Category Archives: Politics

Feminism Women's history

Popular and lasting female role models for girls in literature?

July 15, 2010 – 6:42 am

I was walking through the Morvan hills in Burgundy yesterday, as pretty well in the middle of nowhere as you can be in Europe. So while there might have been trickling streams, an ash forest, an undergrowth of holly, not “hop scrub”, and really nothing very much at all reminiscent of Australia, I still found myself reciting The Man From Snowy River (Banjo Paterson’s great coming-of-age poem), and then rollicking my way tunelessly through Wild Rover. (Lucky there really was no one within coo-ee.)

But then I got to thinking about the content of these, and why these two tales – one of a boy becoming a respected man, the other of a man who’s been sowing his wild oats coming back into the fold – are the two that have stuck with me, nearly word-perfect, from childhood. And about the fact that both of the central characters are male.

Banjo Paterson of course is the quintessential poet of male Australian mateship; I know far less well many others of his poems, and the romance of humans overcoming natural adversity might be more than a little to blame for my first degree being in agricultural science. (That and the fact I was 17 when I decided to do it.)

But then I tried to think of similar songs or poems about women overcoming adversity, about girls becoming successful women, about straying women returning to the mainstream successfully, and I couldn’t think of any.

I used to be able to recite Little Boy Lost (from dreadful elocution lessons when I was supposed to be being taught to speak “ladylike”), which has a weeping and wailing mother, and … well when it comes to traditional culture, what I learnt in my youth and stuck with me, for brave, resolute, daring, successful women, I drew a total blank.

(With the generalised exception of pony club books – a staple of my pre-teen years, and perhaps the attraction of those has something to do with the fact that girls in them are allowed to do dangerous things, to get hurt, to struggle, persevere, and triumph – not something common in other genres.)

Other than that my childish heroes were rugby league players – they were the only admired people I knew about, and my dreams were – so extraordinarily – of footballing glory (still unrealisable for the girls of today).

Yet I can think of historical female characters who’d make great bases for such a literary project. Women who hid their sex to go off and fight in wars; the biblical Judith, who killed Holofernes (but if you think of most of the depictions of her they’re not exactly positive); pioneer women of the American West … the list could go on and on, and yet somehow none of this really seems to have inspired the songs and poems that have lasted in popular culture.

So I wondered how different it is today. As my office would tell you, pop culture isn’t exactly my special subject. I thought of Lara Croft, not that I know much about her, but she seems to be a genuinely heroic female character. And after that I drew a blank.

So I wondered. Are girls today growing up (anywhere in the world) offered equivalent female coming of age tales to The Man from Snowy River? Are they offered tales of women who went off the rails, had a roaring good time, then got it back together again? (And I’m talking here primarily about pre-teens, when so much character-forming is done.) Will they be remembering them 30 years later?

Permalink | Comments (12)
Environmental politics

Mares milk, viper’s venom and really serious decadence

July 7, 2010 – 4:24 pm

The time has long gone when anyone seriously tried to claim that it was decadence that did for the Roman empire – all those larks’ tongues and luxury silks – but in so many ways there’s a “last days of the empire” feel about life today.
And that’s not just because of two articles I noticed today – one in the Autun edition of Le Journal de Saone-et-Loire, and the other in an April copy of Macleans, which has just made its way around our village to me. (Can’t say English-language magazines aren’t well used here.)

Locally, just up the road from us, near the Gallo-Roman citdel at Bibracte, is a new farm, specialising in mare’s milk, mostly, it would seem, for cosmetics. No objection, per say, although I can’t help wondering what they do with the male foals, knowing what happens to dairy calves. Still, one can’t help thinking of Cleopatra and those fabled baths…

Seriously madder, I learn of a $525-a-jar cosmetic, the no-so-secret ingredient of what is the venom of the temple viper, Tropidolaemus wagleri, which “works in a similar way to Botox, which paralyses the muscles that cause facial wrinkles”. Poison away those wrinkles…

But no, my favourite example is still the billboard-sized screens showing adverts in Tube stations in London – with the latest climate change predictions ringing in my ears, the idea that we are producing carbon dioxide for this purpose still tops my list of decadent madness.

Permalink | Comment (0)
Books Feminism

Sheila Rowbotham at Bookmarks

June 10, 2010 – 10:37 pm

To Bookmarks this evening, to hear Sheila Rowbotham talk about her new book Dreamers of a New Day.

She’s a non-dogmatic but very easy to listen to speaker, and looking forward to reading the book, but at the talk what she had to say about feminism from the Seventies to the present drew most attention, and questions.

She said that in the Seventies feminists had thought things were moving very slowly in progressing their aims, but “we didn’t bargain on the fact that the whole system was going into a completely different phase.. we didn’t believe the whole welfare state would be so radically diminished…we saw things like women in parliament and equal pay as details – but these details proved to be extremely difficult.”

She made another powerful point: “In the Seventies we assumed that once you’d made a gain it would stay there; now we know you can go backwards.”

I asked her about her views on the focus in parts of contemporary feminism on sexualisation, and thought her response was very interesting.

She said that a key issue was that sexuality was being used to sell things, which was not new, but the commodity culture had managed to penetrate into many areas of personal life where it had previously scarcely been. That had affected how young women thought about their bodies – but that had also crossed the gender divide, also affecting men, although in different manifestations.

She suggested that it was the selling, the ultra-capitalism that needed to be tackled as the real issue. “I don’t know how that kind of system will change. It was the Marxist assumption that the working class would be the agent for change, but it didn’t have much to say about selling and environmental issues. The only alternative vision is from the environmental movement.”

Campaigners needed to work out how to express the need to change society without using moralistic disapproval. “It is not the case of convincing small groups – you need to work out how to convince the masses of people now watching the World Cup and buying lots of gadgets.”

But it wasn’t all heavy going – there were plenty of laughs, and I’m looking forward to meeting in the book the turn of the century Mrs Grundy “who argued for women’s right to Turkish baths”.

Permalink | Comment (1)
Books Feminism Politics Women's history

Want to know why we should get out of Afghanistan?

May 23, 2010 – 10:42 pm

Article first published as Book Review: Raising My Voice: The Extraordinary Story of the Afghan Woman Who Dares to Speak Out by Malalai Joya on Blogcritics.

When I was running for the Green Party in the recent British general election, there was one issue on which I had no doubt how audiences at hustings and meetings would react positively – our call to withdraw British (and NATO) troops from Afghanistan. Surveys show around 70% of the public back that stance, and it was close to 100% of the audiences at hustings.

As I told them, I’d had in the past some doubts about our party’s policy of immediate withdrawal, having been worried about the human rights situation that we’d leave behind, particularly for women. But it was a Human Rights Watch report last year, which found 60-80% of the marriages of Afghan women and girls are forced, and learning that the brave women of Rawa are calling for withdrawal that led me to change my mind.

Having just read the autobiography of Malalai Joya, an outstanding Afghan woman MP, I’m now even more strongly of that view. (It was published in the US as A Woman Among Warlords: The Extraordinary Story of an Afghan Who Dared to Raise her Voice.)

She’s an extraordinarily brave, stalwart – and very, very young! — woman who has dedicated her life, and taken enormous risks, to speak out on human rights in her native land. And she says very clearly – and loudly and publicly in her own land, which led to her being expelled from parliament – that the people the U.S. and its allies are backing in Afghanistan are entirely the wrong people, the old warlords, many of them in her eyes (and those of others) war criminals. And she has no doubt that this foreign occupation can only prolong and amplify her nation’s problems.

Her story is an extraordinary one. Certainly, she was lucky in her parents, particularly her father, a democracy activist who moved his family around Iran and Pakistan as an exile in search for good schooling for them. (He, like the rest of her family, can’t be identified for their own safety – the name ”Joya” is one she adopted to protect them.) There must be many other potential Malalai Joyas in Afghanistan who will never get that essential foundation or confidence.

But there’s no doubt she was exceptional. Noticed as a fine teacher in the refugee camps, at the age of 21 she was sent to found an underground girls’ school in Herat by the Organisation For Promoting Women’s Capabilities. Only three years later, she was appointed to head its work in three provinces, just before 9/11. Under the new regime, despite its resistance, on her account she set up a clinic, orphanage and was able to distribute food supplies.

She must thus have been well known in the poor isolated province that was to send her, a 25-year-old unmarried woman, as a delegate to the 2003 Loya Jurga (national gathering) that was to approve a new constitution. Still standing for office, addressing a room full of women mostly older than herself, in her first “political speech” must have been quite an experience, and her delicate naivete is touching….

“I had a lot to say, and I wanted to cram those few minutes with everything I had ever done in my life, with everything I believed possible for the future, with everything I wanted for the women of Afghanistan. I stressed that I would never compromise with those criminals who had bloodied the history of our country, and that I would always stand up for democracy and human rights.

“As I spoke, I knew that my message must be getting through, because when the other women were speaking, members of the audience were chatting and making noise and not paying much attention. But as I began to speak everyone quietened down and listened. They even clapped a number of times during my speech…"

Yet, worryingly, as she made her way to the Loya Jirga, she gets strong warnings, not just from Afghans, but from UN officials, not to speak so bluntly there. She says: “Most of them seemed sincerely worried. I am not sure, but it is possible that some of them wanted to scare me into silence.”

read more »

Permalink | Comments (5)
Politics

A real enthusiasm for democracy

May 3, 2010 – 9:47 pm

One of the things that I’ve noticed on the doorstep around St Pancras and Somers Town in this and previous election is the enthusiasm among the Somali community for democracy and engagement with it.

I think it was the European elections, or it might have been the GLAs, when I knocked on the door of a group of middle-aged women who’d clearly been having an afternoon coffee. They were absolutely delighted to have a canvasser at their door, proudly showed off their polling cards, which they were carrying around with them, and explained their understanding of the voting system.

And today, I met the latest in a long series of serious, considering voters – or in this case voters’ helper. She didn’t have a vote herself, she said, since she was only visiting from The Netherlands, but she was collecting literature from all of the parties and would be explaining it carefully and in an unbiased way, to two relatives who couldn’t read English, so they could make a considered decision.

I believed her – and I’m sure the explanation will be a good one – for we then went on to have a debate about voting systems and the virtues of proportional representation, and while she might not have known all of the terminology, she had certainly thought about the issues, and had been comparing the British and Dutch voting systems (with some bemusement at the unrepresentative nature of the former).

I’ve no idea how any of those women did or will vote, but I can only delight in their delight in democracy.

Permalink | Comment (1)
Blogging/IT Politics

Britblog Roundup No 267

May 3, 2010 – 9:04 pm

I can make a claim to fame for this edition of the roundup unlikely, I suspect, to be repeated soon: it is being written by a parliamentary candidate three days before the general election (oh, and I’ve got an important council election to worry about too).

But I can at least make the claim to not be the sort of political candidate who just takes up blogging for the election…

You’ll forgive me, I hope, if I’m on the brief side. But I’m following the usual rule of taking all nominations, whether than I agree with them or not, as I’m sure you’ll see.

So I suppose, given the date, I have to start with politics – and a very fine post from Brian Barder. You’ll see a lot of notes on a well-hung parliament over the next few days, but once you’ve read this you won’t need any others.

For something different, Mary Beard has been looking at ancient Roman political gaffes, and Chicken Yoghurt has been looking inside David Cameron’s head, and Sunny on Pickled Politics has been looking into the religion of Phillipa Stroud.

Considering the issues, Jim on The Daily (Maybe) explores immigration, Gaian Economics offers some alternative thoughts on debt, and on practical politics Two Doctors look at a Scottish attempt to raise the minimum wage.

Then proving I’m doing this impartially, I go to the Britblog founder Tim Worstall for his defence of markets (which might have something to do with Tory education policy, and Heresy Corner explores the strengths of Gordon Brown.

Not really a lot of nominations this week; I suspect it might have something to do with lots of our regular participants doing politics rather than reading or writing about it.

In the not quite politics category comes this report from Waking Hereward on a poll on the anthem to be played for English victories at the next Commonwealth Games. It’s a call for action.

And more seriously, on the F Word Sarah Jackson blogs about Education for Choice an organisation that looks likely to be even more necessary in the new parliament.

And Neil Craig is concerned about the killing power of Chinese submarines.

But for something completely different, you could go cycling in Bahrain. You might think flat desert – easy. But you’d have forgotten about the headwinds…

And you might think of the Middle Ages as all muck and mud – that’s until you read Elizabeth Chadwick’s account of the Empress Matilda’s bling. You might think MPs expenses are bad, but royalty’s were a great deal worse…

So that’s it for the Britblog until after the election. Odds on its being filled with debate out how to untangle a hanged parliament? Ladbroke’s it would appear, has closed the book on that.

Permalink | Comments (4)

« Previous Page — Next Page »

« Previous Page — Next Page »