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Why are our heroines losing their heads?	Posted by Maralann on 11 Jan 2014

the disturbing trends of YA cover girls

By: Stephanie Campisi

Wandering the young adult literature shelves these days is a Warholian experience: selecting a handful of books within the same subgenre and placing them side by side can yield results not unlike Andy's multi-coloured Campbell's Soup print.

At first glance, the plethora of similar covers speaks merely of a combination of slashed design budgets and a “me-too” mindset. But further analysis shows that these covers are not simply perpetuating the overuse of iStock photo images, but also a number of highly problematic messages.

The first of these is the headless heroine, which though perfectly suitable for a retelling of Sleepy Hollow is less so for other types of fiction. This approach to cover design involves photographic covers depicting women whose heads have been either partially or wholly cropped. Ostensibly this is to allow the reader to “imagine” the character, but in reality the result is objectification and dehumanisation—and often with lashings of frothy bubblegum pink

Fortunately, these types of designs have been subject to a high degree of scrutiny and criticism, and is slowly waning as the stylistic choice du jour. But that's not to say that the subsequent trends are any more positive.

Currently rife throughout the paranormal subgenre is the “sicky lass in pretty gown” cover trend. These covers--and owing to the overall popularity of this genre there are a disturbing number of them--typically comprise a pale-skinned girl dressed in a formal gown and being positioned in such a way that she seems utterly without agency. It's not unusual for these covers to depict girls swooning, lying helplessly on the ground, or leaping—one presumes—to oblivion. Indeed, Rachel Stark (assistant marketing manager of Bloomsbury and Walker Books for young readers) describes these covers as as representative of our “obsession with an elegant death”.

Such covers go beyond the issues raised by the headless heroine trend in that not only do they objectify the subject, but they seem to be normalising violence, and particularly romantic violence—which in this genre is all too often depicted as an “all-consuming” relationship to the detriment of (most usually) the heroine.

However, while some elements are overrepresented in young adult cover design, others are underrepresented, one of which being the use of people of colour in cover design. Admittedly, there are proportionally too few POC in young adult fiction generally, but even taking this into account the representation of such characters on book covers has been one that has invited much discussion and debate. Anecdotally, it seems that covers featuring POC main characters are less likely to receive a photographic cover. In addition, cases of “white washing” aren't unheard of: Justine Larbalestier's Liar Liar, which was originally released (in the US) with a white cover model despite having a POC main character is one case that received a good deal of attention.

But not all publishers are getting it wrong. In the past year there have been a number of evocative covers that don't rely on any of the above in their appeal to their audience. Take, for example, the stunning The Sky is Everywhere, which is elegant and evocative, Cath Crowley's eye-catching Graffiti Moon (which won an APA book design award) or Lia Weston's The Fortunes of Ruby White, or the two examples below of Laurie Halse Anderson's Chains. These, of course, are just a few of the many excellent designs out there—and with luck publishers will consider the issues raised by their cover designs and ensure that covers like these prevail.

Stephanie is a reviewer for 'Read in a Single Sitting'

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Violent Economic “Reforms”, and the Growing Violence against Women	Posted by Bernadette on 31 Dec 2013

By Vandana Shiva

Today the brave and courageous survivor of the Delhi gang rape breathed her last. This blog is a tribute to her and other victims of violence against women.

Violence against women is as old as patriarchy. But it has intensified and become more pervasive in the recent past. It has taken on more brutal forms, like the murder of the Delhi gang rape victim and the suicide of the 17 year old rape victim in Chandigarh.

Rape cases and cases of violence against women have increased over the years. The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) reported 10,068 rape cases in 1990 which increased to 16496 in 2000. With 24,206 cases in 2011, rape cases jumped to incredible increase of 873%from 1971 when NCRB started to record cases of rape. And Delhi has emerged as the rape capital of India, accounting for 25% cases.

The movement to stop this violence must be sustained till justice is done for every one of our daughters and sisters who has been violated.

And while we intensify our struggle for justice for women ,we need to also ask why rape cases have increased 240% since 1990’s when the New Economic policies were introduced. We need to examine the roots of the growing violence against women.

Could there be a connection between the growth of violent, undemocratically imposed, unjust and unfair, economic policies and the growth of crimes against women?

I believe there is.

Firstly, the economic model focusing myopically on “growth”, begins with violence against women by discounting their contribution to the economy.

The more the government talks ad nauseum about “inclusive growth" and “Financial inclusion,” the more it excludes the contributions of women to the economy and society. According to patriarchal economic models, production for sustenance is counted as ‘non-production’. The transformation of value into disvalue, labour into non-labour, knowledge into non-knowledge, is achieved by the most powerful number that rules our lives, the patriarchal construct of GDP, Gross Domestic Product, which commentators have started to call the Gross Domestic Problem.

National accounting systems which are used for calculating growth as GDP are based on the assumption that if producers consume what they produce, they do not in fact produce at all, because they fall outside the production boundary.

The production boundary is a political creation that, in its workings, excludes regenerative and renewable production cycles from the area of production. Hence, all women who produce for their families, children, community, society, are treated as ‘non-productive’ and ‘economically’ inactive. When economies are confined to the market place, economic self sufficiency is perceived as economic deficiency. The devaluation of women’s work, and of work done in subsistence economies of the South, is the natural outcome of a production boundary constructed by capitalist patriarchy.

By restricting itself to the values of the market economy, as defined by capitalist patriarchy, the production boundary ignores economic value in the two vital economies which are necessary to ecological and human survival. They are the areas of nature’s economy, and sustenance economy. In nature’s economy and sustenance economy, economic value is a measure of how the earth’s life and human life are protected. Its currency is life giving processes, not cash or the market price.

Secondly, a model of capitalist patriarchy which excludes women’s work and wealth creation in the mind, deepens the violence by displacing women from their livelihoods and alienating them from the natural resources on which their livelihoods depend- their land, their forests, their water, their seeds and biodiversity. Economic reforms based on the idea of limitless growth in a limited world, can only be maintained by the powerful grabbing the resources of the vulnerable. The resource grab that is essential for “growth” creates a culture of rape –the rape of the earth, of local self reliant economies, the rape of women. The only way in which this “growth” is “inclusive” is by its inclusion of ever larger numbers in its circle of violence.

I have repeatedly stressed that the rape of the Earth and rape of women are intimately linked, both metaphorically in shaping worldviews, and materially in shaping women’s everyday lives. The deepening economic vulnerability of women makes them more vulnerable to all forms of violence, including sexual assault, as we found out during a series of public hearings on the impact of economic reforms on women organized by the National commission on Women and the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology .

Thirdly, economic reforms lead to the subversion of democracy and privatization of government. Economic systems influence political systems. The government talks of economic reforms as if they have nothing to do with politics and power. They talk of keeping politics out of economics, even while they impose an economic model shaped by the politics of a particular gender and class. Neoliberal reforms work against democracy. We have seen this recently in the government pushing through ‘reforms’ to bring in Walmart through FDI in retail. Corporate driven reforms create a convergence or economic and political power, deepening of inequalities, and a growing separation of the political class from the will of the people they are supposed to represent. This is at the root of the disconnect between politicians and the public which we experienced during the protests that have grown since the Delhi gang rape.

Worse, an alienated political class is afraid of its own citizens. This is what explains the increasing use of police to crush non violent citizen protests as we have witnessed in Delhi. Or in the torture of Soni Sori in Bastar. Or in the arrest of Dayamani Barla in Jharkhand. Or the thousands of cases against the communities struggling against the nuclear power plant in Kudankulam. A privatized corporate state must rapidly become a police state.

This is why the politicians must surround themselves with ever increasing VIP security, diverting the police from their important duties to protect women and ordinary citizens.

Fourthly, the economic model shaped by capitalist patriarchy is based on the commodification of everything ,including women. When we stopped the WTO Ministerial in Seattle, our slogan was “Our world is not for Sale”.

An economics of deregulation of commerce, of privatization and commodification of seeds and food, land and water, women and children unleashed by economic liberalisation, degrades social values, deepens patriarchy, and intensifies violence against women.

Economic systems influence culture and social values. An economics of commodification creates a culture of commodification, where everything has a price, and nothing has value.

The growing culture of rape is a social externality of economic reforms. We need to institutionalize social audits of the neo-liberal policies which are a central instrument of patriarchy in our times. If there was a social audit of corporatizing our seed sector, 270000 farmers would not have been pushed to suicide in India since the new economic policies were introduced. If their was a social audit of the corporatization of our food and agriculture, we would not have every fourth Indian hungry, every third woman malnourished, and every second child wasted and stunted due to severe malnutrition. India today would not be Republic of Hunger that Dr Utsa Patnaik has written about.

The victim of the Delhi gang rape has triggered a social revolution. We must sustain it, deepen it, expand it. We must demand and get speedy and effective justice for women. We must call for fast track courts to convict those responsible for crimes against women. We must make sure laws are changed so justice is not elusive for victims of sexual violence. We must continue the demand for blacklisting of politicians with criminal records.

And while do all this we need to change the ruling paradigm which is imposed on us in the name of “growth”, and which is fuelling increasing crimes against women. Ending violence against women includes moving beyond the violent economy shaped by capitalist patriarchy to nonviolent peaceful, economies which give respect to women and the Earth.

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Take back the night – Again	Posted by Bernadette on 14 Dec 2013

By: Helen Lobato

Jen takes her dog walking at night.

“It’s dark now and you don’t know who’s lurking,” I warn her.

My sister tells me she’s not afraid; she’s lived in the area for twenty years.

She carries her phone. “I wouldn’t take any chances around your area though.”

“There’s the park, the creek, lots of open space - it’s different,” she cautions me in turn.

I question our constant vigilance, our awareness of self, and our surroundings, when what we crave is to be able to switch off, enjoy the moment, the walk.

Why must women be alert, careful of parked cars, and men on the prowl?

Yes, fearful, cautious of MEN: our husbands, lovers, sons, fathers. We live with them, care for them, even love them sometimes.

The senseless rape and murder of Jill Meagher in September brought many of us undone. The loss of Jill as a wife, daughter, friend, sister, colleague must be just too much to bear for those close to her.

Many women have felt reasonably safe walking alone at night even along notorious streets such as Sydney Road, Brunswick. As a liberated, western woman, Jill Meagher was able to go out and enjoy herself without her husband. She was a young woman with an interesting career at the local ABC radio station, a modern marriage- not encumbered with children unless and if she chose to be.

After hearing that Jill had been raped and murdered on her last, short walk home, many women began to question their own safety and wonder if they would ever be free from male violence

As it is women are still being bashed, raped and murdered in their own homes and on the streets. Victorian police statistics show a steady annual increase in reported rapes in recent years, including an 11.8 per cent increase in 2010-2011.

The shocked, saddened and sympathetic community responded to the rape and murder of Jill Meagher by holding a peace march where an estimated 30,000 people walked along Sydney Road, Brunswick.

Associate Professor, School of Social Sciences and Psychology at Victoria University, Julie Stephens opined that while the march was ‘a remarkable event in many ways, notable for its scale, diversity and unprompted display of public grief, it was also a thoroughly depoliticised occasion, rendering ineffective any claim to genuinely challenge violence against women. It was a peace march with little reference, except in the most abstract sense, to the nature of the war it was opposing.’

Stephens accuses the media of neglecting the analysis that male violence towards women is about power and domination and structural gender inequalities. News reporting referred to the murder as a “random” and “extremely rare event”.

Media analysis was devoid of anything remotely resembling an analysis of male violence and rape and the fact that the fear and practice of rape has long been used as a way of keeping women in line.

Rape is man's basic weapon of force against woman, the principal agent of his will and her fear. From prehistoric times to the present, rape has played a critical function. It is nothing more or less than a conscious process of intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of fear. -Susan Brownmiller in Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape.

Yes, men joined in the outrage over the rape and murder of Jill Meagher and even organized many of the marches. But without a public conversation that discusses issues of male rape of women, then no amount of peace marching will curb the numbers of women raped and murdered by men.

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Shades of Grey: What now that BDSM has gone mainstream?	Posted by Bernadette on 05 Dec 2013

By: Susan Hawthorne

In mid-November Fifty Shades of Grey was listed for the Britain’s National Book Award in the popular fiction category. It was selected by ’50 book experts, made up of booksellers and trade journalists’ (Morris 2012). It has now sold 60 million copies worldwide, 3 million of those in Australia.

This book is paraded as a great read because 60 million people can’t be wrong. In fact, 60 million can be wrong. That the book has done so well is in part due to curiosity, to massive promotion in the media and at the front of bookstores, to controversy, but most importantly to the pornification of society that we have seen in recent years. If you have read Anne Summers’ (2012) talk about Julia Gillard that preceded Gillard’s (2012) misogyny speech, you will be aware of the level of vilification and violence directed against women. When a prime minister can be depicted with a dildo (just to give an example of one of the horrid misogynist attacks on Julia Gillard) then a book like Fifty Shades of Grey finds an easy position as a bestseller.

Anastasia Steele is the main character in the book, alongside billionaire Christian Grey. Anastasia expresses her confusion in a series of emails with Christian Grey that follows him spanking her to the point where she cannot sit comfortably. Anastasia writes that she feels ‘demeaned, debased, and abused’ (James 2011: 292). She receives the following email from Christian:

If that is how you feel, do you think you could just try to embrace these feelings, deal with them for me? That’s what a submissive would do.

I am grateful for your inexperience. I value it, and I’m only beginning to understand what it means. Simply put … it means that you are mine in every way (James 2011: 293).

What Christian Grey demands is total control. There is the pretense at consent and one of the very disturbing parts of this book is the so-called ‘contract’, which specifies what can and cannot be done. But Grey puts it all down to ‘It’s the way I’m made’ (James 2011: 287). That is, he avoids responsibility. Susanne Kappeler in her 1995 book, The Will to Violence analyses the way in which irresponsibility is coded into dominance. She writes:

Self-pathologizing and its attendant claim to incapability are thus the last resort of the relatively powerful in trying to outbid those with less power in terms of victim status (Kappeler 1995: 75).

Radical feminists have critiqued practices of BDSM for many years. In 1979, Kathleen Barry published Female Sexual Slavery in which she identifies the process of ‘sex colonization’.

Sex colonization is insidious. Not only are women dominated as a group–socially, politically, economically–but unlike any other colonized group, they must share the homes and beds of the colonizer (Barry 1979: 195).

Kathleen Barry goes on to identify prostitution, domestic violence, female genital mutilation and pornographic snuff films as instances of sex colonization. Furthermore, that when a woman is raped, gagged, deflowered, brutalized, she will ‘be even happier, having forgotten that she was raped’ (Barry 1979: 208).

Fifty Shades of Grey and the subsequent volumes have been bought by seven percent of the Australian population by (apparently) middle class, middle-aged women (these are the rumours about who has bought the book). So what is it that makes both EL James (Erika Leonard), the writer, and the women who read Fifty Shades of Grey not be offended by it?

It is an easy mistake for women to make, women whose culture trains them long and carefully to respond to masochism. An education in masochism is generally part of the conditioning of any group who experience being despised; their response of identifying with what degrades and humiliates them is illogical only on the surface: in fact, it has been carefully cultivated in them (Millett 1994: 160).

Fifty Shades of Grey is defended on the basis that it is simply fantasy and no one is harmed by just reading a book. But what is fantasy? I have never heard the word used in sexual contexts except as a way of defending a practice that has some kind of social opprobrium. And in the far majority of cases, it is used:

• to defend men’s use of women as objects of rape or violence;

• in a reversal, it is used by women to escape the terror of rape by turning rape into a fantasy;

• it is used by practitioners of S/M or BDSM to justify their actions;

• it is used by paedophiles to explain away thousands of images of child pornography on personal computers;

• it is used by the pornography industry, SEXPO and makers of pornography who claim that they are just satisfying the fantasies of their customers.

The other aspect of Fifty Shades of Grey is the portrayal of wealth and power. There is nothing new about this trope. It appears in de Sade’s writings, in The Story of O (Reage 1981) and other books paraded as literature because they portray the powerful. Christian Grey is a man of great wealth, He runs a profitable company, owns a helicopter, can buy Anastasia an Audi, lives in a large apartment where he has his Red Room and various staff, and he is highly mobile. He comes from a family of wealth who are part of the establishment (later the reader discovers his birth origins). Against this, Anastasia is a virgin, she has few assets other than an old Beetle, is just finishing her university course, she works in a hardware store and was raised by a single mother.

What is carried out in these places of wealth is then copied in the houses of ordinary men who see their homes as their castles, but instead of it being the luxury of pornography, it becomes what that pornography really is: domestic violence, abuse of women.

Or as Clare Philipson, Director of Women in Need who has worked with victims of domestic violence for thirty years says about Fifty Shades of Grey:

It really is about a domestic violence perpetrator, taking someone who is less powerful, inexperienced, not entirely confident about the area of life she is being led into, and then spinning her a yarn. Then he starts doing absolutely horrific sexual things to her … He gradually moves her boundaries, normalising the violence against her. It's the whole mythology that women want to be hurt (cited in Flood 2012).

The representation of women in porn fiction promotes the extinction of women (Barry 1979: 252) and a free for all for men's dominance.

The most disturbing part of this book is chapter 11 where a contract is presented by Christian Grey to Anastasia Steel. This contract outlines precisely how she should behave. She has to be totally available to him at call. This is a male fantasy of a fuck on legs: wherever whenever, whatever. To quote the contract, ‘… in any manner he deems fit, sexually or otherwise’ (James 2011: 165). The Submissive, on the other hand

• shall accept without question

• remember her status and role in regard to the Dominant

• shall not pleasure herself sexually without permission

• shall submit to any sexual activity… without hesitation or argument

• shall not look directly into the eyes of the Dominant

• shall keep her eyes cast down

• shall address him only as Sir, Mr Grey or other title as the Dominant may direct

• will not touch the Dominant without his express permission (James 2011: 170).

Contracts of consent are made by the powerful when they have to deal with the powerless who might later bring a case against them. While in theory a contract is meant to be an agreement, in reality it is primarily entered into to protect the powerful. Consent under such conditions is no such thing. It is fake consent.

In this situation, however, there is another layer of complexity. It seems likely to me that for women in relationships that do not come up to scratch and who are subjected to some of the violations in this novel, it is possible that an agreement with soft and hard limits might well seem like a better option. Combined with socialization, to perennial fear, to confusion, normalization and colonization along with the attractiveness of wealth and power, the popularity of this book is not inexplicable. It is in fact an indication of just how successful all the social forces against women are.

BDSM has become mainstream. And there are many defenders of BDSM. This is not surprising. You can attend classes in BDSM, you can make your career in queer studies, as Margot Weiss (2011) in the US has done by writing about these classes, presenting them as healing the tortured soul, by turning violence into a sexy career move. Or you can do what Pat Califia has done, join the men and become Patrick. Her Lesbian SM Safety Manual contains the following piece of advice:

By reviving the notion that sex is dirty, naughty, and disgusting, you can profoundly thrill some lucky, jaded lesbian by transforming her into a public toilet or bitch in heat (Califia, 1988: 52).

As Kathleen Barry said in 1979:

To live in a society where blueprints for female enslavement and gynocide abound is intolerable (Barry 1979: 252).

So what can we radical feminists do?

• we need to keep talking

• we need to read and re-read the works of radical feminists

• we need to boycott books like this except for the purposes of critique

• we need to be talking with students, friends, sisters, mothers about the way women’s lives are destroyed through pornography, anything-goes sexual practices, patriarchal fantasies and violence

• we need to keep going, being creative, resisting the forces which would have us give up in exhaustion

• we need to generate not a gender revolution, but a feminist revolution.

---------------------------------------------

Bibliography

Barry, Kathleen. 1979. Female Sexual Slavery. New York: Avon Books.

Bell, Diane and Renate Klein (Eds). 1996. Radically Speaking: Feminism Reclaimed. Melbourne: Spinifex Press.

Brodribb, Somer. 1992. Nothing Mat(t)ers. Melbourne: Spinifex Press.

Califia, Pat. (Ed.) 1988. The Lesbian S/M Safety Manual. Boston: Alyson Publications.

Flood, Alison. 2012. Fifty Shades of Grey condemned as 'manual for sexual torture'. guardian.co.uk, Friday 24 August. http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/aug/24/fifty-shades-grey-domestic-violence-campaigners

Foster, Judy, with Marlene Derlet. 2013. Invisible Women of Prehistory: Three million years of peace, six thousand years of war. Melbourne: Spinifex Press.

Gillard, Julia. 2012. Transcript of Julia Gillard’s Speech. Delivered to the Australian Parliament on 9 October, 2012. http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/transcript-of-julia-gillards-speech-20121010-27c36.html

Hawthorne, Susan. 2011. ‘Capital and the Crimes of Pornographers: Free to lynch, exploit, rape and torture. In Big Porn Inc: Exposing the harms of the global pornography industry, edited by Melinda Tankard Reist and Abigail Bray. Melbourne: Spinifex Press.

James, E.L. 2011. Fifty Shades of Grey. New York: Vintage.

Jeffreys, Sheila. 1990/2011. Anticlimax: A feminist perspective on the sexual revolution. Melbourne: Spinifex Press.

Jeffreys, Sheila. 1993. The Lesbian Heresy. Melbourne: Spinifex Press.

Kappeler, Susanne. 1995. The Will to Violence: The politics of personal behaviour. Melbourne: Spinifex Press.

Klein, Renate. 2011. ‘Big Porn + Big Pharma: Where the pornography industry meets the ideology of medicalization.’ In Big Porn Inc: Exposing the harms of the global pornography industry, edited by Melinda Tankard Reist and Abigail Bray. Melbourne: Spinifex Press.

Millett, Kate. 1994. The Politics of Cruelty: An Essay on the Literature of Political Imprisonment. London: W.W. Norton.

Morris, Linda. 2012. ‘Stiff competitor: Fifty Shades up for British book award’. http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/books/stiff-competitor-fifty-shades-up-for-british-book-award-20121114-29bmu.html

Reage, Pauline. 1981. The Story of O. New York: Ballantine Books.

Summers, Anne. 2012. ‘Her Rights at Work.’ Lecture delivered at 2012 Human Rights and Social Justice Lecture University of Newcastle 31 August 2012. http://annesummers.com.au/speeches/her-rights-at-work-r-rated/

Weiss, Margot. 2011. Techniques of Pleasure: BDSM and the Circuits of Sexuality. Duke University Press.

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Ethical gift-giving guide	Posted by Bernadette on 04 Dec 2013

The Spinifex Christmas blog is back!

The wonderful Collecitve Shout have again released their 'Cross 'em off your Xmas list' list. It's an important reminder and warning that you’ll be bombarded with gender-stereotyped, sexist advertising, as well as a whole lot of opportunities to buy gifts from dubious sources.

So to help you, helps others, help the environment and help stop sexploitation we’ve compiled a list of some of the better places to buy Christmas gifts for the people you love.

Seasons Greetings!

Spinifex

Wrapping and Cards:

Ethical Superstore

Mokoh Handmade in Australia

For the kids:

Honeybee Toys

Tribes and Nations

Ethical Kidz

Ornaments and Decorations:

Serrv – they sell fair trade ornaments and just about anything you can think of. Every dollar you spend on this not for profit website goes towards helping eradicate poverty.

Ethical Gifts

Cosmetics and Beauty:

Natio

Botani

Books: Support independent bookstores and shop small this Christmas! For a comprehensive list of all independent booksellers, check out: www.indies.com.au

Readings

Gleebooks

The Paperback Bookshop

Metropolis Bookshop

Lip Yearbook - we love lipmag, and are so excited for their Lip Yearbook; a fantastic roundup of excellent feminist content from 2013!
Spinifex Press - and don't forget that Spinifex is offering free-shipping on all Australian and New Zealand orders throughout December! PLUS, if you buy three books - you'll get Suniti Namjoshi's The Fabulous Feminist for free!

Jewellery:

Simone Walsh – Eco friendly Australian made jewellery.

Eden Dreams

Little things to fill the stocking:

Keep cup these cups are sustainable, brilliant for your morning coffee and best of all, you can personalise the colours!

Shain’s Customisable Bracelets

McGrath Foundation – Pink things to fill the stocking

For a broad range

Home Furnishings

Clothing and Accessories

Modern Girl Blitz - possibly the coolest store on Etsy. They sell a 'Feminist Banner Necklace' ... need we say more?

Alternative Giving Ideas

Tree People – Make a donation and they’ll plant a tree in someone’s name, they’ll even send the person a card or certificate.

WWF – Adopt an animal on somebody’s behalf!

Kiva – Make a loan to an entrepreneur in the developing world. Even something as small as $25 can help immensely. You’ll be paid every dollar of it back and will be regularly updated on the progress of your entrepreneur and how your money is being used.

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