On Caitlin Moran and feminism

The above (taken from the STFU Moffat tumblr site, which is doing lots of good stuff) created a Twitterstorm (are they still called that) based around Caitlin Moran, who is probably the British figurehead for feminism at the moment.

For a bit of context, Moran stated that she did not care that Dunham's hit TV show Girls contains no ethnic minorities, despite being set in New York, a city with a huge variety of people of different races. I haven't actually seen Girls, as I don't think it's been shown in Britain yet, so I don't know if the 'complete and utter lack of people of colour' refers just to the main characters, or to the cast as a whole. Either way, this seems like a strange case of casting.

The main issue that people took with Moran was that she stated that she didn't care about the race inequality in the show, prompting people to argue with her. Later, in an act of self-aggrandisement that would make Ricky Gervias baulk, proceeded to personally thank everyone that defended her.

The problem with Moran's statement is that she acts as if the role of race in the media doesn't matter. It does. Everything does, in terms of the media. Moran, as a feminist, should be aware that patriarchy is spread - partially, but not totally - through the portrayal of women in the media, the prime example being the prominence of rape culture.

In the case of Girls, which was frequently labelled the successor to Sex In The City, there's a belief that it may become one of those cult shows which people will want to model their life around - there's a consensus that the growth in popularity of coffee-shop socialising in the nineties was due to Friends (Friends wasn't quite a cult show in the strictest sense of the word - it had a devoted fanbase, but the fanbase was massive. It's not cult in the way Arrested Development is.) I'd imagine that Sex In The City prompted groups of women in fours to sit in cocktail bars and talk about their sex lives. Emulating lives lead on screen is a natural extension of escapism.

But Girls (as with all the shows mentioned above, in fact) the lack of a variety of race, though subconscious, will have an effect. All the above groups are populated entirely by white people - usually middle-class white people. What does this say to people - it says that the perfect group of friends you can have are white, middle-class, cis-gendered, straight, etc.

Moran's brand of feminism - I guess you could call it 'liberal feminism' - fails to address the theory of intersectionality - that social inequality is not simply found on one plain, and that gender inequality cannot be separated from the class struggle, the civil rights movement, the fight for homosexual rights - essentially, all fields of identity can, and should be considered.

I've touched on this once before on this blog, during a post about George Galloway's 'in the sex game' comments about Julian Assange. He claims to be a socialist, but, by being a misogynist, he simply cannot be - equality, in class terms, cannot just be for men.

Many people have had objections to Moran's liberal feminism, largely critquing her massively successful book How To Be A Woman. I haven't read it, so my views of it do come from blogs which have written about it. These blogs do quote heavily from the book, and usually give as much context as it is possible to give, so hopefully I am not too far off from what Moran meant, and won't look like too much of a fool.

From what I understand Moran regularly makes jokes about woman, jokes which you'd expect to find being made by someone who reached their twenties before poltical correctness emerged.* Jokes about woman being overly emotional, or scared of spiders, or being unable to drive. Essentially, jokes which force woman into a single hegemonic grouping. Moran's use of these jokes is an extension of the point which I made above - her ignorance of the cultural hegemony which allows patriarchy to survive.

Similarly, and this a point which I don't understand, she asks for over-the-top praise of male feminists. Treating a male feminist in this way, and worshipping his body in such a way, is problematic for a number of reasons. Us men shouldn't be congratulated for being pro-feminists/feminist allies - it should be expected. Certainly, not enough men are pro-feminists, but we should not be treated as superior to female feminists for being so.

Secondly, the sexualised imageary advances the stereotype of men pretending to be feminists so that they can sleep with women. Under no circumstances should this idea be popularised, as it would build a hollow-shell feminism which would crumble as soon as the men found a new way to talk women into bed.

I don't doubt that Moran is actually a feminist, and, like the poster on STFU Moffat, think that she has done of good job of pulling feminism back into the mainsteam (slightly) and helping to remove some of the stigma attached to calling yourself a feminist (although this still has far to go). The problem is that Moran has limited this burst of feminism to a type that ignores the factors surrounding gender equality.

My belief, for what it's worth, is that patriarchy is implicit in capitalism. Capitalism reduces people to the roles exploiters and victims on all levels; the standard bourgeoisie and proletariat system; the system of imperialist nations and colonies; and, in amongst all this, the relations between men and women. Women are tasked with a vast amount of unpaid labour - raising children, looking after the family home. This idea is being erroded, slowly, but it is still commonplace. By taking apart the class system, we can remove the patriarcal aspect of society. The women's rights movement and class struggle are interlinked. I would hate for Britain for transform into a socialist state, only for women to still be subjugated.

So when we embrace feminism, we should not embrace it as a singular, isolated cause. Feminism must be used in tandem with the struggle for equality of all people. 
  

*Or, alternatively, on of those morons who think they're being clever by being willfully politically incorrect. People who think not being able to use the n-word in public is a disgrace to the concept of human rights. They can often be found saying things like 'You can't even say the word blackboard anymore!' I call this Clarkson Syndrome.

On 'The Monitor', Bruce Springsteen, and identity crisis

When I first heard The Monitor, the second album by New Jersey band Titus Andronicus, I dismissed it as a punk-rock take on Bruce Springsteen that would provide a bit of short-term fun. I underestimated the power of the album to get under your skin, to open itself further with every listen, and, of course, the phrase ‘punk-rock take on Bruce Springsteen’.

I heard it first over a year ago, and listening to it now, the Springsteen-references are not just a lazy way to describe an album, but actually the key to what the album is trying to say. Springsteen himself embodies the traditional, New Jersey working man. He speaks to blue-collar Americans in the way that politicians wish they could, because he is a working class American. One of the reasons for The Boss’ enduring success, it was once said, is that you can almost imagine that when he isn’t touring, Bruce actually goes back to his hometown and works in a factory with the same people he grew up. At the end of his shift, he goes to the same bar he always has and drinks PBR with those same people again. That is not the case, obviously, but perhaps more than any musician who sings extensively about his roots, he has maintained his pre-fame identity.

The working-class of New Jersey, and all around America, that Springsteen writes about and embodies, has been romanticised in much the same way that British miners were before Thatcherism – it wasn’t a glamorous life, or a desirable one, but it was their life, an honest life that was driven by a ‘honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay’ philosophy. It was the generation eulogised by Frank Sobotka in series two of The Wire, when he says ‘We used to make shit in this country, build shit.’
That quote represents the point where Titus Andronicus and other bands which count Springsteen as their inspiration split. The Gaslight Anthem, with a lead singer who worked for nearly a decade in a car factory before becoming a singer, are in love with the image of Americana that Springsteen promotes. Titus Andronicus, however, see things much differently. Their New Jersey is that of the sons and daughters of the people depicted in the songs of Springsteen and The Gaslight Anthem – some of the many victims of globalised capitalism and the crisis of identity which resulted from it.
The process of globalisation, which has really been happening throughout history, gathered momentum in the second half of the twentieth century. It was bad news for the working class of New Jersey, as their jobs were transported to the other side of the world as using Eastern-based wage slavery became an economic reality for multinational companies. The next generation, the Titus Andronicus-generation, were promised a new start, increased levels of economic freedom, free information, and everything else.

But globalisation, in a bid to create a global identity, tore up the roots that once gave people a real sense of self. Under Thatcherism and Reaganomics, class was apparently dissolved into one.
The real problem this created was that, when it opened new windows for young people, globalised capitalism made sure it bolted any doors closed, and moved those doors out to countries where it is legal to pay people less than a dollar a day. A vacuum of jobs for young people was created, and those that belonged to families of the working class apparently saw their history being erased by ‘trickle-down economics’ which never fulfilled their promise.

The Monitor is filled with references to depression, anxiety, alcoholism and worthlessness – they form the feeling of emptiness that comes from the lack of fixed identity. At the same time, the album reflects what, if anything, was good about globalised society – the spread of knowledge. Titus Andronicus is a consciously-cleverer album than any of those of Springsteen – it’s a concept album based on American history, is strewn with references to myriad other influences. The band name even comes from a relatively obscure Shakespeare play.

If The Monitor was given a human embodiment, it would be the slightly pretentious, university-educated son of a former New Jersey steel factory worker. The clash between the references and the dark lyrics, and the audible influence of traditional American anthemic rock, is the playing out of a struggle between this generation’s past and present.