By Ellie Levenson / @ellielevenson
Despite the jokes some older Labour men might make to the question ‘are you a feminist?’, the answer of course being ‘yes, it helps me pull the birds’, Labour has usually tended to ‘get’ feminism. The labour movement has taken feminist issues as its own, from a minimum wage that largely benefits female workers to better maternity and paternity leave.
So why is it that in recent years Labour has seemed somewhat out of touch with feminism in the noughties? Labour politicians still refer to women as not liking adversarial politics. And women are assumed to have an interest only in the perceived fluffier areas of health, education and communities (not that there is anything fluffy about these of course). And whatever the financial reasoning, having an unpaid Minister for Women even for a short while gave out all the wrong messages.
Just as New Labour is unrecognisable in many ways from the Labour that went before, so is new feminism, or as I have called it in my new book, noughties feminism. And it’s time for the party to recognise this.
Noughties feminism, like much of New Labour, has choice at its core. Whereas in the past feminism was often about a specific set of beliefs and you had to subscribe to all of them to consider yourself a feminist, noughties feminism believes that you can, and should, make up your own mind on what you believe in and how you live your life. This means that you can still be opposed to abortion and be a feminist though I personally am pro-choice. Your daughters can still wear pink if they want to, as can your sons. And whereas some branches of feminism in the past disliked men to the point of viewing any sexual relationship with men as a betrayal, noughties feminists see feminism as much for men as for women. So it follows that you could make many seemingly unfeminist choices in your life – taking your husband’s name on marriage for example, not using the title Ms, doing the bulk of the childcare and having dinner on the table every night when your partner comes home from work, and providing these really are your own choices and not forced on you by society then you can be a feminist just as much as someone who decides not to do these things.
Labour has undermined this in some ways by actually narrowing choices available to women. So, for example, policy has largely been to get mothers back into work using financial incentives. This has not helped women on lower incomes have a real choice over whether to stay at home with their children or not. And despite increases in maternity and paternity leave, the gap between the two is huge, continuing the incentive to employers to employ potential fathers over potential mothers. What’s more, the most high profile person who came out against hiring women who may have babies, Alan Sugar, has been rewarded for saying this with a government job.
Nor do I think all women shortlists are helpful. I do support the case for more women in parliament, though I don’t buy into the idea that only women can represent women and I think arguably the politician who has done most for women was Gordon Brown in his former role as Chancellor of the Exchequer. It makes me cross when very good male candidates cannot stand in their local constituency because of an all woman shortlist. Instead I would like to see every shortlist having a minimum of forty per cent women on it.
Not only this but I’ve lost count of the number of times that Labour men and women have said publicly, sometimes even while campaigning for an internal election, that we need a more ‘feminine’ approach to to politics. It’s as if women are delicate little flowers who cannot cope with adversarial politics and can only make decisions sitting in a circle while whale music plays.
Feminism in the noughties, and hopefully beyond, is about wanting equality and wanting choice. It’s about not being patronised, not having assumptions made about our interests (for though I am interested in health and education I am also interested in the ‘unwomanly’ areas of economics, foreign affairs and, gasp, defence) and not making assumptions about what women want. Come on Labour – feminism has moved on, it’s time for the rest of you to catch up.
The Noughtie Girl’s Guide to Feminism by Ellie Levenson is out now. You can also visit Ellie's website at www.ellielevenson.co.uk.
Delicious
Digg
Reddit
Facebook
StumbleUpon
Interesting how (nearly) all you male bloggers find Ellie's arguments comforting. The Labour Party was dragged kicking and screaming to take women's issues seriously, and wouldn't have done without the dedication and yes sometimes extreme positions adopted by some. They were needed for the centre of gravity of the campaigns to be where it was.
So please, less of the "I am glad we have got all that behind us" and a bit more realisem of how far we still have to go. And less of the judging of women by how "attractive" or "feminine" they appear to some of you.
If we are going to admire women for their beauty - it's in the eye of the beholder and fairly subjective.
However, talent is not.
Ellie, thanks for restoring my faith in feminism as an ideology.
wow, sexism and ageism in one sentence !!!
You are so wrong about them looking 'pretty good.
They all have common distinctive features but I can't quite find the correct word to describe them.
The vest fit is Manly ~ having features traditionally ascribed to men.
"I tried to make a few jokes last month when my daughter was born, apparently it is insensitive to make jokes before, during and after the birth."
In my observation, no man will ever be allowed by any woman to make jokes about pain and birth, and every other woman present will vehemently agree. I think that we as men just need to not try to compete. As a doctor, I'd say that certain procedures for both sexes involve an astonishing level of pain - excision of throat lesions, where anaesthetic cannot be used, male urethra scraping as examples. Taking ABG samples from young children is awful, and is often delegated to Housemen who have not a lot of practice. My own 6 year old daughter was hospitalised for a couple of days last year for asthma, and now only really remembers a rather cack-handed ABG - 5 or 6 attempts to find an artery in her arm with a 2 inch needle, and in the end a nurse sitting on her upper arm to stop her thrashing about. My mother had a similar experience a few years ago with chemotherapy after a breast cancer discovery: the administration of the therapy as an out-patient was dreadful, with (by her description) an insensitive nurse causing great pain and distress by poor needle technique. I see both sides, my heart goes with the patient, of course.
This is a kind of feminism which I can understand, though I have been a supporter for women's rights since I was a child at school reading about Emily Pankhurst. The form of feminism that you describe is to quite simply an aknowledgement and advocacy of women's right to be a free individual.
I think I respect this very much, as I always found the previous forms of feminism difficult to identify with (but then I think they had to be what they were to bring attention to the issue so it actually was addressed).
I applaud you. I am a bachelor and enjoy my freedoms, I do not feel obliged to fit into a category, or to conform to any trend or passing fashion, I have my own views on things, I choose my friends just as any women should be able to do.
Therefore it would be grotesqe for me not to accept that women can do these things to.
I welcome the move of feminism to being a more sophisticated and general idealism that advocates freedom holistically.
You can count me as a fan.
Oh I do support women's shortlists but as a temporary measure until we address the balance, though I sympathise with those men who miss out in thier own constituencies.
I tried to make a few jokes last month when my daughter was born, apparently it is insensitive to make jokes before, during and after the birth, or maybe it was my particular sense of humour that was being objected to.
As far as I know, men can't have children, so if a career woman wants a child she will need a break from the workplace to do that. I can't see how that is unfair on men or women, although I could see it adding pressure to the workplace to a certain degree holding the position for a year. But that is just life.
I'd see it as spectacularly unfair if a woman left her job to have a baby and had to finish her career altogether though. As I said, I'd give my wife active encouragement with whatever she wanted to do, as she would with me. I could stay at home full time with the kids if needs be, for the most part it would be good fun.
In future I will use the anus and tennis ball analogy to be more accurate though.
"Men can't have children, women can, so obviously we'll never experience the equivelant of swallowing a rugby ball, but that is nature."
I'm a hospital doctor, albeit an ENT specialist and not a gynaecologist. The human throat (male or female) cannot expand enough to swallow a rugby ball - the throat muscles do not have adequate extension and would simply tear apart. A human vagina is of course designed to have the necessary amount of muscle extension. Additionally, the vertical passage of the spinal cord between clavicles (shoulders) and between the front and back of the upper parts of your ribcage are less than the dimensions of a rugby ball. In plain terms, if a rugby ball was forced down your throat, it would break apart your shoulders and ribs.
That said, and to the point you were making. As a student, I recall reading some research into relative pain levels endured by females giving birth and a mapping across to males. I think it was from an Australian medical school, and of course I can't put my hands on it now (mid 80's - probably not even on the internet?). The conclusion was that for Mr and Ms Average (in biological terms, given a standard size of baby), the female birth experience with a vaginal delivery was about equivalent in pain terms to an average man passing through the anus a tennis ball, but that the tennis ball took about half an hour to get through (I remember thinking this did not take account of the cervix dilating pre-delivery natural function which is painful in itself). It brought tears to my eyes, I can tell you.
Regards
So you are for 40% or more sexist discrimination.
Bravo. How enlightened you truly are. I'm sure the whole point of feminism is to entrench sexist views - of whatever side - in law.
As a man do you think that is fair on you?
I say that the line is clearly into the women's half of the ball court
As a woman who has taken three separate abscence to have children, has returned to her professional position each time, I now believe that this is unfair not only on men but on the women in the work place.
Yes, feminism of old automatically branded men as misogynists, but less than 150 years ago a woman that talked too much would have a contraption called a Scold's Bridle put over her head, forcing silence through a metal mouth piece attached to the bridle.
I have many questions about how feminism has changed, which I've asked Ellie below, but feminism has changed for the most part. Hardline feminism still exists and in those quarters I am a misogynist for typing this comment, but that isn't what is happening here today on the LL.
I agree that men and women are complementary, but I disagree we are not equal. It depends on your definition of equal. Men can't have children, women can, so obviously we'll never experience the equivelant of swallowing a rugby ball, but that is nature. We can't change that natural inequality. In our day to day interaction with each other though, I think we can be equal.
It's not difficult to see that men and women are not equal, but complementary, and until society reflects this again, well, frankly, we're in big trouble.
"Like much of New Labour, noughties feminism is about choice"
Sometimes, I really feel that LabourList was better when Derek Draper was at the helm. At least then there was a clear identity to the site. You were either Labour or a troll. Today, it seems you are either short of real work, of totally unconcerned about the poster's opinion...
Come back Derek, the emails are all forgiven.
Now that strikes me as being a very ageist and sexist statement.
For someone who is so obviously tuned into discrimination issues, it is a pity she did not reconsider her patronising and discriminatory comments.
No writer on LL has ever uttered a truer line. I would have been happier if you had added three words; "MORE'S THE PITY"
Men and women have similar wants and needs. I'm male, but I would prefer not to be patronised as I often am, not to have assumptions made about my interests which people often do and I would like a society that doesn't assume what I want. So where is the line between male and female now?
If it is purely about representation in politics, education or even business, that comes about naturally given time and patience. On the other hand, the issue could be forced through government legislation or through having quotas, but this has the risk of alienating people and could set everything back a decade or more in terms of attitude. So again, what does modern feminism have for a campaign?
I'm married and obviously I think very highly of my wife or we wouldn't have gotten married in the first place. We share our lives, we share our ambitions but we have different dreams, different interests and very different views. I'm an atheist, she is not. She is fascinated by nature and science, I prefer politics and technology. Our views on childcare are similar but not identical and we share our household chores. Of course I attempt to do everything so badly that I won't be asked a second time, but my wife is very equal and fair and ensures that she does the same thing when I ask. If we didn't pull together and work together, we would live in a pig sty eating take away food, but we don't. How does feminism come into our lives as a couple? How would it benefit us both?
I won't speak for my wife's ambition, what she wants to be, but from my perspective she can be anything she wants to be. My wife and I have 2 children together, both under the age of 2 and I have a 10 year old son, so obviously childcare and work dominate quite heavily in our lives, but if my wife wanted to become a politician, if she wanted to study the stars or become a marine biologist, what is holding her back? I take care of the kids equally most days, change my fair share of nappies, feed them (although I lack the necessary equipment to feed one of them at the moment on my own, if that makes sense) and make sure the kids are clean with clean clothes, so if she wanted to she could pursue any hobby, any career, pretty much do anything she wants to. We can both vote, we are both free to study, to take a career where qualified, so what does feminism do to this?
I've always treated women as equals, i won't patronise a woman for doing well or achieving her goals and when it comes to work, my wife and I worked side by side doing a difficult job in what was once percieved as a male environment. Nobody batted an eyelid, there was no shrug of the shoulders and neither of us were treated any differently. Is that the problem with feminism in noughties though, the lines have become so blurred that, in general, it isn't the issue it once was?
More power to your kind of feminism. I'll echo Colin remarks too; the war's over. Some of us really do 'get it' and I'd like to add that I'm tired of the hectoring and patronising too.
I never used feminism to pull the ladies but found simply treating women as equals worked just as well.