Guest Post: How to play institutional conservative sexism for beginners
Cath Elliott
Posted on April 18, 2011
This is a guest post by Ray Filar. You can find more of Ray’s work at Political Correctness Gone Mad.
In a slightly homophobic game for straights known as ‘gay chicken’, two straight people of the same sex pretend to kiss, leaning closer and closer together until one ‘chickens out’ – pulling away from their game partner’s proverbially moistened lips. The point of it is to enable public bicurious flirting without the stigma of actually pulling that same-sexed someone who now, three pints into the party, seems much more snoggable than before.
Over the last year it has become clear that the government and friends are having a similar private joke, a kind of ‘sexist chicken’, if you will. The game functions in a similar manner; it could be aptly summarised as a game of ‘let’s see how many misogynist measures we can slide through under the guise of ‘healing the economy’ before we make ourselves physically sick and have to stop’. The obvious problematic difference between gay and sexist chicken is that after the flirtation of Cameron, Clegg, et al, with policies of the kind that really cause harm to people, the landscape of women’s support services and corresponding equalities legislations will be unrecognisable.
As each anti-feminist measure is announced, couched in the bogus rhetoric of economic necessity, it becomes obvious that this government sees gender equality as an irrelevance. As the concerted barrage of political attacks on women continues, the feminist infrastructure that has been slowly built up over the last thirty years, the institutional resistance that is in place to oppose such measures, will be steadily weakened.
Three events over the last few weeks really stand out as symptomatic of the success the coalition has already had in rolling back feminist achievements.
One is, of course, the Red Tape Challenge website, which enables ‘consultation’ on those annoying, bureaucratic regulations designed to protect the public from the state, the vulnerable from the strong. Those regulations deigned to be ‘burdensome’ will go unless Ministers make a strong case for them to stay. Unsurprisingly, the 2010 Equalities Act is high on the list.
From the Red Tape webpage, it is entirely unclear whether the aim is to remove/change, for example, the definitions and applications of terms, or to remove/change the substance of the act – the stuff that makes it illegal, at least officially, to discriminate, and defines what that discrimination consists of.
And indeed, this is the point. This consultation is not really about public accountability, nor is it about improving the legislation we have. A quick glance at the website makes it obvious that this is really about rolling back that pesky equalities agenda. To suggest that what we really need is to reassess the legislation that has only just been put in place or, worse – scrap it altogether – is like suggesting that it is invariably better to replace War and Peace with a box of nice coloured crayons, i.e. fucking stupid.
(I imagine discussions inside Tory HQ to be a bit like this: ‘Hey George! Do people really need to be legally protected from discrimination on the grounds of sex, race, gender identity, disability, etc? Can’t we just cut the list down by one so that we can say we’re cutting red tape?’ ‘Yeah Dave, you’re totally right. Let’s get rid of sex, then we can reintroduce legal discrimination against women working in small businesses, so that small businesses don’t have to give statutory maternity leave. We can sell that as ‘healing the economy’.’ ‘Great idea, George, you’re the best. Let’s make out.’)
Another ludicrous, revolting, attack on women is the decision, announced this week, to reallocate much of the Poppy Project’s government funding to the Salvation Army. Words fail on this one. This decision appears to completely deny evangelical Christianity’s record on women’s rights, women’s bodies, women’s autonomy, sexual shame and guilt, contraception, homosexuality, abortion, women’s sexuality. The list goes on.
Whether one agrees with Eaves’ (the charity that runs the Poppy Project) perspective on sex work or not, I know that if I were trafficked into prostitution, voluntarily or otherwise, I would want to receive support from a women’s charity that supported a feminist discourse of rights, rather than a missionary-esque Christian group that by their own definition promotes monogamous heterosexuality.
This is not to forget Nadine Dorries and Frank Field’s proposed dirty amendments to the Health and Social Care Bill. Dorries has the sheer galling audacity to describe herself as ‘pro-women’, whilst simultaneously proposing that women be forced to have counseling before having an abortion. Presumably in Dorries’ mind, a pro-woman attitude is analogous with the attitude that abortion could so easily be eradicated if only those recalcitrant, stubborn, contraception-evading sluts would stop being so selfish and start carrying babies to term! The amendment is quite obviously a classic case of sexist paternalism; a template instantiation of women’s bodily autonomy denial amateurishly masquerading as care.
In all of this there is a very human cost. As these misogynist measures pile up the painstakingly crafted edifice of institutionalised non-sexism is steadily eroded. On the one hand, the more material feminist commentators have to point to to say: ‘look! these policies are anti-women!’ the more ammo anti-government voices will appear to have to a sometimes indifferent-seeming public. On the other hand, I fear that by the time any powerful majority wakes up and admits that this is what is happening, and that it matters, the structural services that promote women’s equality will be decimated.
well said. on all of it.
this government sees gender equality as an irrelevance.
It’s worse than being an irrelevance, it is actually offensive to them. The Tories, and many lefty reactionaries as well of course, are very invested in seeing patriarchal gender-roles maintained and strengthened as much as possible.
Women have to behave in certain proscribed ways (as the helpmates to the naturally superior humans). Giving any sort of resources to those who fail to meet the standards just doesn’t fit with their “family” values, but removing resources and making life as difficult as possible for the “wimmins rights” brigade – that’s right up their street.
@sianushka – thanks!
@parallel – I agree, but I think there are also those who would consider themselves as, to some extent, in favour of gender equality, whilst being totally opposed to the kinds of active policies needed to bring it about. Maybe they are just in denial.
Great piece Ray (do straight people really do the stuff described in the first para? what sad gits if they do).
I would sound a note of caution on the poppy project thing though, and it’s blasted EU procurement. It’s giving me no end of nightmares at the moment at work – hence it being on my mind – and I wonder if it had anything to do with the decision – the Salvation army could simply deliver in volume, cheaper (which is more or less the only thing that matters with EU procurement – you have to have a very good reason not to accept a lowest tender). And though they have a dodgy record, I’ll agree, they do CLAIM to have equal opps policies in place (which would be another requirement of procurement).
I agree it’s still a terrible thing, I’m just wondering if there may not be a simpler explanation.
It is true that the feminist infrastructure created over the last 30-40 years is being eroded away, but this has been happening for the last 3-4 years at least, if not more. It does pre-date the Tories, but the difference is that the Tories are doing it at Warp Speed. Labour played the ‘Nero fiddled whilst Rome burnt’ game.
As a feminist and a Tory, I’m disappointed by the Government’s lack of concern over equalities.
However, I disagree with you over why this happens — rather than the Govt hating women, I think they a) are intrinsically individualist, and b) don’t realise that social expectations of women are different to those of men.
I don’t think individualism is a problem, as long as it’s recognised and acknowledged. I wrote something about it here: http://feminismfortories.wordpress.com/2011/03/28/individualism-collectivism-and-feminism/.
Not realising that society treats men and women differently is an issue, and it’s yet another reason why more women are needed in the Cabinet.