radpresscreceipts:

Females have no legitimate right to exist under patriarchy. This simple fact is demonstrated by the number of female foetuses that are aborted worldwide each year; by the fact that Chinese men divorce their wives for bearing girl children; by the fact that PIV is regarded as a benign act of mutual pleasure; or that women worldwide scrabble for the economic scraps that are left over after men have finished dining; and by the fact that poverty is feminized, while wealth and power are masculinised.

If they survive foeticide, and following that, if they survive childhood sexual abuse etc, and live through girlhood, then the chances of an adult woman getting raped or killed by a man is pretty high. Homelessness  inevitably leads to prostitution, which is probably the quickest and most efficient route to an early death for any human being. Fancy dying? Feeling a little suicidal? Become a prostitute. [NOT that I want to remove the agent here. Clearly, “becoming a prostitute” is not what kills women. It’s the men they encounter whilst in prostitution who actually kill them.]

But there are certain things that women can do to buy time. A type of barter, or bargaining, if you like. A woman can never be fully legitimate, but there are certain actions she can take to appeal to the oppressors, and I want to look at some of these.

The obvious way to buy yourself some legitimacy is through marriage and motherhood. Having become an adjunct to a man and birthed “his” children, you are allowed a certain amount of protection on his behalf, because he sure can’t be bothered raising the children himself, and society recognizes that somebody has to do the shitwork involved in raising children, so it might as well be delegated to the woman who birthed them. But it’s also a pat on the head for doing what you were put on earth for. It is regarded as earned dividends, and she is entitled to a little return on investment.

Therefore, a married woman has become somewhat legitimate, at least for the period of time that her children are dependant on her. She has bought her right to exist. In Japan, what is interesting is if a woman has paid the piper, so to speak, by bearing children inside wedlock (especially sons) then she is granted certain freedoms that other women don’t have. Travel, for example. It is perfectly acceptable for a married mother to travel alone without her husband and children, alone or with friends, to wherever she pleases. Her husband regards this as a sign of his social status, as a father and husband. She may be granted other freedoms, such as the right to have a somewhat messier home than other women. Or once the children are in school she may even get that one thing that women the world over have never had… time to herself. But the price she has had to pay is high,  not least the fact that she could have died in childbirth, or that the interfering ob/gyns at the hospital she birthed at have probably scarred her psychologically for life, but I digress.

Single motherhood does not buy any legitimacy at all, in fact it does the opposite. It increases a woman’s vulnerability, and her chances of being targeted by predators; of being poor and homeless, and of being driven into prostitution. Political policies in most countries reflect a deep-seated contempt for single mothers, so the fact that you risked your life to for the species does not afford you any legitimacy at all. If a woman is a single mother, she had better make sure her house is in tip-top condition, that her children’s behaviour is exemplary, that she minds her Ps and Qs at her workplace, that she puts up with her boss’s sexual harassment, because she’s walking on thin ice, and is never very far away from destitution. Then again, she’s unlikely to be murdered in her own home and she has no man breathing down her neck, but this is not a post about female safety; it’s a post about legitimacy. These very freedoms make her right to exist under patriarchy even more precarious and fragile, which is why single mothers pay for not having a man in the house by being the targets of the politicians who gleefully decide their fate ( and politicians have decreed that single mothers shall be as poor as possible).

Ironically, despite their “disposability”, and workplace hazards such as, oh, you know, being raped every day, prostitutes are actually inadvertently offered a big chunk of the legitimacy pie by the patriarchy. Have you ever noticed that patriarchal society regards visiting prostitutes as transgressive, like something naughty boys get up to when their mother isn’t looking. Phrases such as “necessary evil”, or “oldest profession” (a lie, by the way. Midwifery is the oldest profession), “red light district” mean that a hint of mystery and excitement surrounds the “ladies of the night” , or “belle de jours”. Even though many men are disgusted by prostitutes, and loathe them, they know they need them around, even if they, personally, never visit them. The more conservative the man, the more he is excited by the fact he can visit a whore when nobody is looking. So while a woman still has market value, she has some value, and therefore, a right to exist (until she doesn’t).

Lesbians, however, have no right to exist. Their very existence threatens the structures of patriarchy. They may buy legitimacy through their work, if they’re lucky, but other than that they are not even regarded as disposable, the way that prostitutes are… they are regarded as illegitimate. As in: “why the hell do you even exist? What is your usefulness?” “What are you for…?”

Then there are spinsters. There aren’t many spinsters anymore, but in the past they were, and they were defined by their economic status. It’s not a coincidence that the word “spinster” denotes a certain class, and it also connotes virginity. There were no working class spinsters. This is because only women of certain means were able to buy their way out of getting married, while at the same time retain a certain legitimacy. I believe this is why spinsters were often regarded as staid and conservative, known for doing “good deeds” in the community, such as helping out with orphanages, and the like. They knew they were living on borrowed time….Sheila Jeffreys touched on this issue of women’s right to exist in Spinsters and their Enemies.

“The 1851 census revealed that  there were 405, 000 more women than men in the population. They were described in the press as ‘excess’ or ‘surplus’ women and in the 1860s to 1880s the ‘problem’ of ‘surplus’ women caused great alarm amongst male commentators. Those men who saw women as being superfluous if they were not servicing men, suggested emigration as a solution:

Here’s an example of men’s elaborate wafflings, this time by a man named W.R. Gregg:

We must restore by an emigration of women that natural proportion between the sexes in the old country and in the new ones, which was disturbed by an emigration of men, and both lands… The first difficulty is chiefly mechanical. It is not easy to convey a multitude of women across the Atlantic, or to the Antipodes by any ordinary means or transit. To transport the half million from where they are redundant to where they are wanted, at an average of fifty passengers to each ship, would require 10, 000 vessels, or at least 10, 000 voyages.

Yes, men are insane. 

Jeffreys goes on:

This quotation from W.R. Gregg gives an idea of the total contempt for women who failed to peform their life’s work of servicing men, which the Victorian spinster had to confront. Women who fail to relate to men are still socially disproved of today….The Victorian feminists fought the idea that woman was simply man’s appendage and the very notion that women could be surplus; surplus to the needs of men.

Today, instead of spinsters, we have single, liberal, heterosexual women who somehow manage to retain their legitimacy by popping the contraceptive pill and being ready and willing to sexually serve men. If they are beautiful, their right to exist i.e. their legitimacy under patriarchy increases for the length of time that they remain beautiful. Many women get breast implants, or cosmetic surgery, so that they can improve their chances of working in one of the few areas that women receive decent pay i.e. the “entertainment” or sex industry, so they have bought themselves a pass.

But I believe the motives are deeper. Under patriarchy women who are perceived as beautiful, or feminine, or who have married and born sons, are allowed more leeway. They are allowed to do “mad” things that other women are not. They are slightly immune to the accusation of being slovenly slobs if their sinks and toilets aren’t gleaming. It’s therefore perfectly logical for a woman to invest in her looks. Why not submit to the eugenicists if it means you can buy yourself a little more freedom, while you still can…?

[That last line was a joke, BTW. Sometimes you have to try and make light of this horror show]

*ETA: I wanted to make a note about “spinsters” and class. Although there have always been plenty of unmarried women in the working classes, supporting themselves through domestic work, the word “spinster” nevertheless connotes a higher class (middle, upper-middle).

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