I was thinking about this post from yesterday again. Centenarian man says the key to living a long life is to have a woman around. Centenarian woman says the key to living a long life is to have no man around. And that other post about how studies consistently show that girls do better at school when there are no boys around, while boys do worse when there are no girls around. This is a pattern that holds true in other contexts; women tend to be happier, healthier, less stressed, without men; while the opposite is true for men.
It boggles the mind that with this kind of information out in the open, known, with obvious conclusions screaming in our faces, feminists today still ridicule and devalue the concept of separatism. It can take so many forms too—supporting female-owned businesses so that more women can earn a living without having a male employer; female-owned housing options because so many women are preyed upon by their male landlord; female-only vacation venues so that more women can have a male-free holiday every once in a while; supporting female creators so that women have more choices if they decide to only read female authors or listen to female musicians, and then of course the more ‘drastic’ fight for larger female-only institutions in society.
But while some of these struggles (usually the low-stakes, non-threatening ones) are sometimes given perfunctory support in the name of Girl Power, the larger topic of separatism is hardly ever given coherent thought, support or space to grow; the fact that the best thing feminism can do for women is giving more women in all strata of society the possibility to exclude men from various aspects of their life, is still pretty much taboo and rarely given serious consideration outside of small feminist niches (often disparaged as extremist or utopian). Instead, feminists devote most of their energy and resources to activism that still involves men at some level, or on supporting women who choose men and will ultimately siphon all that support and energy and time and money back to men.
I didn’t expect to get 30K notes on my childbirth post and won’t have time to answer all the asks and comments I got about it, but someone asked what inspired me to write it—it was reading about the lives of the women I mentioned in that post. I read a lot about women’s lives, be it biographies or diaries or letters, so patterns become obvious, and all other factors balanced, if you value physical safety, intellectual growth and self-realisation, you have to come to the conclusion that not having a man in your home was and is a blessing. And really you could extend this to having any man in your life at all—father, brother, son, male employer… Among the memoirs I read this year there was one by a woman who was exploited and raped by her boss, and then Lydia Cacho’s writings about her fight to help little girls victims of sex trafficking and to keep her shelter for battered women open. I don’t exactly seek out this kind of stories—after the Cacho book I picked up the memoirs of a Hollywood actress, expecting it to be a fun mindless read, and there ended up being a long section about how she was molested by her older brother as a kid and ended up as an anti-CSA activist as an adult. I discovered that most American male politicians who outwardly portrayed themselves as good family men fought tooth and nail behind the scenes to try and prevent anti-child rape laws from being adopted.
When you read (or hear) enough women’s life stories you really have to wonder what feminism is good for if it doesn’t focus on helping women to keep men out of as many aspects of their life as they want, and fighting for female-only spaces and institutions (like Cacho’s shelter, but not only—the litmus test for useful feminist activism should be “Will this contribute to denying men access to women in some way, thus empowering the women who would like to keep men out of some aspect of their life?” The women who don’t want to keep men out will always be able to make that choice because our entire society is structured around supporting it. Feminism should support the other choice, make it possible and safe for more women. Criminalising pimps & johns while helping women exit prostitution contributes to that second choice. So do anti-child rape laws. And women’s bars or cafés. And women’s studies programmes (“gender studies” don’t). And anti-porn activism. And fighting for women’s right to father-free parenthood (eg right to use anonymous sperm donors, rather than wanting fathers to be more involved with their children. And generally fighting for the opposite of fathers’ rights, which are coincidentally a major concern of the MRA movement.) And fighting for legal family / social units where women can share property and healthcare and pass on inheritance. Etc, etc.)
The women who scoff at this or rush in with “not all men” are typically very self-centered (”I sure don’t want to separate from men, so why should I think of the women who do?”), and refuse to look any further than their own Good Dad or nice boyfriend (and it’s worth mentioning that Lydia Cacho said all the men she talked to in brothels, including the brothels offering child prostitutes, were ‘normal’ married men, probably described by their wives as good husbands and fathers.) Your average mainstream feminist will tell you that “feminism is about choice” but feminism should not concern itself with helping women choose men, as patriarchy already has this covered. Meanwhile, women’s choice to distance themselves from men is not currently supported by feminism at all, when it should be the beating heart of feminism. More often than not, it is derided and disparaged. Marilyn Frye explained why in her essay about people’s attitudes towards women who want to separate from men even in minor ways:
[…] When those who control access have made you totally accessible, your first act of taking control must be denying access. Access is one of the faces of Power. Female denial of male access to females substantially cuts off a flow of benefits, but it has also the form and full portent of assumption of power. [And] if there is one thing women are queasy about it is actually taking power. As long as one stops just short of that, the patriarchs will for the most part take an indulgent attitude. We are afraid of what will happen to us when we really frighten them. This is not an irrational fear. It is our experience generally that the defensiveness, nastiness, violence, hostility and irrationality of the reaction to feminism tend to correlate with the blatancy of the element of separation in the strategy or project. […]
By comparing Charity and Sylvia’s life to the lives of their contemporary women who had 18 children, what I meant was “being able to choose to live free from men is a blessing”, but a lot of women have interpreted that post to mean “birth control is a blessing”. But the makeshift, imperfect shield that protects you from someone who might hurt you and doesn’t care if he does is a very minor blessing compared to the power to live your life free from this person and the associated worries. Has birth control empowered women to deny men sexual access if they choose to? (Some women have argued it has done the opposite.) Feminism has become a very hollow word but nowadays I measure the sincerity of a woman’s commitment to feminism by the support, help and sympathy she extends to the women who want to keep men out of their lives / sex lives / children’s lives / bars / feminist groups / etc.
Before anyone interprets this as “lesbian extremists want me to become a lesbian, leave my man and live in the woods with them” because many het/bi women feel threatened by separatism and lash out defensively when the topic is brought up—this is about being able to choose to keep men out of some aspects of your life, or your entire life. How this choice should be facilitated and how the women who make it deserve to be supported and respected much more than they currently are by feminism (I won’t even touch the obvious lesbophobia behind the rampant ridicule and contempt towards separatism). How feminism becomes just another patriarchal institution if it values & supports choices that include men more than choices that exclude men.
And although the creation of female-only options in society would benefit even the women who do not want to distance themselves from men (because then they would be able to make a real, informed choice between life with men and life without men, having experienced both), the fact that many women would not choose separatism is irrelevant. The feminists who fought for the right to divorce didn’t sabotage themselves with “What about the women who WANT to stay with their husband??” They fought to give a choice to all the women who don’t. They understood that some situations are beyond fixing and you have to be able to divorce. Feminism that fights to improve & reform men or to help women who choose men be happier & more comfortable with that choice is the equivalent of fighting for het couple therapy. Feminism that fights for separatist options and female-only spaces and institutions is the equivalent of fighting for the right to divorce. If you understand why divorce is important, you should understand why separatism is important. It’s actual female liberation—it’s not forcing any woman to swear off all men forever, it’s giving women as a class the possibility to choose to ‘divorce’ men as a class. Giving safe and good options to any woman who isn’t interested in ‘fixing’ men or her relationships with them but just wants out. A feminism that doesn’t fight for this has completely lost its vision.
