Feminist Ambiguity

Last time out, in my brief discussion of modern feminism, I mentioned and provided an example of the ambiguity that feminists today face in their pursuit of… whatever version of equalist utopia their idea of feminism preaches. However, the battlegrounds across which this confusion & argument take place are many and varied and I thought I might explore a few more of them in this post. To make a point, essentially.

I begin with a joke: a feminist is standing near the front of a crowded bus next to a man, who is sitting down. At the next stop, a woman boards and the man stands up, offering her his seat. Muttering “You’re living in a bygone age” and clearly disgusted, the feminist grabs his shoulder and forces him back into his seat. At the next stop, another woman boards and again the man stands up. “We aren’t all damsels in distress” snarls the feminist, pushing him back down. At the third stop, a third female passenger boards; for the third time our man attempts to stand up, and for the first time the feminist standing next to him pushes him back down. This time, however, it’s the man who addresses her first; “Would you please stop doing that, you’ve made me miss three stops already””

Yeah, I’m not great at telling jokes.

Anyway, in spite of its dubious quality, the joke illustrates one such feminist battleground quite well; that of societal gender roles. The above situation, of whether one should offer a woman a seat when one is available in preference, is an extreme example- most people would consider it simple good manners, or a harmless quirk of society at best. In fact, many bemoan the ‘loss’ of such customs, claiming that chivalry is dead. However, there are some feminists, such as our example above, who consider chivalry as a concept an inherently patriarchal one; the chivalric (which might be better translated as ‘knightly’) originated during the medieval period and held that women should be protected and treated with respect. So far, so feminist; however, the essential reason that such parts of the chivalric code exist is because women of the time had next to zero power and thus no ability to fight back if they were treated dishonourably. As such, some feminists argue that the concept is outdated and patriarchal, subconsciously implying that modern women, like their medieval counterparts, are unable to fend for themselves in our modern age. So which is it; a harmless, even pro-feminist, societal institution, or a relic of an institutionally misogynist age?

Such arguments are not just levelled at seats on a bus; no less a figure than home secretary Theresa May weighed in on such an argument last year, saying that it was wrong to introduce quotas for the number of women on the boards of major companies as it devalued them, implying they weren’t good enough to be there on their own merit (the counter-argument being, of course, that women are criminally under-represented in such instutions and the forced introduction of women into their highest echelons might go some way to removing institutionalised misogyny in such companies). Hers isn’t the only argument one can make to back her point; others argue against such pro-female initiatives as being anti-male, preventing men from being elected to boards on their own merit.

You might recognise this argument as being, in this case, exceedingly stupid- it is comparatively very easy for a man to get onto such a board on their own merit. Although the idea of misandry (the oppression of and hateful behaviour towards men by women) is occasionally worth mentioning in certain circumstances, it has become a byword for what angry, anti-feminist men say to cover their frankly sexist attitudes. The issue is that whilst misandry is certainly a thing, it is very, very seldom a major issue when compared to the vast mountain of inequality built up by 5,000 years of institutional sexism and patriachal, misogynist attitudes. I mention this solely as a warning to any guys reading this- before accusing anyone of misandry, either deliberately or indirectly, think very, very carefully about it and make sure every other possible reason could be eliminate. The chance of misandry being the problem is very slim. Just something to bear in mind. Anyway…

Another set of issues and objections begin to enter the equation when we move beyond the traditional gender roles women aren’t meant to fill and move onto those that they are; those of cook, housewife, child-raiser and so on. It is generally agreed by most of a feminist inclination that women should not be forced into fulfilling these roles; that they should be free to be their own person and not forced to simply do the chores men don’t want to. However, this begs the question: is the structure of the ‘traditional’ family unit inherently wrong? Some would argue yes; that be being a stay-at-home mum & housewife, a woman is, intentionally or otherwise, contributing to the idea that this way of doing things is the only acceptable norm, reinforcing the patriarchy. Others, however, argue that there is nothing inherently wrong with the idea of a woman staying home, looking after her children, cooking meals and so on; if she wants to do things that way, that is absolutely her choice to make. Just as she should not be forced into the role, so she should not be forced out of it; maybe she wants to spend more time with her kids, maybe cooking has always been her thing. Some may suggest that cooking is only ‘a woman’s thing’ because of these institutionalised patriarchal norms, but then we realise that we can apply the exact same argument to this situation; something being a ‘woman’s activity’ doesn’t necessarily mean a woman can’t enjoy it with all the enthusiasm that a man (if so inclined) might. When we start considering the practicalities of a man fulfilling the ‘house-husband’ role, entering a genuinely female-dominated environment and capable of legitimately using misandry as an argument in some cases, the whole business finally spirals into a vortex of confusion and trying to keep track of the arguments flying all over the place becomes practically impossible.

There are countless other examples of this sort of thing, many of which are far less easy to determine the “right” answer to than the examples covered here. Does the far greater interest in male compared to female professional sport mean sports fans are straight up sexist? Is it the fault of any particular videogame featuring them that such a large proportion of gaming protagonists are straight white 30-something men? I could go on, but I feel my aim has been achieved; to reinforce my point about the ambiguity and politics inherent in modern feminism. Unfortunately, this doesn’t leave me with a natural conclusion, so… be nice to women, I guess? No wait, that might be considered over-chivalrous…

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I’ve been expecting you…

As everybody has been incredibly keen to point out surrounding the release of Skyfall, the James Bond film franchise is currently celebrating its 50th birthday. Yes really- some absolute genius of an executive at Eon managed to get the rights to a film series that has lasted longer than the Cold War (which in and of itself presented a problem when Bond couldn’t simply beat up Commies all of a sudden and they had to start inventing new bad guys). But Bond is, of course, far older than that, and his story is an interesting one.

Ian Fleming had served as an intelligence officer during the Second World War, being involved with such charismatic spies as Dusko Popov (who ran an information exchange in Lisbon and traded signals on a roulette table), before returning to England during the 1950s. He later made a famous quote, based on an event that occurred in 1952:

‘Looking out of my window as the rain lashed down during one of those grey austerity-ridden days in post-war Britain, I made two of the biggest decisions of my life; one, never to spend winter in England again; two, to write the spy story to end all spy stories’.

He began writing the first Bond novel (Casino Royale) in February of that year, retiring to his Goldeneye estate in Jamaica to write it (Bond spent the majority of his time in certainly the earlier novels in the Caribbean, and Goldeneye would of course later become the name for Pierce Brosnan’s first Bond film). He chose the name from American ornithologist (and world-renowned expert on Caribbean birds) James Bond, saying that he originally wanted his character to be a normal person to whom extraordinary things happened, and whilst this brief got distorted somewhat through his various revisions this drab name, combined with Bond’s businesslike, unremarkable exterior, formed a contrast with his steely edge and amazing skill set to form the basis of the infamous MI6 operative (Fleming also admitted to incorporating large swathes of himself into the character).

The books were an immediate hit, demonstrating a sharp breakout from the norms of the time, and the film industry was quick to make its move towards them. As early as 1954 a TV version of Casino Royale starring the Americanized ‘Jimmy Bond’ had hit the screen, but Fleming thought he could go better and started a project to make a film adaptation in 1959, with himself acting as screenwriter. However, the project bombed and it wasn’t until 1961 that Albert ‘Cubby’ Broccoli (along with partner Harry Saltzmann) bought the film rights to the series. This project too was plagued by difficulties; despite Sean Connery being said to ‘walk like a panther’ when he came to audition for the part, Broccoli’s first choice for the Bond role was Cary Grant, and when he said he didn’t want to be part of a series he turned to James Mason. Mason made similar bones and so at last, with some misgivings, they turned to Connery. Said Fleming, ‘he’s not exactly what I had in mind’.

He had even worse things to say when Connery’s first film, Dr. No, was released; ‘Dreadful. Simply dreadful’ his words upon seeing the preview screening. He wasn’t the only one either; the film received only mixed reviews, and even a rebuke from the Vatican (never noted for their tolerance towards bikinis). However, Dr. No did include a few of the features that would later come to define Bond; his gun, for instance. For the first 5 Bond novels, Fleming had him using Berreta 418, but munitions expert Geoffrey Boothroyd subsequently wrote to Fleming criticizing the choice. Describing the weapon ‘a lady’s gun’ (a phrase Fleming himself would later use to describe it), he recommended the Walther PPK as an alternative. Fleming loved the suggestion, incorporating an adapted version of the exchanged into his next book (which was, coincidentally, Dr. No) and giving the name of Bond’s armourer as Major Boothroyd by way of thanks. Boothroyd’s role as a quartermaster eventually lead to his more famous nickname; Q.

Not that any of this saved the film, or indeed ‘From Russia With Love’, which succeeded it. Reviews did improve for this one if only for its better quality of execution, but many still rallied against the very concept of the Bond movie and it hardly kickstarted the franchise. What it did do, however, was prompt the release of the film that did; Goldfinger.

This was the film that cemented Bond’s reputation, and laid the tropes on the table for all subsequent films to follow. Pussy Galore (Honor Blackman) became the definitive Bond girl, Sean Connery the definitive Bond (a reputation possibly enhanced by the contrast between his portrayal of Bond and the aggressive, chauvinistic ‘semi-rapist’ portrayed in the books), and his beautiful, silver Aston Martin DB5 the Bond car- one such car sold in the US some years ago for over 2 million dollars. According to many, Goldfinger remains the best Bond film ever (although personally I’m quite fond of Live and Let Die, The World is Not Enough and Casino Royale), although rather sadly Ian Fleming died before he could see it.

Since then, the franchise has had to cope with a whole host of ups & downs. After ‘You Only Live Twice’ (in which the character of supervillain Ernst Stavro Blofeld is first revealed), Connery announced that it would be his last Bond film, but his replacement George Lazenby appeared just once (On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, in which his performance received mixed reception) before claiming that he didn’t feel the character of a gun-em-down chauvinist such as Bond could survive the ‘peace & love’ sentiment of the late 60s (Lazenby was also, on an unrelated note, the youngest man ever to play Bond, at just 30). After Connery was tempted back for one more film (Diamonds Are Forever) by an exorbitant salary, the gauntlet was thrown to Roger Moore, who simultaneously holds the record for oldest Bond ever (57 by the end) and most number of films (7, over a 12-year period). Moore’s more laid back, light-hearted and some might say graceless approach to the role won him some plaudits by its contrast to Connery’s performance, but despite increasingly negative audience feedback over time this style became ever more necessary as the series came under scrutiny. The feminist lobby (among others) had been gaining voice, and whilst they had once been pleased at the ‘freedom’ demonstrated by the likes of Playgirls and other burlesque performers (seriously, that was the attitude they took in the 50s) by now they saw them as the by-products of a chauvinist society. This quickly meant Bond’s all action, highly sexual and male-dominated atmosphere came under fire, forcing the character to retreat into steadily tamer plots. It was also rapidly running out of ideas (the same director had been working on the project for several films by now), retreating into petty jokes (ie the name ‘Holly Goodhead’) and generally mediocre filmmaking. The series limped on with Moore until A View To A Kill, and for two more with Timothy Dalton after that, but it then took an 6 year break whilst another Dalton production fell through. Some felt that the franchise was on its last legs, that a well-liked and iconic character would soon have to wink out of existence, but then came Pierce Brosnan.

Whatever you do or don’t think of Brosnan’s performances (I happen to like them, others think he’s fairly rubbish), there can be no denying that Goldeneye was the first Bond film to really catapult the franchise into the modern era of filmmaking. With fresh camera techniques to make it at least look new, a new lead actor and a long break to give everyone time to forget about the character, there was a sense of this being something of a new beginning for Bond. And it was; seven films later and with Daniel Craig now at the helm, the series is in rude health and is such a prominent, well-loved and symbolic character that Craig adopted his 007 role when pretending to skydive into the stadium alongside the Queen during the London 2012 opening ceremony (which I’m sure you all agree was possibly the best bit of the entire games). There is something about Bond that fundamentally appeals to us; all the cool, clever gadgets, the cars we could only ever dream of, the supermodels who line his bed (well, maybe a few people would prefer to turn a blind eye to some of that), and the whole smooth, suave nature that defines his character makes him such a fixed trope that he seems impossible for our collective psyche to forget. We can forgive the bad film making, the formula of the character, the lack of the artistry that puts other films in line for Oscars, simply because… he’s Bond. He’s fun, and he’s awesome.

Oh, and on a related note, go and see Skyfall. It’s absolutely brilliant.

Equality vs. Superiority

Has anyone here heard of Anita Sarkeesian? If not, I don’t blame you- I hadn’t either until this morning. She is a feminist activist and video blogger, who recently decided to start a video series entitled ‘Tropes vs Women in Videogames’, in an effort to discuss and address some of the clichés (tropes) that game developers continually use in their portrayal of female characters, the archetypal one being armour (such as that on World of Warcraft) that leaves very little to the imagination. To both fund (since this is one of her main sources of income) and publicise this project, she set up a Kickstarter page (asking for$6,000), and posted a YouTube video… and this is where the trouble started.

As I have said before, the internet (and YouTube in particular) has always attracted the loud, shouty and mind-blowingly offensive, but the response to this video really took the biscuit. I won’t bore you by listing all the comments here, but suffice it to say that the sheer outpouring of hate was quite something to behold. The sheer anger awoken at the merest mention of feminism is quite truly staggering, and it didn’t end there- her Wikipedia page was repeatedly vandalised with explicit sexual references, matching pictures and links to porn sites until it was taken down, at which point the ‘trolls’ started spamming her Kickstarter page to try and get the company to shut her down (although, to their credit, they left it up and her campaign has now received something like $50,000, so there are at least some generous people out there).

The thing that really struck me about the whole business though was the arguments being made against her. For a change, at least some YouTube commenters appeared to actually have a reason for their outrage, and were at least trying (between bouts of  CAPITAL LETTERS and overuse of the word ‘bullshit’) to say what it was.

One chief argument is the current most popular anti-feminist one, namely because it is the only argument with even an ounce of sanity behind it- the idea that nowadays feminism is not about promoting equality, but instead about promoting female supremacy. Now, I actually get where this argument is coming from, because it is actually an issue. Some of the points being raised included the lack of rights for divorced fathers (an area in which I am not especially knowledgeable but am aware there is room for improvement), and the increasing trend for feminists to blame everything bad men do to women on sexism and everything bad women do to men to either be ignored or dismissed as an enigma. This was often linked to another argument regularly championed, namely that complaining about representing women as sex objects in videogames was unjustified because 99% of male gaming characters are the kind of muscled hunks who represent male sex objects, which men never complain about and in any case sex appeal is a necessary selling point of many games. The other main argument centred around ‘why the hell is she asking for money for what she could do for free?’, but since this argument is 1) irrelevant and 2) not thought through (this is her job, so she could do with some cash for it- and more importantly there is no requirement for you to donate so if you dislike the idea then just don’t give her money), I’m just going to stick to the first two arguments for now.

Since so much has been offered championing these two ideas, I thought I would begin by offering the feminist counter-argument to them, so that people can understand the issue fully. Both arguments are, in actuality, perfectly valid and do have evidence to back them up- however, whilst they are entirely appropriate in some scenarios, trouble arises from when they are applied in the wrong place. For example- complaining that women are overly prejudiced against men if a female candidate is preferred over a better-qualified male candidate by a female selector (I will not mention the issue of quotas here, but may in another post) is completely valid. Complaining in this way when a man is given a 20-year sentence for sexual assault is, however, entirely inappropriate.Thus, in this case, the ‘male’ viewpoint thinks that it is entirely appropriate to claim that ‘feminism has gone too far’, because it thinks that the representation of men as muscular ‘perfect males’ means that both men and women are treated as sex objects equally in games. The ‘female’ argument however holds the opinion that T&A is used far more for pure sex appeal than the muscular build of male characters, and that this balance should be redressed by adding more realistic and deep female characters to the gaming world.

To all men reading this (I should probably remind everyone at this point that I am male), feminists have a reason for believing this- and it’s purely social. One bone of contention among feminists is that a sexually overactive male is championed as a ‘ladies’ man’, whilst a comparable woman is simply degraded as a ‘slut’. The old, and relatively true, unfortunately, argument to counter this is the old ‘locks and keys’ principle- the traditional roles of men and women in sex, throughout the animal kingdom in fact, is of the male actively seeking sex wherever it can get it and of the female ‘witholding herself’ until she has found a male she is willing to mate with. Thus, we have locks and keys- a key that can open a lot of locks is an impressive tool, a ladies’ man, whilst a lock that can be opened by a lot of keys is rather insecure and considered a bit rubbish, a slut (my apologies for the rather crude imagery here). The same kind of thing applies in the whole ‘sex objects’ thing- when a man looks at a particularly well-endowed female character, she is more likely to be immediately viewed as a potential sex object to be sought out, whereas if a woman looks at a strong, muscular, impressive guy then he is less likely to be viewed as a one until he ‘comes on’. Thus, one use of female sexual iconography is not ‘balanced out’ by even a large number of ‘ideal men’ unless the sexual link is made explicitly. This also does not take into account the fact that these ‘ideal men’ that people claim are sex symbols are never as provocatively dressed as their female counterparts, which only strengthens the focus on sex appeal portrayed by female characters and skews the balance in favour of the objectification of women.

This counter-argument is, in some ways, no more valid than it’s ‘male’ counterpart- both are opinions based on whether one thinks that sexual imagery within videogames is overly focused towards women or not. If this matter were debated below Sarkeesian’s video, then I actually think it would be beneficial towards all concerned. What I don’t think is right however, is the hideous attacks that have been made against her in that space.

Disagree with her opinion? Fine, make your voice heard. But to attack her personally, to label her “a fucking hypocrite slut”, a coward, to attack her as a Jew, call her a “feminazi” and then claim that her dubbing these people “sexist trolls” is just because ‘oh she has a different opinion to us, so we’re CLEARLY all dicks’ or, worse, ‘because she’s wrong’? That, people, is just being a bunch of idiotic, insensitive morons. Some of the posts just resort to abject rubbish, claiming that ‘women get everything for free’ and ‘why should I have to pay if we get a divorce?’ (quick legal detour- normally because you were her only source of income and she could probably do with a hand to make sure she and your kids don’t starve and have to live out on the streets), and other assorted rubbish. Not only that, but the men (predominantly) posting these are only giving her more ammo, letting her ‘show the world how sexist men still are’, when in reality most of us have got nothing against women being our equals.

I’m not entirely sure where to stand on modern feminism- I entirely agree with equal rights for both sexes, and agree that their representation is not yet equal, but am in places unsure whether they’re pushing a little too far or in the wrong direction. I’m also not sure where I stand on Anita Sarkeesian. But I don’t have to have any views to be appalled at the way she’s been attacked in this scenario, and to condemn the rank idiocy of what is, once again, a minority misrepresenting a huge slice of culture. I mean seriously guys- what the f*&£ are you on?