That Development Lady

Yesterday, the English Observer belatedly picked up an article written for the September issue of Standpoint magazine by Jessica Mann, a reviewer who covers crime fiction for the Literary Review. In it, Mann criticizes the genre for revelling in the brutalization of women, and writes that “however many more outpourings of sadistic misogyny are crammed on to the bandwagon, no more of them will be reviewed by me.”

I sympathize with Mann—I can’t stomach much mutilation, and I wouldn’t want my job to be wading in dismembered female bodies. Judging by the response in the blogosphere, though, you’d think this was kinda like Marlon Brando refusing his Oscar or Jonathan Franzen turning down Oprah. But the problem of crimes against women in crime fiction has been often noted: here’s a rundown of some of the more sickening passages you’ll find in today’s popular offerings.

The debate, however, is not just about female mutilation—it’s about terminology. First, it’s about the “F” word. Mann writes:

The trend cannot be attributed to an anti-feminist backlash because the most inventive fiction of this kind is written by women.

In a 2007 piece in the Guardian, Julie Bendel asked why women love to write and read about other women being brutalized:

Given my work as a feminist activist and writer, you might expect me to hate the crime genre. I have spent the whole of my adult life fighting male violence, and much of my work involves researching topics such as rape, child sexual abuse, pornography and murder…. Yet, when it comes to fiction, the serial killer genre is my favourite.

I understand Mann’s and Bindel’s basic premise—that women who care about women shouldn’t, in a logical sense, like to write or read about violence against women—but they both seem to ignore that women can be part of an “anti-feminist backlash,” that men can be feminists, that feminism means different things to different people, that it might have very little to do with what is going on here. When a headline on a Web site geared toward women asks “Feminist or Misogynist?” in a (thoughtful) consideration of Stieg Larsson’s “Girl” trilogy, is that helpful or merely polarizing? Must we choose?

The “F” word is not alone. There’s another word commonly thrown around in this discussion that really seems to turn people’s heads upside down: the “L” word. In 2007, Ian Rankin caused a stir when he quipped, “The people writing the most graphic novels today are women. They are mostly lesbians as well, which I find interesting.”

I suppose it is terribly interesting—if one’s logic follows the proposition “If L then F,” and if you are quite certain what each variable signifies. The popular media was pretty certain: it badgered Val McDermid, a lesbian, for a response (which the Times Online ran with the headline “Revenge of the Bloodthirsty Lesbians”). She called it “arrant rubbish,” and said, “I’ll tell you what pisses me off more than almost anything: when people say, ‘As a woman, how do you feel about writing on violence?’ Have you ever heard a male crime writer being asked, ‘As a man, how do you feel about writing about violence?’ ”

McDermid keeps it real: this debate is about men and women, and mostly about women, a “demographic” that contains multitudes, that is comprised of individuals who may resist any label, even that of “woman.” So it’s a debate about humans, and it turns on the question “Are Women Human?” Not when they are being lumped into unhelpful categories so that they can be lazily scrutinized by the press.

The New Yorker

usydwomenscollective:

abbyjean:

Ever since the abuse occurred, the media has been fixating on Brown and Rihanna, intent on interpreting each and every one of their actions in light of what they say about Brown’s abuse of Rihanna, or about Rihanna’s recovery from said abuse, or about domestic abuse in general. Nowadays, they’re less important to us as pop stars than as the means by which we have a national conversation about abuse. And that conversation is important. But centering it all on one famous couple distorts the truth, and may prevent people from understanding some key things about abusive relationships.

For starters: Chris Brown is not the only abuser in the world. He’s just one of the most immediately recognizable. Too many people treat Chris Brown as if he is some uniquely monstrous villain; instead of recognizing that abuse is often rooted just as much in cultural norms as in individual psychology (specifically, those cultural norms that say men should be dominant, and respond to perceived threats to their dominance with aggression, and that women’s bodies and lives should be subject to outside control) they make it a conversation about whether he is a bad person. He just might be! But, to minimize or eliminate abuse, we can’t focus on saving each and every individual soul. We have to focus on changing the culture.

Then, there’s the Rihanna coverage. It’s rare to see her name without a mention of the abuse close by. And far too many people feel the need to weight in on whether her actions are “healthy” or “appropriate” or “right” for someone who has been abused – that is to say, whether she’s a good abuse survivor or a bad one.

In conversations about abuse, personal virtue – heck, personality in general – is beside the point. But it keeps getting introduced, and undermining the points at hand. The fact is that abuse is abuse is abuse: even if you are the least likable person in the entire world, it is still wrong for your partner to beat you up. Even if you spend your weekends giving away free puppies and hugs to sad orphans, beating your partner up is still wrong. So, here’s my suggestion: why don’t we stop talking about whether Chris Brown is good or bad, stop talking about whether Rihanna is good or bad, and start talking about abuse itself? Because that’s really bad. And its badness is not mitigated in any way by who does it to whom. (the infinitely wise sady at bitch)