Obsessed
| July 10, 2001
A call for young women to get mad! By Delanie Woodlock I want to believe in the revolution, I need to know it can happen. As I look around me, to my generation, I feel disillusioned and alone. They say we are in a post-feminist era, which seems true if we look to popular culture. There is not much feminism out there. Porn is chic. S/M is sex. 'Buffy the vampire slayer' is a feminist icon, and young women have girl power to improve their lives. Bad girls, sluts and porn stars are the new elite, the 'new girl order'(1). Paralleling girl power types of feminism is the rise in the number of young women being labelled depressed and suicidal. Young women are also being drugged at an alarming rate. It is no wonder. Sexologists and the sexual revolution of the 70's gave us a culture where 'any sex was good sex', even if you had to take muscle relaxants to do it. The legacy lives on with girl power pop-feminism (2), which is giving us a culture where young women are set up for a fall and are fooled into believing there are no obstacles to their freedom. When we discover the reality, that merely believing you are free doesn't make it happen or mean it is true, of course we get even more depressed, unresponsive and suicidal. Then to add to our pain we are told our brains are what are making us mad. We have faulty biology, broken brains, and out of control emotions. Our madness is solved simply with a mind-altering drug and we are not only turned into emotionless robots but also cash cows for pharmaceutical companies. Pathologised. Psychiatrized (3). Duped. We are a generation of young women who are told we are equal and free, that we have access and opportunity way beyond our foresisters. But we are still sad, still depressed, still raped, still abused, still other and still second class. And I'm pissed. I'm as mad as hell. The handful of radical friends I have from my generation I truly treasure. They inspire me and aid in my survival. I look up to my radical feminist sisters who rode earlier waves and are still raging. They amaze me and fuel my fight. But for true freedom, for the possibility of a revolution, we need unity. Sisterhood is powerful. The time is now. Young women get mad. Girl power makes me mad. Sarah Michelle Gellar plays the mega-popular character 'Buffy Summers' on the (aptly) named television series 'Buffy- the vampire slayer'. The blonde haired, blue eyed slayer can do no wrong. Loved by men and boys for her 'hot' looks and admired by women and girls for her butt kicking antics, Gellar's impact is far reaching. The program is now being used in university and high school classes as an example of feminism and girl power. The other week I saw an episode of 'Buffy' in its second or third season. Comparing it to recent pictures of the actress it isn't hard to notice how gaunt the already thin Gellar now is. Her skirts are dangerously short, breasts hoisted up around her chin and she topples around on high heels. No wonder girl power is a form of feminism so widely embraced! It isn't really a threat now is it? If 'Buffy' is somewhat of an icon for the girl power, new wave feminist movement then she has a hard time saying the 'f' word. In an interview with Detour Magazine (March 1999) Sarah Michelle says she is no feminist. 'I hate the word 'feminist.' It has a bad connotation of women who don't shave their legs or under their arms ... There's no femininity in feminism, which is really weird because it's technically the same word'. Creator of 'Buffy', Joss Whedon claims he does have a feminist agenda, yet he doesn't believe in being overt about it. 'If I can make teenage boys comfortable with a girl who takes charge of a situation without their knowing that's what's happening, it's better than sitting down and selling them on feminism.' (Bitch Magazine, Summer 1999) This form of 'subliminal feminism' obviously has a limited effect. If men are getting the feminist messages then they sure have a violent way of showing it. An Australian study of reported cases of rape and sexual assault against young women showed an increase of 24% between 1998 to 1999 (4). This statistic looks even worse when we learn that only 15% of all women who are sexual assaulted actually report the crime (5). Much like the ambush of post-modernism on feminist theory and Women's Studies departments throughout universities and popular culture, I suspect the popularity of girl power types of feminism can be found in its very lack of real threat to the status quo. Telling young women that it is feminist to watch porn, fuck dogs and that women get raped because they put out 'victim energy', isn't exactly going to upset the sorts of men who enjoy, promote, control and profit from women's oppression (for examples of this see BUST magazine- sex issue, second sex issue and bad girl issue). T-shirts (must be the regulation baby tees, extra fitted!) emblazoned with slogans such as 'pussy power', 'porn star', 'bad girl', 'whore goddess' are sold in mainstream stores these days under the guise of girl power. You can even purchase a playboy bunny t-shirt from Ms. magazine. This isn't feminism. It is slave merchandise. Selling back to us our status as patriarchies slaves is not liberating, subversive or anything to do with young women's power. Who cares about the mad? So if young women are apparently having so much fun, kicking butt, rioting and being bad girls, then why are we so sad? What the girl power pop-feminisms fail to realise is that a huge amount of young women are terribly lost and unhappy. The number of young women and girls labelled depressed, phobic and anxious is rising. According to the centre for mental health services (CMHS) in the US, young women are seven times more likely to be diagnosed as depressed than young men, and twice as likely to attempt suicide. The Toronto centre for addiction and mental health research shows that since 1997 females aged 10-20 are making three to four times more suicide attempts than males of the same age group. We also have a culture of druggies. Where my parent's generation had peace lovin' pot smoking, acid-dropping culture, I am now part of a generation of young women who drop Prozac, zanax, paxil. Prozac (marketed in America under a more feminine name Sarafem) has now been approved here in Australia and in the US as the cure for PMS. Zoloft was approved for trauma- like that after a rape. Paxil approved for shyness. PMS, trauma, shyness all mental illnesses (6). Girls kicking butt? When I was drugged I couldn't even cry let alone get pissed off! Silencing young women has lots of benefits. Money for the pharmaceutical companies, and emotionless, numb women for patriarchy. Of course pop-feminism is not solely to blame for this. But it certainly doesn't help when it ignores our pain and then promotes the use of psych drugs. In 1997, Ms. magazine calls Prozac "'an important weapon against women's depression". The revised 'Our Bodies, Ourselves' (1998) promote the use of Prozac, claiming it and similar drugs "have none of the health-threatening side effects of earlier antidepressants."(7) Following on from many years of similar radical feminist analysis, I believe most mental disorders (such as anxiety, phobias, eating dis-orders, depression) occur not because we are somehow biologically faulty, but because of the society we live in. When we have a world where women are raped, beaten, prostituted and murdered, it is a logical conclusion that we would all live in varying states of fear. Of course we get blamed for this. I'm anxious for a perfectly justifiable reason but I am the dis-ordered one, the sick one, the phobic. The mad. Phyllis Chesler (1972) saw patriarchy as the creator of women's distress and consequent madness. She also saw that women are rendered powerless by society and then because of this powerlessness are seen as mad. In the fantastic book 'Beyond Psychoppression', Betty McLellan (1995) outlines how oppression is one of the main factors behind women's so-called illnesses: She is not sick. She does not have a problem that was primarily brought on by herself. She is suffering in the way she is because, as a woman living in patriarchal society, she has been, and continues to be, oppressed. (p33) Prominent radical feminist Kate Millet (1991) spoke out about her drugging and various hospitalisations in 'The Loony Bin Trip'. Kate Millet comes to the conclusion that insanity doesn't exists but perhaps madness does: Madness? Perhaps. A certain speed of thought, certain wonderful flights of ideas. Certain altered states of perception. Why not hear voices? So what? ... Let us stop being afraid. Of our own thoughts, our own minds. Of madness, our own or others'. (p315-6) Get real, get radical. Get mad! '... with true radical feminist optimism, I observe the next waves rolling in, one after the other eternally. And I'm absolutely certain that the next wave of radical women who will revolt (one more time) and reclaim their bodies/their lives/their Selves with passion, will arrive. Do I feel the earth move?' (Renate Klein, 1996, p358) Andrea Dworkin wrote in her New Statesman article 'The day I was drugged and raped' (5th June 2000) that she was ready to die, 'I have been tortured and this drug-rape runs through it, a river of horror. I'm feeling perpetual terror... I'm ready to die.' Then on August 16th 2000 I read an Guardian article where Andrea Dworkin had entered a child abuse debate by declaring that children sexually abused should have the right to kill their abusers. She gave a speech and was pushed onto the stage in a wheelchair. I cried. And I got mad. We can't just let a few amazing women take on this battle by themselves. There is a feminist quote that says "No woman is required to build the world by destroying herself". Hearing about Andrea Dworkin and reading her words has been like a call for action for many young women. We need to get mad, we need to re-energise this movement. Its not like I expect all feminism to be radical, but at least let it be feminism. At least, if anything let the middle, mainstream movement be about creating safety for women. Psychiatric drugs are not safety. Porn is not safety. Prostitution is not safety. Sadomasochism is not safety. So lets get radical, get creative, get mad! Become a 'slayer' Programs like 'Buffy- The vampire slayer' show young women fighting back and defending themselves. Although they also represent Buffy's power as a fighter as her special gift, her birthright. She was born a Slayer thus not all women can fight like her. She also just fights supernatural creatures and demons. Convenient isn't it? These programs tell us that the only things we have to fear are boogie men and vampires, when the real dangers to women are usually those men we know (8). It also lets us know that women aren't really capable of fighting back unless we have some sort of magical slayer power. So lets prove them wrong. Learn self-defence or a martial art. Find a feminist self-defence centre and learn how to disarm those bastards. Lift-weights and get fit, not to look good but to be able to look after yourself. A fantastic resource for physically dis-abled women is a group called "all walks of life" (9), that have some useful tips on self defence for blind people, those in wheelchairs, etc, including carrying personal alarms. As much as I hate guns and what power they have to harm, I do think in this kind of world and for some women, guns may be a very viable form of self-defence. (For more clarification on the issue of women and guns see Adriene Sere (2000) 'Moms and Guns', Said it, June/July) Mad action In a recent online discussion concerning the US 'Violence against women act' (VAWA), Catherine MacKinnon said that women had a "civil right to be free from gender motivated violence" and the fight for these rights is "our Civil War." In Andrea Dworkin's book 'Life and Death: Unapologetic Writings on the Continuing War Against Women' a continuous theme is the lack of freedom women have, and that the war against us is very real. Many women have taken inspirational action to combat this war. Nikki Craft and others formed a group called ACLU (always causing legal unrest) and lived up to their name! In the campaign 'Rampage against Penthouse' eighty-five men and women destroyed hundreds of magazines at seventy bookstores, porn shops and convenience stores. Their actions resulted in 111 arrests. (10) The Rote Zora (red zora) from Germany took action and fire bombed pimps cars, buildings, and places that sold pornography etc. When one member was asked why she continues to act illegally she said: The legal route is not sufficient because the usual repression and structures
of violence are legal... It is legal if women traders buy our Third World
sisters and sell them to German men... It is legal when women ruin their
health and do monotonous work for subsistence wages. These are all violent
conditions which we are no longer willing to accept and tolerate and which
can't be changed solely by criticism. ...Oppression is only recognized
through resistance. Therefore we sabotage, boycott, damage, and take revenge
for experienced violence and humiliation by attacking those who are responsible.
(11)
Mad merchandise Confronted the last week with t-shirts that have images of the porn film 'deep throat', and a 'pornstar' t-shirt with a picture of a male standing and a woman kneeling at his crotch, I really think we need more mad feminist merchandise. If such oppressive practices like pornography can be packaged and promoted in hip t-shirts then why can't revolutionary politics? Pop-feminist magazines like BUST sell oppression successfully in magazines, books, t-shirts because they package it in such a way that it comes out looking hip, trendy, cutting-edge and subversive. Perhaps wrapping radical feminism up in pretty packaging isn't exactly an ideal situation, but it might be something we have to do in order to at least get some sort of feminism out there. Imagine thousands (millions!) of young women and girls reading a glossy magazine that contained real women's voices, radical truths and revolutionary politics! T-shirts that had trendy and hip looking logos but instead of 'whore goddess' they have 'women unite', 'dead men don't rape' or 'mad women fight back'. We could have a whole generation of mad women! Embrace madness For those of you who have an unruly, mad woman mind like I do, I urge you to question the mental illness industry. For years I was bounced around by shrinks who either blamed me, my brain, or my mum for my fears. I have been drugged and gone through the terrible withdrawals. I still suffer from bouts of agoraphobia and while patriarchy is in power, I probably always will. But I refuse to let them silence me. I will not be blamed any longer. I can't live in a constant state of happiness as long as women, animals, and the earth continue to be raped and murdered. Know that it is okay to get in dark, wild moods, to lock yourself away sometimes, and to be scared. If you can, try to reject any form of drugs (some call them chemical lobotomies). I know that some women's pain is so overwhelming that it needs to be soothed by drugs, and that just makes me madder. Question the malestream mind-fuckers (12) and find an alternative feminist therapist if you need to. Young women do have power. Not the pseudo-girl power promoted so readily by patriarchy, but a real passionate, mad power. Fuelled by generation upon generation of women who have fought before us, we have within us- between us- a real chance of reclaiming ourSelves. Young women it is our responsibility to continue the fight for women's freedom, to refuse to accept a future of limited control over our own lives. Rise up, connect with your sisters and let them feel our resistance. Mad women do fight back.
References Chesler, Phyllis (1972) Women and Madness, Avon, New York. Dworkin, Andrea (1997) Life and Death: Unapologetic Writings on the Continuing War Against Women, Free press. Klein, Renate (1996) '(Dead) Bodies Floating in Cyberspace: Post-modernism and the Dismemberment of Women' in Radically Speaking: Feminism Reclaimed, eds Diane Bell and Renate Klein, Spinifex Press, North Melbourne. McLellan, Betty (1995) Beyond Psychoppression, Spinifex Press, North Melbourne. Millet, Kate (1991) The Loony Bin Trip, Virago, London. Notes 1. Taken from the title of the BUST book, The Bust Guide to the New Girl Order, Marcelle Karp & Debbie Stoller, (1999), Penguin USA. BUST is a leading pop-feminism zine turned magazine that is widely read by young women in the US. It also has a web presence with a popular web site. 2. I use this term as a blanket cover for much of the popular feminisms in circulation presently, particularly the girl power, bad girl, and bust type of feminisms. I also like the word 'pop' because it reminds me of what these forms of feminisms do when you attempt any real analysis of their content and theories. 3. Term meaning: abused, violated, re-traumatised and used for profit, used by Sasha Claire McInnes (2000) The political is personal - or, why have a revolution (from within or without) when you can have soma?, http://www.madnation.org/essays/mcinnes.htm, accessed 20 August 2000. 4. Peter Mickelburough (1999) 'Girl Danger', Herald-Sun, 6 December 1999. 5. Australian Bureau of Statistics, Special Article - Violence against Women, Year Book Australia 1998, ABS Catalogue No. 1301.0 6. See Sasha Claire McInnes (2000) The political is personal - or, why have a revolution (from within or without) when you can have soma?, http://www.madnation.org/essays/mcinnes.htm, accessed 20 August 2000. 7. From an unpublished article by Lisa Sciandra (1998-99) Prozac Girlz: Women and the Wonder Drug, http://www.othersideresource.com 8. 80 percent of rapes are committed by someone who was known to the survivor. See The American Medical Women's Association Women's Complete Healthbook, edited by Roselyn Payne Epps and Susan Cobb Stewart. (1995) 9. All walks of life is a US organisation that can be contacted at : 9106 Benthos, Houston, TX 77083 Phone: 281-495-9226 web page: http://www.awol-texas.org/ 10. See Nikki Crafts website http://www.nostatusquo.com for more information. 11. Interview With Two Members Of Rote Zora, http://burn.ucsd.edu/~ats/ROTEZORA/rzora84.html, accessed 20 August 2000 12. Term used by Mary Daly (1993) in Outercourse: The Be-Dazzling Voyage Containing Recollections from My Logbook of a radical feminist philosopher. http://members.nbci.com/_XMCM/itrushes/unruly/del.htm
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