Yesterday I had the pleasure of attending the launch for Betty McLellan’s new book “Unspeakable: a Feminist Ethic of Speech” and of meeting Betty and hearing her speak for the first time.
Betty is a kickass Radfem from way back when I was just a young onion still yet to discover the horrors of patriarchy, and the pleasure of poking holes in it.
It really was inspiring to hear Betty speak and so validating as a radical feminist to hear my viewpoint echoed so articulately and with such warmth and humour too, and to feel the support of a room full of other radical feminists. Precious little of that kind of unity going on in my world that’s for sure.
The book is appropriately titled; most of the basic principles of Radical Feminism are unspeakable. They are unspeakable in the malestream media and indeed within all social spheres and institutions as well as in personal interactions between individuals. Just try speaking out about p0rn as an expression of women’s subordination, for example, let alone naming it as a form of hatespeech.
Betty spoke about radical feminism being a “Feminism of dissent” as opposed to the sexyfunliberalpole-dancingisempowering kind of feminism practiced by some of our het sisters. This is an excellent point – if your feminism just happens to cater to the male libido or appeal to a male perspective in any way, then your feminism is broken.
In the book, which obviously I haven’t read yet, Betty discusses free speech and the ways in which women’s voices are silenced.
Available through Otherwise Publications, and endorsed by Catharine MacKinnon no less!
Thanks Betty – all power to you sister!
Thankfully not all your het sisters practice a “sexyfunliberalpole-dancingisempowering kind of feminism”. I suspect that calling pole-dancing “empowerment” is a good way of trivialising feminism so it can be dismissed. Particularly by young women who then say “well, if that’s feminism then I don’t want it”. And bingo, patriarchy wins again.
Last night I went to a panel discussion on feminism. It was funny, and informative, and positive. The final question was from a young woman in the audience, a vet science student, who said her male classmates have starting salaries $10,000-$20,000 higher than her female classmates. Starting salaries! She asked how can that possibly be fair, and allowed. Seeing her anger begin, her indignance over how unfair that is, sent goosebumps through the crowd. We’re getting angry again. And it feels good.
Ok, fixed it to say SOME of our het sisters. I think conflating sexy with empowerment thing might have something to do with the second wave coinciding with the free love era and men finding a way to exploit women’s newly-gained political freedoms. And that’s good to hear about the anger – younger women need to get angry.
Sorry about the kerfuffle over at your’s. I honestly thought he was an out and out troll. I stopped participating in the blogosphere for a while there and I hadn’t seen him before.
That’s ok – and fair enough too, because once I re-read his comments, he did seem like a troll. It’s only because he’d been there for a while that I felt he wasn’t. Did you see he apologised to you?
Yeah I saw that. He could probably do with some feminism 101 if he genuinely wants to participate – he was pretty quick to cry “feminazi”.
He could also do with some manners so he can debate without name-calling and personal attacks.
Anyway, since I’ve hijacked your comments, the Betty McLellan book sounds interesting, but I don’t know about her (I’m a bad feminist – actually, I’m just a gut feminist, rather than a researched one). What one book would you recommend I read?
Betty’s background is psychotherapy and from what I know all her other books are about that and this is the first intentionally feminist book for her. Once I’ve read it I’ll post a review.