m.guardian.co.uk
m.guardian.co.uk | Mar 11th 2011
Last year
started slow and snowy, the office was deserted for the holiday season, and I
sat alone at my desk wondering how to carry out my New Year's resolution: to
crush the patriarchy. This resolution was, of course, immodest, impractical and
unrealistic, but it had one distinct advantage. Sheer ambition. I started
dipping into the Guardian's archive for inspiration, and one idea, one way I
could do something concrete and lasting, suddenly struck me. The paper has been
at the forefront of feminist coverage since the first women's liberation
conferences and marches in the UK, 40 years ago, and I realised that if I
scrolled through the archives I could find material that opened a window into
every major feminist issue of that period; I could also find articles by, or
interviews with, every major feminist icon. I could put together a book that
would be informative, and hopefully encouraging, for both ardent feminists and
readers who had never encountered the movement before. As I sifted through the
material that would become Guardian anthology Women of the Revolution: Forty
Years of Feminism, there came one testament after another to how women's lives
have changed for the better, in the UK and beyond, as a result of feminist
campaigning. In a piece by Eva Figes from the 1970s, for instance, she noted
that, back then, UK women only earned 55p for every £1 a man earned; at the end
of 2010, the Office for National Statistics reported that the pay gap between
men and women (taking into account both part-time and full-time employees) now
stands at 19.8%, with men earning an average of £12.35 an hour, and women
earning an average of £9.90 an hour. In that matter then, there has been
considerable progress. But feminism remains a revolution half-made (why not
simply equal pay for equal work?), and in some areas progress seems either to
have stalled, or gone backwards. Over the past decade internet pornography has
proliferated, lap-dancing clubs have set up across the country, and it has
become a shrugging inevitability that many stag weekends will involve sex
tourism. In 2009, in England and Wales, only 6.5% of rape cases reported to the
police ended with a conviction on that charge (the conviction rate is even
lower in Scotland). This statistic has remained largely static for a decade,
and in terms of women's rights in the UK, it is this that I would most like to
see improve. At the moment we have a culture in which thousands of women are
raped each year, yet only a tiny proportion are granted justice (it is thought
that only around 10-20% of all rapes are reported to police in the first place,
which makes that conviction rate look even more paltry and problematic). To
fail women in this way is to suggest violent crimes against us don't matter,
will not be punished, and that we must put up and shut up even in the face of
the most harrowing abuse. Forty years after the start of women's liberation,
100 years after the first international women's day, is this really how we want
to live? Thankfully feminism is burgeoning in the UK, and worldwide, as the
hundreds of events held for International Women's Day this week have proved.
Here five brilliant feminists, all of whom feature in Women of the Revolution,
write about the world-changing shifts we have seen in the last few decades –
and the change they would most like to see come next. Suzanne Moore Today, we
must take nothing for granted – the environment of recession provides the
perfect pre-conditions for much hacking back at any "equality" we may have
achieved. And the key reforms over control of our own bodies (the 1967 Abortion
Act) are still prey to fundamentalists of all faiths who want to control female
sexuality. We already had the pill. But, for me, what has been vital in
changing much for women has been technology. We had the washing machine; now we
have the internet. My daughter told me of a web page about domestic violence
that does not show up in your online history, allowing victims to switch easily
to another page if their abuser comes into the room – and without fear of being
found out. Young women are no longer afraid of technology. Sure it may be a
byproduct of capitalism that little girls are now part of the games market, but
at least it means that they are as adept at technology as the boys and can use
it to their advantage. We now connect and campaign internationally too. Would
we have known so much about the treatment of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, the
Iranian woman sentenced to be stoned to death, were it not for the online
campaigning? Yes, we remain divided into the information rich and the
information poor, and it is true that pornography thrives on the web, but the
internet can also be transformative. Many early feminists understood the
liberating power of technology. They thought it could mean we could do away
with men. I am not saying that exactly . . . but the combination of feminist
theory with these tools is new and exciting. As for the future, I am with
Valerie Solanas, who would have surely been a brilliant blogger: the job of
women remains "to create a magic world". Suzanne Moore is a journalist and
commentator Natasha Walter Over the past few years I've been working alongside
women who have come to this country seeking sanctuary. There have been some
amazing milestones in their struggle – but there is still so much to be done
before women who come here fleeing persecution can find justice. Historically,
a refugee has been seen as an individual persecuted by the state specifically
for their ethnicity or their political beliefs. It was in 1999 that one great
milestone was reached, when the highest court in this country clearly
recognised that women often flee another kind of persecution; persecution based
on their gender. In the case known as Shah and Islam, two women fleeing
domestic violence in Pakistan were recognised as refugees who were entitled to
protection in the UK. One judge stated that while domestic violence is
experienced by women in the UK, it would not create refugees out of British
women, "because the victims of violence would be entitled to the protection of
the state", whereas in Pakistan, "the state was unwilling or unable to offer
her any protection". This clear statement that, in the absence of protection
from their own states, women are entitled to cross borders to find safety from
gender-related persecution – even if that persecution took place in
their families – was a real milestone for women. But this has remained, for too
many women, a victory in theory only. In practice, many women who flee
persecution related to their sex, whether at the hands of their families or by
police or soldiers, are denied asylum in the west and fail to find safety. Many
of them are even locked up during the process or after refusal. Right now,
I think a great next step for women refugees in the UK would be to see the
notorious Yarl's Wood detention centre closed. The government has accepted that
it should not be locking children up for seeking asylum; time to show that
women who come here fleeing persecution, fleeing torture, fleeing sexual abuse,
should not be imprisoned. Natasha Walter is author of Living Dolls and a
founder of Women for Refugee Women Jessica Valenti Feminists have so much to be
proud of – we've changed laws and policies, hearts and minds. In particular,
we've put a tremendous dent in violence against women and the way that it is
handled worldwide. In the United States, the sexual histories of victims can no
longer be used against them in court and the Violence Against Women Act has
allocated billions of dollars to provide services to victims. In the UK, it is
against the law to name rape victims and the definition of consent protects
those who are unconscious or have lost the capacity to agree to sex. But the
work is far from done. Violence against women – sexualised violence, in
particular – is still at epidemic proportions. The National Crime Victims
Research and Treatment Center reports that more than one million American women
were raped in 2008, the UK's Home Office reports that 23% of women will
experience a sexual assault, and rape is still routinely used as a weapon of
war across the globe. Young women, women of colour, immigrant women, trans-men
and women, and women with disabilities are all at a disproportionate risk. And
while we have made progress, legal victories and policy changes are not the
same thing as a cultural shift. Without altering the paradigm for how we think
about sex, gender, violence and misogyny, there will be no lasting change for
women. Thankfully, young feminists are taking up the cause. They are blogging,
raising awareness and holding vigils in their communities. And despite the
popular notion of young women as politically apathetic, they are taking direct
action. Thousands of women protest about violence against women every year as
part of Million Women Rise, and recently students at Dickinson College in
Pennsylvania staged a three-day sit in, demanding the college make its sexual
assault policies more transparent after a number of rapes on campus were
handled poorly by the administration. Women are taking action every day. But
until we are free from sexual violence – no matter our gender, race, class or
sexual history – feminism's work will not be done. Until rape and sexual
assault are rare anomalies, instead of the terrifying norm that women are
expected to live under, we will not be free. Jessica Valenti is a blogger,
author and founder of feministing.com Nawal El Saadawi Women in most countries
have not achieved much, because they can't be liberated under the patriarchal,
capitalist, imperialist and military system that determines the way we live
now, and which is governed by power, not justice, by false democracy, not real
freedom. War criminals in the US and Israel are not punished: no international
court has the courage to put them on trial. We need to establish a new UN and a
new international criminal court; we need real secularism to liberate women and
a secular family code. We women in Egypt participated in the great revolution
on 25 January 2011, but after that we were not included in the new committee to
change the constitution nor in the temporary government. We started to organise
and unite under the New Egyptian Women Union, which was banned several times by
the regime of President Hosni Mubarak and his wife. Unity is power; without
unity women cannot fight for their rights anywhere. Nawal El Saadawi is an
Egyptian psychiatrist, writer and activist Bidisha At this time in women's
history I feel proud and sad. Not angry. Proud because, despite what is done to
us, we show an almost super-natural strength. I do not care if women call
themselves feminists or not. I care, beyond language, about women's
self-determination, freedom, unity, justice and joy. There has always been a
global women's movement and it has many names and many faces. But I feel sad
that whenever we speak about what is done to us, we are told that we are liars
trying to get innocent men into trouble out of malice. It is rapists,
harassers, exploiters, bullies, discriminators, stalkers, leerers and jeerers –
plus the millions of silent men who do nothing to challenge their brothers –
who act from malice. I wish they did not excuse, defend, even reward the
perpetrators. I wish women had not absorbed all this loathing and turned it
towards themselves and other women. We have achieved some things in some
places, but our position is still tenuous and can be revoked. The fundamentals
have not changed, close to home and far from home. I am tired of how much we
are despised – and horrified by how transparent this is. Freedom, justice and
equal representation are withheld from us with laughable excuses. I wish, after
thousands of years of abuse and exploitation, cultural contempt and casual
dismissal, marginalisation and belittlement, for things to change. I wish
people believed what we say about the things we experience and witness. We are
telling the truth. There is now an understanding that rape, domestic violence,
harassment, sexual exploitation and labour exploitation happen endemically, not
only in times and places of macho war-mongering but also in peacetime and
seemingly happy societies. These issues are brought to the debating table when
the men in power chat among themselves about what is best. But they have not
actually ceased happening. There is one thing that could halt the oppression of
women virtually overnight. There is one thing that could save us from
exploitation, from fear, from anger, from violation, objectification, baiting,
mockery. The perpetrators could stop. Bidisha is a writer and commentator •
Kira Cochrane discusses Women of the Revolution at guardian.co.uk/books It is
published by Guardian Books, price £18.99. To order a copy for £14.99 with free
uk p&p, visit guardianbookshop.co.uk or call 0330 333 6846 Have your say What
changes would you like to see next? Share your comments below
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