The Answer is No

Readers of this blog will know that I tend not to engage with the “issues of the day” unless my hide gets seriously chipped.

Well… there’s a chip in my hide.

Sometime this week, Conservative MP Louise Mensch wrote a poorly articulated piece on how you can totes be a Tory and a feminist.

Cue in the media frenzy that has everyone clicking and ignoring the issues that matter.

I ignored this media frenzy because, honestly, I have a life to live and a huge pile of irons to sock.

But today I read the last straw.

So I’m going to engage with this argument that “you can totes be a feminist and a conservative because omg Emmeline Pankhurst joined the Conservative party”.

British people do this all the time. They suffer from “me-centre-of-Universe” syndrome.

Teenagers believe they are the first generation to discover sex. And white middle class people from Rich Industrialised Countries believe they are the first to invent Feminism. Or Pacifism. Or Atheism. Or a whole host of other things.

I’m sorry to burst anyone’s bubble, but none of this is true.

And just because Mensch says that “feminism starts with Emmeline Pankhurst” it doesn’t make it so.

I am shocked, but not surprised, that all feminists up and down the country are willing to accept this: a Conservative woman suddenly gets to decide WHEN feminism started, and (Quelle Surprise!) it turns out that feminism started with a Conservative woman.

I’m sorry, but WHAT???

Fast forward a good decade; Mary’s knowledge of Emmeline Pankhurst extends to one mention in Mary Poppins.

But Mary attends high school, and eventually the curriculum stumbles onto a small oasis of feminism: Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz born in 1651. Mexican scholar and poet, and one of the first great writers of Latin America.

Her positions on women’s rights were so radical they would make most contemporary feminists blush scarlet.

Then again, why travel so far? Mary Wollstonecraft, who needs no introduction, was born in 1759. She is regarded as one of the founding feminist philosophers.

So precisely why are we heralding Emmeline Pankhurst as the “founding mother of feminism”, born a good century after Wollstonecraft? Because Mensch says so? Because she was a conservative?

Why not choose EmmaGoldman? Is it because she was an anarchist?

Or Rosa Luxemburg, for that matter? Is it because she was a Marxist?

Feminism has been around as long as patriarchy, because every time a man has said “you can’t because you are a woman”, there has been a woman who replied “unfair!”.

Yet Feminism is probably the only political ideology to lose itself in the name of “inclusivity”. And the inclusivity agenda has gone absolutely bonkers: a conservative calls herself a feminist, and that makes her so.

H*gh H*ffner calls himself a feminist and that makes him so.

And those of us who want “Feminism” to mean SOMETHING are seen as arrogant. We have no right to exclude anyone from the Feminist label…

Well, I’m sorry, but no. And to argue otherwise is to put the ideas of Louise Mensch and H*gh H*ffner above this feminist; and countless others.

No, you can’t be a Tory and a feminist. Because to be a feminist means fighting to end the oppression of women as women. All women.

Feminism does not mean “I am a wealthy woman and I want to end the oppression of wealthy women as women”.

But the real reason why Tories can’t be feminists is this: because Conservative ideology is so extremely patriarchal it would be 100% impossible to even end the oppression of wealthy women as women.

To be a Feminist Tory is to fight a lost battle. Which is why I’m suspicious of any Tory who calls themselves a feminist: because most of the time what their goals amount to is “I want to end the oppression of myself”.

And that’s not even a political movement, much less “Feminism”.

One last thing. Remember that when those in power want to appropriate your ideas and your language, that’s a sure sign that you are winning.

For a most excellent, well reasoned and original take on why these Tory powered “austerity measures” (ie: cuts) constitute an attack on women, you can read my post forThe F Word.

An entirely different God

Guess who is a top doodler as well as a top writer?

The other day I passed the church in the middle of the city. I stopped to look at the "nativity" scene and paused to reflect that this was the only representation of the real meaning of Christmas that I had seen, not just in the city but in the whole of the Holiday period.

There it was, this church, surviving right in the middle of a crass consumerist bonanza, this collection of shopping centres that have grown so big as to take over the city centre entirely.

Plenty of "Christmas" in the shopping centres. Christmas in your latte, Christmas in the fairy lights, Christmas in the sound comming from every speaker in every shop.

Compare the loud consumerist "Christmas experience" with the quiet, humble, still figures leaning over a tiny baby.

I thought of atheists, who usually have plenty to say during Christmas time... and I said to them: "People are worshipping an entirely different God".

How Not To Use Politics - A Tale of Christmas Jealousy

I felt good during Christmas Eve, when I would normally feel depressed. I made myself a tasty meal and watched The Sound of Music.

And I had a fun time on Christmas Day… I went to a friend’s house and spent the day with nice women…

It wasn’t until I sat down to write the next day that the fish hit the fan. 

Like this

First, I wasn’t even aware that there were troubling feelings lurking around. I just sat down to write.

I must have looked at the broken keys on my keyboard, which always triggers painful emotions. And this made me wish I had a new laptop…

At this point, the feelings started pouring over (not that I was aware of it then). Fresh in my mind was the memory of the nice presents the women exchanged the day before, and the modern gadgets they had.

But it wasn’t about presents or gadgets; these are only “symbols” for something else: a life that is lived. These women were living lives… they have jobs, a home, friends, adventures. They live.

And I don’t have any of these, you see. So my mind associates these “lack” with “not living”.

Shortly after I started exploring these feelings, I found myself landing square into the field of politics. And this is where things get interesting.

I know politics; a lot. I know far more than I let out. This means that I could have easily “made myself feel better” by using politics. Here’s how:

* The women at the Christmas party had x, y and z

* I felt bad about not having x, y and z

* I use political arguments to undermine x, y and z, which has the effect of a) putting those women down and conversely b) pulling myself up.

So to take a completely random example: the old chestnut of “vegetarianism”. Someone has a nice, cushy job that allows them to have a nice, middle class living. I feel bad about not having a nice, cushy job and therefore not having a nice, middle class living.

I could easily pick at their choice of being a “vegetarian” and undermine their nice, cushy job and their nice, middle class life. How?

I could point out how hypocritical it is to care about the exploitation of animals and not the exploitation of humans. I mean, can you name one job in this global economy that does not result in the exploitation of someone? Exactly. I am knowledgeable enough to spot how any job contributes to the emiseration of people.

So I could easily argue: if “dropping out” of meat consumption is supposedly a good thing for animals because it boycotts the meat production industry… then why isn’t “dropping out” of the wage economy a good thing as well? After all, unemployed people do not, by definition, contribute their labour to the growth of an industry that will exploit people and the environment. Unemployed people do not contribute to capitalist production.

When seen under this light, unemployment is a very ethical choice indeed. If everyone was unemployed, we would soon see the capitalist system collapse.

Right?

Please feel free to point out where I’m wrong.

But that’s not the point. The point is I shouldn’t be using political arguments to put someone down in order to pull myself up. As my friend says, “that’s not on”.

The problem is not “vegetarianism” or “the economy” or “unemployment”. The problem is not that some people have nice, cushy, middle class jobs.

The real problem is that I felt depressed and that I don’t want to feel depressed. What other people do or don’t do, have or don’t have should not impact on my wellbeing. I should not get depressed because other people have better lives.

If my problem is that I feel like I’m not living, then I should either start feeling like I am living or start living.

Putting other people’s lives down is not going to bring me up. That is just a way for me to not deal with my pain. It’s just an “excuse”.

And if I don’t deal with my pain, if I don’t address my feelings of not living, then these feelings won’t go away.

This does not mean that I can’t question vegetarianism, or the economy, or unemployment, or the middle class. Of course I can. But I shouldn’t do it because I am suffering from jealousy, or anxiety, or insecurity, or anger. I should do it because I believe in what's right. 

It's not easy to separate the two, and granted I've only just begun. 

If you find yourself using politics in a similar way, know that you are not alone. I have a sneaking suspicion that we all do it, more often than we realise.