WhatsHisFace linked me an article earlier today where a UK radical feminist (Sheila Jeffreys) talks about her latest book. * Here’s a short excerpt from the interview:
She became a lesbian in 1973 because she felt it contradictory to give “her most precious energies to a man” when she was thoroughly committed to a women’s revolution. Six years later, she went further and wrote, with others, a pamphlet entitled Love Your Enemy? The Debate Between Heterosexual Feminism And Political Lesbianism. In it, feminists who sleep with men are described as collaborating with the enemy. It caused a huge ruction in the women’s movement, and is still cited as an example of early separatists “going way too far”.
All I could say? I collaborate with the enemy at least several times a week. (nudge nudge wink wink knowwhatImean? knowwhatImean?)
Here’s the link to the entire article for as long as it’s up.
I hope you get to read the whole article. While most of what Jeffreys says marks her as a someone I would consider a nutbar, at least one of the things she talks about in the interview is something I’ve also experienced:
She says she distinctly remembers the moment she realized, during a conversation about politics with a man, that he was seeing her merely as a woman, and therefore inferior. “I was furious. He actually said I had the brain of a man, and while in the past I would have been flattered, a dam had burst and everything became clear.”
While I’ve never gone to the next level the way Jeffreys did (she seems to have gone from there to “all men are EVIL” and therefore I must become a Lesbian), my attitude about experiences like these has shifted as I got older. When I was younger, having a man discount me purely because I was a woman made me try harder to get through to him. These days, I consider it his loss. When a man tells me something similar to Jeffreys’ brain of a man comment, I also used to be flattered. These days, I’m coming around to the realization that those comments irritate me. Of course, no one has said exactly those words to me. It’s usually comments about me being more logical or rational than they expected since I am a woman. It says so much about a man’s perception of women that he’d even say that.
For the most part, every other opinion ascribed to Jeffreys in the linked article grates on me. Perhaps I’m being naive, but I refuse to believe that I’m anywhere near as powerless in my life as she would make me out to be just because I was born a woman. I also claim the right to make my own decisions about beauty standards and make-up instead of taking her ideas on the subject as my sole guidance. She seems to have the idea that going in the exact opposite direction as the accepted societal norm (dictated by men to keep women in a state of subordination to maintain their power according to Jeffreys) is the only way to put forth our independence and equality. If you accept her supposition that the societal norm is a form of male oppression (which my gut reaction is to vehemently disagree, I’ll have to digest it though before I can come up with a reasoned opinion), then doing the exact opposite doesn’t free you from the oppression. The only thing that accomplishes is to allow them to force your behavior in a different direction. We’d still be reacting to and because of male influences. To free ourselves, we’d need to make our minds up independent of men/society.
Basically though, things like this article make me treasure the men in my life who treat me like an equal. It’s hard for me to get too radical when I have guys like that around me.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some conspiring to do.
* – Yes, I know that this whole subject is likely to cause a few readers’ blood pressure to sky rocket. Can’t be helped, as I have a bee in my bonnet about the subject. WhatsHisFace cried Uncle on IM about it, but all you guys can do is refuse to read. Muhahahaha….. wait……
