This week, Featured Author Victoria Smith explores the dissonance between acknowledging the female body’s ties to others and viewing women as individual, fully human, persons; between sex denialism and biological essentialism.
We Are More Than Who We Say We Are
Victoria Smith
If one feels faced with the admittedly “unpalatable and unrealistic choice between becoming ‘male’ or not becoming individuals,” many women would rather deny their sex. I think I would too, if I accepted the male-centric model of the individual as the only one possible. Perhaps I too would live with incoherence and moral inconsistency—even risk to others—if I thought the only alternative to denying my sex was to accept the patriarchal worldview described by Andrea Dworkin in Right-Wing Women. On such a view, women are “not distinguishable from the animals,” meant only for providing sexual pleasure and offspring to men. In such a world, who wouldn’t rather, as Adrienne Rich wrote, “travel as a disembodied spirit”?
Around the Web:
Next, Elizabeth Kulze reports on the rise of childbirth trauma, an issue affecting up to one third of birthing mothers.
Childbirth Trauma: The Human Rights Issue Nobody Really Cares About
In my anecdotal experience, there isn’t a single area of life in which women are more resigned to suffering and dehumanizing treatment than childbirth. It took my own mother, a woman with robust medical knowledge, thirty years to even begin to question whether or not the harm and suffering she and my brother endured during and after his birth could have been avoided. And it’s not uncommon that I find myself listening to other women as they one up each other with their dramatic childbirth stories, seemingly unaware that the treatment they were subjected to would be considered inhumane in any other context. As I listen to these stories, it’s often quite easy to imagine that they’re casually detailing their experiences of rape, which uncoincidentally is the most common analogy made by victims of childbirth trauma.
This summer, everyone is talking about the hit novel Yesteryear. In our next curated piece, Featured Author Louise Perry makes the case that it is a spiteful fantasy directed towards Hannah Neeleman of Ballerina Farm. Featured Author Helen Roy has a similar view of Yesteryear as a form of “revenge porn.” (And don’t forget Editor Serena Sigillito’s review of the book as a satire of the “empty self.”)
Caro Claire Burke Has a Problem With Women
Louise Perry
Ms. Neeleman has attracted criticism for her idyllic portrayal of life on Ballerina Farm. Some critics accuse her of exaggerating the ruggedness of a lifestyle that actually includes some very expensive domestic appliances. Others suggest that she is subjugated by her domineering husband. I had wondered if this scrutiny might be an expression of genuine concern for Ms. Neeleman’s welfare, but the success of “Yesteryear” makes me doubt that. This novel is a woman-hating revenge fantasy, and it has found an enthusiastic audience among other women.
More Great Reads & Listens:
The Strange Appeal of the Solitude Influencer, Faith Hill, The Atlantic
Gen Z and Men Who Yearn, Beatrice Scudeler, Public Discourse
“You Are Not Enough People!”, Louise Perry and Eli J Finkel, Maiden Mother Matriarch
Breast Massages and Blood, Elizabeth Oldfield, Fully Alive
All the Straight Ladies, Emma Camp, WSJ Free Expression
For Canadian readers: Women & Girls Alberta has launched a new initiative to gather testimony of the denial of women’s sex-based rights. Share your own stories confidentially here.
Women, We Deserve Better Than This, Melinda French Gates, The New York Times
In Loving Memory:
This week, we are very sorry to report the passing of Alisia Chase, art historian and the very first author ever published at Fairer Disputations. You can find her obituary here. For our “from the archives” piece this week, we invite you to read Alisia’s reflection on Shazia Sikhander’s sculpture, NOW.
Sculpting Autonomy: The New Idol Demands Sacrifice
Alisia Grace Chase
“NOW rejects biological reality and any connection to another living being, whether those who came before her or those who will follow. It is a fitting monument for a society that believes women’s agency is founded on complete autonomy.”