Are We There Yet?

This year, Vancouver Rape Relief commemorated International Women’s Day by screening Sarah Gavron’s Suffragette, a 2015 historical drama that follows a group of white Suffragettes in early 20^th century Britain as they work to win voting rights for women. The film, which has been rightly criticized for its distinctly whitewashed depiction of the British Suffragette movement, is a bleak yet inspiring look at the tactics and personal sacrifice needed to bring about substantive change for women.

After overcoming some initial hesitation, the film’s main character Maud Watts becomes increasingly involved with the Suffragette movement during a moment when the movement’s tactics shifted from more palatable forms of protest to direct action including throwing bricks through windows, igniting bombs in mailboxes, and cutting power lines. As her involvement in suffrage increases, so do the costs Watts incurs, as she loses her job, her son, her home, and is arrested several times.

With each loss she becomes more resolute, as do others, including the character of Emily Wilding Davison, a real life suffragette who died at the 1913 Epsom Derby after stepping in front of King George’s horse to bring attention to women’s suffrage. Inaction becomes impossible as these women lose more and more, leaving them with less and less to lose.

The struggle for women’s liberation has had other moments of determined, resolute action besides the Suffragette movement. During feminism’s second wave, from the 1960s to 1980s, feminist tactics ranged from protesting the 1968 Miss America pageant, organizing Take Back the Night rallies, picketing and vandalizing sex shops and strip clubs to the Dworkin-MacKinnon Civil Rights Ordinance that proposed treating pornography as a violation of women’s civil rights and enabling them to seek damages in civil courts. Feminists realized significant gains, including increased legal protections against some forms of gender discrimination, legalized abortion and birth control, and the establishment of rape crisis centres before pushback from right wing and religious groups quashed their progress.

In 1975, 90 per cent of Icelandic women participated in a one day general strike, refusing to work, cook, or look after children, closing or crippling newspapers, factories, schools, banks, and air travel to demonstrate the overlooked importance of women’s labour.

Since then, the individualistic, master’s-tool-using type of feminism that has become mainstream has pursued incremental, non-threatening gains that are unevenly distributed, disproportionately benefiting mostly Western, middle class, heterosexual women. And while life for some women has improved (somewhat), mainstream feminist discourse continues to ignore the struggles of our most vulnerable, and their relentless, collective work towards women’s liberation too.

Have moderate means replaced direct, radical action because life has gotten better enough, for enough women? Or, is that belief — a belief that doesn’t hold up when measured against global reality — part of what holds women back from large scale social change? If we look closely at how bad women around the world actually have it, we must ask why it isn’t considered bad enough to warrant decisive action. What else has to happen before we’re ready to do more?

There are quite a few well-established theories exploring the conditions that tend to be present in societies before moments of widespread and definitive social change –conditions that precede revolutions. Most of these theories agree that societies reach revolutionary moments when the interests of enough marginalized people are ignored so severely that the trust holding society together breaks down, leading to shifting allegiances, and, after a crisis, resolute action becomes the only option.

Unsurprisingly for theories constructed in patriarchy, where women aren’t considered a political group with distinct political aims, they don’t apply all that well to our struggle for liberation. Focused mostly on overthrowing governments, established theory ignores that women are oppressed by an interlocking system of economic, political, legal, and social institutions like gender, the family and heterosexual relationships, all of which need to be dismantled and reconstructed in order for all women to be free. Recognizing that blind spot, a closer look at these theories shows they have some valuable things to say about where we are, and where we may need to go.

Let Us Eat Cake

Societies work when the powers that be respond to the needs of marginalized people. It’s difficult to reconcile continued rates of male violence against women, and the way societies, legal systems, and governments around the world respond when women come forward looking for accountability with the belief that our interests, safety, and freedom are given much importance at all.

Societies that were serious about addressing male violence against women wouldn’t blind ourselves to its gendered reality, where men commit 95 per cent of all violent crime, and 98 per cent of all sexually violent crime, instead churning out victim-blaming campaigns that encourage women to keep ourselves safe by restricting our behaviour. If women’s interests mattered, women reporting sexual assaults wouldn’t encounter suspicion, hanging under the spectre of vengeful false accusations and treated like entrapping, attention-seeking manipulators.

If societies truly served the interests of the female half of its population, a situation like we have in some parts of the world today, where male violence against women is increasing so rapidly it boosts overall crime rates, would be met with a determined and sustained response. Instead, with nearly twice as many women killed by domestic partners since 2001 than Americans killed in the 911 attacks and ensuing Iraq and Afghan wars, a proportionate response is seen as unrealistic, extreme, unfathomable. And while I’m not advocating for military intervention, it’s worth wondering: in the absence of some kind of a War on The War on Women — what evidence should women look to in order to convince ourselves that our interests matter at all?

Trust Breaks Down

Societies are less likely to reach revolutionary moments when they operate on mutual trust and a shared vision of the common good. These societies are usually tightly cohesive, traditional ones where most people have a sense that things are running more or less the way they’re supposed to. Large-scale social change becomes possible when that trust breaks down.

For women, the personal truly is political. We couldn’t be more cohesively integrated with men: they are our fathers, brothers, sons, friends, colleagues, bosses and, for some of us, our significant others. Many women are financially dependent on men because of the lower value assigned to women’s labour, others are trapped in abusive and exploitative relationships, many aware that women are 70 times more likely to be murdered in the two weeks after they leave.

Our gendered socialization only amplifies the power of these close bonds. Conditioned from birth to be gentle, small, and modest, women are taught that our worth lies in our relationships – relationships we must maintain through an unwavering, unquestioning propensity to put the needs of others ahead of our own. Encouraged to please and accept, we’re taught to doubt our instincts and to blame ourselves instead of demanding accountability.

Societies certainly try to convince women that the way things are is inevitable and unchangeable. With religious narratives losing ground to justifications rooted in biological essentialism, we’re told behaviour is rooted in biological sex differences — that the arrangements and institutions that oppress us exist because of hormones and hardwiring. And while these explanations certainly stifle hope that things could be different and allow for the status quo to continue, they don’t hold up to what we continue learning about the learned nature of behaviour and the differences between men’s and women’s brains.

Does all of this add up to trust? If we are to believe that men who are violent or exploitative are that way because they cannot physically control themselves, how can we be expected to trust them? And why should we expect them to work with us in good faith for our liberation?

Considering the many ways women are literally tied to men and the intricate set of justifications our society uses to tell us why things won’t change, it’s no surprise that many women are unwilling or unable to stand up. That’s why it’s even more important that those of who can stand up do.

Allegiances Shift

When the trust needed to keep society operating breaks down, revolutionary change becomes more likely when people with greater financial, social, and political power shift their allegiance away from protecting their own narrow interests, and instead recognize the common interests they share with marginalized people. These privileged people redirect access to power and resources away from maintaining the status quo to replacing it, joining with those marginalized people who have always been ready to make the greatest sacrifices.

Given today’s mainstream feminist movement’s support for ideas and policies that ignore – or actively harm – the most disadvantaged among us, it’s clear that what’s missing is the realization that the true measure of how women are doing is how our most vulnerable are doing, and not how much more comfortable the mostly comfortable can become.

There is willful ignorance involved in “reclaiming” sexual objectification as empowering without considering how this reinforces the idea that women’s bodies exist for male approval and appraisal, and the many ways that belief impacts women and girls around the world. There is dangerous myopia at play when Western feminists criticize female genital mutilation Over There while smearing those who recognize rising rates of cosmetic surgery closer to home as part of the same dynamic where women’s bodies are mutilated into shapes defined by men. There is narrow-minded indifference required to support sexual exploitation industries like pornography and prostitution, favouring misguided harm reduction policies that maintain a class of mostly impoverished, mostly brown-skinned women who are coerced with money into sexually servicing men.

Instead of recognizing that no women are free until all women are free, mainstream feminists leave our most disadvantaged to their own devices while shunning the radical and collective action of the grassroots women’s movement as outdated and irrelevant, remnants of a bygone era as opposed to the driving force needed to spur more fortunate women to action.

Crisis

The established theories agree that revolutions tend to happen in response to acute triggers – crushing disappointments after periods of steadily rising hopes. How does this apply to women, who have lived under patriarchy for thousands of years, and, besides a handful of revolutionary moments, worked within the prevailing power structures to try to change them? Does that mean it just hasn’t gotten bad enough for us yet?

That depends on your definition of “us.”

 Domestic violence, overwhelmingly violence committed by men against their female partners or family members, is the greatest cause of injury for women. Studies show that between 35 and 70 per cent of women have experienced physical and/or sexual violence at some point in their lives. Women are seventy per cent of all people in poverty. Women and girls are 70 per cent of human trafficking victims, and 98 per cent of victims of sex trafficking. At least 200 million women and girls alive today have undergone female genital mutilation. By conservative estimates, one in four North American women will be sexually assaulted in her lifetime. Chances are much higher for our most vulnerable: in North America 83 per cent of disabled women will be sexually assaulted in their lifetimes, and, in Canada, 57 per cent of aboriginal women have been sexually abused.

 How can we know these facts and not consider the conditions women live under a crisis? This is a crisis – a crisis we have been conditioned to justify and accept. A crisis that has persisted for so long that we’ve constructed all sorts of stories to explain why this is how it has always been, stories telling us why this is how it will always be.

So sisters, are we there yet? Are enough women impoverished? Abused? Killed? Are we ready to look outside our narrow experiences and recognize that our best chance to liberate all women is by working together for all of our interests? Are we ready to respond to this crisis for the crisis that it is, to begin forcing the institutions claiming to serve our interests to do the same?

Are we there yet? If we’re not, how much worse does it have to get — for how many of us — before we are?

Truth.

Acknowledging women’s marginalization would mean men would have to admit to themselves that (a) there is a problem ,(b) they participate in the problem, (c) they benefit from the problem, and (d) that for the most part they themselves are doing nothing to eradicate that problem.

Men would have to admit that they are not as morally upright as they previously believed themselves to be, for the ways in which they refuse to take action against sexism.

More.

Noticing Good Days

Today is one of those rare, good days when standing up in the face of misogyny wasn’t met with derision, defensiveness or denial. I’ve accumulated quite a few of these days lately, and I want to really notice them and remember them the next time my attempts to be treated like an actual, capable human being (as opposed to a trivial thing, or a child) aren’t received so well.

I just got home from meeting the male manager of my local government liquor store to discuss the offensive way one of his male staff members treated me last weekend. The clerk in question pulled out an impressive array of misogynistic behaviours in a relatively short interaction: leering at me, attempting to dominate me when I wasn’t sufficiently deferential, and, when I questioned his behaviour, infantilizing me by calling me dear. It was a truly remarkable display of dinosaurism, and although I’m being glib today, I spent the rest of that day managing feelings of anger and sadness, ruminating about how frustrating it is to understand the misogyny that underlies so many interactions, the misogyny most people cannot or will not see.

Today I spoke with his manager, describing behaviours and impacts and being clear about what I wanted to happen – and this manager listened. And apologized. And GOT IT. Not a hint of “you’re overreacting” or “what’s the big deal”. He understood and committed to act and report back to me.

I’m hesitant to dole out too many cookies – I mean, I doubt the clerk is going to face serious consequences for his behaviour, or have a epiphany that makes him aware of his misogyny and determined to change. And, after all, this is how women should be treated when we discuss our experiences. This is how we would be treated every time if we were seen as reliable witnesses to our own lives, as observant, analytical human beings who are capable of actually noticing things and drawing our own conclusions. This is how we would be treated every day if we weren’t seen as overly sensitive, manipulative and vengeful children who need to be taught, corrected and controlled. But, in this small situation I was believed and taken seriously, and because of that, this man will face some consequences. It’s not a lot, but it’s something.

Patriarchy is a perfectly designed system that’s invisible to most, and fighting it can be exhausting, isolating and infuriating. It’s easy to see why so many women opt out or give up. If your struggle continues make sure to pay attention to the good days, to notice victories – even tiny ones like this. Hold them close and remind yourself of them when you need comfort.

Hold on, and keep going.

 

 

Grief

I’m deep in a nostalgic sadness that has nothing to do with the holidays or New Year’s-related reflection, but instead grieving my mother who passed away a few years ago today, and continuing to process the complexities of our relationship.

Much has been written about mothers and daughters in patriarchy, where mothers, who have been indoctrinated into male supremacy, prepare their daughters for a non-threatening version of independence while simultaneously teaching us to quietly ignore and accept our oppression. Like their mothers taught them. And their mothers.

Exploring and expanding my feminist consciousness has helped me better understand so many aspects of life that I used to find confusing, including my complicated relationship with my mother while she was alive, and my thorny grieving process now that she’s gone.

My mother was born into a well off military family and educated by nuns. Her arranged marriage to my father was typical of their culture at that time. Our relationship was never simple and often strained, and while I understand my mother loved me and wanted the best for me, it has become clear to me how male supremacy shaped her idea of what “the best” that was available to me looked like.

In many ways my mother was as selfless as patriarchy demands of women, but in many situations, including a life-altering one, she acted in ways that privileged the men around her at my expense. I spent much of my life angry and bewildered, alternately blaming myself and punishing her by withholding my affection.

My healing began when I violated one of patriarchy’s rules for women, I decided to stop the pretending I did to make life easier for people around me. This difficult decision strained the relationships it didn’t end, but ultimately, it broke me free from the cycle of women brushing our pain under the carpet for the “good” of our families.

Even after that decision, without a clearly defined system of analysis, I was confused about what happened, often asking “why” and answering how women in patriarchy are taught to answer: by blaming myself.

Now, looking back through my feminist lens I understand what happened and why. I understand that, like so many mothers, my mother did the best she could. And I see that as long as mothers and daughters are oppressed in patriarchy, the best we can do will never be enough.

Shit Liberal Feminists Say: Choice

Last weekend, feminists gathered at Vancouver’s Public Library to commemorate a tragedy that’s become known as the Montreal Massacre, where Marc Lepine, a poster boy for aggrieved entitlement, opened fire on female engineering students at Montreal’s Polytechnique, killing 14 women because they were women.

Vancouver Rape Relief organized Saturday’s memorial, a jam-packed day of films, speeches, and roundtable discussions by preeminent feminists and organizers. Throughout the event, woman after woman pointed to liberal feminism’s failure to confront the interlocking systems that oppress women, criticizing them for the creative tricks they use to make oppression more comfortable.

In this series’ first post, I briefly touched on the third wave’s holy grail “choice” while deconstructing SWERF, a term used to silence feminist analysis of prostitution, pornography and other sexual exploitation industries. I’m still fired up by the sharp and courageous feminism I witnessed on Saturday, so this time I’ll look more closely at the idea of choice, and how liberal feminists use it to feel good and feministy without actually doing feminism

How It’s Used

Liberal feminists stop debate by crying “choice” when radical feminists unpack the context and impacts around choices – especially choices that reinforce male supremacy. This usually happens in conversations about prostitution, pornography, or other industries and activities that objectify women or encourage women to objectify themselves, like, say, stripping.

A radical feminist looks at stripping as catering to male supremacy since the woman involved is presenting herself as a sexualized object for the male gaze. Those gazing, objectifying men don’t care about that woman as a person. They’re not thinking about her as a complete human being – their focus is simply examining and appraising her body for their sexual gratification.

In keeping with the feminist belief that feminism is the fight to liberate all women, a radical feminist would recognize that an individual woman’s choice to strip reinforces the broadly held view that women’s bodies – all women’s bodies – exist for men and for male approval.

Going further still, a radical feminist would also look at the choice’s context. In the case of stripping, that would include considering how, in patriarchy, females are socialized from birth to objectify ourselves. She’d look at the constant drip-drip-drip of subtle and overt messages we absorb throughout our lives that teach us to strive to be pretty and sexually desirable to men.

She’d also look at the ways patriarchy restricts the range of economic opportunities available to women, how trafficking plays a role in supplying men with female bodies to ogle, and how encouraging men to dehumanize women is connected to male violence against women. After all that analysis, she’d conclude that stripping is problematic and anti-feminist.

Not surprisingly, a liberal feminist’s take on stripping looks very different, in that it begins and ends with one point: because that individual woman chose to strip, stripping is by default a feminist choice that should be honoured and not “shamed” (third wave speak for “analyzed”). There may be a little discussion about how stripping is connected to catcalls or street harassment (I haven’t seen this discussion happen but I’m going to be generous and say it’s possible), but that’s largely it: choice. Full stop.

Why It’s Wrong

Considering that liberal feminism’s goal differs from radical feminism’s, in that third wavers want women to have the same benefits as men, while radical feminists fight to liberate all women from patriarchal structures of oppression, it makes sense that liberal feminists focus on choice. Viewed through a libfem lens, women choosing something, anything, is a victory; regardless of the impact, or what other choice they might have made if a broader range of choices was available.

There are cold, hard truths that need to be accepted before women can join a meaningful movement for liberation. It sucks to realize that much of our behaviour is influenced by socialization that, by design, encourages us to put the interests of others before our own. It’s painful to consider how male supremacy limits the range of choices we get to choose from in the first place. These crucial, light bulb moments begin a long and difficult process of questioning and changing our behaviour, and demanding that men do the same.

This is the work of feminism, the mostly thankless, often dangerous work that must be done – work that women can’t begin until they stop denying the conditions of our oppression. We can’t break out of a cage we’re trying desperately not to see.

What It Does

This idea of unquestioningly celebrated choices helps women feel good about themselves while they continue to behave in ways that reinforce patriarchy. It allows them to earn the benefits society gives women who don’t challenge male supremacy while comforting themselves that their behaviour – no matter how problematic – is feminist.

There are real and dangerous consequences when women do misogyny while thinking they’re doing feminism. Convinced they’re on the side of women without critically examining their behaviour and beginning the real work of feminism, they lash out in anger at radical feminists who ask them to consider that they might actually not be. Similarly, men who are drawn to this feel-good fauxmenism, that doesn’t ask them to do anything differently, claim feminism without taking a hard look at their privilege and behaviour and asking feminists how they can help. Instead of directing their anger at male supremacy and entitlement, third wavers pile on radical feminists who dare ask the difficult questions that need to be answered to bring about actual change.

Meanwhile, women and girls report increasing rates of mental illness, sexual coercion, and, depending on our class, race or where we live, rising or tragically consistent rates of sexual assault.

What It Reveals

Looking closely at choice feminism shows that it isn’t feminism at all. It doesn’t challenge the material conditions of women’s oppression or take courageous action towards liberation. It is capitulation in a feel-good package, complete with empty mantras and buzzwords so women can play at feminism while avoiding the sanctions that accompany challenges to entrenched systems of power.

Women who choose liberal feminism aren’t choosing to lift all women out of oppression – they’re making a cowardly choice to help themselves.

It’s Time for Mayor Gregor Robertson to Address Prostitution in Vancouver

On Wednesday, November 18^th, in East Vancouver, about a dozen people from the Kensington-Cedar Cottage neighbourhood attended a panel discussion called Creating John-Free Communities. Panel members from Vancouver Rape Relief & Women’s Shelter, Asian Women Coalition Ending Prostitution (AWCEP), Resist Exploitation Embrace Dignity (REED), Formerly Exploited Voices Now Educating (EVE) and human rights lawyer Gwendoline Allison discussed the exploitation in prostitution and encouraged local residents to write to Suzanne Anton, BC’s Minister of Justice, asking her to enforce anti-prostitution and trafficking laws across the province and provide funding and programs to help transition women out of prostitution.

Prostitution is a well-publicized issue in Vancouver, so I was surprised to hear, for the first time, that a declaration mayor Gregor Robertson signed this summer pledging action to address climate change also committed to “ending abuse, exploitation, trafficking, and all forms of modern slavery, which are crimes against humanity, including forced labour and prostitution.”

Robertson has made battling climate change a key part of his platform, even going so far as to commit to making Vancouver the world’s greenest city by 2020. Unfortunately, his position on prostitution has been less consistent and, given the city’s recent position on Bill C-36, downright dangerous.

Not that long ago, Robertson expressed concerns about prostitution, speaking out against legalization during his first election campaign. In his first term, he signed a declaration naming prostitution as violence against women and committed to stopping, in his words, its “sexual enslavement of women and youth.” A few years later, in 2011, Robertson suggested using social media to expose “johns and those who are exploiting people in our community, women primarily.” So it’s clear that, not long ago, Robertson understood prostitution to be dangerous and exploitative, a view that’s hard to debate given the history of violence against prostituted women in Vancouver that continues today.

Prostitution exists throughout Vancouver — in licensed brothels, massage parlours, strip clubs and, most visibly, on city streets. Our Downtown Eastside, a diverse and complex neighbourhood whose success stories and strong sense of community are too-often overlooked, is infamous not only for its open air drug use, but also for its highly visible street prostitution scene, where poor, mostly Indigenous women are pimped, exploited, abused, and murdered.

Although Vancouver’s abolitionist community is diverse and determined, the city’s dominant narrative around prostitution has been shaped by well-funded organizations (and sex industry profiteers) who lobby for full decriminalization based on the misguided (and profitable) notion of harm reduction. These groups who claim so-called sex workers are harmed by stigma, but not by the pimps, johns and traffickers who abuse and exploit them, advocate to reform and regulate the industry, to treat it like any other type of work. Claiming to speak for “sex workers,” their pro-legalization stance ignores prostitution’s roots in colonialism, its racism, sexism, and the ways prostitution reinforces male entitlement and the objectification of women. Those who rely on harm reduction models in order to fund themselves also have a financial stake in ensuring the marginalized remain so.

Treating “sex work” like other types of work ignores the brutal realities of prostitution in Canada, where, of those in prostitution, 76 per cent have been raped (and of those raped, 67 per cent have been raped more than five times). Reducing stigma doesn’t change that 95 per cent of prostitutes, when asked, “What do you need?” answered “to leave prostitution,” followed by 82 per cent who needed drug and or alcohol treatment, and 66 per cent who said they needed a home.

Given that reality, watching our mayor contradict his early position in order to align himself with those who advocate for the decriminalization of pimps and johns has been disturbing. These days, the mayor, the City, and the Vancouver Police Department (VPD) now stand firmlybehind “minimizing harm” but not working to dismantle prostitution, and firmly against Bill C-36, Canada’s new federal legislation that criminalizes pimps and johns in keeping with the Nordic Model. It’s no coincidence that the City’s approach is the least costly and least labourious way to address the interconnected issues of poverty, addiction, marginalization, and prostitution.

The Nordic Model targets the demand for commercial sex that feeds human trafficking. This framework, which has been shown to reduce both the demand for prostitution, and violence in prostitution has three prongs: it criminalizes buyers, decriminalizes prostituted women, and invests in programs and services that aid women to exit prostitution, and offer them real support once they’re out.

Bill C-36 is Canada’s imperfect interpretation of the Nordic Model. To be fair, the Bill falls short by criminalizing communicating for the purpose of selling sex near a playground, school, or daycare, plus, the federal government needs to commit more funds towards exiting services and social safety nets. Still, by criminalizing the purchase of sexual services, it’s an important first step towards protecting Canada’s most vulnerable women.

You would think a mayor who has already recognized prostitution as violence against women and who suggested publicly naming johns to deter them from buying sex would support and work to strengthen legislation that recognizes the inherent exploitation in prostitution — especially after signing a declaration that commits to ending that exploitation and counts prostitution as modern slavery and a crime against humanity. Instead, Robertson is now, essentially, supporting men’s right to buy and sell women, shutting out local abolitionists, and blatantly ignoring Canada’s laws.

If Robertson is serious about ending prostitution, and not just playing politics, there is a clear path forward. A path that includes working with the new federal government to strengthen the aspects of C-36 that criminalize pimps, johns, and traffickers.

In the meantime, since, under Robertson, Vancouver has demonstrated willingness to opt out of enforcing C-36 altogether, it could instead opt out of enforcing the communications prohibition alone, and begin using C-36 as a tool to hold traffickers, pimps and johns accountable for their exploitation. The city could offer prostituted women real alternatives: increase exit services, drug treatment programs, and double down on the mayor’s failed pledgeto end homelessness.

On the other hand, if Robertson signed the declaration to attract more publicity for his climate change agenda, with no real intention of acting to end prostitution, I hope he thinks carefully about who he has sacrificed and who he is betraying in doing so. Either way, Gregor Robertson has questions to answer and contradictions to explain — and I look forward to joining Vancouver’s abolitionist community as we push him to respond.

Tolerating Being Tolerated

The so-called Canadian identity is based on quite a few feel-good ideas that, when held up to scrutiny, reveal themselves to be myths. Peacekeeping. Our “mosaic” vs. the U.S.’s “melting pot”. Tolerance.

As a Canadian person of colour, I’ve heard about tolerance my entire life. Despite being called racist names and harassed regularly for being different while growing up, I was expected to be grateful that Canada was a country that TOLERATED people like me. Scratching the surface reveals how fraudulent the notion of tolerance is, and how firmly it’s rooted in white supremacy.

Tolerance sounds great in theory (especially if you don’t think too closely about what it actually means) and it sure seems to makes white people feel proud of themselves. Supposedly, tolerance means people who are different can feel comfortable knowing that they’ll be accepted. And let’s be clear, when talking about tolerance, “different” means different than white people, who are still considered the default humans, making the rest of us “others” who are constantly measured against a white benchmark.

Tolerance ACTUALLY means “the ability or willingness to tolerate something, in particular the existence of opinions or behaviour that one does not necessarily agree with.” People tolerate their neighbour’s loud music, food they hate but are required to eat, and mosquito bites – irritating things that, because they’re inevitable, must be accepted, however grudgingly.

So even though being tolerated reveals, by definition, that the people tolerating us perceive there’s something deficient or irritating about us, we have to be grateful because the people tolerating us work to TOLERATE us, which means they’re absolutely not racist. Because you know, Canadians definitely aren’t racist (what’s up colonialism, residential schools, internment camps and native reserves)!

People of colour know a lot about tolerance because we tolerate a lot of irritating, infuriating, racist and oppressive shit every day. So, let’s talk about what real tolerance looks like.

People of colour tolerate white people making racist comments and jokes, so blinded by their privilege they can’t see their own racism – and so entitled and convinced by white supremacy that they’re right that they get defensive and angry at the suggestion their behavior is problematic. We tolerate white people calling us “articulate” and “exotic” and being so convinced they’re complimenting us that they’re visibly disappointed if we don’t respond positively. We tolerate being openly judged by white people if we don’t mourn so-called terrorist attacks against predominantly-white countries performatively enough, or if we dare to question if they also grieve the West’s attacks on countries whose citizens look more like us. We tolerate being expected to celebrate Thanksgiving, a holiday that commemorates pilgrims who enslaved and committed genocide against indigenous people.

We tolerate living in a society where white supremacy is so normalized its invisible to most people, a society where white people’s feelings matter so much more than the impacts of their behaviour that we have to pretend to be grateful that we’re tolerated. So really, white people, don’t talk to us about tolerance unless you understand what it’s like to tolerate the intolerable every day.

Sisterhood or scorched earth?

As I’ve become more aware of the problematic aspects of female socialization, I’ve taken steps to actively work against what I’ve been taught is expected of me simply because I’m a woman. In some ways, the process has been straightforward: I notice my impulses, think about where they come from and who they serve, and then do the opposite. One aspect I continue to struggle with is figuring out how much kindness my feminism should include.

In patriarchy, a woman who correctly performs femininity puts the needs of others before her own. She takes up little space in the world, both physically and behaviourly. She is gentle and quiet, downplaying her accomplishments in order to not appear brash or threatening, and she decorates herself in ways she has been taught appeal to men. She is selfless, unthreatening and, most of all, she is nice.

In contrast, men who behave according to traditional rules of masculinity are competitive and dominant. Protecting their pride against perceived slights is a constant concern, one that justifies using violence when the situation presents a significant enough threat.

Examined together, it’s clear how both male and female socialization benefit men while actively disadvantaging women, so it’s no surprise that feminists focus on identifying and challenging gendered socialization, and freeing ourselves from the shackles of conditioned nicety.

What becomes more complicated for me is figuring out how geniality relates to feminism.

Since feminist activism involves consciousness raising and persuasion, is being kind simply the effective thing to do? Or, since recognizing and rejecting problematic aspects of gendered socialization is central to feminism, does gentleness reinforce problematic stereotypes? Is liberation freeing ourselves from the desire to be, or be seen as, nice? Or is rejecting socially-conditioned impulses to be mild and cooperative simply emulating aggressively masculine behaviour?

A black and white thinker who often has trouble discerning shades of grey, I often find myself vacillating between both approaches, usually depending on the audience and situation. Sometimes this seems like an effective middle ground, other times like insipid half measures.

Some of the more radical feminists I’ve encountered have been admirably raw, openly and mercilessly pushing women to ally exclusively with other women and avoid men altogether. Sometimes going as far as calling heterosexual women handmaidens of patriarchy, some of these feminists aggressively criticize women for allying with, marrying or having children with men.

Seeing these women openly flout the rules of feminine behaviour sometimes makes me uncomfortable, yet I tend to see that discomfort as a result of my socially-conditioned expectation that other women conform to the same version of femininity that patriarchy uses to control us all. Part of me admires these feminists, and believes they push us into the uncomfortable, raw places we must go to deconstruct our internalized misogyny. At the same time I wonder if this ferocity fuels and sustains the movement, or does it fragment the movement by dividing women who could otherwise work together?

On the other hand, does a feminist approach based in a gentler form of persuasion reinforce problematic stereotypes about what’s expected of women? Is seeking compromise just another way in which women continue to settle for patriarchy’s meagre crumbs? Is allying with men or groups who don’t explicitly prioritize women’s liberation selling out? Or is this approach simply a more pragmatic, longer-term journey towards liberation?

I don’t have the answers, but considering many women spend their lifetimes without recognizing or questioning their socialization, I’ve decided to cut myself some slack while I figure it out.

Looking for your input, sisters – on the continuum from scorched earth to sisterhood, where does your feminism fall?

Shit Liberal Feminists Say: SWERF

Like many feminists, my interest in women’s rights began when I started noticing I was treated like I was less than the men around me. I didn’t analyze much deeper than that – I just needed confirmation that something wasn’t right, I wasn’t imagining it, and that that something wasn’t my fault. Now that my analysis has gone deeper, and is rooted firmly in an anti-oppression framework, it’s clear to me that when I first started learning and believing in feminism I was, in fact, a liberal feminist.

Liberal feminism is an individualistic view of women’s rights that holds equality with men as its end goal. Liberal feminism focuses on advancing women’s positions in existing institutions and believes that what women want out of life is what men want and have already secured for themselves.

Way back then, I understood feminism in relation to my life, my experiences and my choices. I didn’t spend much time considering how my internalized misogyny shaped those choices, even the choices I now see were problematic since they reinforced mechanisms of women’s oppression.

For me then, and for liberal feminists today, the individual is queen. Any choice a woman makes is by definition a feminist choice because choosing is a feminist act. Even choices like pandering to the male gaze or self-objectifying must be applauded. As a result, I often engaged in decidedly unfeminist behaviour while uncritically wrapping myself in a comfortingly progressive label.

Once I began critically examining my beliefs and learning more about the history of feminism, I realized the many ways in which so-called liberal feminism falls short. What soon became clear was that liberal feminism isn’t feminism at all. Uncritically worshipping individual choices ignores the structures and institutions that support patriarchy. Focusing narrowly on advancing in the public sphere ignores the oppression women face in our homes. More worryingly, refusing to examine the context and impacts of choices allows men and women to continue reinforcing misogyny and male supremacy while patting themselves on the back and failing to work towards liberation for all women in any meaningful way.

Contributing to misogyny while declaring yourself a feminist requires a stunning lack of self-awareness and critical thinking, and an intricate set of unquestioned beliefs whose main purpose is to preserve a self-concept that’s allegedly based on beliefs in women’s rights, when in reality, that self-concept is based on an illusion.

Nowhere is this creative ego preservation more evident than in the commonly used catchphrases liberal feminists recite en masse, mostly in response to critical examination by radical feminists who understand that examining our internalized misogyny, analyzing our choices and beliefs and dismantling patriarchal institutions is essential work for feminists who are truly dedicated to the liberation of all women. Not just women who are like us or women we like – all women.

This post is the first in a series I’m calling “Shit Liberal Feminists Say” where I examine these mantras and how they’re used to silence radical feminists and distract from the fact that liberal feminism is an empty ideology that shores up male supremacy.

First up: sex worker exclusionary radical feminist (SWERF).

Why it’s Wrong

Despite repeated evidence that women in prostitution are largely poor women of colour, many of whom were sexually abused as girls, entered prostitution while underage, and identify lack of housing as their main barrier to leaving prostitution, liberal feminists cling to the romanticized notions of “sex work” depicted in movies like Pretty Woman and, in doing so, literally whitewash reality. For liberal feminists, sex work is inevitable, voluntary, empowering and fun, and women who choose it should be unquestioningly celebrated. In an empty nod to actual facts, they sometimes mention the coercive nature of street prostitution, but quickly draw a meaningless line in the sand between “trafficking” and “sex work” despite studies showing that countries that decriminalize prostitution see trafficking increase.

In contrast, abolitionists see prostitution as male violence, as the sexualized practice of dominance and control over women who are coerced, with money, into sexual activity in which they wouldn’t otherwise participate.

Contrary to liberal feminists, who demonstrably exclude most women in prostitution so they can uphold a uniformly empowery notion of “sex work”, abolitionists don’t exclude any women from our analysis. We acknowledge that some women choose to enter into prostitution. Understanding that patriarchy both limits and shapes women’s choices, abolitionists believe the context of more privileged women’s choices – and the impacts those choices have on marginalized women – must be scrutinized as part of the hard work needed to make sure our movement leaves no woman behind.

We also believe that, as a movement that aims to free all women, we need to focus most of our attention on the most marginalized among us. Deciding to focus most of our attention on a majority of marginalized women as opposed to completely ignoring them in favour of a small minority of more privileged women isn’t exclusionary – it’s feminism.

What it’s Used For

SWERF is a schoolyard taunt aimed at shaming critically-thinking feminists into silence. It is an attempt to smear abolitionists as outdated pearl-clutchers, to delegitimize us as irrelevant and not worth listening to. In the face of a growing body of knowledge that erodes the very foundation of choice arguments about prostitution, “SWERF” is a petulant child with hands over ears screaming “lalalala” when life doesn’t go according to plan.

What it Reveals

Supporting an argument that excludes the majority of women in prostitution, while calling the very women who consider the whole picture exclusionary, shows how intellectually vapid and hypocritical so-called liberal feminism is. Just like calling support of prostitution, which exposes the most marginalized among us to increased levels of violence and abuse, a feminist position, this isn’t about women’s liberation, it’s about feeling good and progressive and not having to actually change anything.

Supporting prostitution and screaming “SWERF” at abolitionists isn’t feminism, it’s capitulating to male supremacy and writing marginalized women off as collateral damage. It’s living in a dream world of consequence-free individual choices. It’s refusing to go beyond scratching the surface, and instead hiding behind buzzwords and tepid half-measures while trying to silence women who are willing to dive deep no matter the cost. Screaming SWERF at abolitionists is misogyny in feminists’ clothing, and it’s just some senseless shit that liberal feminists say.

Radical: from the root

It is hugely important to hold abusive men to account, but we feminist campaigners have learned that the state allows men to perpetrate individual crimes, and have therefore tended to focus on making root and branch change. Lately we appear to have gone backwards. It is as though we have lost the strength and confidence to effectively challenge institutions.

Read more from Julie Bindel here.