6 December 2013

MAX
To the extended Bell family

Mum and Godmother have been good enough to preserve and share Nan's thoughts on political and social reform.

I am grateful that they did this because it allowed me to see that the women who have inspired me in life have always been the soul of the age that resulted in my own social and political environment.

So I thought I would share the intersections of Nan's thoughts with the thinking of the women of my generation who are intent on social and political reform.

Women's Liberation: What is it?

GODMOTHER
To me

:-)

MAX
To Godmother

*hugs* thanks, it was REALLY nice to read how clear things were for women back in the day - it is very encouraging for me, trying to be as clear today about equality :)

FUtE
To the extended Bell family

Hi Max
I was up at the farm and unable to successfully respond to this. I also tried to blog on insanelysociable but at the point at which they asked me to start creating a profile I got to the "... fuck this I have got to much to do and this screen is too small and my eyes are ... etc etc ... but I tried so that is good Huh? Mind you I was digging ditches so anything was preferable.

Very interesting to see Mum in action from years ago. Makes you realise how capable she was/is so a good illustration of why one needs to engage with the issues of the day and stay engaged. The psychological and philosophical benefits on their own are worth it and the physical ones tend to follow.

I think I would disagree with one contention and that is that feminism was beginning with Mum's generation. I suspect it was a generation or two prior to that that formal feminism was kicking in (Emily Pankhurst etc). I suspect that Mum's feminism really reflects "practical feminism" rather than ideological feminism at a time when a significant proportion of the population had experience of 2 world wars and the Great Depression. They were pretty tough and very pragmatic and you see that in Mum's response. Their ideological world was constrained to some degree by the contingencies of making a living. Their opposition the "feminism", as feminists of my wife and my generation experienced, was probably because they saw our feminism as being a very privileged form of feminism.

When I was in Swaziland, in the mid 80's, I saw in TIME magazine (September 1985)  an article on the 3rd UN Conference on Women in Nairobi. The group shot had a large number of western women with all the trappings of privilege in the way of cameras etc (sorry kids mobiles, laptops and tablets didn't exist then so they were all looking at the photographer and not the palm of their hands!). In the foreground where two Maasai women sitting very formally. The article was asking what the women wanted. The majority wanted rights of equality and political representation whilst the Maasai women wanted access to clean water. Quite sobering and a stark contrast. I was acutely aware of this need because I was seeing it all around me where I was living and it gave some perspective to the overall agenda.

I think Mum's generation were very concerned with efficiencies. They had large families and relatively lower level social safety nets. They had a great deal of pride and stoicism was expected. They got on with it and hoped they could cope. Mum told me the other day that she thought she used to get depressed but "..there was nothing you could do about it"  I suspect my generation of feminists were simply seen as a little self-indulgent.

I suspect that this is always going to be the case as each new generation engages with the issues. So well done for giving it some steam.

Love

MAX
To the extended Bell family

FUtE - I appreciate you taking the time to stop digging ditches to address my grateful engagement with political ideology! :)

I couldn't agree more with the idea that social reform for women has been around for longer than the word 'feminism'.

I first discovered the concepts of social reform for women in Mary Wollstonecraft's 'A Vindication of the Rights of Woman', a set text in Politics 101 at Uni. And to be honest, Nan's piece of writing holds a lot of Wollstonecraft and her ideas of Utility. Wollstonecraft (b1759) is a remarkably practical woman, and her ideas are still around now in the fight for non-gendered toys and the backlash against the Disney Princesses - when it comes to stoicism, Wollstonecraft was right there. Wollstonecraft's daughter was Mary Shelley, who wrote Frankenstein - arguably the creation myth of the age of science. Two great thinkers, and two of my personal heroes.

Christine de Pizan (b1363) is another marvelous learned lady who argues against the inexplicable discrimination of gender. Women asking the right questions about discriminatory social structures have been around for a long time.

Privileged Western White Lady Feminism is definitely not applicable to many of the women in the world - and your illustration of the Masai women is still utterly relevant (as Romeo would attest!) This year I read two books by non-Western commentators of social reform for women
around the world and they were very sobering experiences.

For example, 'Sex and the Citadel: Intimate life in a changing Arab World' by Shereen El Feki is a master class in teaching that women need different things from their social reform. It illustrated that what is conservative feminism in the West is radical feminism elsewhere: she discusses how Western pornography can be an unlikely ambassador for encouraging men to work to end Female Genital Mutilation!

Then there is 'Unnatural Selection: Choosing boys over girls, and the consequences of a world full of men' by Mara Hvistendahl, which is the history of sex selective abortion using ultrasound and the 60 million missing women in Asia that is resulting in the trafficking of huge populations of women and tens of millions of permanently single men. Science used in a sexist way compounds sexism exponentially to numbers that are terrifying. None of this can be addressed by Western White Lady Feminism, but by the social reform movement of that country and culture.

So yes, while every generation has its battles, usually they can rely on the battles won by their elders to help them along.

Lots of love

Wollstonecraft Summary

Other books about social reform for women

MAX
To a Brontë uncle

Uncle Chicken Farmer, I thought you may enjoy this collection of emails - the first time to my knowledge that the Bells have openly discussed politics on a mass email.

Bless FUtE for actually engaging with me in this, shrieks of silence from everyone else :)

FUtE
To the extended Bell family

Max I defer to your well founded and extensive historical knowledge of the major figures in the process. Radio National had a very interesting piece on Mary Shelley some months ago as an adjunct to the stuff they were doing on the Age of Wonder. It must have been a wonderful thing to be wealthy enough to be able to gain and education and have the time to engage in the rise of science. As the alternative was Parliament live then it made easy listening. Well done

MAX
To FUtE

*wink* Thanks Uncle Paul for your delightfully leading comments and kind words about my education.

I can't think for a moment who it is the person who influenced me to keep reading, keep learning and always try topics outside my last area of interest. Oh yeah, that would be you ... :)

As you would know from the talk, Mary Shelley had extraordinary parents in Wollstonecraft and Godwin, and amazing peers in Shelley and Bryon - all that practical philosophy and art in one place.

Education is really such a wonderful thing if you are paying attention and learn to keep going, and if you have good people around you that encourage you to find out more.

Thank you for being one of those people :) And your wife also, who is referenced here in my companion piece to the Wollstonecraft piece.