Gail Dines, Leslie Cannold and pornography on the ABC's Q&A
May 25, 2011
Both my feminist cat Jocelyn and I were over the moon knowing that two of the world's foremost feminists would be making a TV appearance last Monday night. Yes, the sassy Gail Dines and Australia's own patriarchal-paradigm buster Leslie Cannold were to be panelists on our favourite show, Q and A. We were so excited, we danced a dance of empowerment and joy!
But sadly as the debate wore on it became apparent that there was more than a little enmity between the two notable thinkers. It pains me to say it, but things even got a little snarky, culminating in this quite heated exchange:
GAIL DINES: Let me tell you. They said if they dress like sluts then they are brining it on themselves and I am telling you all now you can go online. It's on the BBC. It was two weeks ago and you will hear over and over again from all across the world and what was very clear was how the irony of reclaiming the word slut was completely lost and, I mean, all of us got frustrated trying to argue that. So I would say let's get into the streets. Let's stop male violence against women but let's call it a PerpWalk instead of a SlutWalk.
LESLIE CANNOLD: And so do we let men just define our movement? So therefore they didn't like that word so we'll just - you know, we'll give away that kind of (indistinct).
GAIL DINES: No, of course we don't let men define our movement.
LESLIE CANNOLD: It seems so much an act of defiance. Why can't we have an act of defiance? Do we just need to be victims?
GAIL DINES: I would say putting the focus on perps is a bigger act of defiance because men don't want us to talk about them.
LESLIE CANNOLD: Women aren't the perps, so what are you going to do, force the men to walk? It doesn't even make sense as an idea.
Really, Jocelyn and I found this so disappointing. How are we to deconstruct the patriarchy and create a perfectly safe and equal society for women if feminists can never agree on the best way to start? (And when I say that I don't mean it in a sexist way, of course.) Actually, it reminded me of a rather unfortunate episode brought about by a CD being played at a socialist soiree I attended.
Personally (and politically) I blame the men. It always seems to happen that whenever feminists start talking about males, they end up turning against each other!
And speaking of testosteroids: there were four of them in this debate if you include Tony Jones. They outnumbered the women two to one. So, there was still more of the conservative bias that the show is infamous for (thank you Janet Albrechtsen!).
Their contributions, particularly on the subject of pornography, were routinely disappointing. In fact they all seemed rather blase about the phallocentric lookism it perpetuated. Of course, we would expect that if they had been drawn from the ranks of the great unloofahed. But these males were all writers. Shouldn't they have been more sensitive to such issues, as well as being attitudinally reconstructed?
Sadly, they were all far from it. Their sexism was on open display pretty much any time they opened their mouths. And they even seemed to posses other distressing attitudes:
HOWARD JACOBSON: Well, I mean, I am happy as a man, not a feminist, to acknowledge the fact that a man's mind is a jungle of horror.
Surely equating a lush, natural ecosystem with testosteroidal psychopathology - and in such a negative and emotive way - reveals a deep disdain for the environment. Gaia-phobia is not too strong a word.
Appalling. Just appalling.
But sadly as the debate wore on it became apparent that there was more than a little enmity between the two notable thinkers. It pains me to say it, but things even got a little snarky, culminating in this quite heated exchange:
GAIL DINES: Let me tell you. They said if they dress like sluts then they are brining it on themselves and I am telling you all now you can go online. It's on the BBC. It was two weeks ago and you will hear over and over again from all across the world and what was very clear was how the irony of reclaiming the word slut was completely lost and, I mean, all of us got frustrated trying to argue that. So I would say let's get into the streets. Let's stop male violence against women but let's call it a PerpWalk instead of a SlutWalk.
LESLIE CANNOLD: And so do we let men just define our movement? So therefore they didn't like that word so we'll just - you know, we'll give away that kind of (indistinct).
GAIL DINES: No, of course we don't let men define our movement.
LESLIE CANNOLD: It seems so much an act of defiance. Why can't we have an act of defiance? Do we just need to be victims?
GAIL DINES: I would say putting the focus on perps is a bigger act of defiance because men don't want us to talk about them.
LESLIE CANNOLD: Women aren't the perps, so what are you going to do, force the men to walk? It doesn't even make sense as an idea.
Really, Jocelyn and I found this so disappointing. How are we to deconstruct the patriarchy and create a perfectly safe and equal society for women if feminists can never agree on the best way to start? (And when I say that I don't mean it in a sexist way, of course.) Actually, it reminded me of a rather unfortunate episode brought about by a CD being played at a socialist soiree I attended.
Personally (and politically) I blame the men. It always seems to happen that whenever feminists start talking about males, they end up turning against each other!
And speaking of testosteroids: there were four of them in this debate if you include Tony Jones. They outnumbered the women two to one. So, there was still more of the conservative bias that the show is infamous for (thank you Janet Albrechtsen!).
Their contributions, particularly on the subject of pornography, were routinely disappointing. In fact they all seemed rather blase about the phallocentric lookism it perpetuated. Of course, we would expect that if they had been drawn from the ranks of the great unloofahed. But these males were all writers. Shouldn't they have been more sensitive to such issues, as well as being attitudinally reconstructed?
Sadly, they were all far from it. Their sexism was on open display pretty much any time they opened their mouths. And they even seemed to posses other distressing attitudes:
HOWARD JACOBSON: Well, I mean, I am happy as a man, not a feminist, to acknowledge the fact that a man's mind is a jungle of horror.
Surely equating a lush, natural ecosystem with testosteroidal psychopathology - and in such a negative and emotive way - reveals a deep disdain for the environment. Gaia-phobia is not too strong a word.
Appalling. Just appalling.
Posted by Derek Sapphire.
