Waiting on another wave

Ways of thinking about women and men usually stall in a “maze of false dichotomies,” as the poet Adrienne Rich said many years ago. One way to avoid that maze is to take the labels off those emotionally charged categories, “women” and “men,” and talk instead about two groups of roughly the same number, “Q” and “P,” which together constitute the species “QP.”

How would an economic analyst evaluate the QP world? A statistical snapshot of resource distribution (who owns the cash, property, diverse resources and income flows) would show that population P is vastly wealthier and more income-rich than population Q. A longitudinal analysis would show that this has been the case for as long as economic statistics have been collected. A trend analysis would show that just like compound interest, the trend is intensifying: even though Q’s wealth and income is growing in nominal terms, it’s declining in proportional terms as P’s share of wealth and income grows. The situation is so asymmetrical that anti-competition bodies would take steps to reverse the extremely lopsided distribution of wealth and income between Q and P.

If an environmental analyst looked at QP, they would see a species that dominates the ecosystem, growing at the expense of other species (driving some even to the point of extinction), consuming an ever vaster share of resources, and pursuing cultural practices and technologies that threaten the survival of the ecosystem as a whole. On closer examination, the analyst would trace most of this to the Ps of the QP population. The analyst would probably recommend a global P culling programme to take care of the problem.

A security analyst would examine intra- and inter-communal violence in the QP population. They would find that while there are some Qs who initiate and commit violence, the vast and overwhelming share is initiated and committed by Ps and disproportionately directed against Qs. Defence analysts would conclude that if Ps abroad could be neutralised, and Ps at home could be pacified, no defence force personnel would ever have to fire a shot in anger.

Of course, if we were anthropologists we would observe other kinds of behaviour in the QP world too, including cooperation, rapport, empathy and ecstasy. We would observe some Qs behaving badly and some Ps behaving well. But the thing that would stand out overall is the incredible consistency—the systemic nature—of the tendencies identified in Ps towards Qs.

Now let’s put aside these terms and return to men and women. Women—even well-meaning ones—contribute to the perpetuation of the world described in a number of ways. Here are six of them:

1. The Personal Extrapolator – draws universal conclusions from personal experience despite statistics that reveal a starkly different reality for most other women. They can be found even among the highly educated who should know better.

2. The “It’s Their Culture” Apologist – dismisses violence practiced systematically against women on grounds of cultural difference, usually from a position of safety where they’re unlikely to be subject to those practices.

3. The Poledancing Delusionist – mistakes writhing like a dying swan on a meat hook, in a practice designed by male strip club owners to stimulate men to purchase prostitution services, with female empowerment.

4. The Sexual Libertarian – fails to recognise that sexual relations are socially constructed and that men have constructed them in service of their interests.

5. The “Call Yourself a Feminist” Excluder – acts as self-appointed arbiter of who is or isn’t a feminist based on their own specific position, often reflexively, without seeking to understand different perspectives and constructively explore them to find common ground and build alliances. Keeps the feminist movement outdated and small.

6. The Post-Modernist Rejector – deaf to women who haven’t signed up to the Judith Butler-inspired “performative gender” school of thought. Keeps the younger generation of women less historically informed, making feminism vulnerable to the discarding of lessons from previous generations.

It is hard to see a way out—but it is possible. Guts, leadership and imagination make change possible. We know because we’ve already got some way down the road, but mostly in the rich, white world.

There’s the vote, that precious dividend of feminism’s first wave. But the first wave was spent by the early twentieth century in the west and is still working its way through the rest of the world.

There is a series of fundamental, profoundly important human rights-based law reforms that are the dividend of feminism’s second wave, legally liberating us from chattel status in many places. But again, this remains a distant prospect for hundreds of millions of women around the globe where the second wave is still nascent. Women in 127 countries have no legal recourse against rape in marriage, for example, according to UN Women, which estimates that 603m women live in countries where domestic violence is not a crime.

Often simply surviving is a triumph. This is hard for affluent, educated women on upward career paths to remember since they mostly live in enclaves with those of like mind and experience, unconscious of how tiny a minority they are among the 3.5bn women on the planet.

Every so often a wave machine comes along—like Hillary Clinton who transformed the mighty US State Department into a feminist fellow traveller. Or a Christine Lagarde emerges, her ascension over Dominique Strauss Kahn at the IMF suggesting that at least sometimes, transaction costs will be incurred for male bastardry.

These things are great, and must be built on. But they represent arithmetic momentum compared to the geometrically building tsunami of male power that remains the dominant force in the world today.

A tactical view is not enough. Without a strategic appreciation of the situation, how can we even know whether in net terms we are moving forward or backward, let alone work out what to do next?

The Iceni leader Boudicca’s speech rallied followers to rise up against the Romans in the first century. Her speech was recorded by Tacitus thus: “I am not fighting for my kingdom and wealth now. I am fighting as an ordinary person for my lost freedom, my bruised body and my outraged daughters.”

Boudicca remains an inspiration but we must learn from her fate and apply the lesson if we are not to be doomed to keep winning battles while getting smashed over time in the war overall. She was a charismatic commander but had no overarching plan.

We must have a strategy to win the war, not just tactics leading to the odd battle won, no matter how good those wins might be. We have to identify and welcome the men who show solidarity with the cause and get them, too, to see the bigger picture.

In this next wave we will have to learn to fight together like guerillas, not like mugs slaughtered on open plains. Let’s not be our own well-meaning enemies. Let us instead get smart, get strategic and get going.

This is an edited extract from Griffith REVIEW 40: WOMEN&POWER. The full version is available at www.griffithreview.com