free ra(n)ge rumination

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Will You Deign To Get In The Bin, Jack Kilbride?

This is my favourite refrain: Why not cooperate? Why not forge alliances and walk softly? You can’t alienate men! You must keep them onside so they will slip you a concession every now and then! How else are you supposed to achieve equity and access for all, if not with permission?

Well, the thing is, permission won’t really work in the long-term. Concessions are very easy at first. They cost nothing when there is a huge disparity between the empowered and the subjugated. They become more and more expensive as things tip towards just equilibrium. Once the critical point of equality looms too large, concessions become bankrupting. They stop being given.

You’re left to take liberties.

I submit we’re getting pretty close. I submit we won’t get any further until people stop asking for permission and start building instruments of power for themselves. But that is a thought for another day. What I really came here to do was respond to Jack Kilbride’s feminist oeuvre, in which he explains How To Do Feminism Better, In This Guy’s Opinion.

His suggestion is that we stop knocking down the wall. Indeed. After I read his gripping article, I thought to myself: Fuck this guy, and fuck his fucking tips on how to feminist, and fuck his condescending tone. And I realised that perhaps I shouldn’t respond to him in my own words. Perhaps I should use the words of some other, less vulgar person.

So. Today I chose Saul Alinsky to speak for me.

From Rules for Radical, Of Means And Ends:

These Do-Nothings profess a commitment to social change for ideals of justice, equality, and opportunity, and then abstain from and discourage all effective action for change. They are known by their brand, "I agree with your ends but not your means." They function as blankets whenever possible smothering sparks of dissension that promise to flare up into the fire of action. These Do-Nothings appear publicly as good men, humanitarian, concerned with justice and dignity. In practice they are invidious. They are the ones Edmund Burke referred to when he said, acidly: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

Change means movement. Movement means friction. Only in the frictionless vacuum of a nonexistent abstract world can movement or change occur without that abrasive friction of conflict. In these pages it is our open political purpose to cooperate with the great law of change; to want otherwise would be like King Canute's commanding the tides and waves to cease.

As La Rochefoucauld put it, "We all have strength enough to endure the misfortunes of others."

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Why Helen Razer Is Wrong About Waleed Aly

“That is why Clem is so important. [She] is a beacon of light for so many women, women like me, who constantly grapple with [the fear they'll get killed, or raped, if they confront the wrong man]. I shudder to think of a world in which she didn't exist. Women like me would just stay as they are. But Clem inspires me to take steps I otherwise would not have taken and to not be afraid.” -- Koraly Dimitriadis

I know it’s only my second day, but if you’ll permit me to gnaw on some Helen Razer so soon, I just might. 

I saw her article this morning and I’m muddy on the whole thing.

Initially I responded to each point, but it dragged on a bit. Let’s just stipulate to the fact I disagree with most of them in some way. I also reject the underlying suggestion that being aggressed online is considered by anyone as a marker of your importance (this is presented as a self-evident truth and never substantiated).

But I am interested in the thrust of her post. Razer sez:

“Violent threats don’t make Waleed Aly important. His impressive knack for relaying difficult analysis to a broad audience does. His deep knowledge of our state institutions, our foreign policy and colonial history does. These things make him important. The proof of the pudding is not in the beating.”

I even disagree with this.

These things just make him educated. This list constitutes a particular skillset, and that’s it. If Aly were a gifted communicator with an impressive knowledge base, but he lacked the integrity and courage to take a beating, he would be like every other nobody in the world. What makes him important is this skillset combined with his willingness to speak truth to power. What makes him important is that he has a view, and it’s a view that’s often contrary, and he’s nonetheless willing to suffer for its publication and dissemination. 

That’s what makes Waleed Aly important. And it’s what makes Clem Ford important. And it’s what makes Helen Razer important.

But what happened around Clem Ford this week amounts to more than that. It is significant given the context.

We generally accept that a female commentator speaking out of turn will face a public abuse and will simply endure it, without seeking or expecting any real recourse. I cannot think of a single woman in a position of broadcast who has not acknowledged this. And no matter her topic sentence, the responses she fields will pertain to the rejection of her appeal, and the fact she should no longer dare to feel safe in this world. The goal of which is to shut her up. And it’s that context that elevates the furore around Clem to something even more relevant than her writings, which are entirely valid and insightful but also unavoidably microcosmic.

But, everywhere, women are dying at the hands of men. Everywhere, girls are warped and contorted to fit into the spaces left for them by boys. You have writers like Koraly admitting they live in fear of speaking in the wrong voice, with the wrong words, to the wrong man. Here, and everywhere. 

The threat of violence is relevant to all women – even those of us who are otherwise extremely privileged. It is central to the lived experience of women today, and it is central to the narrative told to keep us all in line.

The spectacle of hatred brought against Clem is important for that reason. It establishes and subdues a universal concern. It is a display of autonomy and power in a world where a lot of women still haven’t realised they have some, and they can get more.

Being bored by the idea that you can speak out against men and survive – or win – and not be conquered is an incredible luxury. And even as someone who enjoys that luxury, Clem’s hazing served a purpose. She reminded me that some girls haven’t seen this. Some girls haven’t considered the possibility that they can speak and be okay. Some girls have never thought to oppose men. 

Clem demonstrated publicly that these are options. She also succinctly addressed the tools of the status quo (fear, threat, gathered power) and proved them wanting.

So I don’t think we get to tell people that they’re valuing the wrong thing when they say they need Clem to keep kicking up and holding fast. I don’t think we get to dictate to someone who feels the world open up a little that they should actually be impressed by Clem’s specific notions rather than her ability to dispel some fraction of their personal, daily fear. I don’t think we get to favour thought over function on behalf of someone who needs more than ideas.

There are a kazillion girls who couldn’t care less if some dude used the word ‘slut’ on the Internet. There are a kazillion girls who don’t have the emotional space to concern themselves with gendered toys. But within those two kazillion girls are sub-groups who do care to know that enraging men isn’t the end of the world and that they’re not responsible for keeping men happy and that they aren’t alone in trying to navigate the mess inherent to all that.

All of which is very, very important, and it’s the sort of thing that transcends a written body of work. You can’t really write it into existence.

So, yeah. I don’t mean to bring anything tedious to the frontlines, but I just can’t get behind any of it.

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#EndViolenceAgainstWomen hits back against trolls

More than 1,100 women launch a Twitter campaign to tackle online abuse by naming and shaming trolls.

See? The fallout is not appropriate, but it doesn’t shut people down anymore. It fortifies them.

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That Time  I Became DTF

I’ve spent the last few days watching Clem Ford endure an almighty shit-show of poorly spelled hate speech, presented by the outraged Internet at large.

It didn’t take long for the words ‘slut’, ‘cunt’ and ‘rape’ to lose all meaning for me. But the ferocity of their use? The rage with which they were wielded? The violence of the mob? That was very meaningful. It seemed particularly brutal and I worried for Clem.

She didn’t even flinch. Evidently, you can’t bully someone like Clem into silence. All you can do with your fury is highlight how powerful a person becomes when they don’t need your permission or require your approval. 

When I was able to drag my eyes away from the wall of illiterate bitch slurs, I realised there were all these onlookers; men and women acting as witness to Clem staring down a public beating without shrinking from it.

How potent an image that is.

I mean, the true genius of patriarchy is that it relies on a passive management of the genders. It’s the threat of violence, the threat of abuse, the threat of debasement that does most of the work. In large part, the threat of something is more effective at forcing inhibition than the experience of that thing. We self-regulate because an anonymous power may or may not be surveying us, and may or may not act against us. Social sanction, rejection, humiliation and exile are commanding tools, and they’re brought to bear on women constantly.

But the secret is they’re largely impotent, and where they’re not, you can’t assuage them with good behaviour. And it’s a truth we can demonstrate quite easily. Clem does it all the time.

So it is hugely important for people to see these looming consequences in action – to see a frothing mob do their worst, spit this bile, make these threats – and to see Clem carry on as if nothing has ever been lorded over her. For women, for men… It underscores for all of us how impotent these deterrents really are.

It’s unfair that we’ve left it up to a handful of commentators to be our tributes. But Lindy West, Rebecca Shaw, Clem Ford… We see women like this face barrage after barrage of bullshit every fucking day. We see them summon what's usually insidious and unacknowledged and passive and shadowy and square up to it, every fucking day. And no matter the fallout, we see them come back, and mount another offensive, every fucking day.

I’ve always been outraged on their behalf. It’s not acceptable that this happens. It never will be. But it will contribute to change. Because when the barrage comes, it brings with it a very dangerous illumination. It highlights for everyone how scared these faceless hordes of men are. How easily threatened. How weak. And this is a damning truth, this is what needs to sink in for people: that such a MAJOR cross-section of our species can be so disarmed, can feel so disempowered, by the existence of one, or two, or three women acting on their own authority.

What if five of us do it? Or 100? What if a full 10% of us realise what’s going on and call your bluff? Because that’s where this is going.

Honestly, I don’t know what I can do for feminism, but I’m suddenly very Down To Feminist. I’m suddenly very keen to ignite the simpering ire of men who fear women like me. Women who have always been too angry, too smart, too sure of themselves. Women who have never been acceptable. Women who are immune to the bullshit and the dross and the limp, passive aggressive mewling of tiny baby men. I am more than happy to take a public beating, I am more than happy to be unfuckable, or unrapeable, or in need of the D, or too fat, or too frigid or too slutty or an ugly dyke or a cunt or a bitch. It would be my pleasure. My delight. Come at me. See what happens.