On excesses of a lifestylist conception of feminism and feminist accomplices of patriarchy

What does one require to be a feminist? The expected response to this question would probably be agreeing with some central theoretical tenets - and transforming them into real world political activity. It must be noted that while one is able to individually adopt an ideology, one is not able to individually apply it to the real world. Politics is only possible through collective action.

It seems today that everything a woman does is wrong. And I am not just talking about the traditional conservative, male-chauvinist perspective which decries any behavior that doesn't harken back to the good old days when "women were raised to be good housewives" - and other ridiculous and offensive aspects of patriarchal ideology. I am referring as well to certain feminist spaces where the practice of "woman bashing" has unfortunately become not only acceptable, but common place. 

This has an unfortunate effect for women who are becoming politically aware and start perceiving the world critically. Women, who are used to suffering the constant gaze and judgment of patriarchy, will worry about scathing criticism and attacks from their feminist peers as well. "Am I aiding the Patriarchy?" While this is certainly a question everyone should ask, what this translates to in the practice of a section of the radical feminist movement today is that women have to restrain themselves, their behaviors, their morals and their options even further. Rather than freeing a woman from her chains, more chains are being added. 

This is not a flaw of the radical feminist movement as a whole. When it comes to prostitution radical feminists rightly attack the institution and the men who make use of it, but not the prostitutes themselves, as it is recognized that they are, in the vast majority of cases, forced into the profession, that it is not a choice one usually makes while having a set of reasonable alternatives, that they become alienated in their labor (like other workers) and that they are often victims of having internalized paternal and capitalistic ideology. The focus of our criticisms is always on society.

So why be so harsh on every woman who might be a critical consumer of today's cultural production, which is often necessary to their social reproduction, that is, her continued social existence within her social context? Do we emphasize more and more this apparent dichotomy, that one is either a hermit, isolated and capable of denouncing all patriarchal norms and cultural production from the outside, or one is an accomplice to it? This might be a somewhat unfair assessment, but a lot of feminists who have this outlook actually recognize that one cannot live outside of our patriarchal world. [1] So while they will harshly criticize other women for "propping up the patriarchy" and being "special snowflakes", at the same time there is a ritual of impotence and wallowing in guilt for one's own incapacity to live up to ideal feminist standards and lifestyle.

Take for instance, this image that has been making the rounds of feminist internet spaces for a while - the Female Character Flowchart [2]. This is an image that aids the viewer in finding out what is wrong with all of these women, or rather, to show the viewer why they should be considered weak, and thus not something one should identify with in any form [3]. Of course, the image doesn't outright say this or recommend this course of action, but it would be naive not to see it as the proper way to cognitively digest it. In fact, in online feminist spaces, women who express enjoyment for these characters are symptomatically morally attacked for doing so. Also symptomatic is the lack of a single image depicting the mythical "strong female character" - perhaps because no character would stand up to criticism. This line of thinking is what probably has some people in the movement saying that women should be depicted as "just women". I have to struggle a lot with this assertion because what does it mean to be "just women"? In a patriarchal society, as proposed by the likes of Simone de Beauvoir, in which woman is the "other", and considering men are the standard for everything in this society, I think that there is very little left for those who do not identify as men. One really has to consider what "just women" means, since it has to at the same time escape the reality or patriarchal relations and gender roles in existing society so as to not reinforce it, and at the same time avoid being everything else, apparently. Meanwhile, male characters find every form of expression available to them - they can be two-dimensional, they can represent ideas, they can be perfect, flawed, they can die, they can be fathers, they can be evil, annoying, outcasts, nerdy, suave, sarcastic, cute, and nearly everything else imaginable and still be (mostly) enjoyed in their literary context without comparable feelings of guilt and political wrongness. The message seems clear: feminists cannot enjoy women in cultural production. Men can be everything while women are relegated to the premise of being "just women", which doesn't exist - women should be the anti-character.

The same applies to music, literature and fashion. I have seen many feminists concerned about wearing certain kinds of outfits or enjoying certain TV shows or playing videogames because that would be aiding the patriarchy. As a radical feminist woman who will engage with some online feminist spaces, I feel sometimes a growing animosity in which certain feminists seem to compete to see who is the most feminist by adopting increasingly restrictive lifestyles, and they do this while denouncing other feminists who don't live up to their personal standards for propping up patriarchy. While it is true that patriarchy warps the perception of the infinite forms of expression women have available to them, thus imposing a limit, this feminist-moralist attitude tends to add more limits of its own. Forms of expression which aren't intrinsically problematic (nor intrinsic to women), such as clothing or make-up, become problematic because they are seen by the feminists themselves as elements of patriarchal oppression - even in social contexts where women want to express themselves without the social obligation of adhering to certain norms and gender-roles. While at the same time feminists will denounce slut-shaming, certain feminists will denounce as pornified nearly all fashion and clothing available to women today. For practical purposes, both patriarchy which labels women as "sluts" for attempting to use clothing as a form of expression, and feminists who denounce them for using this "pornified" form of expression, are both acting as the super-ego, they are both recommending that a "proper woman" should always be aware of what kind of gaze she is attracting, or avoiding to attract. Both limit the range of clothing socially available to women. It is also strange to think that a woman should have to "look feminist" (as if feminism had a "look"), as feminism is not meant to be an urban-culture, but an ideology that leads to political action.

Since all of current cultural production is incapable to holding up to this kind of feminist idealism and moralism, it follows from the idealistic perspective that feminists should isolate themselves from all cultural production. This seems to be an extreme sacrifice in order to achieve an objective that is its opposite, the increased enjoyment of participation of women in cultural production. One has to approach this from a tactical perspective: is this kind of separatism an efficient tactic to get women to participate in the production of cultural material, and thus undermine its dominant patriarchal character? Is it a compelling tactic on its own, enough to beat the immediate desire that women have to enjoy culture? It is a worrying outcome if radfems, when attempting to isolate women from the world, end up isolating themselves from the women. The moral idealistic gaze that adds criticism on top of criticism directed at the common woman may turn many away from an ideology while serving no practical purpose (and thus doing nothing to take down the patriarchy). This is hardly an appeal to appease patriarchal norms and to not question them where they exist, but pointing out the fact that one should not be attacked for that which is unavoidable. We all live in this society and we are going to change it from within, and the same is to be said of cultural production. This is also not an appeal to reformism - it is the current society that can generate both reform and revolution.

Criticism and theory are tools that we use to help us change society. But they can also make things both more enjoyable and less enjoyable. They can give positive examples and negative examples. Perhaps it is time to stop focusing exclusively on the negative, and start using criticism to produce enjoyment that is already scarce for women in the society that we live in. 

It turns out that, to be a feminist, one is not necessarily required to lead an ascetic lifestyle. 

-atlol & starmeleon

[1] This outlook is represented in cultural media by characters that, choosing to reject living in a patriarchal world, solve the contradiction by rejecting to live entirely, as we can see in very interesting films (especially from the perspective of feminism and cultural criticism) such as Thelma & Louise (1991) or The Piano (1993).

[2]http://www.overthinkingit.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Overthinking-It-Female-Character-Flowchart.png

[3] It should be noted that some characters criticized in this flowchart are actually pretty cool.

Google Trends and Cuban Marxism

Everyone plays with gadgets Google Trends at some point during their days wandering aimlessly through the internet. I did, recently, and found some surprising bits. 

The most surprising one is that the highest search rates for "marxismo" (which is marxism in spanish, portuguese and italian) come from Cuba! 

Cuba searches for "marxismo" about 4 times as much from its next competitor, Bolivia, and 5 times as much as third place Venezuela and Mexico. If we consider that Trends measures search volume only, without weighing for population, the average Cuban searches for marxism 50 times as much as the average Mexican. 

We can also see that there are regular spikes in the search - probably due to the fact that its correlated to school assignments and people search less on vacation season. I can imagine cuban students googling for marxism in their schools right now. I wish this came up more in discussions of Cubans' relations to the internet in the mainstream press. 

Oh and Cuba also wins with "socialismo", searching for it twice as much as Venezuela and three times as much as Bolivia, and four times as much as Mozambique! I like that Mozambique shows up strongly in this one. Disappointed that Spain is barely showing up. 

Some interesting tidbits one can learn with a data mining gadget. Here it is for those interested.

On socialists' negative opinions of actually existing socialism

In this text I attempt to discuss some negative opinions (not criticisms and material analysis) directed towards former socialist nations. 

Many socialists take solace in the fact that they have negative opinions about the historical experience of socialist nations, specifically the Soviet Union and China. There are many reasons for this. By distancing oneself from these experiences one also distances themself from criticisms directed at these experiences, which lessens the burden of defending one's ideology. There is the appearance that one's outlook is more independent or even new, which is considered to be a testament to critical analysis that is supposedly lacking in those who adopt stances similar to those which were historically significant in the 20th century socialist bloc and within radical party organizations [1]. There is also the fact that, for those coming out of another ideological background, one does not have to overcome their previous negative stances towards these societies in order to become socialist in this manner [2]. My objective is not focusing on the tactical merits of expressing these opinions but the nature of these opinions themselves. 

One is hard pressed to find a marxist with negative opinions about the transition from feudalism to capitalism. Marx himself will serve to point out the advances of capitalist society in relation to the feudal society. Marxists see capitalist production, even in its transitional state of mercantile society, as the development of historical forces. Those familiar with the principles of materialism would not feel the need to denounce the imperfect conditions of transition from feudal society to capitalist society, to have negative views of that historical process, precisely because it is seen as such: a historical process. It would be strange for a marxist to denounce this historical transition, or to expect better results to arrive from that particular set of material conditions. 

So why is it that many socialists feel the need to denounce the Soviet Union and China? Are those historical experiences not seen as part of a historical process? Are the sources of negative opinions within these societies outside of the historical process then, something which happens without class struggle? I have found that the majority of opinions one can find being expressed in socialist spaces are wrong. Not because they are informed by fallacies or by lies. But because they take the form of cautionary tales and moral judgment, which cannot be accepted by anybody who has been familiarized with a historical materialist framework. They generally come accompanied by some form of counter-factual history that points to the possibility of a moralizing historical agent (usually reflected by an individual or theory, not a class) which could have, by means of chance or circumstance, altered the course of history for the better, more desirable version. 

This conception of history is no different than the oldest pre-materialist explanations for historical events. Much like we learn from ancient roman biographers that the periods of crisis in the Empire were to be blamed on the perversions of some Caesars, and prosperity to be credited to the virtues of others, these socialists warn us against certain personalities that hijack the historical process. We can fantasize then (and maybe include in the transitional programme) that a 20th century soviet Brutus could have saved the revolution and ensured the final victory of socialism in the USSR. This is wrong. 

There is also the problem of choosing a more desirable outcome over a less desirable one. One often comes from the assumption that both outcomes are materially available. Marxists do not generally support socialism because they see it as ideal, but because they see it as what is possible, otherwise they would simply abolish all capitalist relations of production and superstructure instantly. With the insights of historical materialism we learn that we are constrained by the historical process, the development of forces and relations of production and their accompanying superstructure, along with other insights such as the law of balanced development, which cannot be abolished at will. This is why Marx who we could probably conjecture was against the practice of banking in general, advocated in his Manifesto of the Communist Party for the creation of a state-run central banking system. He could not advocate something which was beyond the form of class struggle his society was experiencing. So when one favors a certain outcome, within the realm of marxist ideology, one is required to make the case for it within the parameters of historical materialism, because we are not merely collecting stances which we find preferable or moral regardless of material reality, this is what separates us from the utopians. 

So even for those who base these opinions on class struggle, we have to ask why we could have expected the outcome of actually existing socialism to have been different [3]. When one looks at the actual historical record, not just of the USSR and China, but of all the revolutions which took place in Europe, Asia, Africa and in Latin America, the transitional period between capitalism and socialism (itself transitional) looks like a series of successes and setbacks of working class struggle, big and small. There is no reason why we should expect, in the hypothetical future of world socialism, to look back to the 20th century and not see it as a transitional period, but rather, as a series of freak incidents in history. There also does not seem to be a convincing materialist reason for which we should believe that, armed with the perfect theory (which could possibly arise from imperfect social realities) the revolutions of the 21st century would be impervious to failure [3], or that this is itself an argument against revolution. It shouldn't be an outrageous suggestion that Marxists should look at failure as part of the historical process and that this nevertheless doesn't change our determination to keep struggling.  

[1] One has to wonder if this does not reveal a certain organisational problem when independent thinking becomes having a different opinion out of principle, rejecting the very concept of collective agreement and the socialist task of encouraging mass ideological development and mass politics, which become contradictory with this individualist conception of ideological genesis. 

[2] Countless times I have seen people make an effort to, instead of developing a methodology with which to develop their stances and studying in order to refine their critical thinking, just switch ideologies because they now perceive one ideology to fit their previous set of stances better than the other. It is not a real questioning of one's set of prejudices. This, I wager, is one of the reasons for the popularity of the universally awful Political Compass.  

[3] Note that I am not saying that the historical outcome is the only outcome possible, but rather that those who argue for different outcomes have to prove adequately why the differing outcome was possible.

[4] That is not to say that theory doesn't alter the chances of success. But theory is not to be seen as the prime factor in determining the way class struggle unfolds. When we talk about the rise of a bureaucratic class, we are talking about something deeper than technical mistakes, such as calculation mistakes or ineffective public policy - that is not to say that theory is limited to technical mistakes, rather, that these technical mistakes are those that can be more easily avoided with a proper theoretical understanding, as opposed to what might be understood as a historical force.