It is interesting where the cross over of feminism, sexism and racism occur or even clash.
I feel angry about the atrocities of FGM. I am startlingly aware of the silence on this from the majority of men and women I know of all ages and races.
Last summer I was at a dinner party – perhaps not the most appropriate place to bring up the subject of FGM- but they were people I knew fairly well .
I was sitting next to a prospective UKIP candidate. I mentioned to him that perhaps UKIP wouldn’t get much of the female vote, as there were no women in the party and a lot of their members were making crass sexist remarks.
This person expressed suprise at my observation. I asked him what his policy, were he elected, to FGM would be. Interestingly his wife was the one who said it was a cultural issue and not our concern – rather overlooking the fact it is illegal in this country and has been for 29 years.
I felt really rather depressed by the comment. If people think something is ” cultural” they are almost saying;
” hands off, it’s racist to interfere. We need to mind our own business”
People are frightened of appearing to criticise others’ cultures. The Asian Paedophile gang in Rochedale got away with their systematic abuse of young girls for years because the police were worried about being branded racisit if they arrested them.
At university recently an eminent gay, female artist was invited to come and talk to us. She is somewhat acerbic, reknown for being cruelly outrageous – this is perhaps why she has survived in an art world where other male artists like Georg Baselitz, with no sense of irony or self doubt, get away with pronouncing that women can’t be great painters as they:
“simply don’t pass the market test, the value test”, adding: “As always, the market is right.”
This female artist talked about 12 Years a Slave adding that she thought it had been too long and thought the film director was like Dereck Jarman, who did beautiful but tedious films . A good film relies on tight editing, otherwise it loses its audience, as in this case ,because in the end she was so bored she said she didn’t care what happened to the “****ing slave”. People laughed. Then she added as an afterthought that a few slaves might be useful to have . Quite a few people laughed , as they do when someone is being totally proposterous. Is this an example of tasteless British humour – saying something outrageous when you don’t really mean it, as comics do?
One of our fellow students is black. He was mortified that we laughed. From his perspective of history it is not a laughing matter.
In the context of all the other outrageous, tasteless things she had said, I don’t necessarilly think her comment was racist. Tasteless certainly. Yet, on reflection, is it OK to get away with tasteless statements just because you are famous?
I do worry however about branding people as racisit. It can also become dangerous if everyone becomes too PC.
Schools, hospitals and social workers so far have not tried to erradicate FGM. Despite the atrocity, some think the parents involved are lovingly following their cultures; doing what they think best for their daughters.
Surely its Abuse, Sexual Abuse and Grevious Bodily Harm?
In Africa especially, a vast proportion of women are mutilated. It’s a form of castration to control them. These women are often treated like slaves. If they come to this country their daughters are still abused in the name of their old customs.
I hate violence and didn’t see the film in question. My sister did, and bearing in mind how long slavery existed in this country – about 300 years, she wondered what she would have done, had she lived as a white person during the time of slavery in Britain.
We all like to think we would have morally questioned it.
FGM is a way of enslaving women for over 5000 years. Let’s get everyone involved now and abolish it.
