Parity of the Sexes (France, 1998)

Sylviane Agacinski, b. 1945

Background

French feminists proposed ‘parité’ – quotas for equal representation in government between men and women. This was published in Le Monde and some feminists didn’t like the emphasis on sex vs. citizenship. Agacinski, a French philosopher who was married to then French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, argued in support of ‘parité’ – it was not making sex a criterion, but only balancing government to fix a cultural wrong. It was successfully passed, and other countries went along to have a minimum for female representation, including Argentina, Germany, India, Israel, Sweden, Tanzania and Venezuela.

 

Recap

Parity was first proposed by Hubertine Auclert in 1880 who refused to pay taxes unless she could vote.  Then in 1884 suggested representation should have an equal number of men and women. This presented a new utopian idea – women sharing political power on an equal plane with men, “together and equally.”.  This same sentiment was expressed in 1996 in the Charter of Rome – that only 5% of the National Assembly of the Senate were women in 1996.

Laws never demanded mixity in having the same number of women as men in elected positions, but only refers to rights. The concept of parity demands sharing the power between men and women. “Parity really constitutes a politiacl interpretation of sexual difference.” Sharing power across sex.

We shy away -wanting to know the reasoning for wanting parity, since French universalism wants to know nothing about sexual difference. Being a woman “constitutes one of two essential ways of being a human being.” “It is the equal humanity of men and women that is at stake[…]” which is the basis for parity. A human rights issue.

Some are convinced we should have parity, but are too scared of the means to go about making it happen. But this decision should be democratic.

Equitable representation of women in office does not mean elected women must be mouthpieces of women’s issues. But the mixity in the national assembly should reflect the nation.
Reflection

If parity is sharing power along sexual difference, then proponents of parity in 2019 should want a representative number of each sexual variety – transgender and non-binary also.

Her critique on the Universalist conception is that “neutralizes” the actual differences between men and women. This returns us to the debate about accepting whether women and men are categorically different, or essentially the same.

Historically, the laws passed by her husband led to a reduction in funding for parties who did not have parity (or closer to it), which led to a much higher representation of women in the Assembly.

United Nations, Fourth World Conference on Women (China, 1995)

General Background

While this happened in Beijing, China after 10 years of the ‘Decade for Women’, 20,000+ attended an NGO forum. Four women addressed the conference.

 

Talk 1: Opening Address, Plenary Session, by Gertude Mongella

Talk 1 – Background

Gertrude Mongella b. 1945

Gertrude Mongella is a Tanzanian politician and women’s rights advocate, who had served in a number of official roles in Tanzania and in the U.N. on the topic of women. Years after she gave this address to the U.N. Conference on Women, she became the first President of the Pan-African Parliament.

Talk 1 – Recap

This forum is a tapestry woven by women… that ’embodies the aspirations hopes and actions which will guide us all into the twenty first century […] there can be no spectators, no side-liners, no abstainers for this is a crucial social agenda which affects all humanity.’

All women attending should become ‘committed crusaders’ for the cause. A few points:

1. ‘There is a need to look at women’s issues in a holistic manner[…]’ Women helped men abolish slavery, liberate from colonialism, and dismantle apartheid; ‘It is now the turn of men to join women in their struggle for equality.’
2. ‘[…] because of the crosscutting nature of women’s issues, it is imperative that each issue is given due weight and consideration.’
3. We have to recognize the ‘inter-generational link which is unique to women.’
4. We have learned that it is up to us women to achieve equality. After significant research, it is evident that ‘women fare badly relavtive to men.

This last decade of the twentieth century is crucial. We must band together beyond dividing lines, work with men and the youth. We must address ‘eradication of illiteracy, ill-health, poverty, unemployment, violence and promotion of decision making and empowerment.’

‘The basis of change is here’ but ‘action is the only way forward.’

Wars and armed conflict must stop. ‘This platform will not see light as long as the issue of peace is not properly addressed.’

 

 

Talk 2: The Indigenous Women’s Network: Our Future, Our Responsibility by Winona LaDuke

Talk 2 – Background

Winona LaDuke b. 1959

Winona LaDuke is an environmentalist and Native American activist in the United States. She is the first Native American women receive an Electoral College vote for Vice President.

 

Talk 2 – Recap

‘The Earth is our Mother’ and sustains life.’ ‘all females, are the manifestation of Mother Earth in human form.’ Chief Seattle once said ‘what befalls the Earth, befalls the People of the Earth.’ That is today’s reality of the status of women and Indigenous peoples. As industrialism developed a predator-prey relationship with the earth, so too with women.

Most matrilineal societies have been obliterated by colonialism and industrialism. Mine does too.

In North America, Indigenous societies remain in a predator-prey relationship with industrial societies. They took the earth and misuse it which hurts women. Pollution & environmental contamination hurts women most due to breast cancer and milk contamination.

So we see, ‘what befalls our Mother Earth, befalls her daughter’ – women.

If we are not healthy we can not fight for ourselves.

Equal pay for dominant societies is not a just cause if it’s based on unsustainable consumption models and hurts other women’s rights elsewhere in the world.

The struggle is to ‘recover our status of Daughters of the Earth.’

 

Talk 3: Statement of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, by Palesa Beverly Ditsie

Talk 3 – Background

Palesa Beverly Ditsie b. 1971

Beverly is a South African lesbian rights activist and film maker.  She is one of the organizers of the first Pride March in South Africa. Her statement is the first to the U.N. on LGBT issues. A year before her statement marked South Africa’s first elections with universal suffrage.

Talk 3 – Recap

I come from South Africa where last year in 1994, President Nelson Mandela said discrimination based on sexual orientation would never again happen. He received ‘resounding applause’ for this.

Though it’s against the ‘Universal Declaration of Human Rights’, ‘violence, harassment and discrimination’ happens to lesbians every day. ‘Women who love women are fired from their jobs; forced into marriages; beaten and murdered in their homes and on the streets; and have their children taken away by hostile courts. Some commit suicide due to the isolation and stigma that they experience within their families, religious institutions and their broader community.’

The ‘Platform for Action’ in this conference needs to take the term ‘sexual orientation’ out of brackets, and recognize discrimination based on sexual orientation as a violation of a basic human right.

‘Anyone who is truly committed to women’s human rights must recognize that every woman has the right to determine her sexuality free of discrimination and oppression.’

 

Talk 4: Closing Address

Talk 4 – Background

Gro Harlem Brundtland b. 1939

She served as Prime Minister of Norway on multiple terms, and later went on to be the General Director of the World Health Organization.

Talk 4 – Recap

‘Women will no longer accept the role as second-rate citizens.’ ‘What we have achieved is to unbracket the lives of girls and women. Now we must move on […] life, freedom, equality, and opportunity have never been given. They have always been taken.’ No one else will do it for us. Countries face economic costs of having ‘a continuing genderized apartheid.’ But no countries today offer equal opportunities. So we must go back everywhere and make changes. ‘We need women at all levels of management and government.’ It’s not enough to have rights – women also must use them. For example, it was a shock when I first became Prime Minister 15 years ago, but today girls ask their mother’s whether there can be also be male Prime Ministers.

The Platform for Action focuses on several points. Education.

Human rights – cuts beyond culture, even if cultural practices have with deep roots. No justification for violence against women or wife beating. Freedom from sexual coercion. Genital mutilation of girls has no justification, even if it’s part of a culture. Nor does ‘fatal neglect of infant girls’ from parents who wanted boys. No reason there should naturally be more boys than girls in any country. Inequalities in nutrition, health care, education to girls. Also sexual exploitation.

Poverty has a gender bias.

It’s not true that men are breadwinners and women raise kids. Women have always worked – harder than men, and with no acknowledgement. They should be able to get loans.

Every government should adopt the 20/20 plan – 20 % of budget to basic social services, and genderized for women.

We learned in the Cairo Population Conference to avoid “too many, too soon, too late and too close.” “There is no morality in condemning women to a life of perpetual childbearing and fatigue.” We should de-criminalize women who seek abortions. This upsets people, but it shouldn’t.

We owe it to the babies born.

 

 

Reflections

Gertrude Mongella’s point that men owe it to women to struggle for equality since women helped men with slavery, colonialism, and apartheid – surprises me.

The call to ending wars and armed conflict is ambitious. Linking it inter-dependably to women’s rights is another issue. We have seen other feminists take this tack, with linking poverty to women’s rights and saying women’s rights won’t be achieved until poverty is solved. Or racism. I recognize that everything is related. But I don’t know if these couplings help garner support for women’s rights. To use an extreme example, would Gertrude Mongella reject army general’s from being part of the women’s rights movement? For those who link women’s rights to poverty, should capitalist tycoons be excluded?

 

Winona LaDuke explains the problems of women’s rights in terms of human’s treatment of the earth; environmentalism. Same question regarding linking other issues to women’s rights. Are non-environmentalists, or even more extreme – industrialist polluters- welcome as legitimate women’s rights activists?

Her point about how equal pay is not a women’s right if it hurts the Earth and other women – interesting point, describing how global systems are connected. Still, though, the fact that Western consumption is based on environmental exploitation and is linked to human rights issues in other countries- does that mean that men should still be making more money than women in those Western countries? Here, too, I would argue that equal pay is a women’s rights issue that is worthwhile. At the same time, changing the entire system of industrialism and how it hurts women & people in other countries – is an important cause as well. That the equal pay issue occurs within a broader problematic framework – does not disqualify it as a worthwhile issue.

LaDuke’s formulation of the struggle for women’s rights as to reclaim being ‘Daughters of the Earth’ excludes men; in stark contrast to Gertrude Mongella, who spoke before her.

Palesa Beverly Ditsie urges sexual orientation rights a women’s rights issue. Same question: does she think that anti-lesbian women fighting for equal pay, for example, are not true feminists? Also notable that she mentioned nothing about gay rights, or transgender rights, but only kept it to lesbian rights.

Gro Haarlem Brundtland, Prime Minister of Norway, said that there were no countries in the world that offered equal opportunities to women.  The charge against “perpetual childbearing and fatigue” is interesting, since presumably women who have children chose to do so. So her argument is for abortion, or at least de-criminalizing abortion.

 

Considering each of the presentations, it strikes me that there are multiple sub-agendas within the women’s rights movement. Anti-war, environmentalism, gay rights, anti-abortion. As the speakers argued, each can be shown to be inextricably linked to women and women’s rights. From a tactical perspective, I am still not convinced that promoting each sub-agenda best serves what is most common to women’s rights.

Or maybe it’s the only way – people pursue justice and rights for the issue that burns to them most strongly.

Becoming the Third Wave (United States, 1992)

Rebecca Walker b. 1969

Background

While in college, Rebecca saw the dismissive manner in which the U.S. Senate Committee treated Anita Hill‘s testimony about being sexually harassed by Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas. Rebecca, the daughter of acclaimed African American feminist author Alice Walker, was enraged and inspired to catalyze ‘Third Wave Feminism’ for her generation. She went on to write and publish more and be an influential feminist.

Recap

‘I could not bring myself to watch the sensationalized assault of the human spirit’ during the U.S. Senate Committee hearings of Anita Hill’s testimony on being sexually harassed by Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas. ‘To me, the hearing were about […] checking and redefending the extent of women’s credibility and power.’

Men feared repercussions of Anita Hill’s testimony being effective in thwarting Thomas’ nomination, since most men are guilty of similar actions. It would have been ‘metaphoric castration.’

It had a sad ending- he, the male, was promoted, while she, the victim female, was silenced. The message to women is: ‘shut up! even if you speak, we will not listen.’

‘I will not be silenced.’

Not to ‘the man I am intimate with’, whose support I demand, nor to the men on the train who speak about women disrespectfully and objectify them. ‘My anger and awareness must translate into tangible action.’

‘To be a feminist is to integrate an ideology of equality and female empowerment into the very fiber of my life. It is to search for personal clarity in the midst of systemic destruction, to join in sisterhood with women when often we are divided, to understand power structures with the intention of challenging them.’

Thomas’ confirmation should remind us that ‘the fight is far from over.’

We must turn this outrage into political power. ‘Do not vote for them unless they work for us. Do not have sex with them, do not break bread with them do not nurture them if they don’t prioritize our freedom to control our bodies and our lives.’

‘I am not a postfeminism feminist. I am the Third Wave.’

 

Reflection

Third Wave feminism appears to be focused on political efforts for young people. For Walker, the dismissal of Anita Hill was jarring, and roused her to action. The #meToo movement did not exist then, and only began in 2018.

Riot Grrrl Manifesto (United States, 1992)

Kathleen Hanna / Bikini Kill

Background

After gains of earlier movements, new activists Third Wave Feminists addressed problems of girls – eating disorders, self esteem, and more. These led to ‘grrl power’ campaigns meant to empower young girls and women. Kathleen Hanna is a punk rock musician who recapitulated the term ‘girl’ and turned it into something strong recalcitrant and empowered. Her essay critiques capitalism and internalized sexism, to give a new definition and voice to women. Today she tours and has recently launched a charity project called Tees 4 Togo.

Recap

‘BECAUSE we …’ want to foster girl artist collaboration, ‘take over the means of production’, ‘DISRUPT” status quo, ‘create revolution in our own lives every single day by envisioning and creating alternatives to the bullshit christian capitalist way of doing things’, counter male-generated criticism, reject assimilation into male standards of cool, embrace the ‘you can do anything’ message of punk rock in our own terms, create ‘non-hierarchical ways’ of living and community, band together to fight ‘racism, ablebodieism, ageism, speciesism, classism, thinism, sexism, anti-semitism and heterosexism’, ‘hate capitalism’, ‘are angry at a society that tells us Girl = Dumb, Girl = Bad, Girl = Weak’, reject anger becoming jealousy of other women, believe ‘wholehearymindbody that girls constitute a revolutionary soul force that can, and will change the world for real.’

Reflection

This manifesto & movement to redefine ‘girl’ can be empowering and inspiring. It takes the strategy to take back a pejorative definition of a group women, instead of rejecting that the group exists (like Wittig). By situating the movement within the punk rock vibe, it makes it hard to connect to the feminist empowerment without also demanding to embrace the anti-authoritarian revolutionary milieu, like anti-capitalism.

My guess would be that Kathleen Hanna, as a female feminist artist, would embrace the Gurrilla Girls movement, and since its anonymous may be part of them.

‘When Sexism and Racism Are No Longer Fashionable’ and ‘Do Women Have To Be Naked To Get into the Met. Museum?’ (United States, 1989)

Gurreilla Girls

Background

The Gurrilla Girls is an anonymous group of feminists who fight sexism and feminism in art, founded in 1985. They are part of ‘second wave feminism’ that expressed itself in art of all kinds, questioning assumptions about race gender sexuality, and continue a group like ‘WAR’ or ‘Women Artists in Revolution’ that protested the minuscule percent of women artists represented in museums.

Recap

They are two ads taken in magazines. The first protests the exclusivity of art collectors who focus only on white males. The title says ‘When racism & sexism are no longer fashionable, what will your art collection be worth?’ It seems to be addressing art collectors, mostly buyers. The caption underneath reads ‘the art market won’t bestow mega-buck prices on the work of a few white males forever. For the 17.7  million you just spent on a single Jasper Johns painting, you could have bought at least one work by all of these women and artists of color.’ Below there’s a list of names.

The second ad is satire of a painting that shows a naked woman lounging. Guerrilla Girls version replaced the naked woman’s head with that of a gorilla. The title reads ‘Do women have to be naked to get into the Met. Museum?’ A caption says ‘Less than 5% of the artists in the Modern Art sections are women, but 85% of the nudes are female.’

 

Reflection

The first ad relates to art consumer purchasing behavior. It argues that racism and sexism are a fashion, that will change, and with it, the  value of racist and sexist art will decrease. I resonate with the anti-racist anti-sexist intention, but wonder if there isn’t a better argument to be made here. The message mixes ethical and financial incentives. Financially,  even if the exclusion of females and black artists is reversed, the value of art by white males won’t necessarily drop. Ethically, it’s not a convincing argument that art created by white males necessarily dictates the art as racist or sexist (unless the art or artists espouse those views).

The second ad implies that the Met. Museum objectifies women and does not respect them as artists. It’s hard for me to tell whether female bodies are ‘objectively’ a more interesting and aesthetic subject than male bodies, or whether I am part of the deeply ingrained bias. As for the % of Modern Artists who made it into the Met., maybe that  selection bias is an expression of sexism. I don’t think, however, that there should be a quota for art based on the identities of the artists; I do not think they would argue that the ratio of art in a museum should be proportional to the ratio of artist’s identities in society. More interesting would be to find out the makeup of the selection committee / curators for the Met. or museums, since their biases will most probably be manifest in the art they choose. This ad also does not address racism at all. What % of work at the Met. is by black artists vs. white artists?

La Conciencia de lad Mestiza: Toward a New Consciousness (United States, 1987)

Gloria Anzaldúa (1942-2004)

Background

She was one of the editors of an influential anthology called This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color. It contained poems and essays by women from mostly spanish speaking backgrounds, as well as Native American and Asian American. They wrote about racism in the women’s movement, and sexism and prejudice in their communities. They also addressed how language is at the same time a barrier to understanding, and a link to communities. Anzaldúa wrote her own essays on these topics.

 

Recap

Mexican philosopher Jose Vascocelos wrote of a ‘fifth race’ that is inclusive and cosmic; a consciousness of the woman, ‘a consciousness of the Borderlands.’ The “Mestiza” lives in ‘Nepantilism’ which are threshold people who walk between cultures and are part of several simultaneously, who are in perpetual transition between conflicting cultures. It’s a contradiction with several voices playing simultaneously. These multiple cultural personalities result in psychic restlessness, asking “which collectivity does the daughter of a darkskinned mother listen to?” The messages sent by each cultures are mixed. “The coming together of two self-consistent but habitually incompatible frames of reference causes un choque, a cultural collision.”

The response tends to be defensive against the dominant white culture, a counterstance. But this solution is insufficient, since we are part of both sides. A better solution is to find a new consciousness that sees from both sides, “through serpent and eagle eyes.” Or to leave the dominant culture altogether. “The possibilities are numerous once we decide to act and not react.”

‘A TOLERANCE FOR AMBIGUITY’

The mestiza gets conflicting information from each culture, so has to be less rigid psychologically and behaviorally, or else can not survive the barrage. “Rigidity means death. Only by remaining flexible is she able to stretch the psyche horizontally and vertically. La mestiza constantly has to shift out of habitual formations; from convergent thinking, analtrical reaasoning that tends to use rationality to move toward a single goal (a Western mode), to divergent thinking, characterized by movement away from set patterns and goals and toward a more whole perspective, one that includes rather than excludes.”

The mestiza expands herself to embrace contradictions, conflicts, ambiguities, to ‘operate in a pluralistic mode […] she turns ambivalence into something else. […] In attempting to work out a synthesis, the self has added a third element which is greater than the sum of its severed parts. That third element is a new consciousness –  a mestiza consciousness – and though it is a source of intense pain, its energy comes from continual creative motion that keeps breaking down the unitary aspect of each new paradigm.’

‘The future will belong to the mestiza’ who will create a new mythos, a new consciousness by transcending the subject-object duality.

‘As a mestiza, I have no country […] yet all countries are mine because I am every woman’s sister or potential lover. (As a lesbian I have no face, my own people disclaim me; but I am all races because there is the queer of me in all races.) […] I am an act of kneading, of uniting and joining that not only has produced both a creature of darkness and a creature of light, but also a creature that questions the definitions of light and dark and gives them new meanings.’

The mestiza is like indigenous corn, the process of cross breeding, that will hold tight at the earth and survive at the crossroads.

[Ends with poem about making corn into tortillas.]

 

Reflection

Nicholas Taleb writes about ‘anti-fragile’, things that become stronger in response to tumult. This seems to be Anzaldúa and the movement she represents. If Adrienne Rich spoke about the need for feminist movement to listen openly and wholeheartedly to other women, then Anzaldúa has much to teach. She writes about rejection, deep deep rejection without a home or base to go back to. It sounds terrifyingly destabilizing. Being excluded from both sides of the river. I am moved and inspired by her strong proactive response; to reject the dichotomy of the narratives of both (all 3?) of her cultures, and create a new narrative, a new reality that can then teach both cultures.