Dr Anna Arrowsmith

Anyone speak Spanish?

I was interviewed by a London-based Spanish journalist called Maruxa Ruiz del Arbol earlier this week on the subjects of poststructuralism and the inclusion of men in feminist/gender debate; she got in touch with me after seeing me talk at BBC 100 Women.  Much as I can’t speak Spanish I ran the article through Google Translate and it seems to be a very nice article.  I was particularly happy with doing this because it is not often I am interviewed on general gender subjects (which is the subject of my research PhD), usually I am interviewed about porn, which is fine but I can talk about other subjects too. Also, although poststructuralism is highly influencial (since 1990) in the gender studies academy, it is almost unknown outside of it, which is a shame because I think it offers the greatest toolkit for defeating gender inequality, due to its focus on similarities between men and women, whilst simultaneously underlining the arbitrary nature of our socialised gendered selves. The ‘structure’ in ‘poststructuralism’ can be thought of as the gender binary, male-female, so this theory is ‘post’ that binary, in other words it goes beyond it seeing gender as something we all do, as though it was ‘between’ men, women and trans people (have I lost you yet?!)

I was interested to see how Maruxa would reflect upon the notoriously difficult to understand poststructuralist gender philosophy, (I think she did very well, especially for someone using a second language) particularly that of queer theorist Judith Butler, who is a huge influence on my own gender theories and of whom I spoke of at length.  Butler’s writing style leaves many perplexed (as it did me when I first discovered it), indeed she once won the World’s Worst Sentence award.

Briefly, Butler argues that instead of thinking of gender as the social part of us that makes us male/female/trans, which is opposed to the physical body/hormones, which is known as our ‘sex’, we should see all of our self –  body and all – as gender (the social part), because we cannot know the body except through gender. For instance I always give the example of how developed our knowledge of women’s reproductive capabilities (fertility treatment) has become since the 1960’s in comparison to how inept the medical profession is at helping women who suffer from orgasmic dysfunction. Women have been of greater use to men as mothers than satisfied lovers, in other words.

Butler argues that we focus on gender differences such as primary and secondary sexual attributes (penis/vagina/breasts), rather than the far greater number of physical similarities we share (most internal organs, skin, bones, etc).  This choice to focus on differences is a political one, she argues because it allows for a hierarchy where men are favoured.

Butler uses the term ‘performativity’, a portmanteau of ‘performance’ and ‘activity’ to describe how we ‘do’ gender. We unconsciously perform our gender as per sets of norms that existed before we were born and into which we are thrown. Our sexuality and our gender are conveyor belts along which we travel, often without question. she asks us to imagine a situation where a parent (especially a lesbian parent) holds aloft their newborn child and says “it’s a lesbian!”. The common response (Daily Mail anyone?) would be anger at the parent’s choice of the child’s sexuality on their behalf, but Butler argues this is exactly what we do when we assume a child to be heterosexual. As non-heterosexual people know, it takes a lot of guts to buck the trend and deny the policing of their sexuality to fit society’s norms. The second point Butler makes is that we do the same thing when we declare “it’s a girl!/boy!”. We don’t just describe a biological fact, we simultaneously ascribe an appropriate conveyor belt; female: socially focused, emotionally aware, discouraged from ambition, fearing of attack, etc, or, male: singularly focussed, encouraged to be ambitious, and discouraged to express emotions other than anger, etc.

That gender norms need to be constantly policed in society (calling a woman a slag, discouraging ‘softer’ tastes in men, etc) is proof of it’s arbitrariness, for if gender were as set in stone as we are led to believe, it wouldn’t need constant reinforcement…

Im having had a hectic week so I’m afraid this is the earliest opportunity I have had to write a post regarding my experiences last Friday at the BBC’s 100 Women event.  I was really pleased to be invited and even more pleased to see two other sex industry women there too; Brooke Magnanti and Sarah Walker who runs the English Collective of Prostitutes. Three per cent sex workers, that’s a good start…

The event was very well organised and the people running it were lovely if a little knackered. I attended all of the debates and spoke in many of them including on whether feminism can include religion. My answer to this was yes, as ultimately even though religion is necessarily sexist due to the writings supporting misogynistic behaviour (ten sections encouraging rape in the bible alone) and of homophobic ideas, as a pornographer I knew how it felt to be excluded from ‘real feminism’ so I wasn’t about to make the same mistake myself. After all just because some women are religious doesn’t mean they don’t have valid ideas about other areas of the gender debate. I also spoke in the debate of female representation asking people to keep up the hope as the music industry used to be dire until Amy Winehouse came along, now more women than men have hits.

I took part in a debate on the future of feminism, which was way too short but I got one of my two main points across, that we need to focus on incorporating men’s views on gender into our debates. After all, how can we know male behaviour deemed offensive isn’t in fact men reacting defensively to power women have if we don’t interview them?  I received a number of tweets on the subject, some saying that feminism already talks to men (which I don’t even think is largely true) to which I replied that we don’t just need to talk to men, we need to listen to them, which definitely isn’t happening right now. I also called myself a post structuralist, rather than a feminist, which I then described as someone who believes that gender is a performance, something that is done, rather than just a biological reality (although of course the body exists).

The other point I wanted to make, which I didn’t get a chance to was personified throughout many of the debates that day, and was my only frustration with the event.  I often get annoyed that feminism is equated with socialism (which I am using as short hand for the many left wing forms of feminism).  It is assumed that women are naturally socialist, that we value the role of a large, prescriptive State that ‘saves’ women.  I’m a liberal, so this is not a belief I share, neither do Conservatives and I find it is seen as very unpopular, often anti-feminist, to argue for other means apart from structural change to help towards gender equality. Try saying that neo-liberalism isn’t a) all bad, and b) realistically doesnt exist outside of us because we willed it to be and we all enjoy the fruits of it every day.  The argument against capitalism/neo-liberalism (which share many traits and often get blurred into one debate) always ignores the positives of capitalism in my experience, like access to education (porn paid for two of my degrees so far), travel, technology, fashion, nice food etc…

I really feel that socialist feminism has the hegemony, the powerful position within feminism and when I once said this to my supervisor she said that the whole point of feminism was that there was no hegemony; oh how you speak from the position of privilege, I thought, privilege being invisible to those that have it and very visible to those that dont…

Anyway, the debates in the morning were often very left wing which left me feeling rather oppressed, being supposedly out numbered, however a nice chat with one lady at lunch soon restored my mood. The highlights of the day have to be the one on one conversations I had with some of the attendees, especially Gurinder Chadha (director of Bend it like Beckham) on film making and my PhD; Paris Lees (transgender activist) whom I had many conversations around how feminism is not as inclusive of dissenting voices as it ought to be; Barbara Hewson (lawyer that specialises in fighting for women’s reproductive rights) on being on the receiving end of moral panics around sexuality; Marianne Pearl (international journalist who runs Chime for Change) on my PhD and how writing from the first person is often enlightening, and Comedian Kate Smurthwaite on defending atheism.

I have to say the event was great, I saw some fantastically famous women, Martina Navratilova, Cherie Blair, Gurinder Chadha, former New Zealand PM Helen Clark, Ann Leslie, Susie Orbach and Jacqui Smith among others. I learned an awful lot, especially about the international state of women’s rights. I do hope they do it again next year…

I can confirm I will be on the BBC World Service Newsday radio programme sometime between 5.30-6.00am tomorrow, and part of a live debate to be aired on the World Service between 11.10-11.20 on the modern definition of feminism.  I have yet to have confirmed an appearance on New at 6pm and News at Ten too.  The 100 Women debate is being broadcast live throughout the day until 5.30pm tomorrow too, so I’m sure I will be part of that as well. I’m very much looking forward to it.

The BBC have just released the full list of women involved in the one day event called ‘100 Women’ taking place this Friday the 25th October 2013 and I am very pleased to hear fellow sex worker activist Brooke Magnanti is invited too. I am very much looking forward to the event and feel very privileged to be included. I’m not quite sure what is in store but one thing’s for sure, it will be making history as such events are so rare.

I shall be taking part in radio interviews early in the morning so watch this space for confirmation of times and channels once they have been confirmed.