Feminism
What does it mean to do generous research?
Academia is often thought to function as a reciprocal gift economy, but do its methods and styles always work this way? Rachelle Chadwick draws on her recent research to consider what it means to take generosity as a serious academic position. We normally think of generosity as an individual character trait. At first glance, generosity … Continued
Foco Feminism?: Rethinking the Ethics of Feminist Anti-Militarism
I was recently invited to contribute a paper to a special issue on the legacy of Che Guevara, published by Globalizations. As a feminist working at the intersection of international security and global political economy, I wanted to use the opportunity to seriously engage with Che’s normative contribution to theories of resistance. The call prompted me to think about the ethics of feminist anti-militarism and whether my feminism left room for support for the type of revolutionary violence we associate with Che.
For over a century, feminism has been critical of men’s wars and of the ideology of militarism that both reinforces patriarchy and normalizes the idea of lethal violence as “politics by other means.” They have pointed to the way the military operationalizes misogyny to normatively construct ‘good soldiers’ and wider social values about what it means to be a man. They argue that the logic of militarism requires all men to be socialized into a readiness to fight and die for the protection of their women. The cultural glorification of military service and armed violence is, for feminists, a key part of the social totality of patriarchy – this is true whether the organized lethal force is used for war or in so-called ‘peace operations,’ which, rather than addressing root causes of social conflict have tended to operate more as ‘wars of extraction’ and port with them all the same violent and patriarchal logics of war. These logics of militarism result in increased rates of gendered violence, environmental degradation and ecological destruction, reduced social spending and increased reliance on domestic economies, and, of course, increased risk of war.
But this raises two key questions for me regarding feminist ethics of anti-militarism: first, does it necessitate rejection of all forms of organized lethal violence (ie. radical pacifism)? Or, second, can and should feminism ever condone revolutionary militarization?
For many feminists, their reluctance to support revolutionary violence is tied to a concern that engagement with military means (eg. guerrilla warfare) would lead to a reinforcement of a culture of militarism. The question we must grapple with is whether the instrumental use of military means (militarization) necessarily supports or produces militarism. Or does Che’s revolutionary militarization reproduce the problems feminists recognise as associated with the cultural valorisation of militarism?
What I found from my engagement with Che Guevara’s oeuvre is that these very same questions had been robustly debated within Marxism. Marxists of the early twentieth-century were strongly anti-militarist, and viewed the military elite as producers of a “vile and poisonous militarism” that caused suffering to the working class and ultimately advanced the capitalist project. This argument is perhaps most forcefully made by Rosa Luxemburg, who argued that the very logic of capital accumulation – requiring the perpetual expansion of the market into non-capitalist spaces – necessitated militarization in order to force open new markets and to absorb surplus capital, since the state could buy mass products produced under industrial capitalism for use in its expansionary agenda.
In spite of their antimilitarist ethics, early twentieth-century Marxists were nonetheless supportive of the use of armed violence to achieve socialist revolutions and national liberation. Luxemburg herself argued strongly against a solely reformist approach to realising socialism. Thus, the way that Che and other revolutionaries reconciled their use of armed violence with their antimilitarist ethic was by centering emancipation and the well-being of each individual in their humanist ethical belief system. The foundations of Che’s revolutionary humanism were principles of sovereignty, equality, and unity that required concrete action.
For Marxist revolutionaries, because class oppression was a form of war, it made sense that the means of organized lethal violence could be used to resist. Che argued that “Violence is not the monopoly of the exploiters and as such the exploited can use it too and, moreover, ought to use it when the moment arrives.” Che, like Marx, consistently maintained that, while revolutionary militarization was an essential means to defeat the ancien regime, revolutionaries could avoid militarism precisely by taking away the legitimacy of the use of violence from hierarchically organized standing armies with their ties to propertied bourgeois elites and instead put it in the hands of the people. It wasn’t the use of military means that Marx and his successors opposed, but the ideological integration of military officers and military institutions within a state-capitalist system that serves primarily propertied class interests. If wrested from the hands of elites, the militarization of revolutionaries need not contradict the principles of the movement.
This is clear from Castro’s eulogizing of Che:
When we think of Che, we do not think fundamentally of his military virtues. No! Warfare is a means and not an end. Warfare is a tool of revolutionaries. The most important thing is the revolution.
In this way, Che was following a longer ideological tradition in Marxism that saw war as a political act, and believed that it could be leveraged from ruling elites and used as a weapon against elite forces. Lenin himself specified, “we are opposed to imperialist wars, but we have always declared it to be absurd for the revolutionary proletariat to renounce revolutionary wars that may prove necessary in the interests of socialism.”
Perhaps the reason, though, that the ethical challenge has been harder for feminists to resolve is because, historically and cross-culturally, militarism has privileged certain forms of masculinity and has frustrated the advancement of women’s rights. Even revolutionary and liberation movements have been fraught with problematic gender politics, with these movements rarely translating into greater gender equality or systematic changes to patriarchal arrangements post-conflict.
There is a paternalist logic inherent in revolutionary movements – that a knowledgeable and heroic vanguard of revolutionaries acting to protect and liberate the wider social group from their oppressors. However, this paternalism places the ‘protectee’ in the position of passivity, or feminization. Masculine logics, many feminists have argued, will necessarily undermine any feminist project. Or, to quote the black radical feminist Audre Lorde, “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change.” If militarization is a patriarchal tool, then this reasoning suggests that pacifism is the only logical resistance feminism has to patriarchal militarism.
However, it is here that I think returning to a distinction between militarization as material practice and means to an end from militarism as ideological desire for war and military activity can provide a cautious pathway to resolution. It is not necessarily the case that all acts of revolutionary militarization support militarism. Given that revolutionary, emancipatory movements share with feminists a critique of militarism as sustaining of oppressive social hierarchies, their debates can offer revolutionary feminism a means by which to reconsider dogmatic commitment to pacifism.
While radical and revolutionary feminists have showcased the role of men’s violence against women in the maintenance of patriarchy, they eschew biological determinist arguments about violence as inherent to manhood. What makes violence (and for our considerations here, militarized violence) patriarchal is not the act, but rather its relationship with existing social forces: patriarchy, class exploitation, and racism.
Decoupling militarism as ideology from militarization as material means allows us to understand revolutionary violence as the seizure of a particular mode of reproducing oppressive relations. It is literally using the master’s tools to dismantle the master’s house.
To answer, then, the question of whether feminism can ever use the tools of militarization in advancement of women’s emancipation from patriarchy, my answer is a cautious “yes.” For it to be revolutionary of patriarchy, it must consciously reflect on the reasons to militarize and whether this violence is both just and necessary to achieve emancipatory ends for all. It also must be done for the purpose of women’s liberation. As Che argued, sovereignty is a precondition for the realisation of independence and self-actualisation. Revolutionary feminism is similarly an attempt to achieve emancipation for women as a social class as a precondition for their sovereignty.
The post Foco Feminism?: Rethinking the Ethics of Feminist Anti-Militarism appeared first on Progress in Political Economy (PPE).
Milo Miller introduces Speak Out!: The Brixton Black Women’s Group
In an excerpt from the preface to Speak Out!: The Brixton Black Women’s Group, editor Milo Miller shares context about the group and the impetus for the book which brings together, for the first time, the writings of one of Britain’s pioneering Black radical organisations of the 1970s.
Speak Out!: The Brixton Black Women’s Group. Brixton Black Women’s Group; Milo Miller (ed.). Verso. 2023.
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The Brixton Black Women’s Group (BBWG), which formed in 1973 and lasted until 1989, was a Black socialist feminist organisation based in Brixton, south London. It is thought to be the first autonomous Black women’s group of its kind to be established in London, and to be among the first in Britain more broadly (indeed, it was initially known simply as ‘the Black Women’s Group’).
The [Brixton Black Women’s Group] was central to radical struggles against racism, fascism, sexism and class oppression in London and beyond
The group was central to radical struggles against racism, fascism, sexism and class oppression in London and beyond, organising extensively around the policing and criminalisation of Black people, reproductive justice, housing, labour, legislation on immigration and nationality, education and more. The BBWG worked closely with other community groups and organisations; it was also actively part of networks of women’s groups nationally and internationally. It was instrumental in establishing the Organisation of Women of Asian and African Descent (OWAAD), which existed between 1978 and 1983 and was the first national Black women’s organisation in the UK.
Political Blackness […] was understood as encompassing all those exploited in Britain through historical and modern forms of colonialism, imperialism and racism. “Blackness”, in this sense, functioned as a site of active and relational re/articulation; as a site of resistance, of solidarity and of coalition.
Crucially, the BBWG organised on the grounds of political Blackness. “Blackness”, in this formulation, was not understood as a descriptive category referring, for example, to “race” or skin colour; rather, it was understood as encompassing all those exploited in Britain through historical and modern forms of colonialism, imperialism and racism. “Blackness”, in this sense, functioned as a site of active and relational re/articulation; as a site of resistance, of solidarity and of coalition. This conceptualisation of Blackness was prevalent (though far from settled or uncontested) in Britain’s Black Power movement in the 1970s and 1980s, and the BBWG’s members, accordingly, included women from and with ties to the Caribbean, Asia and Africa. This approach was central to – and further developed by the BBWG’s critical involvement in – OWAAD, which explicitly marked it by referring to women of Asian and African descent in its name.
Along with the Mary Seacole Craft Group, the BBWG established the Mary Seacole House, later renamed the Black Women’s Centre, in 1979. For much of its existence, the centre was managed by the BBWG. It became a focal point for the meeting of women’s groups and political organisations working across London. The centre hosted a regular legal and welfare rights information and referral service; a craft workshop; a health group providing, among other services, advice on contraception and pregnancy; a crèche; children’s activities during school holidays; and a library and resource centre specialising in women’s literature and Black history. In the aftermath of the April 1981 Brixton Uprising, the centre also functioned as the headquarters of the Brixton Defence Campaign’s Legal Defence Group.
The BBWG’s newsletter, Speak Out […] contained reports on the BBWG and other grassroots groups’ work on a variety of fronts, in-depth political position statements, analyses of proposed legislation, explainers on health issues and accounts of liberation struggles across the Global South.
The BBWG’s newsletter, Speak Out, detailed all of this. It contained reports on the BBWG and other grassroots groups’ work on a variety of fronts, in-depth political position statements, analyses of proposed legislation, explainers on health issues and accounts of liberation struggles across the Global South. Alongside these, there were poems and illustrations by BBWG members, as well as reviews of plays, films and novels – emphasising the group’s understanding of culture and political struggle as inseparable, and of art and self-expression as integral to movements for liberation. Collectively written pieces – on, for example, the issues the group organised around, the coalitions the group was part of, and the group’s political positions – appeared in publications such as Race Today, Spare Rib, Red Rag and Feminist Review.
This book brings together, for the first time, all of the issues of Speak Out as well as statements, articles and book chapters written by the Brixton Black Women’s Group.
Over the years, many individuals and groups have devoted a considerable amount of effort to honouring the BBWG’s work – not least the writers of the landmark 1985 book The Heart of the Race: Black Women’s Lives in Britain. The first sustained account of Black women’s history in Britain written by Black women, The Heart of the Race was written by BBWG members Beverley Bryan and Suzanne Scafe with OWAAD co-founder Stella Dadzie, and features an extended section on the BBWG. Elsewhere, Dadzie’s personal papers, held at the Black Cultural Archives in Brixton, have long included the most comprehensive collection of BBWG documents available. Despite efforts by a great many people, however, the wealth of writing produced by the BBWG has remained scattered and often difficult to access. This book brings together, for the first time, all of the issues of Speak Out as well as statements, articles and book chapters written by the Brixton Black Women’s Group. It also contains other hard-to-access archival material essential to understanding the group’s work and trajectory.
Why wasn’t the group’s trailblazing work as celebrated as it deserved to be and available as a resource in combatting current, seemingly intractable and ever-intensifying crises?
The research culminating in this book began in 2016, as part of my work on my PhD thesis, which focused on squatting in Brixton from the 1970s to the 2010s. During my PhD, I began compiling as much of the BBWG’s writings as I could find, in addition to writing by individual members of the group. I visited archives and typed up issues of Speak Out, as well as leaflets produced by the group; I tracked down out-of-print books and journals, typing up chapters and articles written by the group or by individual members. Initially, this was solely so I could easily revisit this writing and quote from it as needed in my thesis; over time, however, this gathering of the BBWG’s writing became a project in its own right, as the group’s visionary work speaks urgently to the conditions we face in the present. I began to share the material I was collecting with friends, whose excitement was palpable. Many of them had never heard of the group; some had but had never encountered the group’s writings. My own excitement was beginning to be mixed with frustration: Why wasn’t this material more widely known and accessible? Why was the Brixton Black Women’s Group so absent from accounts of any number of key political issues, campaigns and events in 1970s and 1980s Britain to which they were central? Why wasn’t the group’s trailblazing work as celebrated as it deserved to be and available as a resource in combatting current, seemingly intractable and ever-intensifying crises? It became very clear: the collected writings of the Brixton Black Women’s Group had to be published.
With this in mind, from 2017 onwards I worked on this collection whenever I could. I continued typing up articles and chapters; I tracked down an elusive Speak Out issue; I found photos of the Black Women’s Centre; I carefully removed photocopier static from images in issues of Speak Out. In November 2020 I contacted members of the BBWG and sent them what I had put together, with the offer to take this forward should they be willing. Meticulous discussions then took place between us: What should the scope of the book be? What material was perhaps beyond that scope, and what material had yet to be included? Members looked to their personal archives and sent me more material to include, from leaflets and statements to photographs.
The year of this book’s publication – 2023 – marks fifty years since the Brixton Black Women’s Group was founded.
The year of this book’s publication – 2023 – marks fifty years since the Brixton Black Women’s Group was founded. As fascism sees a resurgence around the world, as the struggle against police brutality and racism must continue unabated, as attacks on reproductive rights and bodily autonomy rage on and as border regimes and capitalism continue to exact their deadly toll, the work and legacy of the Brixton Black Women’s Group remain as vital and necessary as ever. This book is offered in the hope that it might provide tools to not only understand and confront this current conjuncture but also prefigure and enact practices of mutual aid, solidarity and resistance so urgently needed to overcome it. It is offered in the hope that it might provide tools to imagine a radically different world; a world beyond the brutal entanglement of conquest and empire.
Note: This excerpt from the introduction to Speak Out!: The Brixton Black Women’s Group by the Brixton Black Women’s Group, edited by Milo Miller, is copyrighted to Verso Books, and is reproduced here with their permission.
This post gives the views of the author, and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, or of the London School of Economics and Political Science. The LSE RB blog may receive a small commission if you choose to make a purchase through the above Amazon affiliate link. This is entirely independent of the coverage of the book on LSE Review of Books.
Image Credit: Some members of the BBWG in 1979, courtesy of Milo Miller/Verso.
‘A Closed Door to a Men’s Club’: Why Are There Twice as Many Men in the House of Commons as Women?
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If women make up more half of the population, then their equal representation in government positions is necessary to ensure that democracy functions as effectively as possible.
“Representation shapes policy,” Lyanne Nicholl, CEO of 50:50 Parliament told Byline Times. “We know that areas like childcare, pregnant women, domestic abuse and functioning safety wear for women healthcare workers, were all overlooked during the pandemic as a result of a ‘macho environment’ which excluded women’s voices.
"In addition, it’s hard to imagine issues like miscarriage, menopause and domestic abuse getting adequate attention without women MPs and ministers.”
Conservative MP Caroline Nokes believes we need more women to stand as MPs to bring “diversity of thought” and “diversity of experience” to British politics, to challenge the “male echo chamber”.
Without women in the room, “over half of the population can be deprioritised and ignored,” Liberal Democrat MP Wendy Chamberlain told Byline Times.
But leading up to the next general election, new data from 50:50 Parliament, Centenary Action, and Chamber UK has found that fewer than 35% of candidate selections so far are women.
And although there are more than 30 million women and girls in the UK, only 225 women have seats in the House of Commons – meaning that there are twice as many men than women in the highest elected chamber in the country.
“This is glaring imbalance,” Nicholl said. “We urgently need to dial up the number of women that are in Parliament today.”
Why Are So Few Women in Parliament?
According to Nicholl, women are “definitely keen” to stand for positions in government, but they don’t apply due to several barriers.
“Some women will see Parliament as a closed door to a men’s club, or even as a fiery furnace,” she told Byline Times. “We must start taking steps to remedy this.
"We need to tackle several issues: the macho (and sometimes bullying and harassing) environment; financial barriers for women; a work environment which recognises and adapts for caring responsibilities; and online abuse.”
For Nokes, in addition to breaking down barriers, “we need to increase the visibility of women MPs” so they see “role models they can relate to”.
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She has been vocal that she thinks many other women could do her job but that the “media intrusion, trolling on social media, and rowdiness of the chamber puts good people off”.
Chamberlain echoes this and believes women should also be offered training and support as they enter into politics so they feel protected coming into an unknown territory.
“There needs to be more proactive steps to show that Parliament is a good place to work,” she told Bylines Times. “That she will be safe and supported.”
'I Won’t Take No for an Answer'
Undeterred by the barriers to entering politics, Olga Fitzroy is standing to be the Labour candidate for Croydon East (which has only ever elected one woman MP), hopeful to represent every single of her constituents – not just women – and bring about lasting change.
After having a baby in 2015, Fitzroy found it nearly impossible to return to work as a sound engineer due to “archaic restrictions around maternity allowance and lack of provision for fathers”.
The threat of nearly losing her career motivated her to become politically active and she founded the #Selfieleave campaign, which went to Parliament having galvanised trade union, cross-party politicians, and achieved celebrity support.
“This showed me how ordinary people can make a difference in politics and that we need a diversity of all sorts of different life-experiences in order to make good decisions,” Fitzroy told Byline Times.
She went on to co-found Pregnant Then Elected, participate in Jo Cox’s women in leadership course, and be awarded a grant by Labour MP Stella Creasy’s MotheRED programme which provides financial support for those with caring responsibilities.
Fitzroy said her campaigning background has made her a strong advocate who will knock on the door of government for resources and “not take no for an answer”.
Women like her are itching to serve their communities in politics, but many are nervous to put themselves forward due to apprehension and fear. It’s why Fitzroy, Nicholl, Nokes, Chamberlain, and many others are backing #AskHerToStand, a campaign encouraging people to put forward the names of women who are passionate about a cause.
“It’s about looking at women in communities who might have the right skillset, or are already making a difference in their community, and asking them to stand,” said Nicholl.
Through 50:50 Parliament, the women asked will receive support to make a decision if standing is for them.
EXCLUSIVE
Senior police officers ‘alarmed’ by former Home Secretary’s meetings with Fair Cop, which promotes nationalist ideology and has links to the Reclaim Party
Tom Latchem and Dan Evans
The Diversity of Women's Politics
But it’s not simply as easy as saying 'we need more women in politics'.
Last week, another leading lady in the Conservative Party was sacked as Home Secretary, after Rishi Sunak faced mounting pressure to act against Suella Braverman.
Braverman forced the Illegal Migration Act through Parliament in record time, and pushed to send asylum seekers to Rwanda, as well as on a disease-ridden barge. To her critics, she has emboldened far-right, anti-immigration groups with her fear-mongering rhetoric.
Although she is a woman, her policy decisions have been harmful for people in need of her protection. Being a woman did not make her a politician who acts in the interest of the people under her care.
“It must be recognised that women, like men, have a wide range of political perspectives,” said Nicholl. “In a democracy, women have as much right to free speech as men. They have a right to voice opinions and feed into policy decisions.”
While we need this diverse group of women with differing views representing the constituents they mirror, we don’t just need 'any woman' in a position of leadership simply because she is a woman.
Do we need more women in politics? Yes, but we as voters need to make sure we are taking the time to not just select candidates because of their gender, but because of their beliefs, their characters, and their policies.
Believability: Sexual Violence, Media, and the Politics of Doubt – review
In Believability: Sexual Violence, Media, and the Politics of Doubt, Sarah Banet-Weiser and Kathryn Claire Higgins examine how a turn to media culture and the development of an “economy of believability” shape the processes wherein women seek justice for sexual violence committed against them. Banet-Weiser and Higgins’s timely book presents a powerful feminist analysis of the interacting forces of belief, media and sexual violence in the post-truth era, writes Olumide Adisa.
Believability: Sexual Violence, Media, and the Politics of Doubt. Sarah Banet-Weiser and Kathryn Claire Higgins. Polity. 2023.
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Netflix’s 2020 fascinating true crime docuseries Trial by Media examines the most gripping trials in US history (including the “Big Dan’s case” about the rape of a woman in a bar) by considering how the media may have influenced the verdicts. With the visibility of hashtags like #MeToo, many accounts of sexual violence by women that never resulted in criminal trials have come to light and are playing out through the media. What happens when rape allegations come to light in this way, and what does this mean for sexual justice in a post-truth era of “fake news” and “alternative facts”? In their new book, Sarah Banet-Weiser and Kathryn Claire Higgins position the thought-provoking concept “economy of believability” in arguing for a “turn to media culture” as a way to achieve sexual justice in a society where the default positions disbelieves women and their accounts of sexual violence. The authors define their “economy of believability” as a term that involves “representations, ideologies, labour, products, resources, and intersecting power hierarchies” (5) within a sexual violence and media culture context.
This book showcases sexual violence as a culturally mediated phenomena, which interconnects with post-truth, power, historical constructions of doubtful subjects, and the authors’ concept of economy of believability
In the text, the authors consider the manifestations of subjectivity and performance as dependent on media culture. This book showcases sexual violence as a culturally mediated phenomena which interconnects with post-truth, power, and historical constructions of doubtful subjects, and the authors’ concept of economy of believability.
Banet-Weiser and Higgins’ text offers a complex feminist analysis of the interacting forces of post-truth, belief, media, and sexual violence. This text is arguably a transdisciplinary masterpiece that is likely to engage the informed public, students, feminists and media scholars on sexual violence. It is written in an accessible style that does not assume insider knowledge. The text’s complexified notion of believability disentangles the ways these subject areas overlap and connect (3). The authors invoke their innovative concept, of the “economy of believability” throughout the text and take the reader through the text’s discursive engagement with feminist theory and praxis to underpin the constructions of believability. Multiplicity and the “dynamism of believability” are also conceptualised as complex terms, but in a metaphorical sense. The dynamism of believability (198) is made up of two components – the capability of being believed and the quality of being convincing. Sexual violence is considered as “multiply factual”, and testimonies as “multiply believable/doubtable.” Believability is further considered to be made up of three registers in accounts of sexual violence: personal experience, harms, and structural phenomena (24).
Women’s believability is dictated by subjectivity (rooted in women’s voices) and performance, which overlap and may then be considered as informing each other
This book has four key chapters as well as an introductory and concluding chapter. The first chapter focuses on the authors’ construction of their concept of believability, using various useful examples and case studies from the media sphere. Women’s believability is dictated by subjectivity (rooted in women’s voices) and performance, which overlap and may then be considered as informing each other. The well-publicised Heard/Depp trial is referenced briefly by the authors in the introductory chapter (and also in Chapter three) to illustrate these points. Noteworthy is the role of powerful media actors, concentrated among a small group of organisations who stand with the accused to keep the accusations out of the public eye. The text describes these silencing practices (used by powerful men) as “forms of believability work“ (55). The text goes on to characterise this ‘believability work’ as the significant money and time resources marshalled by powerful actors to protect powerful men (who have harmed women), solely for the purpose of diminishing women’s believability.
Chapter two focuses on the commodification of believability, something the authors term “the buying and selling of belief”. This characterisation of belief as something transactional is further positioned within the emerging feminist marketplace of “well-intentioned” products such as wearable tech and surveillance. In the text, the buying and selling of these wearable products aimed at women places the responsibility of preventing of sexual violence on women, and normalises sexual violence as part of their everyday lives (109).
Chapter three grapples with the contested notions of believability funnelled through the intersection of the cultural notion of women as doubtful subjects, and a digitisation process described in the text as ‘the digitisation of doubt’ (121). The chapter discusses how well-publicised calls for belief in a digital age is mediated through three aspects: access/amplification, democratisation, and platformisation of truth (149). The authors draw on these concepts by heavily relying on the literature, which have been studied in other disciplines.
The authors discuss how believability is conditional on “felt” believability, which follows historical patterns of anti-Black racism, the subordination of Black women as lesser in being believed
In the fourth chapter, the authors discuss how believability is conditional on “felt” believability, which follows historical patterns of anti-Black racism, the subordination of Black women as lesser in being believed (as seen from R. Kelly and Bill Cosby’s crimes), and negative tropes about Black women in media culture, stemming from the adultification of Black girls. This is in contrast to a history of greater validity attached to white women’s stories, and as seen in the false rape accusations of Black men weaponised by white women (as evidenced by the false claims made by Carolyn Bryant against Emmet Till, which led to his brutal murder), and in the “felt” believability as seen in the case of Amy Cooper who called the police and made a false charge against a Black man in Central Park.
Banet-Weiser and Higgins highlight the role of believability in these well-known, tragic examples which gained spectacular visibility in media culture. The authors use these examples sensitively to buttress their points on the struggle of victimhood in their economy of believability. In this retelling and analysis, they perhaps (consciously or unconsciously) reveal themselves as potentially white allies in the struggle of Black women, whom society routinely places as undeserving of being visible in any continuum of believability.
Banet-Weiser and Higgins’ economy of believability contains gendered, class and racial dimensions, but the text does not explain the subjectivities which determine these. Rather they choose to focus solely on “a set of historical conditions that form the context for struggles over believability’ and by extension struggles over truth”(13). While the entangled complexified nature of belief and intersectionality is acknowledged, it could be considered a limitation that the text fails to substantively discuss these important dimensions in tandem.
Believability plays out in media domains and in silencing practices which lend themselves to the commodified silencing of women’s voices through Nondisclosure Agreements (NDAs) and confidentiality agreements.
Another criticism that could be levied against the text is the ways in which Banet-Weiser and Higgins’ delineation of “credibility” (in a context of criminal trials) differs from their concept of believability. The authors themselves may already have anticipated this criticism, as they position their text clearly as one that calls for “a shift from credibility to believability” and one that “adds to these conversations on criminal trials” (7). The authors want readers to understand that many aspects relating to seeking justice for sexual violence are decided outside of the courtrooms, decentring the state as the ultimate decider of believability. For example, believability plays out in media domains and in silencing practices which lend themselves to the commodified silencing of women’s voices through Nondisclosure Agreements (NDAs) and confidentiality agreements. Yet, because the notion of doubt features in concepts of credibility, as well as the authors’ concept of believability, the demarcation of both concepts are not clearly defined. Banet-Weiser and Higgins go on to say that, “in a mediated economy of believability, doubt often works in a similar way” to credibility (25). As a result, this may suggest to readers that credibility and believability can be used synonymously – at least in relation to doubt and doubtful subjects.
The text […] makes immense contributions to an understanding of how women’s accounts of sexual harassment and violence are framed and positioned as unbelievable by the media.
Despite these shortcomings, the text as a whole makes immense contributions to an understanding of how women’s accounts of sexual harassment and violence are framed and positioned as unbelievable by the media. The authors convincingly suggest how their concept of an economy of believability offers a more radical and comprehensive account of why women (and their accounts of sexual violence) are cast in disbelief and doubt in media culture, contributing to a timely and ongoing conversation on sexual justice beyond simplified notions of truth and testimony.
Note: This review gives the views of the author, and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, or of the London School of Economics and Political Science. The LSE RB blog may receive a small commission if you choose to make a purchase through the above Amazon affiliate link. This is entirely independent of the coverage of the book on LSE Review of Books.
Image Credit: Sundry Photography on Shutterstock.
‘Nadine Dorries Using Rape Allegations She Sat On as a Way to Sell Books? Unforgivable’
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The responsibility of being an MP is hard to overstate. The honour to be elected to serve your constituency as a Member of Parliament. The trust each of those votes carries. The duty that comes with that honour and trust; to be their elected representative and the collective voice of your constituency. The responsibility to protect people.
All desecrated because a peerage wasn’t granted?
The revelations from Nadine Dorries’ new autobiography suggest she chose to protect an alleged serial rapist MP, which she knew about for years, over the young female parliamentary staffers that he is accused of having attacked.
If the Johnson ultra-loyalist had received her yearning for peerage, would she have taken these accusations to her grave?
Did she use her position as a Member of Parliament to protect these young women or help them seek justice? Even if it’s said the Conservative party paid for one of the victim’s medical after rape care, the failings are clear to see - and devastating.
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Did Dorries sit next to him during Prime Minister’s Questions? Did she praise him at conference? Did she at least avoid sending her own female staffers to situations where they might be alone with him? At what point is she culpable for turning a blind eye? Did she tell herself that it was an open enough secret, in order to sleep at night?
This is not a partisan attack: I know for a fact that Conservative Caroline Noakes MP and Labour’s Jess Phillips would both choose any young staffer’s safety over covering up an alleged serial predator.
I also know that MPs are not even background/DBS-checked. There is no framework to remove them from office when accused of sexual offences. This week, the trade unions that represent House of Commons staff called for formal action to be taken so that they are informed when MPs are under investigation for sexual assault, and that accused MPs are told to stay away from Parliament for safeguarding reasons. Those calls may go unheeded, put in the ‘too difficult’ pile.
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We cannot trust the police to act without fear or favour if the men in question are in seats of power. We have watched them look the other way time and time again. There is consistently one rule for them and another rule for us. But even the rule for us only has a 1.7% rape conviction rate, so what hope do any of us really have?
As part of my work with Reclaim These Streets, hundreds of survivors have shared their stories with me and I have felt the responsibility of that trust. Not always to help them find justice; but to hear their testimonies and to ensure that they feel heard and supported.
That includes checking in on them later, when headlines come about about rapist cops or MPs. Listening to them, knowing that some of them have attempted suicide and knowing that their mental health has been compromised by their attacks, often resulting in PTSD. Knowing that the vicarious trauma of their accounts keeps me up at night because I know that I can’t get justice for them; but I can at least listen.
That Nadine Dorries, a high-powered Member of Parliament, had direct knowledge of an alleged serial rapist at her place of work and didn’t appear to take every step to stop him, have him named and arrested and to get those women justice makes me physically wince.
Dorries hit back this week, saying: “Some of my critics have tried to claim that I knew about the unlawful sexual behaviour in Westminster and kept it for my book instead of alerting the authorities. Let me be clear: everything I have recorded in the book I found out about after the police had already been informed.”
There is nothing there on safeguarding or tackling an abusive workplace for parliamentary staffers.
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She seems to have sat on this information for years. In those ensuing years the man is accused of victimising other young women. Instead, it feels like Dorries has use their horrendous experiences as a bargaining chip for a peerage, or held it back for a splash to sell books.
I am the first to shout when women are blamed for male crimes; but that an MP that was elected to protect and serve her constituency would make those victims a pawn in her game of ambition has completely disgusted me. If she failed to push for action, she is complicit in a cover-up
His alleged victims had dreams of being an MP. Of serving their constituents and improving the world. They proudly took pictures of their first parliamentary pass. They went to see their MP for advice on getting elected, or for help in getting through the complicated maze of Westminster - only to report being groped or having a hand shoved up their skirt or being assaulted by a man they hoped would help pave their way.
That the Party was then complicit and paid for medical care whilst still allowing his office to hire replacement staffers reads like a horror movie version of the West Wing. But here we are.
To his alleged victims, who have left their dreams of Westminster in tatters, who turn off Prime Minister's Questions and no longer watch anything to do with politics, I am sorry.
They bury deep in their psyche the rape they allegedly suffered at the hands of a serving MP; only to be used in a serialised fight between Nadine Dorries and the Conservative Party.
I am sorry you were not believed. I am sorry you were not heard. I am sorry your testimony was not treated with the respect it and you deserved. And I am sorry you won’t be running as my MP. I wish you had been given the chance.
Nadine Dorries was contacted for comment.
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