A medieval philosopher goes on a slut walk

If you're at all like me, you'll be irritated to hell by the nasty little comments people have been making about the slut walks. So let's get a few things straight.

Women, on the whole, do not dress up in short dresses because they want strangers to pay them for sex.

Those who do, actually want to enter into some sort of contract with their potential customers, that is, they must agree to serve them and settle on a price for their service. They are not free for all.

No woman, sex worker or otherwise, wants to be raped. This means, amongst other things, that choice of clothing never indicates the desire to be sexually assaulted, by strangers or otherwise. And that still obtains even with very short skirts and very low cut tops.

To think otherwise is utterly unreasonable. Men who work in construction often go topless, sometime showing off the proverbial builder's crack. Do we think that they are thereby inviting somebody bigger and stronger than them to take them by force, maybe with the use of the instruments of their trade? No. No one, to my knowledge, has even so much as suggested it. They undress because they're too hot, and because they can.

So granted, women don't always wear skimpy clothes because of the weather. But they do wear them because of fashion. And fashion, whatever one says, is important. A teenage girls who has nothing to do with it will find it harder to make friends - not to find a boyfriend, mind you: teenage boys don't care so much about fashion - they'll find it hard to fit in. Of course that can be character building. But let's face it, we're not all cut out for isolation, and it's actually not bad for us to learn how to fit in with a community of peers.

And then there's work. Who - outside of academia - is going to give a job to a 'frumpy' looking woman? Some jobs actually require you to dress nicely, that is, to wear skirts, and heels. Maybe not short skirts, but once we become used to a certain dress style, we're going to work with it as we can. I think it's outrageous that employers should demand that women dress in a 'feminine' manner, and that the fashion industry should so relentlessly target young women. But they do. So let's not pretend that we, women come up with the idea of wearing skirts all by ourselves.

And we shouldn't get raped for it. Or be blamed when we are.

I was mulling over all this, when I came across very similar arguments in a book I am reading for next semester's teaching. It's by a medieval French philosopher, Christine de Pizan:

I am troubled and grieved when men argue that many women want to be raped and that it does not bother them at all to be raped by men even when they verbally protest. It would be hard to believe that such villainy is actually pleasant for them. (The Book of the City of Ladies II.44)

She goes on to discuss a whole bunch of famous women, from Lucretia onwards, who clearly didn't like being raped.  Then she asks whether women who like to look nice, who are coquettish are doing it to seduce. Nonsense, she says. It's perfectly natural, for men and women, to enjoy pretty things and looking good. It's done, unless one is actually required to dress a certain way, first and foremost for one's enjoyment.

No one should judge someone else's conscience from dress (II.62).

I like to think that if she could time travel, Christine would have put her ink and parchment down, last Saturday, and flown to London to join in the slut walk there. And with her medieval dresses, she would have fitted right in with the colourful and sometimes outlandish outfits that women wore on the march.

Real women don't have caesareans

At least, that's what old Mr Leboyer told Jane Garvey on last weekend's Woman's Hour. Supposedly the grandfather of natural birth, Leboyer told Ms Garvey that her two elective caesareans were a mistake. Her babies were breach, he said? So what: it's natural. She should not have been a coward and should have delivered 'naturally', i.e. through her vagina, and without any painkillers or assistance.

Ms Garvey admirably kept her cool when she asked Leboyer whether he himself had ever given birth, naturally or otherwise. 'Everything I know, I learned from Woman', the old man replied. For years Leboyer was an obstetrician and, in his own words, he supposed that giving birth must be so painful he would inevitably give his patients chloroform. Which does really make one wonder how any of them would have been in a position to comment on the experience.

Never mind, because Leboyer tells us that nothing in the birth giving process can be put into words. In fact, none of the important things in life can be put into words. The birth giving experience is a secret that women discuss with no one, especially not men. Again, Jane Garvey is forced to remind the old man whose memory is clearly no longer at its best, that he is not a woman. But, sharper than I had given him credit for, Leboyer has an answer for this too: the secret cannot be told, but it can be guessed, by wise men. Here one can only assume that Leboyer himself is such a man. Jane Garvey, obviously, is not.

A wise man, of course, can put into words what women cannot. So he goes on to explain what the birthing process really is: it's libidinal - he checks with Garvey that she knows what this means - it is the ultimate goal of the sexual experience.


Jane Garvey takes her job very seriously: instead of killing the old man on the spot, she probes him about other aspects of his theory: are there no circumstances where the medicalisation of childbirth is at all useful? What about the fact that so many women die of childbirth in the developing world?

'A lie!' insists Leboyer. A myth made up to stop you feeling guilty when you have caesareans! Giving birth dangerously is an essential part of the experience of being a woman, he says. When a woman gives birth, there comes a point when she thinks she is going to die. Then she is no longer afraid of death. This is what makes her a real woman.

Now I'm all sympathies with the view that child birth is over-medicalised. There are way too many places where women are advised to have caesareans when they don't need them, and without them being properly informed about the adjoining risks. I also don't like that in hospitals, we are trussed up like animals, lying on our backs with our feet up in stirrups, when it's really the worst possible position in terms of ease and comfort. I also feel that more women should have the option of being attended by midwives or doulas during the birth process, rather than - often male - doctors. Incidentally, what is Leboyer's view on the place of the midwife? In the kitchen, making coffee!

Whatever next, we think? Should the husband be waiting outside, ready to light his cigar? Mais oui! Leboyer tells us that birthgiving is a private experience between the mother and the child. On no account should the husband be part of it as he would break the woman's concentration.

At the very least, one hopes at this point that what he says is meant to be empowering for women - in his own twisted way. Wrong again: women, he says, do nothing during the birth process. It is the babies that do all the work.

At this point, all we can do is thank Mr Leboyer for his wonderfully encouraging words and thank the universe that because he's ninety he won't be with us much longer to say those words. Oh yes, and tell every one you know not to buy his book. Much cheaper to buy toilet rolls at the super market.

L'argent et les femmes

According to Le Monde on Sunday afternoon, after Dominique Strauss-Kahn's arrest in NY on charges on rape, DSK, the potential (not any more!) future leader of the French left, has two weaknesses: money and women.

Some days, most days, I'm glad I'm no longer live in France because of shit like this. Some days, I wish I was still there so I could spend more time kicking the arses of bastards who write and think that stuff. As it is, I'm limited to virtual arse-kicking.

So let's have it. We, women, are not a weakness. We are not a treat that you can become addicted to, or that you need somehow to resist. We are not displayed, as in a shop window, to tempt you into having sex with us. In fact, if you're an old ugly bastard like DSK, we'd, very frankly, rather iron our tits than have sex with you.

Oh, but they say, French women are not like that. They're attracted to power. 

Listen, busters - I know there's many of you out there who think like that - I'm a French woman. And I know power is not really, of itself, an aphrodisiac. It can be, in the right circumstances, with someone attractive, some very clear rules, and a safe word. But when someone like DSK thinks he's getting laid by people who are not his wife because he's powerful, I think he seriously misunderstands the chain of causation that leads from his position at the head of the IMF to the women in his bed. Basically there's two ways in which it works.

1) As a powerful man, he has many people at his beck and call. If a woman says no to him, she can either be raped and no one will say anything, or lose her job, and no one will say anything.

2) In some very rare cases, a woman may choose to sleep with an ugly bastard because he may help advance her career. But, before we get all judgy here, I would like to exert some caution: it's often unclear whether a woman who sleeps with someone and sees her career move forward as a result really had any choice at all. The alternative may well have been what I describe in (1).

As to all those people who believe that,  like Assange, DSK was set up by bankers who want to keep the left out of their money - that's neither here nor there.
What, to my mind, is rather disgusting, is that these men were aware of DSK's 'weakness', i.e. his propensity to indulge in sexual harassment and rape, and only chose to use it when their money was threatened.

Am I under any illusions that the bankers and right wing politicians are less likely than the men on the left to abuse women? Certainly not. I reckon they go to the same orgies - the only difference being that when the orgy is over the right-wing men go to church and the lefties go home to cook with their wives.

Conclusion: there's way too many bastards out there who think that women are treats they can consume, with only one scruple: that having too many is bad for their political diet. So let's not be surprised if they don't stop dishing out sexist policies that disadvantage women in all aspects of life, any time soon.