Give me back my movement!

http://www.justassociates.org/blog/2009/11/give-me-back-my-movement.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NW0912

“We must involve the bosses. We can not move without them. The bosses are our partners. Many of them are just victims of the system too. Most of the employers mean well. All we need to do is raise their awareness and they will be ok. We did a workshop with some of the most senior bosses last year, just one workshop. And I remember two of them standing up and saying, ‘This workshop has been a real eye opener to the suffering endured by the workers. We did not know that running sweatshops, under paying workers, and sexual harassment of female workers is wrong. We really did not know. We will change from this minute on. You can count on us.’ Since that discussion, we now have so many employers on our shop floor committees. One is even the chairperson of my equal wages sub-committee. Another provides counseling to women who are sexually harassed.”

Can you imagine this testimony coming from the head of any trade union movement? Anywhere in the world? Substitute workers and trade unions for landless people’s associations, or the Dalit movement, or an anti-racism movement: can you imagine them saying this? Why not? Tell me your eyes don’t water at the prospect of workers and exploitative bosses holding hands nicely and singing, “We shall over-come?” Like Martin Luther King, isn’t your “dream” that of landless, half-naked peoples and the few landed, be-suited, corporate bosses sharing leadership roles in one another’s organizations? The landless speaking on behalf of the corporate landowner, the landowner chairing the landless people’s movement?

Sound unlikely? Why not? We have done it in the women’s movement. To paraphrase Idi Amin, “if they did it, we can DID it too.” I know I am not doing the deep analysis and giving the nuanced complexities of so-called “involving men and boys” that has become the overwhelming refrain in “gender work.” I am not an academic. I don’t sit in spaces where I have the luxury – yes, luxury – of going into deep theoretical analysis. I just tells it as I sees it. I live and work in the real world of simplicity and sound bites. This is the world where one word from a donor or the media, and everyone around you turns phrases into a program, and soon enough, into expected practice. Where we hear things said in workshops, and suddenly they become the norm, nay, a requirement. In this world we learn from one another. It is not that we are stupid, it’s just that we don’t have time or space to go into political analysis. More importantly, in this world, labels and naming matter. Inclusion of men and boys equals a good thing done by gender activists; protecting women’s spaces and talking about power equals bad thing done by those awful feminists! Who isn’t afraid of being seen as a bad, strident woman?

My safe space called the women’s movement is going, or even gone. It’s been taken over by men. And I am scared and angry. To paraphrase them racists, let me say it one more time – I love men. Some of the best people I’ve had sex with are men. So there. I believe progressive, non-patriarchal, non-sexist men have a positive role to play in the struggle for women’s human rights. There are a few of them out there. But they are not yet in a majority, and a few good men do not a system make. Patriarchy in all its forms is still alive and doing quite well by my last diagnosis. The majority of men and boys continue to have access to all kinds of power, resources, and privileges, which they don’t hesitate to use to exert their control over women’s and girls’ lives and bodies.

When any marginalized and excluded group creates a safe space for themselves, it is their space. Let me repeat, it is their SAFE space. The notion of safe space is deeply political. To badly translate a wonderful song by Thomas Mapfumo, “There are some stories you don’t tell in the midst of certain listeners, otherwise they take oil and start preparing their hands…” I will not go into all those caveats about how not all men are bad etc. Women’s space is women’s space. It is the one place where I can have a conversation with other women about vaginas. It is the place where women seek unadulterated advice when they have problems in their heterosexual relationships. When we experience violence of any kind, and we turn up for counseling at a women’s center, the last person we expect to find sitting behind that desk is someone who looks exactly like the one I just ran away from. He might be nice, or the sweetest gay man, but do I trust that he will hear my story? Even if it’s a magazine to which I am writing a letter, or a phone-in radio program, I want another woman at the end of the line. I need to feel SAFE.

I work in a mainstream development INGO. I have seen, despite our best intentions, that it is very hard to recruit, retain and support women in the organization. The default is to think of men first. When women’s rights are mentioned in a meeting, everyone still turns to look at me or whoever’s job title is ‘women’s rights.’ We don’t turn to look at the heads of other themes when those are mentioned. Consistently keeping women’s rights on the agenda remains a struggle. And trust me, my organization is one of the best in the INGO stable, if I say so myself. Our language is firmly about women’s rights, and our political rhetoric is up there with the best. But I know this is not a women’s organization and its natural default is not to think of women first. I know the limits of what can be achieved in this space. When I want to have certain conversations and when I expect a particular, firm political direction, I look to the women’s movement.

The women’s movement is still the only place I expect to give women a shot at employment. A women’s organization is the last place I expect to compete with a man for an office messenger post, let alone a directorship. Call it sheltered employment if you must. We still need it because patriarchy and sexism have not been eradicated. Who else is going to give women opportunities if not their own organizations? Yet everywhere I look, women’s organizations are giving jobs to the men, and in large numbers. In some cases, male staff out-numbers female. The range of jobs being given to men is equally frightening. A colleague with a donor agency recently went to Zambia and she reported that a large number of women’s organizations are now directed by men! She also noted that in some organizations men outnumber women in providing psycho-social counseling and support to female survivors of violence. It was the same story in several organizations in Mozambique. In several countries too, government gender machineries are led by men. All in the name of “gender is about men and women….” We shall return to this half sentence later.

Even more frightening is the latest fad, men on the boards of women’s organizations. I will be the first to admit that I am given to hyperbole, but it’s become an epidemic! A seat on the board is about power and leadership. Where are women ever going to get a chance to learn leadership skills and how to exercise power? Are there no other ways to ‘include men’ besides handing over our hard-created organizations to them? At the same time we complain about women being excluded from decision-making positions in the public arena. When we are asked to give names of experienced women to fill leadership positions in the same public arena, we can’t even name five! It would be interesting to take stock of the values, beliefs and behaviors of some of these men on women’s organizations’ boards. Let me just leave it there. Point made.

Over the last few years, I keep wanting to sing my own version of Jacob Zuma’s dreadful song, “mshini wam’, mshini wam’, awu’leth’ u’mshini wam!” (My machine gun, my machine gun; give me my machine gun.) My song would go; “movement yam’, movement yam,’ awu leth’ i – movement yam!” (My movement, my movement; give me (back) my movement.) Where has the notion of safe spaces for women gone? What has happened to the politics that should be the foundation of our movements? Is it that it was never political? Not deep enough? We were fighting this struggle because it sounded like a nice idea, and therefore the strategy was to be nice?

When did we become this depoliticized? Let me go back to where I started. Why is the women’s movement the only space where you expect to hear the kind of depoliticized testimony that I quoted in the first paragraph? Why do we celebrate this kind of stuff in so many ways? As for their eyes being opened after only one workshop, I for one, would love to hear how sustainably open those eyes have remained and what transformation has occurred as a result. I stand to be convinced about the power of the one-workshop-one-pamphlet wonder. To think we have wasted all this energy understanding power when all it takes is a half-day discussion. Ah.

It is time to reclaim women’s spaces and re-politicize our movements with feminist politics. We can only do this if we put back onto the table, the fact that this is about POWER. Repeat after me….Gender is about men and women, and the UNEQUAL power relations between them. It’s back to feminism 001. Sadly.

Everjoice J. Win is a feminist from Zimbabwe, and is currently the Head of Women’s Rights in an International NGO. She writes this in her personal capacity.

A Feminist Till I Die

http://www.openthem agazine.com/ article/arts- letters/a- feminist- till-i-die

The wild hair may have taken on strands of silver and seats may be offered to her on the bus. But ARSHIA SATTAR keeps her sword polished and shining because there’s many a battle to be fought still.

I was asked by a man to write about how feminism was exhausted. I said that was not the case. I was then asked to write about how feminism had exhausted me. But that is not the case either. Finally, he suggested I write about how I had exhausted feminism. I don’t believe I have. I’m sure he was expecting a flippant response, something he and I, both post-modern, post-colonial, metrosexuals could laugh over as we unsheathed our cardboard foils and fenced gently into the good night, smiling with nostalgia for the time when these things really mattered and the foils we fenced with were intended to draw blood.

There are some things that I still take seriously and feminism is one of them. I know this probably justifies the old joke—“How many feminists does it take to change a light bulb?” “That’s not funny!” But I am old enough now to not care about that joke and actually, I always did find it funny. Moreover, because I have good manners, I thought I should take the man as seriously as I take feminism and consider his proposition. Perhaps, I am a dinosaur and he, the shining cyberknight of a new post-gender age. Should feminism have exhausted itself? Burnt itself out into a nirvana of self-congratulation ? Or, despair? Like the idea that the ‘true’ Left is dead, so also, many men want to believe that feminism has lived its life, that it’s had its day, that women really need to move on—either because we’ve got all we were asking for or because we’re never really going to get it anyway. This is the 21st century, after all, and has been for nearly a decade now. The ideological shackles that bound us and separated us from each other, that were relevant for the 20th century, surely cannot have meaning any more.

Wrong. They do have meaning, perhaps more so than ever before. They have meaning precisely because so many people consider the revolutionary ‘isms’ of the 20th century dead horses, flogged to death by supporters and critics alike. As a result, they refuse to take on board the critiques that feminism and the Left offer, despite the fact that the system has refused to share its treasures of equality, social justice and dignity with everyone. Meaningful equality is but a tiny speck on the horizon. But thanks to the pitched battles and shouting matches of the last century, at least there is a speck on the horizon. On a clear day, the speck seems so large that everyone can see it. Some run and hide, fearing that it may eclipse the more accustomed sun that shines for the status quo. Others call their children to get a good look at it before it recedes again.

It’s true that many younger women, inheritors of the rights and dreams that their mothers and sisters fought for, are reluctant to call themselves feminists. They sometimes deny their ancestors and the battles they fought—perhaps that is their right. It would be ironic if older feminists were to tell their daughters what to do and how to think. We don’t do that, we have too much pride. And we remember too well what it was like to be told what to do and what to think, to be limited by what others thought was right for you. But whatever younger women, those who have reaped the whirlwind, feel about subscribing to the nomenclature of feminism, the fact remains that much of what they can do now and the ways in which they can do it are the result of all that has gone before.

For all the younger women who are now stronger and more confident in cities across the world, the war for women’s rights is far from over, even though strategic and crucial victories have been won. And for that reason alone, feminism cannot be exhausted. Or exhausting, for those who continue to care about equality and justice. I’m not sure that you can actually separate the fight for the rights of others (even after you have secured your own) from feminism. But that impetus is predicated on another old-fashioned idea, the one called ‘solidarity,’ which also seems to have fallen out of favour, become archaic, quaint, like a tribal exhibit in a museum of (hu)mankind.

Because we are so diverse, feminism can also never be exhaustive. Many men (and some women, too, those who reject it as a place from which to speak) want to think of feminism as a monolith, as a unitary and homogenous way of thinking and being—as something handed down, a set of rules that govern behaviour as well as aspiration. Well, it’s not. And that is also why it cannot be exhausted. I mean ‘exhausted’ in every sense of the word here: it can’t be worn out as an idea or an ideology and its many colours have not yet been counted and placed on a shade card. Nor will they be, any time in the near future. Feminism is dynamic, mutating in order to respond to the circumstances in which it finds itself. Perhaps we should more rightly speak of it in the plural, as feminisms, each relevant to its time and place but organically connected to the same idea: that women should not be denied dignity and the right to choose their lives and destinies.

Feminisms resemble each other, as sisters might, but they are not identical. As needed, they take on race and class and caste and other hierarchies, including those that lie within gender, challenging them all in innovative and creative ways, finding the resources to endure and persist. Fundamentally, feminisms are a response to the world in which women find themselves. They grow and change as the world around us changes, as new arenas of exploitation and oppression become manifest. And as long as the world order (new or otherwise) remains predicated on inequality, feminisms will continue to have a place, they will not be exhausted.

What I find truly amazing is that feminists are still called upon to prove themselves and their relevance. Sometimes, we are asked to write articles like this one, provoked into responding by the sense that we are invisible to certain kinds of people and certain orders of being. We may have grown older and greyer, it may be that we are called ‘aunty’ by random men in stores, it may be that we are offered seats in buses, that advertisements do not address us, that we have faded into the background, pale shadows of our former militant selves. But if you are in the right place at the right time, you will see us in our many colours, kicking up our heels, our hair silvered by the moon, our skirts full and swirling as we dance in celebration of sisterhood and all that it has achieved. And you will also hear the music that we dance to, the song that says it is not over, that we are still here, strong and proud and ready for the next fight.

Playing With Gender: A Feminist Critique

by Kipp Pietrantonio

http://elder-geek.com/2009/11/playing-with-gender/

By the year 2012 it is estimated that there will be 190 million households worldwide that own video games consoles, with 93% of children playing video games at some time. Many individuals have looked at gender in music or film, but rarely has it been looked at from the perspective of interactive entertainment. One of the significant differences between video games and other forms of media is the participation of the user. In films and movies, the individual has a very passive role: simply observing the stimulus. Individuals who play video games are actually acting out the behavior being prescribed to them. For instance, while someone may listen to a rap song about sexually assaulting and degrading women, that person actually may actually performs these activities artificially in games like Grand Theft Auto, which embodies a much more active role. This allows individuals to play the gender roles that are presented to them and further cement them into the social construct of the individual and society.

Two major games that many people of all ages have had at least some exposure to are Super Mario Brothers and The Legend of Zelda. Both of these games have undersized male heroes going on epic journeys. The more important aspect I am concerned with is whom they are trying to save. In Mario, the character who is trying to be saved is Princess Peach, and in Zelda, it is Princess Zelda. Both characters have been portrayed in very similar gender stereotypes. They are both women who have been kidnapped across the span of over twenty different adventures, and the same formula is played out in each game. The story can be generalized in that the princess keeps getting kidnapped by some sort of monster, somehow calls to the hero for help, and the man must go through a difficult adventure to save the princess. I think it is important to look at the underlying assumptions that are key to these stories. The first is that the princess is portrayed in a very delicate and fragile role, which needs to be defended by a male. Rarely in these games is the princess even given a voice other than calling for help. She enjoys butterflies, the color pink, and surrounds herself with delicate accessories. The next assumption is that women are trouble, which is a stereotype that has been repeated in many forms from The Bible to classic literature, and even in reality TV. These women through their kidnapping have become a burden that the hero must bare. This point is emphasized by the continuous and repetitious use of the hero/damsel in distress formula, spanning across twenty different games. The princesses are most often portrayed as victims who must be both protected and taken care of by men. The message sent to men–the primary consumer–is that women are delicate and fragile, and are in need of protection, which perpetuates the idea of male superiority and female dependence.

Although women are sometimes portrayed as the helpless victims in interactive media, other times they are presented as dominatrixes, which represent the other extreme stereotype of women. The primary game I will be discussing is called Bayonetta. In this game you play as the character Bayonetta who is a witch whose clothes transform into monsters that attack enemies, rendering you as the player naked for a short period of time. In addition, many of her attacks involve the spreading and contorting of her legs. Bayonetta also represents an idealized female form that is unattainable by the majority of women. She has a very tiny waist and extremely large, unrealistic breasts for a woman of her size. The clothes she does wear are leather and skin-tight, pistol-equipped high heels, and glasses that can be described as librarian-esque, which no doubt imply an aura of sexual vulnerability and fantasy for men. Compared to her counterparts in Mario and Zelda, she is substantially more sexual in nature and her language reflects this as well. This, like the other roles females play in games, reinforces a variety of stereotypes. The first is that women are sex objects, and that in order for them to be powerful they must embrace this sex object role. The character of Bayonetta is a powerful woman, but she is a sex object first and foremost, and this is the message that is sent to the player. If Bayonetta were not a sex object, men would be less likely to accept her as a powerful character. This implies that if women want to be powerful, they essentially must accept their objectification and celebrate it. The next stereotype that she represents is the unrealistic ideal female form. She is proportioned in an hourglass shape that a very small percentage of women could even become close to replicating. This is significant because it sends the message to the player–predominantly men–that women can and should look this way in order to be perceived as confident and powerful. Most women would most likely agree it would be very difficult for her to perform the acrobatics she performs with her small size, heels, large breasts, and leather clothing. This reinforces the idea that women’s bodies are objects, which men may rate and evaluate. These attitudes by men further perpetuate internalized objectification for women and result in lower self-esteem, greater body shame, and higher anxiety.

Before I discuss men, it is important to have a theoretical framework from which to work with. On the topic of technology, our society picks and chooses which aspects perpetuate masculinity and which do the opposite. For example, changing oil or putting new speakers in a car are considered masculine activities, while reprogramming software or installing a new sound card represent a nerd stereotype that is the opposite of masculine. Some argue that the activity of gaming walks the line between the two. Although playing with a machine by oneself may be a “nerdy” activity, the fantasy of playing as a hero or on your favorite football team is very attractive to even the most masculine. Regardless of gaming’s place in the masculinity spectrum, the behaviors individuals perform while playing through the games are very masculine in nature, and ultra competitive. Often, homophobia makes an appearance during this time as many gamers call each other “fags” via Internet chat in order to compete for dominance. These same men will call one individual a “fag” and then turn around and pretend to dip their testicles into another male player’s mouth (teabagging).

Men play a more linear role in most games. Often they are “the protector” with a hyper-masculine emphasis. Most male characters are rough and tough, have no reservations about killing, usually have super human strength and abilities, and always end up with the girl. Generally, their body type is substantially larger than the averages male’s and contain very large, well-defined muscles. The game I will look at for masculinity is titled Gears of War, a story of two warring worlds. In the game, there is not a single female soldier and the men are giants who wear metal armor. They carry enormous guns which have chainsaws attached to them. The men talk “like regular guys,” signified by competing for dominance through insulting their enemies as though war is just a game. They also downplay and punish anything emotional in the game. They deal with their emotional problems through action instead of internal processing.  The game prides itself in being manly and not being for “sissies.” It is ultra violent, full of blood and gore, and portrays a few dominant masculine stereotypes. The first is physical perfection for men’s bodies. These men are not only in shape; they are almost monster-like in appearance. This allows the man’s body to exert the maximum amount of action, which represents the idea of the “body of action” ideal that men strive for. Next, the men create a system of communication among them that punishes emotions, care-centered thinking, and compassion in general, while rewarding the use of brute force, anger, and violence as a means of expressing oneself. This emotional processing is an externalizing defense style, which means rather than processing their feelings the soldiers externalize their pain, in a form of violence or anger against an objectified opponent. Men are generally portrayed as ill tempered, independent and self-sustaining in games and this results in very poor models for boys and men to follow and act through.

Almost all modern video games are targeted toward the 18-24 year old male demographic. One question that may be asked is why is gender in video games important? Isn’t it a good thing to have women playing video games too? In the book From Barbie to Mortal Kombat, Justine Cassell and Henry Jenkins discuss the social ramifications of games being gendered. They tie together the need for technology literacy and gender equality. Many careers, especially those in which women have a difficult time accessing, have a technology literacy precondition that may filter women from these job markets, and therefore allows for gender segregation. Boy’s access to computer games which involve networking computers, interpreting technical jargon, following technical directions, creating peer to peer networks, and general computer use, greatly enhance their technical abilities when entering the job market. This allows men to gain experience while women fall behind. It is important to create less sexist video games that are targeted for women; to give men better male role models in media; and to reinforce realistic and healthy ideals about women.

Overall video games are very sexist in nature, and although there are a few that break down gender stereotypes (Metroid, Beyond Good and Evil, and Heavy Rain) for the most part they seem to perpetuate America ’s patriarch. This has been very trying to write for me personally because I am an avid video game fan, and it was difficult to label something that I enjoy “sexist.” These games are not just a hobby for me, but also large part of my childhood and adult life. I have tried throughout this piece to set aside my emotional reaction of defensiveness to this subject in order to give an objective and realistic look on the subject. Although difficult at times, I felt that this article was a great way to challenge my beliefs, defensiveness, and some of my own sexism. I would ask you to do the same.

The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of Kipp Pietrantonio.

*** Editor’s note:  As a standalone piece, I feel Kipp’s article is well-written, and it states his point of view perfectly. Gender equality for some continues to be an unfortunately controversial subject matter. This is a first for Elder-Geek.com, but I’ve decided to remove commenting for this article. Some comments have been disrespectful and so for this article, I’ve removed the ability to comment altogether.  I understand that the Internet is a jungle and everyone has a right to say things on their mind, but on Elder-Geek.com, I simply cannot stand for intolerance of any type whether it’s for race, religion, age, gender or sexual orientation. Let it be said that I am always open for and highly encourage healthy discussion about our articles here on Elder-Geek.com and hope to encourage more in the future.- – -Randy ***