Pt 1: Sexism and the World Cup

In celebration of the 2010 World Cup, Lynx have launched a series of 'patriarch' posters, each depicting a 'buxom babe' in a familiar celebratory soccer pose. These will be running in several countries, with the respective flag of each waving in the background.

How RUDE! This really is the final straw. Everyone knows sports bras look nothing like this, and that the woman photographed is probably a model, not a real lady footballer.

Once again, when we were tucked up safely in our beds, snoozing away, dreaming of equality, sexism has struck. Never relent ladies: we must maiden on, never surrendering to the so-called 'hand of man'.

To rebel I have decided to monitor the World Cup in close detail - looking out for any slurs against female kind. I am ready to strike!!

Posie and Out x

STAND UP FOR WOMEN'S RIGHTS: DO NOT VOTE CONSERVATIVE

TORIES WILL LOWER THE ABORTION TIME LIMIT TO 20 WEEKS. THAT'S REALLY BAD. I URGE YOU LADY READERS: STAND UP FOR YOUR RIGHTS AND VOTE FOR ANYONE BUT THAT EVIL WIZARD DAVID CAMERON.

TODAY THE TIME LIMIT, TOMORROW MORE SEXISM, ALL THE TIME.

Women and Kebabs: An Orientalist Perspective

Hail lady readers!

My Aunt Lily once said that theory is like the backbone of fish swimming down the river of life. I quite agree and I, like a strong willed Tench, have vertebrae packed full with the goodness of precocious thought. Indeed the other day I started thinking the prejudice attached to women consuming greasy food. The result was the mistresspiece below, which would make even Baudrillard blush.

I include the hefty essay 'Women and Kebabs: An Orientalist Perspective' below for your viewing pleasure. After reading it I'm sure you'll be puzzled as I was upon discovering that it was rejected by the Feminist Review. Philistines!

Women and Kebabs: An Orientalist Perspective

Although it was dark at the time, the other night I started to see the world in a whole new light. I was out with some friends and after several rounds of very strong lychee martinis and a bop around the Groucho club I felt it was time for my ceremonious Saturday night kebab.

I have always loved kebabs. At university ‘The Kebab King’ van was permanently parked outside my halls of residence, and even when I once found a little piece of blue plastic in the meat, I kept on eating the stuff; just grateful in the knowledge that I hadn’t choked to death. But on said night, and of mildly discombobulated mind, my decision to order a large lamb doner was not met with mutual adoration.

“Are you seriously going to get a kebab? That’s gross!” my male friends preached, (and these are heterosexual alpha male type men). “We’re just going for the burgers.”

I had to ask myself the question: what’s so wrong with women eating kebabs? In fact the more I thought about it kebabs have become a kind of self-defence mechanism for me. I don’t mean in terms of binge eating or bulimia, lord no, but as a weapon to ward off over-enthusiastic males. I often find that an awkward moment at the end of an evening can quickly be distilled with the words “Cor I could murder a kebab!” Men just don’t like it, and quick to follow male dislike comes the rest of society.

Information in the press about the unhealthy properties of kebabs is all too often framed in references to women’s health. Of course they aren’t good for you. They can contain up to 140g of fat, which is twice the maximum daily allowance for women, and the calorific equivalent of a wine glass of cooking oil. Yet women in particular are penalised for eating them. For instance Kerrie Catona was recently lambasted for eating (quote) ‘a mammoth kebab laden with lashings of mayo after a night out with a female pal in Blackpool’. The Daily Mail was disgusted when the ‘mum-of-four happily scoffed down the unhealthy feast, despite vowing to shed weight after unflattering pictures of her on holiday were printed recently’. Similarly when Jacqui Smith was criticized for announcing that she would not feel safe ordering a kebab in Peckham, one has to ask whether she was disliked for her dismal inappropriateness, or for the fact she likes kebabs?

Okay, so kebabs aren’t good for us and that’s why they’re frowned upon, right? Wrong. If Foucault has taught us anything it is that life’s just not that simple. My friends don’t grimace when I order chips or a jumbo box of chicken wings. In fact when I (occasionally) smoke a Vogue cigarette they think I’m the coolest lady in London N1. From Eve onwards a woman’s relationship with food has been riddled with complications and this is just another far too complex rant about what they might be.

Feminists teach us that one reason women are scorned for indulging in unhealthy foods is because piling on the pounds directly interferes with their so called ‘bodily maintenance’. Shows like You Are What You Eat (C4) starring the witch-like

Scot, Dr. Gillian McKeith, are perfect examples of how the media regulate the female body and force subjects to abide by the rules of dietary control. What’s more, these programs are often violent in their regulation and frequently televise white working class mums being shamed by their middle class rivals (think Trinny and Susanna) for their obesity and for pushing the disease upon their children. In short they are blamed for not understanding the basic principles of nutrition. Now I don’t approve of obesity, but I understand that being fat is rarely a straightforward question of ‘choice’. I was lucky enough to have been raised by an Auntie who was a marvellous cook and grew her own vegetables, so from a young age I was taught how to maintain a healthy balanced lifestyle. However, there are some who are just not so fortunate.

In fact ‘make over’ programs such as these are distinctly post-feminist in their outlook, purporting a view of femininity that depends upon women having consumer power, i.e. enough money to buy their organic apples and free range chickens from M&S. In this respect eating bad foods not only demonstrates an inability to regulate ones body, but also implies a lack of education and consumer capital. One could argue that the kind of food you eat symbolizes your degree of social privilege. For instance: Grouse / upper class; Sushi / middle class; Burger / working class. But what of the kebab? It is a dish so badly frowned upon that it must represent more than simply being working class. But what?

In order to understand the stigma of a woman eating a kebab we must first consider its history. The word ‘kebab’ refers to a number of meat dishes in Arabian and Eastern cuisines. Do these eastern origins have something to do with the disdain surrounding its consumption? In his seminal study Orientalism, Edward Siad taught us that images of the east are social constructions that reflect the values of the voyeur as much as the viewed. A long line of feminists have traced links between western concepts of femininity and Orientalism and I believe that understanding the relationship between them could hold the key to unlocking the secrets of Kebab Stigma.

In a fascinating study called Beyond the Frame Deborah Cherry explores the relationship between orientalism and female subjectification in the 19th century. Cherry makes the persuasive argument that the expansion of the British Empire during the reign of Queen Victoria introduced alternate cultures into Britain and this new ‘imperialism’ from overseas provided a physical and refreshing open space for British women to develop alternate modes of femininity. The introduction of Orientalism, Cherry argues, offered 19th century feminists an opportunity to redefine themselves by allowing women to depict their emancipated modernityin contrast to the subservience of ‘native’ women. In fact the occidental trend to dress in Ottoman-inspired clothes became so popular amongst ladies of London that they started stocking them in Liberty's. The juxtaposition between the occidental ‘Other’ and the Western woman allowed feminists to express their independence and defiance. It granted them a social and artistic space within which to act by flouting convention without being improper.

“So what does all this have to do with kebabs?” I hear you ask.

According to my argument, eating a kebab isn’t just about eating a fatty piece of (very tasty) meat in between two slabs of pitta, nor is it’s condemnation based simply upon its high calorie content. Rather the eastern promise of the hearty kebab, which makes it an explicitly non-western food type, means that it acquires a symbolic value that challenges norms within our own society. It is the ‘Other’ of takeaway food types. Yet at the same time the kebab is not only ‘Othered’ simply because it is from abroad, but because, as I have previously mentioned, it is a means of flouting bodily regulation. Scoffing one down also challenges the post-feminist ‘norm’ of the white middle class woman by associating its eater with the working classes. In this respect its condemnation resides in its symbolic status as a food type that functions as a deliberate means of flouting social convention. Think about it: is eating a kebab that different to donning an Ottoman dress and walking round London in the 19th century? They are both foreign and, at times, shocking. But more importantly they are both statements that challenge preconceived notions of western femininity.

It is precisely the foreign Otherness of the kebab, its Orientalism, which makes it the most self-conscious type of fast food. Unlike its American cousins the burger and southern fried chicken, the Otherness of the kebab make its unhealthiness function as a symbolic expression of defiance, as women consciously indulge in corporeal deregulation. Kebabs are self-functioning symbols of her choice to defy these norms. In other words when I get a kebab I am not only associating myself with the malpractice of poor bodily regulation (and subsequently of being working class / poorly educated), but I am positioning myself as a free agent openly ascribing to its means of social defiance. Eating a kebab is like sticking a finger up at society; filming it and then playing it back to society with you in the audience (and if you don’t get post-modernism after that metaphor then you probably never will).

We must take this time to honour the kebab. For it is Othered as women like us are also Othered by the media, by misogyny and even by other women. The kebab represents all of this and more. In eating it we are consciously swallowing down all that is frowned upon. It is the martyr of food types, and so we must show it respect. Go forth, eat, and when you do eat with pride (but don’t have too many because you will die from high cholesterol).

Oh please BBC, if you keep this up I'll delete iplayer from my Favourites

I just ever so quickly wanted to once again critique the ruthless chauvinists at the BBC. Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, sexism rears its ugly head once again, this time in the form of a documentary about young feminist activists which seems to think its O.K. to imply that we have some sort of mental problem!

Now, anyone who knows anything will be well aware that I suffer from acute nervosa, i.e mental breakdowns, but this has very little to do with the fact that I tend to hate men, or, more specifically, patriarchy. Indeed, it is a loathing that gives me strength in times of need. For instance, I was once about to buy a kilo of sleeping pills in my local Sainsbury's when I spotted a copy of Nuts! magazine, which sent me into such a steaming rage that I soon forgot my original purpose.

The documentary went oh so much further, however, by suggesting that feminist women have some sort of problem. This was made as obvious as the sea by documentary maker Vanessa Engles, who snooped around asking parents: "And what do you think started these malicious thoughts in your little girl?"

Piss off Vanessa! No one wanted you at their feminist meetings, filming with your nosy camera, they just wanted to be on the telly. PISS OFF!>

The only problem I suffer from is 'seeing too much', just like King Lear.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2010/01_january/27/women.shtml

4.48 Psychosis

Now as you know I've been feeling pretty down lately: finally I discover happiness as a lesbian and the world seems to turn against me! But at least homophobia has provided me with the kind of dour inspiration required to write 'A Year off the Ward' which looks set to be a tribute to gonzo journalism meets earl grey tea meets illustrated children's book.

However in spite of some irregular, whimsical journeys back into the 'ward of my mind', I have been experiencing withdrawal symptons: I'm missing those soft lined walls, the smell of surgical spirit, my slightly damp mauve pillows, and the lavender soap Aunt Lily used to send me. So cue my old dear friend Sarah Kane and her prolific work of the stage: 4.48 Psychosis. It transports me right back in the mental turmoil of insanity as fast as you can say 'sectioned'! Why it's a modern master(ess)piece.

Sarah was an inspiration to us all. RIP. We once met briefly at a Jackie Kay poetry reading in Waterstones in the mid 90s, but she was from Essex and failed to see things from my point of view. I was in the haberdashery department of Peter Jones when I found out she'd killed herself. I made a vow right there and then, in front of the fuchsia pink wool I had selected for Aunt Lilly's winter scarf, to never do to the same. It's the responsibility of lady writers, such as myself, to preserve our prolific talent to enlighten ignorant women across the world. Poor Sarah. (However, one has to remember that she was AWFULLY sad at the 'end')



This adaptation might be of particular interest to you readers. It's an incredibly profound adaption by those budding young TV film makers at Lincoln University. It really brings back all the pain and confusion I felt last summer.... but NO MORE! Ann in coming to stay this afternoon and I have laundered my cath kithson sheets and even bought us matching floral dresses!

my REAL feminist wedding

Ann (my new lesbian lover) has come crawling back to me in remorse, begging to be taken back. Of course I always have my head firmly screwed in the love department of Store Posie, but when it comes to Ann I just don't know what to think. She's an artist you see, and tres passionate, which probably explains why she's asked me to marry her. At first I thought she was mad: sending an engagement ring by courier pigeon is a touch bizarre, even if the diamond is too small to be taken seriously. I was determined to say decline, but then I came across this article in The Times by that stupid Ellen Levenson (poo-head). It's called 'My Real Feminist Wedding' and it's about her maintaining her feminist tendencies during the nuptials. Let's take a look shall we?

"The first feminist thing about our wedding was the nature of the proposal. I do not believe that men have to propose to women, but neither did I feel comfortable proposing myself. If he had said yes, how would I ever have believed he wanted it as much as me, rather than saying yes to keep me quiet? After many conversations about whether we would get married, and, in fact, after we had provisionally booked our venue, I insisted on a proposal. He duly went away and planned my nonsurprise, popping the question on a hill overlooking our beloved London, followed by a fancy dinner."

So you basically bullied your man into marrying you? You need a 'fancy' dinner when there are people dying in the world, when there are people even dying in London??

"Asking my dad for my hand in marriage was not going to happen either. My dad, whom I get on with brilliantly, advises me on many aspects of my life, but I am a grown woman and he does not give me permission to do anything, just as I do not give him permission to do the things he wants to do."

Well my Dad's dead you silly bitch (both he and my mother were killed in an unfortunate punting accident when I was a wee sprite). How insensitive.

"Nor did my fiancé and I spend the night apart before the wedding. We already lived together, so, as we were about to make a big public statement, who would be more comforting to be around than each other? We went out for another fancy dinner, walked along the Thames and congratulated ourselves on being so clever. The next morning we got a cab to the register office; we walked into the marriage room along with all our guests and took our seats at the front."

Another 'fancy dinner' hey? Smug bitch. And what if one's a raving Catholic and doesn't want to use the registry office? I'm not a crate of bananas entering the country you know. And worst of all she remains convinced that she's not a Fumbie:

"Fumbies are those women who forget about their feminist ideals the minute they get a ring on their finger and become a simpering bride, given away, obedient and letting men speak for them. Of course, no wedding can be truly feminist. In our own feminist wedding, did my husband and I check that it wasn’t only women making the food, or cleaning up the venue? No, we didn’t. Symbolically, at least, we felt our wedding was as feminist as it could be."

Well of course it's not! You can't marry a man and call yourself a feminist! I was furious. And then I realised, marrying a woman, well THAT would be a real feminist wedding, wouldn't it? And if I went through with it well maybe I'd be published in the Times too?

I'm still pondering the dilemma over a cup of mint tea and a platter of home made flapjacks. The pigeon only arrived a few hours ago and Emmeline Pankhurst (my cat) soon had its eyes out. The little minx even hugged the ring, which I had to exchange with her for the latest copy of The Economist.

'Womankind defies nature', says Daily Male

Praise be! The Daily Male has once again shared with us their little perils of wisdom! This time they're warning all us broody females not to have children too late, because we might not be able to have children.

My cat Emmeline Pankhurst sent me an email with a link to this awful article:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1193296/Have-baby-35-Meet-deadline-risk-missing-motherhood-say-doctors.html

It preaches that women should definitely have babies between the ages of 20 and 35 or risk having a successful career. Thanks to the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists for drawing our attention to the 'optimum age' for childbearing and the 'epidemic of pregnancy' taking place among 40-somethings. Even if this is scientific stuff (which I doubt it is, see below) there is no need to phrase it so crassly.

I personally can't stand children, but maintain it should be a woman' s right to chose when, where and how she should open herself up to the world, almost bleed to death and give birth. On the other hand birth can also be a beautiful experience- I remember when my old college friend Natalie gave birth to triplets in a water tank. She had eight epidurals and said it was better than the summer solstice.


But do you know what this really reminded me of lady readers? Nazi Germany? 1935? Persecution? The Fascists started making up medical facts to prevent Jews reproducing, whilst constructing despicable laws to prevent Aryan and Jewish weddings. Well I say to you, same sex marriage- no one's too happy about that are they? And what do we really know about the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists anyway..?


Mine Fuhrer is that a copy of The Daily Male or are you just pleased to see me?

Can men be feminists?

William Godwin, John Stewart Mill, John Lennon, the list of male feminists is endless(ish), but can men ever really be feministing when they lack that all powerful 'fe' suffix?

Posie Rider says "no". Men jumping on the band wagon of female endeavours has been going on for years. They have taken over cooking (Jamie stole the limelight from our Dehlia); clothes (Matthew Williamson); and makeup (transvestites and media types). And now Feminism too?

Well I say "no", you bastards. My ex said he was a feminist but he wasn't; he was a fucking liar! J. S. Mill travelled round the east end of London distributing 'contraception literature' to prostitutes because he believed in the sovereignty of free speech: he was doing it in the name of liberalism, not feminism.

Feminists have argued that liberalism even hinders the agenda. Although she is my idol, I had to take on board Dr Kapur's* comments about Catherine MacKinnon at a recent feminist networking lunch. Kapur argues that MacKinnon's discourse of liberalism (particularly neo-liberalism, which sporned the deathchild post-feminism and it's evil twin 'men can join in too') only works to 'victimize' women. Discussions of female rights have spiralled out of control, as Western values dictate the agenda and acquire the despotic qualities of patriarchy. Feminists like myself aspire to label the conditions of alternate cultures as good/bad; just/unjust, without having any concept of the complexities at hand. For instance, I only found out the other day that Egypt was in Africa. How could I have known that when I live on the other side of the world?

I can only conclude that if feminists must be cautious when conversing with our sisters from abroad, how are men expected to understand the problems of women? They 'Other' us because they must.

I DO like Martini Rosso though.

* Please see Kapur's wonderful book Erotic Justice

When I'm feeling down, I just read Mae West

“Too many girls follow the line of least resistance--but a good line is hard to resist.”

Mae West

(My GOD she was a woman).

'Walking with Feminists' managerial course

My best friend Melody Wittgenstein recently returned from a management training course (she’s setting up her own landscape gardening business). The ‘Walking with Wolves’ course run by the Institute of Leadership is an intensive two-day course exclusively for women. Melody had a real soul searching time. She sat in a circle under a juniper tree and talked about a wide range of topics, including depression, low self-confidence, low self-esteem, self-harm, being totally lacking in assertiveness and all the other challenges facing women in managerial positions. And yes, that’s right lady readers, as that wilful title so rightly pre-supposes, she then walked with wild wolves. Naked.

Well she wasn’t meant to be naked, but Melody insisted.

Pauline Stewart, winner of the 1987 ‘Business Woman of the Year’ Award, explains “As part of the course we match the alpha female behaviour within a wolf pack to the behavioural characteristics of today's successful business women.”

According to Pauline, and to other people who know absolutely nothing about wolves (or women…), the alpha female plays a pivotal role in every pack of wolves. Along with the alpha male, they control access to resources, exploit other pack members' strengths and weaknesses, and they can expertly manipulate situations and individuals. As leaders they are confident, socially independent and good at turning a situation to their advantage. “These are highly intelligent creatures”, said Pauline to Melody. “Examination of the alpha wolf's strategies provide real food for thought about the way we can usefully assert ourselves when it matters.”

Oh really Pauline? On the contrary, I would frame your analysis as incredibly sexist and brimming with the ignorance of a thousand Grazia magazines. What on earth do women have in common with wolves? Why do you think these kinds of courses don't exist for men? We should be embracing the ‘female economy’ in the workplace, not trying to imitate vicious bestial killers, who dine on the hearts of little babies and chickens in rural Bedfordshire. We should embrace those 'female ways of knowing' which involve increased listening, more emotional displacement and self-estrangement, rather than the argumentative ways of men and wolves. If more women were to enter Parliament the world would be a better place, not simply because their insights would inform new policies, but because their presence holds the possibility of transforming the ethos of the political ‘establishment’. True they haven't actually done that, but still (I call for All-Female short lists and Proportional Representation!) Anyway, if such a feat were achieved it would stand testament to the possibility of liberating the work ethic from centuries of masculine norms, thus saving the world.

This is not a Charlize Theron film, nor is it an opportunity to denigrate women to the level of animals. Think outside the box, Pauline, pick up a vagazine: Melody and her colleagues should have gone walking with a pack of wild Feminists. Walking with feminists is far more dangerous and would provide a much more enlightened observation of a highly intelligent creature.

What do you think? I’ve set up a little vote at the side of the page: which pack of feminists would you most like to walk with? The Gals from Seneca Falls; The Militant Suffragettes; The Bluestockings or The second-wave Bra Burners?

Hands on Activism- Grab your paintbrushes gals!

Why can't us Feminists in the noughties be more hands on? I often reminisce about My Old Aunt Lilly and those trouser-sporting suffragettes of the 70s and whenever I do it draws me to one smelly conclusion: 'Whatever went wrong with grass roots feminism: ye good ye olde activism?'

And I'm not talking in a Christina Hoff-Sommers way either, I'm being serious.

We are most certainly digitalised feministas (that and a strongly worded letter here and there)and I whole heatedly embrace the language of H(er)TML. But where's it all going? It's a terribly curious question and one that I shall certainly be taking some time out of my very busy schedule to answer.

I call for more off-line activity and will therefore be partaking in a little activism all on my Posie own. I am planning on sticking envelopes over rude men's magazines in newsagents, yes, that's right in newsagents. Maybe even in W.H Smith.

Apparently the gals from Object did it and the Police got involved! Gasp!

In the mean time here's a little taste of artistic activism: I give you the wonderful images by the See Red Work Shop: a print screening group from the 70s to the 90s. They made beautiful posters for sale and to hang on men's faces/walls.
http://www.grassrootsfeminism.net/cms/node/125

Here are some of their amazing artworks! I seem to remember my great Aunt Lilly telling me she was a founding member...

Call Yourself a Feminist: Part 2

Girlies- it's the secon part of that Radio 4 groovy documentary on Feminism...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00j3xcz/Call_Yourself_a_Feminist_Episode_2/

WorldPulse

Here is the wonderful site WorldPulse (click on the title). An international network for women from around the world. As a white middle class feminist with a cat and way too much time on my hands I sometimes feel the need to 'give a little' to Feminists less fortunate than moi.

Toodles! xx

Oh Fuck off Kirsty Wark!

You are NOT a Feminist!!!!!!!!!!!

Why won't Barbie just die already?

Hang on a second- shouldn't Barbie be dead by know? She has been looking that way for way too long. It is TOTALLY unrealistic.

Here's an awful video about her turning 50 (she doesn't look 50). Silly Bitch. They should make a Kirsty Wark Barbie (I could conserve more pins that way).

http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1670048590/bclid1342094282/bctid15181133001

Call Yourself a Feminist?

Well yes I do actually, but for those of you who need a quick history on the history of this glorious tradition here's the first part of a groovy BBC Radio 4 documentary on feminism. I was asked to star of course but Rosie Boycott lived up to her name- bitch.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b00j022c

"Working Women Caused the Credit Crunch" - Satire and its Limits

I suppose I should be getting annoyed about the Michelle ObARMa fiasco, but who has the patience?

I think Posie has been keeping herself too busy trying to stop chauvinism in interpersonal politics, when really she should have been attacking chauvinism in the economy and in environmental issues. I’ve just signed up to Plane Stupid, and not only because I want to dress up as a Suffrajet and chain myself to Parliament like Lily Kember.

As a freelancer with no savings or debts to speak of (except for Aunt Lily's trust which the lawyers say is unaffected) I can't really identify with most of today’s economic concerns. However, I can tell bloody-mindedness when I can see it, and I can see it now. It’s time for Posie to get financial.

Last week, I was most cruelly confused by the Irish Times' article "Working women almost certainly caused the credit crunch". The alleged author, Newton Emerson - a foolish name, my lady premonitions should have been up! - claimed that working women caused the credit crunch by raising families' income levels and pushing up house prices. His solution? Remove women from the workforce! This, to his mind, would solve the problem of unemployment - jobless layabout men could replace women in work - and also of overburdened public transport as, while climate conscious women get in everyone's way by taking the train, most men drive to work in their big cock jags. Women are more suited to home life, which depresses men. Women are greedy and their "oestrogen-crazed acquisitiveness" was at the root of the greed that caused the credit crisis.

His article is clearly an offensive, nonsensical, bigoted and sexist anomaly which no newspaper should have been willing to print, even under the 'moral lease' of a 'free comments' section.

Of course I responded to this article at once, sending a three page treatise of Kantian proportions to the vile rag. Echoing Wollstonecraft’s Vindication and Rousseau's On the Origin of Inequality, with more than a dash of J S Mill, my complaint, entitled Bloody Fuming in Hampstead hit their desks on the morning of Friday 27th February at 10am sharp. Only today did I receive a response.

A smug, arrogant letter was waiting on my Habitat Boucle Stripe doormat. Even Emmeline Pankhurst didn't like the look of it. She generally brings me my post at 11am, when I rise, but she had left this right where it was on the mat. Her lady premonitions were clearly on top form!

I was told by Tony O'Daly, the comments editor, that the article was in fact a raging satire. No such writer as Newton Emerson exists, he is an avatar for the comedian John O'Farrell. I was asked to look up Swift's A Modest Proposal to compare tone (SWINE. I wrote a 2000 word essay on Swift as a Cambridge Undergrad, which is much more than can be said for John O'Farrell. I got 67%).

Apparently my scathing response was all in vain, as the article was in fact a parody of the chauvinist press and its representation of women. I came away with egg on my face and an afternoon wasted. All that I managed to do was amuse a few overpaid hacks. Three cheers for Posie.

Their article was certainly controversial. But is it satire?

In my understanding of satire, there must be someone or something who is being mocked. In this case, the anti-working-women views of the chauvinist press. But does anyone actually hold such views? I don’t know what it’s like in Ireland, although if their government’s outdated abortion laws and restrictions on getting the contraceptive pill are anything to go by, I can imagine that women don’t have the best of times over that Irish Sea.

The opinion that women are more suited to confinement in the home than men may seem like a comical anachronism, but it is a view espoused in earnest by the Daily Male in their article on house husbands -

Just as many women feel the deep-seated urge to bear children, so most men feel a similar need to do their duty, not only in terms of offering care and protection to their wives and children, but also in a wider, public sense - to be useful to society.

Honestly! One point to Mr O'Farrell.

As a born-again green activist, it’s not hard to find examples of wanton destruction of the sort satirised by Mr O’Farrell in his suggestion that more workers should travel to the office by car. Two points.

But everything else? Women’s natural acquisitiveness? Our greed? Our oestrogen levels? I encounter ‘biological’ nonsense like this everyday – see my F WORD FEATURED ARTICLE, Pity in Pink – but it’s hard to see who Mr O’Farrell’s target is this respect.

My major complain against Newton Emerson’s approach is that, by making his satire so broad, he leaves most of his targets unnamed and unscathed. Yes, feminist satire is a powerful tool, one that I myself am want to wield like a petrol soaked tampon, but it must be one that hits home and hits hard.

Who is really the victim of Newton Emerson’s wit? Feminists like me who respond in affront and then themselves become the victims. Like a straw-mugger, he sends his argument wheeling down the poorly lit street as I return home alone at night, and when I lunge in self-defence, he pulls the straw mugger away and I fall over at his feet in a cascade of lipstick and pamphlets. Then the editorial team of the Irish Times appear from various shadowy bushes in a chorus of
laughter. Very funny, John O’Farrell. Those chauvinist hacks you were ‘mocking’ can join in too.

This is right-wing satire if ever I saw it!

Great Article!

http://www.ontheissuesmagazine.com/2009winter/2009winter_publisher.php


Read the above- puts a line through post-feminism. We need visions not lipstick!

Come on Woman!

Yet more unacceptable behaviour. Hillary deserved better.

A Lesbian Woman is going to be Prime Minister in Iceland and I Think I'm Falling in Love!

Cool! Me and my cat, Emmeline Pankhurst, are seriously excited!

http://www.thefword.org.uk/blog/2009/01/iceland_to_get

P.S. Have I ever told about Martin? I met I'm years ago at Cambridge when i was just a young English Literature student of the early 90s, reading Lise Jardine, drinking hot chocolate with marshmallows and wearing trainers. I hadn't seen him in years but suddenly the other day I bumped into him when I was watering the ivy growing alongside my window box in North London.

Martin (like my ivy) has come on very well, he's developed an incredibly good-looking face since I last saw him. But, alas, it was rather embarrassing for Emmeline Pankhurst was sitting on my shoulder while I was watering and when Martin, who was down on the street below, shouted:

"Why if it isn't the author of the world famous "The Suffragette's- Why?" Posie Rider! That book... it changed my life!"

it alarmed Emmeline somewhat and she jumped down to attack him. I was talking to her later that evening and she told me that her kitty powers had got the better of her and she just couldn't help herself- she did not trust him.

But while i was moping up the blood on Martin's face he sort of asked me out on a date! Will keep you posted....

Long live Lesbos!

XXXX