the way women are portrayed in advertising / media? The main protagonists of DTJ are active participants/leaders in these industries. Leverage your very real power (which is far stronger than Alan Jones’ perch) or whinge about pink Lego.
March 9th, 2013 at 4:33 pm
YES. Mounds of YES.
March 9th, 2013 at 4:47 pm
I don’t have much more to say than I really, really felt something reading this. I’ve been concerned about (but couldn’t quite articulate it) being really lost in the loudness of pop feminism that’s kind of swamping me. Like getting so outraged about EVERYTHING but being a bit rudderless. I’m thinking back to my Uni topic Sex, Gender & Politics from uni in 1996. That resonated. Thanks for the post Helen.
March 9th, 2013 at 5:02 pm
Thank you, Missus x
March 9th, 2013 at 5:12 pm
WTF INTERROBANG IS THIS SHITTY ARTICLE INTERROBANG INTERROBANG INTERROBANG YOU HAVE NO IDEA ABOUT FEMINIST ACTIVISM GRRRR YOU MAKE ME SO SHOUTY OMFG
March 9th, 2013 at 5:36 pm
I am in a union, I read all sorts of things, I believe in land rights …& a little bit teary that perhaps I am helping in my own quiet way..
March 9th, 2013 at 6:21 pm
love I think you might be menopausal
March 9th, 2013 at 6:33 pm
Sadly, in the 90s I was studying sciences at university, whilst all of my friends were studying arts, politics, culture and gender. It’s like I’ve been living in a conversation bubble for years. I wish I could talk to smart people like you, because I am shit smart also, but I don’t understand any of your references, so I’d be tedious and aspergersy. When I do open my mouth in these conversations, I come off as tangential and reductionist. But you know what? I really think I have good hunches on actual answers to what should happen next.
I despise unions as corrupt power-hungry bully boy croney-fests (of men) who NEVER survey their members to see what they actually want, but somehow magically divine their political opinions, and then mollify them with wage rises and toilet paper.
My female CEO of a public organisation which would have been Top 10 if it was privately owned had the opinion “oh no, not more social agrarianism”. Dispiriting – but that’s because she was enjoying her privileged position at the top of the same bad machine – by playing the same bad game. Putting women in power doesn’t make them magically counter-cultural etc. So agreed. Know plenty of idealists who only want me to be yin female, social networker, hold their baby when I’m out drinking! etc. Balls to that.
I think the answer to a better, developing, evolving culture is happier people, with more agency and independence. Less capitalism.
So land ownership reform – e.g usufruct – and permaculture.
Absolute focus on activism for law changes. Much more and/or continued social responsibility in government – child care, schooling, maternity leave, medical care. And lots of cultural activism to reach all the people who will evolve the culture, slowly and surely – which means facilitating and teaching culturally different people to do new things.
I worry that, in lots of cultural change movements – the greenies do it all the time too – positive efforts get denigrated for not being enough/ being a waste of effort. Maybe negativity rather ought to be shafted home to the baddies, and the lame encouraged to do better – not criticised.
Anyway, re Helen100 I’d date you chastely if I wasn’t friggin miles away, married to a man and scared I’d ruin my happy ever after if I got drunk and reckless. Thanks for the lovely ranting though.
cheers Scarlett
March 9th, 2013 at 9:11 pm
Damn good read and damn good perspectives in the comments. All valid as everyone comes from a different place and age. How now shall we proceed together to change what we don’t like? And is ‘what we don’t like’gender discrimination or class discrimination or a strange confusing mixture perhaps contrived to exclude most of us?
March 9th, 2013 at 9:43 pm
I wonder how many people clicked through to read Jenna Price’s article on women running newspapers and news websites? Nowhere does she suggest that women editors would be better because of any inherently superior talent, intellect or morality. That’s a straw man argument. What she does is ask if the news would be different.
Surely it’s a fair question? Even if you don’t believe that women are different because of biology, surely it’s obvious that we are all shaped by our experiences in life? Women, on average, offer different perspectives to men, on average, because of different life experiences. People of different races and classes and health conditions and so on bring different perspectives too. If every person in a group is from the same background then the range of experiences and perspectives is limited – a diverse group knows more.
I wouldn’t say that women are under-represented in the media but nor are we anything close to 50% of the senior editorial ranks, despite being 50% of the population and more than 50% of lower ranks. Based on my own experience in the media and the discussions that go on between men and women at editorial meetings of newspapers and magazines, women absolutely bring a different perspective and the content would be different with more women at the top. I’ve seen this for myself. And yes it would be better – not because women are better but because it would be more representative of society as a whole. (If men’s perspectives ended up being marginalised that would be a bad thing too – the aim is for the news media to represent society).
As for your commentary on Destroy the Joint, I hear you. I was broadly sympathetic but I must admit I got sick of it too. It felt like manufactured outrage. Alan Jones is a dick but his power is waning and as you say, he preaches to the converted. I think Destroy the Joint made some valid points, but there was also a lot of grandstanding. That’s not the fault of any one person – there were thousands and thousands of people participating on the Destroy the Joint Facebook wall and using the hashtag.
I think that masculinised violence and feminised poverty are the most important feminist issues. I think we can get too wrapped up in our own issues (such as women on boards) and forget the very real struggle that poor women face in our own country and around the world.
That said, poverty is also relative. More women in CEO roles and on boards would improve relative economic advantage. I think it’s shameful that there are only 16 women on the BRW Rich 200 list – I would agree that it’s not as important as helping struggling single mothers in the suburbs or ensuring girls in Africa go to school, but that doesn’t mean it’s completely irrelevant. I want to have every opportunity in life and I want that for every woman and girl. Poverty should not be gendered – but nor should wealth.
Same goes for the so-called little issues. I don’t care about the urinal – I don’t think that has anything to do with anything and you are right that the cultural references are not about women at all – but I do care about “body image”. You see something packaged up to sell you face cream. I see an issue that scares the crap out of me when I think about my two-year-old daughter navigating adolescence. Everyday sexism and the portrayal of women in the media does matter. I’m past the point of caring about it for my own sake – I’m 36 and comfortable in my skin – but I care about it deeply for how it might hurt my little girl.
Can’t we fight the big stuff and the little stuff at the same time? Do we really have to choose?
For what it’s worth, I celebrated International Women’s Day by spending $100 on Kiva loans to four women in developing countries and $50 donating to Room to Read’s girls education program. It makes me a privileged white woman to be able to afford that largesse but I hope it helps. http://www.roomtoread.org http://www.kiva.org
March 9th, 2013 at 10:10 pm
Hello Scarlett, are you on twitter? You pretty much wrote my brain.
March 9th, 2013 at 10:12 pm
Dear Helen, interesting piece, if a touch too vehement for my tastes i do appreciate your argument, though
I’ve lived most of my life in the country in the Deep North, so I’m educated but not sophisticated. I was thrilled to see Julia’s speech in Parliament. I gladly joined Destroy the Joint on FB and Twitter in its first few weeks and you can see my face in their artful montages. Then I retweeted a piece written in the Hindu Times by a woman in Delhi about its rape culture after Jyoti Pandi was murdered and the women of Delhi (and many men) rose up. I was instantly followed by several dozen Hindu men attacking me personally, my race, nationality, age, class (most of which they got wrong). I blocked them, so they then made up racist tweets and put my name to them, urging other men to harass me, copying in DTJ.
Instead of supporting me, DTJ became an apologist, denying there was any rape culture in areas or castes in India. With complete lack of logic, they then posted a tweet about rape culture in English soccer supporters, as though showing white subcultures also do this somehow means a black culture doesn’t. I tweeted back I was being harassed, but they didn’t defend me, this bastion of politically correct feminism. Guess who else I “blocked”?
March 9th, 2013 at 10:28 pm
SOrry, hon (X). I meant an approach based in social science. Evidence-based research.
March 9th, 2013 at 11:56 pm
Hey Helen,
Totally understood what you meant. I was wondering if you could expand upon that in a tangible way, ie, what research is necessary, and what outcomes would it be looking for?
March 10th, 2013 at 12:05 am
Oh, goodness.X, I am a humanities person and not a social scientist. I’m simply advocating for the use of evidence-based policy rather than knee-jerk reactions to the problem of the violence that is enacted by men on both men and women.
This is a question for social psychologists. Not for me.
As I’ve said, I don’t have answers. Nor do I feel that I need to in critiquing liberal feminism. I just feel it’s my gig to problematise the dominant talk; especially when it sounds like total bullshit to me. Sure, it’s bad to do NOTHING. But isn’t it worse to do a something which may, in fact, have a negative impact? As I have tried to explain, the primary function of DtJ and the new habit of the liberal feminism from which it comes is SCOURING the culture for sexism and yelling “THERE IS SEXISM OVER THERE” and then spreading a sense of viral rage and subsequent satisfaction that something has been done. When in fact, nothing has been done. This sense of achievement is a time-sink.
March 10th, 2013 at 12:46 am
Thanks for the response. I’m not looking for answers, but more for a direction.
I guess what I’m asking is: are you saying that, in your opinion, we should be studying what makes the culture of masculinised violence so pervasive in culture in the 21st century, and therefore what mechanisms we could put in place to truly equalise society?
Not trying to put words in your mouth, just trying to explain my position by example. :)
March 10th, 2013 at 1:10 am
Hey Helz, did you ever get that ice cream? It’s still fucking hot.
March 10th, 2013 at 1:45 am
Hi Helen,
A really thought provoking read.
Thank u.
Is it ok to question DTJ feminist opinion on issues? No that’s right, I can’t because I’ve got a dick……
Helen, You challenged my thinking. I like it
Cheers
S
March 10th, 2013 at 10:42 am
LOL at the dudes whose takeaway from this article is “Right on! I’m being oppressed by Destroy the Joint because I’m a man!” Don’t think that’s what she was going for, guys.
March 10th, 2013 at 11:51 am
Agree “… it’s bad to do NOTHING. But isn’t it worse to do a something which may, in fact, have a negative impact?..” but also much worse to continue to do it after it is clear that it isn’t actually changing anything other than to have a whole lot of people searching out whatever it is that happens to personally shit them about others’ behaviour, calling it sexist, mysoginist whatever and then have everyone declare themselves the new vanguard by clicking like on FB
March 10th, 2013 at 1:26 pm
Fantastic piece Helen. My comments are on some parallels I see.
I’m politically engaged as a progressive and see/hear exactly the same discussions going on, as has always gone on, amongst people who don’t support the mainstream and want a better world. eg. Do we lobby/agitate/act to cover coal wagons (to prevent coal dust spreading and damaging peoples’ health )and score a minor goal or do we say simply no more coal. If coal wagons are covered does that then excuse the multi-national mining companies to continue their rape and pillage. I think it does.
Now throw in social media. Look at the crap that was said about the role of social media in the Egyptian Arab Spring. No facebook didn’t bring it about, there had been years of union/community/grass roots organisation against the corrupt regime. People putting their lives and jobs on the line for years, not just a tweet here and there or a facebook like, or a corporate award.
DTJ should look carefully at itself. Note Julie D’s story – it’s horrifying. Accepting award from NAB is a joke.
And thank you for introducing me to Judith Butler.
March 10th, 2013 at 2:46 pm
Hmm, better brace yourself, Helen. Bet there are several pithy Open Letters & petitions being formulated right now. Ugh. Save me from both.
March 10th, 2013 at 3:20 pm
Childcare as basic right : check; Chicken standing up : check ; double denim : only if worn with a crew neck t-shirt sans motif or script ( hair product optional) . Read this twice & it gets better with every read X
March 10th, 2013 at 3:27 pm
Helen, I think you are a gifted writer. I just wish you would use your gift for good rather than evil. By evil, I mean – writing something that is clearly going to make Jenna Price feel like crap. You criticise her writing and her DTJ movement. While I agree with some of your argument, I think that by repeatedly saying you “are not a nice person – deal with it” does not carve out your responsibility to treat people nicely. People are terrified of engaging with you, me included. You may have some supporters who won’t be honest enough to tell you that. But do you want to form a community for yourself based on meanness and put-downs? Make peace with Jenna, please.
March 10th, 2013 at 3:36 pm
I will contact Jenna privately. But please consider why you are suggesting that I refrain from critiquing a piece of writing published on a professional website on a topic about which I am expert. And consider why you think it is unacceptable for me to critique Destroy the Joint.
Read my piece again. It is not about Jenna Price. It is about liberal feminism and the current, widespread habit of using social and traditional media to “call out sexism” in a way that I believe diminishes any real action.
Tell me why I am required to be pleasant. Tell me why I should, even for a millisecond, not be terrifying? Ask yourself why you are terrified. This is just debate. I did not make an ad hominem attack. Unlike Ms Price who begins her rebuttal by “apologising” for the personal trouble (???) I am so clearly having.
March 10th, 2013 at 3:55 pm
Is there a reason why you won’t respond to the men who love you because you are so critical of feminism (and criticism is good and healthy)? An example is Steve up there, who feel oppressed that they can’t speak because of their dicks or something. But you respond with such ferocity to women? And besides — you are not a nice person, you’re edgy, avant-garde or whatever it is.
March 10th, 2013 at 4:21 pm
I guess it’s because I just love cock.
March 10th, 2013 at 4:37 pm
Great to see a different perspective to the debate. I too feel that feminist rage could be better directed than taking offense at poor old Black Caviar – although I do also appreciate the necessarily ceaseless fight against sexism in advertising.
I think the ‘special qualities’ argument may have some merit – I’m thinking of some (evidence based!) studies into risk attitude and market behaviour by men and women that points to more responsible corporate boards being the ones with better gender balance. Before you shoot me, read Eckel, Grossman, Fellner.
And sexualised violence – I’m not sure women are quite as good at that as men.
March 10th, 2013 at 5:01 pm
Wiston texted. He thinks you’re awesome, and wants you back.
March 10th, 2013 at 5:48 pm
For the most part I agree. Identifying & complaining should not be an end in itself for Liberal Feminists. And, what it’s worth DtJ’s Price was the one who wrote the SMH article where she admitted saying ‘sorry’ to women who revealed they were childless. I still can’t understand how someone who (apparently) stands for women’s freedom to make choices didn’t realise women ARE making those choices and further, are happy. (Of course acknowledging there is childlessness by circumstance and childlessness not by choice). Price, it seems may have once been as biologically essentialist as that Helen100 date. Even now, laden as I am with my white semi-privilege guilt, I’m just so tired of the million little micro aggressions of patriarchy we’re mired in, let alone the fundamental principles they shroud.
March 10th, 2013 at 6:47 pm
He can ask me on a date, then.
March 10th, 2013 at 11:32 pm
Martina, you missed the point.
It’s because “I have a cock” that many (not all) DTJ crew dismiss my opinion, and that of others “with cocks”, as having no validity.
For the record Helen, I’m so pleased you love cock.
March 11th, 2013 at 12:02 am
Oh. Who doesn’t love the odd bit of cock?
March 11th, 2013 at 1:18 am
I absolutely agree with your points against biological essentialism – I so hate all that stupid “women are better” stuff, which is just silly and insulting and also caused me wasted anxiety as a youngster worrying I might not be ‘feminine’ enough because I can compartmentalise home and work, hate reading horoscopes and I tend to channel surf watching TV.
Also, I do believe feminism stands for more than just ‘personal choice’. Life is hard, and constraining. Men don’t have limitless personal choice and neither should anyone. Violence, poverty, labour rights, childcare etc, yes, the important issues.
BUT there is no reason why you can’t call out the “little” things too.
Pink Lego pisses me off. It just does. I know we’re talking consumerism here and so who cares, but my little girls constrain themselves into ‘girly’ choices even when they don’t want them because of the avalanche of pink crap and cultural noise around them telling them what’s for girls and what’s for boys. I know this would still exist without pink Lego – of course – but it still annoys me. In fact speaking of that, since my girls started school I have been quite shocked to realise/remember how boys censor and shame girls in the schoolyard, and girls accept it.
So is this all nothing, because we’re middle class and I am absolutely against destroying capitalism?
March 11th, 2013 at 6:32 am
Helen,
Fantastic article. I agree with most points, disagree with some.
I’ve been trying to understand why I feel we are stagnating as a society
in terms of gender equality for quite a while now. I’ve never seen women as being ‘more special’ than men and I don’t think either sex should be treated as such. I’m 31 now and for many of those years wondered why people don’t just ‘get it’. I am optimistic that there will be a time when people will ‘get it’, there’s just a shotload of things that need to happen first.
March 11th, 2013 at 10:12 am
Women aren’t special. But neither are men. However, when I want an equal chance at a fat pay cheque, why should men get special treatment (as they do relative to women). Me being paid as much as men for doing the same job will not help women in poverty or stop violence,but why the hell shouldn’t I get equal treatment? Capitalism might not look different but lots of women’s lives would.
March 11th, 2013 at 12:39 pm
Dear Helen,
Thank you for articulating so many of the issues that have been swirling unresolved in my head.
I’d been struggling to ‘align’ myself with one of the feminist streams and in the end merely referred to myself as a Guerilla Feminist.
As a single mum I know first hand how much harder it is for me to do well financially, compared to the vast majority of blokes I know in a similar position.
I also struggle with the whole gender determinist claptrap. As if my vagina bestows me with additional ‘kindness’ and ‘compassion’ as the outgoing Pope would have us believe.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for bringing your fine intellect to the discussion and for articulating so many things.
March 11th, 2013 at 12:40 pm
You’re a tasty read Helen Razor.
March 11th, 2013 at 1:04 pm
You spelling my name like than to shite me, love? ;)
March 11th, 2013 at 1:11 pm
Oops…apologies to you Helen Razer. No harm nor shite was meant.
March 11th, 2013 at 3:16 pm
One of the catch phrases of Generation Y feminism is “You can’t be what you can’t see”. Thanks for opening my eyes to how society as a whole can benefit from feminism. Now I will be better able to recognise feminism when I do or don’t see it.
March 11th, 2013 at 6:17 pm
Thanks for your respectful reply Helen. I was worried that you might have taken offence. I should have known you don’t offend easily!
I get a bit of anxiety during confrontation. Even if it is over the internet. I think everybody does to some degree. For me, anxiety is not something I like to experience, so I avoid it as much as possible. So that is why I’m a bit terrified of getting into it with you.
My response to your suggestion that I consider why I think it is unacceptable to criticise JP & DTJ: in the great scheme of things, is this something you feel is worthy of such a targeted rant? It must be I guess. I agree with your criticisms of DTJ and the article. But Jenna Price seems like one of the good guys; she appears to be motivated by gooddoing some really good work. She has her own crosses to bear.
I agree with your criticisms of Destroy the Joint.
March 11th, 2013 at 6:22 pm
Ah fuck, I didn’t get to finish before my some unidentified body part pressed ‘submit’. But I think it’s all in there.
Actually, one more thing to add. I think Jenna started with “I’m sorry about your relationship problems” or whatever it was because she was addressing your article from top to bottom, and the top of your article talks about your relationship.
PS. You are making me smarter, thank you.
March 11th, 2013 at 10:52 pm
An interesting read, Helen. Feminism is viewed differently by different women, according to their circumstances.
The academics view it through the lense of funding grants, the media clique/self appointed ruling class use it to stay part of the cool group, the women raising families live it and the struggling, single mothers and carers, undereducated and underprivileged don’t have the time or resources to even think about it.
The doyens of social media, frankly, well, I detest them to be honest. Their pseudo-left, faux outrage, mean girl mentality belongs in the year 9 common room.
I won’t bore you with my suburban take on feminism but I will say that I don’t see misogyny in Abbott or Alan Jones. I listen to Jones when I can and, even though I have voted Labor for the last time, I’m not really a turd. Neither is he. His generosity extends from putting his hand in his pocket for a family with a sick child, to CSG protests, to giving exposure to young performers and financial support to the arts. He kicks politicians from the right, it’s just that the left as so incredibly woeful at present.
His language and turn of phrase is considerably more refined than what I read around the femosphere.
The insulated privilege that allows women to waste their time on the DtJ trash is telling. They are so out of touch with the suffering this government has caused less privileged women.
I live and work in the western suburbs. Every second shop and every taxi listens to 2GB. Our new migrants and workers take no notice of the ravings of the lefty elite. They don’t think it’s racist to stop the boats. They think that border protection is a sovereign right. They know that while thousands of single men are arriving, thousands of mothers and children are still suffering in refugee camps.
Anyways, feminists in ivory towers should put their money where their mouths are and get out here teaching refugee women to read, mentoring teenage mums, getting abused by the Islamic servo attendant for buying the Women’s Weekly, advocating for the 600 FGM cases to get before the courts or screaming from their blogs about the hideous leniency in rape and child abuse sentencing.
Little Aboriginal girls hiding from daddy’s perversions on distillery night register higher on my feminist radar than the premeditated, prewritten ramblings of a plaything of the faceless men. She abused the word misogyny. It isn’t hers, it belongs to the women and girls who endure unspeakable suffering.
March 11th, 2013 at 10:52 pm
An interesting read, Helen. Feminism is viewed differently by different women, according to their circumstances.
The academics view it through the lense of funding grants, the media clique/self appointed ruling class use it to stay part of the cool group, the women raising families live it and the struggling, single mothers and carers, undereducated and underprivileged don’t have the time or resources to even think about it.
The doyens of social media, frankly, well, I detest them to be honest. Their pseudo-left, faux outrage, mean girl mentality belongs in the year 9 common room.
I won’t bore you with my suburban take on feminism but I will say that I don’t see misogyny in Abbott or Alan Jones. I listen to Jones when I can and, even though I have voted Labor for the last time, I’m not really a turd. Neither is he. His generosity extends from putting his hand in his pocket for a family with a sick child, to CSG protests, to giving exposure to young performers and financial support to the arts. He kicks politicians from the right, it’s just that the left as so incredibly woeful at present.
His language and turn of phrase is considerably more refined than what I read around the femosphere.
The insulated privilege that allows women to waste their time on the DtJ trash is telling. They are so out of touch with the suffering this government has caused less privileged women.
I live and work in the western suburbs. Every second shop and every taxi listens to 2GB. Our new migrants and workers take no notice of the ravings of the lefty elite. They don’t think it’s racist to stop the boats. They think that border protection is a sovereign right. They know that while thousands of single men are arriving, thousands of mothers and children are still suffering in refugee camps.
Anyways, feminists in ivory towers should put their money where their mouths are and get out here teaching refugee women to read, mentoring teenage mums, getting abused by the Islamic servo attendant for buying the Women’s Weekly, advocating for the 600 FGM cases to get before the courts or screaming from their blogs about the hideous leniency in rape and child abuse sentencing.
Little Aboriginal girls hiding from daddy’s perversions on distillery night register higher on my feminist radar than the premeditated, prewritten ramblings of a plaything of the faceless men. She abused the word misogyny. It isn’t hers, it belongs to the women and girls who endure unspeakable suffering.
March 11th, 2013 at 10:54 pm
Oh, sorry, that looks more like a rant than a comment. Feel free to not waste your time!
March 12th, 2013 at 12:17 pm
“Labour rights. Childcare. Welfare justice. A science-based approach to violence. Stuff for which the State can and should be held responsible.
lobbying. That’s the main course. The rest of the stuff is dessert.
IN short, change the material conditions of lives.” (March 9, 2:44am)
So this is your ‘Back to Basics’ approach to feminism, Helen? Excuse me for questioning your response here, but shall I tell you what ‘child care’ means to me? It means further institutionalisation for my children; someone else getting paid–other than me–to care for my children; my not being allowed (socially, politically and financially) to care for my children. I’m a sole parent (not by choice: I was widowed at 26, I’m now 35) and due to an extremely non-feminist welfare constitution I’m no longer a parent, I am a job seeker. The choice of being a full time carer for my own kids is no longer mine. Thanks to the so called grass roots feminist “thinking” and action and lobbying, the government will force-pay me to pay someone else to look after my children while I work somewhere else. What the fuck? Does this sound like feminism to you? Yes, I certainly agree with labour rights, of course I do, who the hell wouldn’t? But what the heck is a’ science-based approach to violence’? And what exactly is the “stuff” that the State should be held accountable for? And do you have proof that women don’t actually have any biological advantages? Last question: is feminism redundant, or even possible damaging? I’ll leave you with something I said in Year 9 photography at Lilydale High School 20 years ago when asked by my teacher if I was a feminist. “No,” I replied. “I’m an equalitarian.” They looked at me like I was an idiot, but I meant what I said. Still do.
March 12th, 2013 at 1:00 pm
Well said. And well done.
Now, get up off the floor and write another one.
March 12th, 2013 at 2:57 pm
What a horrible bratty article that achieves absolutely nothing positive for feminism. Ill certainly remember to never read one of your ridiculous articles again!
March 12th, 2013 at 4:27 pm
The *awesome* thing about Feminism is it’s not a religion. I will not go to hell if I don’t subscribe to any and all tennants of the faith as preached by one prophet or another.
The awesome thing about Feminism is I get to put on my Critical Thinking hat that I found when completing my philosophy degree in the early 2000s and I can agree or disagree or remain neutral on any particular point at any particular time.
And so it was interesting for me to recognise that my initial reaction to this piece was “Oh look it’s another ranty feminist bitching about a different ranty feminist because they’re not being ranty or feminist in the right way”. And the more I thought about that, the more I thought
FUCK YOU
I wasn’t around in the 70s to burn bras and march in anti-war protests. And even if I was I couldn’t burn my bra because my boobs are freakin huge and I need a bra to hold them up so there’s some airflow and they don’t get all sweaty and gross.
I was a baby in the 80s which meant I didn’t get to party when various institutions from NASA to academic instituations to professional orchestras FINALLY permitted women to enter their hallowed halls and men-only spaces.
I was still in school in the 90s when you were reading your gender and cultural studies texts and quickly becoming bored with the rhetoric.
I was at uni studying logic and determinism in the 2000s and breading pre-maturely and fighting the fucked up sexual attitudes I was forced to swallow when growing up in a fucked up Christian cult.
So fuck you and your righteous, self-important ranty pants.
I am angry. When a bar advertises a drink that is promoting date-rape IT PISSES ME OFF. When a fuck-tard on radio disrespects the deceased father of a prominent politician IT PISSES ME OFF (and I don’t even like labor but you just don’t talk to people like that). When some moronic comedian gets up on stage in front of millions of people and sings a song about boobs in rape scenes IT PISSES ME OFF. And when some ranty elitist stands on her soapbox and tells me my feminism “just isn’t good enough” IT PISSES ME OFF.
Educating myself (even when done ‘correctly’ as prescribed by you) benefits only myself. It is nothing if I don’t somehow share that knowledge. And if I choose to share that by standing on a virtual stage and screaming myself hoarse at the passing hoardes then that is my choice and FUCK YOU for telling me it’s not good enough.
Because even though you’re right about gendered violence and poverty, DTJ is also right about sexism in advertising and fuck-tards on radio and rape jokes at comedy shows and the policing of women’s bodies (pregnant or otherwise). AND IT PISSES ME OFF.
I can’t join a union because I don’t have a job and unions are just another boys’ club.
I can’t read economic texts because they bore the shit out of me and I would rather spend what little reading time I have learning about Valentina Tereshkova so I can write about her on my blog.
What I can do is get FUCKING PISSED OFF when idiot people rip into each other, and I can share that pissed-off-ness with people who are in unions and who do care about economics. And in the process if my anger gives my mum that little push she needs to stand up to her boss when he makes misogynistic and degrading comments about the women who work for him, then that is FUCKING AWESOME. And if my screaming means that my sister asks her friend to stop calling her 2yo daughter “fatty” then that is FUCKING AWESOME TOO. And if my anger influences my sons even a little bit, so that when their friends make a stupid comment about “crying like a girl” or reducing women to their sex appeal then that is EVEN MORE FUCKING AWESOME.
So I will keep following DTJ even though I don’t always agree with them; and I will most likely continue reading your stuff too even though right now I think you’re just another ranty-pants yelling from their soapbox acheiving nothing much in particular. Because multiple opinions are AWESOME and I’ve got the skills to look at each of them and take what’s relevant to me and leave the rest. Because I am “bright and brave enough to hear it” – to hear them all – and make my own fucking decision about what is a “worthy” feminist action and what is not.
So if you’re the doorbitch of Feminism then FUCK YOU; I’m going to a different club.
March 12th, 2013 at 8:36 pm
That probably sounded a lot more punk in your head, dearie.
March 12th, 2013 at 8:45 pm
Rose. If you read my piece you will see we are TOTALLY in accord. I am APPALLED by the New Start scheme onto which single parents have been shafted. That Gillard passed this change on the same day she delivered her purportedly impromptu “misogyny” speech illustrates our point perfectly, I think, about symbolism taking the place of action with liberal feminism.
In no way did I suggest that feminism had done its work. In no way. I am sorry that you saw my comment as off-hand but, really, I am not a macro-economist nor a social scientist and I would like to leave it to such grown-up experts to give women the material equality that they need to undo the cultural inequality that has arisen, very largely, as the result of female poverty.
As I have said several times, I am not required to develop solutions. Clearly, I’m a bit of a nut and I wouldn’t trust me with public policy.
Let me be very clear and say again: there is far, far, far too much time bound up in banging on about the harm that media et al does to women and so little time given over to the role than economics plays in their lives.
To the women who say, again and again, “we can do both”, well, fucking do both, then. Let me have one day without an article about “rape culture” driven by the absolutely unproven assertion that sexual abuse is fuelled by media.
Let’s get mothers off New Start. Just for an entree.
March 12th, 2013 at 10:44 pm
Helen! I’ve loved your rants ever since I was an angsty teen, ever since the one on jjj after cobain’s death, you nailed it. Now, as an angsty mid 30s lass, am so pleased to see you on twitter etc, distilling this stuff. This is spot on, articulating what my feeble brain was trying to work out why this was just a bit NQR.
March 12th, 2013 at 10:45 pm
I just re- read that & it sounds like I might be taking the piss- pls be assured I’m not!!
March 13th, 2013 at 5:25 pm
Hey Helen – good to see you stirring the pot without apology. I see the point in what you’re saying but I think there is more to DTJ than just feminism on training wheels. There is a lot of awareness-raising going on which is particularly helpful for blokes. And in gathering 25,000 members they have considerable power to influence as shown in their recent coup getting Telstra to drop the fee charge for silent number where an AVO is involved. They may not be as evolved in thinking as some, but there is still progress being made IMO.
March 15th, 2013 at 5:57 pm
I love your piece, Helen, and have also loved reading the comments.
I hope the DTJ organisers and supporters also read your piece carefully, and take it constructively. I don’t believe they should stop doing what they’re doing, because I think there is merit in standing against sexism in all its forms, but it’s also important for them to understand how the cause is being perceived by others outside of their support base.
The first time I met you, you verbally face-slapped me about my Pull the Pin campaign against child beauty pageants, citing similar reasons as you have above for your distaste for such ‘trivial’ feminist action.
I am grateful to you for that. You gave me the opportunity to see things from a different perspective, and I did agree with much of what you said – but not all of it. Needless to say, I haven’t shut up about pageants as I do think they are yet another stepping stone for bigger conversations with people who have limited – if any – experience of ‘feminist issues’. I’ve found that with most campaigns, be they environmental or human rights, most people tend to start out with a NIMBY (not in my backyard) issue, then the bigger picture begins to sink in. It’s not such a bad thing.
Of course, where the media are to blame is that they look for issues that provide ‘colour’ (like pageant girls) and often miss the point entirely, turning a feminist issue into something entirely different – like slut-shaming, while ignoring some of the more serious issues that are not so picture friendly.
Thanks again for sharing your thoughts. I LOVE your work, girlfriend! x
March 16th, 2013 at 1:25 am
Cath, you have been an important influence for me, too. I am moved your gentleness and reason. I apologise for my lack of softness when it comes to feminist matters to you – most everyone else can go fuck themselves ;). I have bad manners and am impatient for revolution. xx