Читать книгу A philosopher, a psychologist, and an extraterrestrial walk into a chocolate bar … - Jass Richards - Страница 8

Half an hour later, they parked on a side street off Rue Saint-Denis and walked a couple of blocks to Sophie’s Croissant Café. Now they both really needed chocolate.

“Women have no idea,” Spike said as they walked, already trying to figure out how the SlutWalk Moment of Truth had gone so wrong, “how much men fail to see them as anything but sexual.”

Jane agreed. “Though, to be fair,” she said, “most men see themselves that way too. Physical strength, financial wealth”—she looked around her—“visible underwear—they’re all just proxies for sexual prowess.”

“Wow,” Jane said as soon as they entered the café. Scattered throughout were a dozen little tables, all white marble and gold filigree, each with two little chairs just as ornate. Jane walked toward the first grouping, fascinated with the intricate detail. It was so … baroque. Spike drew her attention upward then, to the three chandeliers, all crystal and gold and somehow lace. Jane circled each one, absolutely amazed.

They claimed a table, eventually, in the corner by the window. A bit private, a bit watch-Montreal-while-we’re-here.

Jane struggled with her high school French to place their order. Two plain pain au chocolat, one for her, one for Spike, then another one, with chestnut cream, for her, and two cups of tea. She was perfectly aware that the waiter’s English was probably much better than her French, but she wanted to make the gesture. It was appreciated, judging by the smile playing in his eyes. Either that or she’d ordered a horse in a hat.

“So,” Jane opened, “we really need to figure out what we think about SlutWalks.” They’d avoided the issue to date. Like many second-wavers, they’d assumed the young fun femme faction would become fringe, not mainstream, feminism.

“Yeah,” Spike said.

She waited until their tea and pain au chocolat was in front of them. And Jane had taken her first bite. No point in starting before then.

“I blame Beyoncé,” she said. “Remember that one song she does, while behind her, projected on the backdrop, are quotes from—actually, I don’t know—”

“Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.”

Spike stared at her, surprised. Well, not really. But still. “How do you know this stuff?”

Jane shrugged, and took another bite of her pain au chocolat.

“Anyway, one of the quotes is something like ‘Girls are raised to see each other as competitors, not for jobs or accomplishments, but for the attention of men.’ And while it’s projected, Beyoncé struts across the stage clearly primped for the attention of men.”

Jane nodded. “It’s like those ads for pick-up trucks, where the greenhouse-gas-emitting and fracking-motivating, hence ground­water-contaminating and land-destroying, truck drives through pristine forest over clear streams against blue skies.”

Spike stared at her again. This time because she didn’t know what was more impressive about Jane’s statement, its content or its form. “Yeah. It’s like that. Exactly.”

Jane grinned. Then continued. “There’s a complete disconnect. It’s as if Beyoncé is utterly oblivious to the contradiction between …”—she searched for the accurate pairing—“the medium and the message, no, the appearance and the reality, the action and the consequence—”

“Or she is aware of it,” Spike suggested, “and she’s just using—whatever sells.”

“Feminism sells?” News to her.

“Superficially. The appeal to equality, power …”

“Ah. Well, I suppose that’s encouraging …”

“Or not. What’ll happen when Beyoncé’s fans discover that she was right about the end, but horribly mistaken about the means?”

“Mistaken about the means or mistaken that there is a means? To that end.”

“The latter.”

They imagined liberal feminists becoming radical feminists. En masse.

If only.

Then, since Jane had finished her pain au chocolat—her first one—she beckoned to their waiter and ordered more tea.

“I think we also have to blame Miley Cyrus,” she eventually said. “ ‘I like to have sex, so what?’ is not a particularly feminist message.”

“Not because it’s pro-sex,” Spike added, “but because it’s not anti-patriarchy. It’s not anti-women’s subordination.”

“Yeah, when did being pro-sex become feminist?”

“I don’t know. But ‘The new feminist is in control of her sexuality!’ ” Spike mimicked one of the women who had been at the SlutWalk.

“Well, that’s certainly better than not being in control of her sexuality,” Jane said. “And come to think of it, it follows rationally from having reproductive rights—access to Plan B, for example.”

Spike nodded. “It’s exactly what we thought in the 60s and 70s when we got the Pill. As I tried to say. But—”

“Maybe a lot of women have just overgeneralized the ‘choice’ part of feminism.”

Spike agreed. “Simply put, not all choices are feminist.”

“Exactly. I know it’s considered unfeminist to blame women, but we do have agency.”

Again, Spike agreed. “We’re not children. Or idiots.”

“Isn’t that redundant?”

Spike narrowed her eyes at Jane. Whose choice not to have kids was surely one of her better ones.

“And it’s unfeminist to believe otherwise,” Spike continued. “If we expect one group of men, the more mature—let’s just say—to speak out and take action against another, the rapists, then we ourselves should do the same. We should speak out against women who are complicit in our subordination. Who choose to be complicit in—”

“But choice is complicated,” Jane protested. “That’s what makes consent, and coercion, complicated. The standard view is that consent is assent that’s capable—referring to cognitive capacity, informed—one understands the consequences, and voluntary. But to be voluntary, a decision would have to be totally free of pressure—physical, psychological, social, economic.”

“So are you saying that true consent is impossible?”

“Yes. At least sometimes.”

Spike thought about that as she finished her pain au chocolat. “You might be right,” she eventually said. “At least with regard to sex. Just listening to the radio all day, which many people do, is like ingesting a constant-release aphrodisiac. Every song, every line of every song, is sung with a moan or a whimper—”

Jane nodded. “Miley Cyrus has become the norm.”

God help us. They stared at each other.

“Okay, we need a moratorium on sex,” Spike said. “Until we stop that shit.”

“We could bomb the radio stations. The recording studios. L.A.” Jane thought then that maybe she’d been hanging around Spike too long. Or maybe just long enough.

“Sometimes though,” Spike backed up a bit, “consent, and coercion, is pretty simple, isn’t it? I mean, coercion is shutting the fuck up because otherwise he’ll kill you. Coercion is allowing yourself to be assaulted by your live-in partner because—if—that’s the only way to feed your kids. Coercion is doing something because your drink was spiked.”

Jane took a bite of her chestnut cream pain au chocolat. Oh.

“But wearing make-up on a daily basis just because it’s convention? Reddening your lips, putting a flush on your cheeks? Pushing up your breasts, baring your legs all the way up to your crotch, wearing heels that arch your back? In short, making yourself sexually attractive, sexually attracting, for a day at the office—just because it’s convention? That’s not coercion. That’s stupidity.”

Jane took another bite.

“Why wouldn’t men think women are always sexually available? That’s the way they present themselves!”

And another.

“And then women get pissed off when men see them as sex objects.” Spike shook her head in disbelief.

Jane licked the last bit of chestnut cream off her fork. She noticed then that the forks, and the spoons, were just as florid, just as elegant, as the chairs and table.

“Of course, the greater problem is that it’s convention. Women are expected to appear sexually attractive, attracting, as a matter of routine.”

Jane nodded. “ ‘Femininity is the behavior of female subordination.’ Sheila Jeffreys.”

And on that note, they ordered dessert.

“But beauty—”

Spike knew where Jane was going. “There’s a difference between attractive and sexually attractive. At least, there should be. It’s just that because men dominate art and advertising, the two have been equated. By them. No doubt because to them everything is sexual. In fact, if it’s not sexual, it doesn’t exist.”

“You’re right.” Jane sighed. “If you really just want to use your body as a canvas for beauty, you’d wear funky gold glittered hiking boots, you’d paint an iridescent rainbow across your face, you’d do a hundred other aesthetically interesting things …”

Spike nodded. “And only when men don’t see us as Hooters will the woman who’s a Walmart sales associate be considered for a managerial position.”

“I dunno … You’re back to thinking appearance matters. We know that women in full-out nun regalia get raped. So it would seem that appearance isn’t a motivating factor for rape. Well,” she qualified, “unless the man had issues with nuns …”

Spike squinted at Jane. Clearly, Jane had issues with nuns.

“In any case, quite apart from rape,” Jane continued, “I thought we established that no matter how we look, just like no matter what we do, men don’t, won’t, take us seriously. Certainly not seriously enough to consider us for a managerial position.”

“Yeah.” Spike sighed deeply as she leaned back in her chair. “You’re right. Damned if we do, damned if we don’t. So what’s the point?”

Their waiter brought their dessert. Spike had ordered profiteroles. Mainly because of how they sounded. The word. Not the profiteroles themselves.

Jane had ordered a Chocolate Volcano. It came on a plate drizzled with chocolate syrup, and there was a puff of real whipped cream on top. When she put her fork to it, thick chocolate lava oozed out of the cake. “Oooo …” oozed out of Jane.

Several slow minutes later, Jane resumed. “So okay, let’s say women do give up their push-up bras, their high heels, and even their make-up.”

“Like we did in the 70s.” And look at what didn’t happen, Spike added to herself.

“What if men then say that any woman who simply bares her ankles is asking for it. Or bares her face. We all walk around in burkas then?”

It was a good point, Spike thought. It got to the root of the matter: why should men’s problems determine what women should wear? And wasn’t that the point of the SlutWalks?

“Okay, but here and now, is it really too much to ask not to present yourself as bait? As a matter of routine?”

“You can easily avoid letting your butt and boobs hang out,” she added. “You can’t easily avoid exposing your face. Assuming you want to have peripheral vision. And breathe.”

“Wait a minute,” Jane said. “I thought you supported Gwen Jacobs and the repeal of the shirtless laws. Now you’re saying ‘Cover up!’?”

“No! Yes! I don’t know!” Spike groaned. A thoughtful minute and one profiterole later—the classic pastry cream one—she tried to sort through her apparent inconsistency. “I agree that women should be able to wear whatever they want. That they should be able to go wherever they want, alone, even at night. That they should be able to get drunk if they want. I agree that telling them otherwise diverts attention from the real cause of the problem, the men who rape.”

“Which is why, for one thing,” Jane interjected, “reporters should use the active voice. Instead of ‘A woman was raped last night,’ they should be saying ‘A man raped a woman last night.’ ”

“Right. Good. But—” Spike bit into the next profiterole. The caramel cream one.

“Remember Twisty’s ‘List of Shit Women Do To Confuse Dudes Into Raping Them’?” Jane licked the last of the chocolate lava off her spoon. “They’re drunk. They leave the house. They’re girls.”

“See and that’s the thing.” Spike waved the third profiterole in the air. Chocolate cream. “If you live in a country overrun by morally-challenged muscled-up idiots who think you’re just a walking receptacle for their dicks, you shouldn’t go out alone, especially at night, you shouldn’t get drunk—”

“ ‘Should’ in principle versus ‘should’ in practice. Theory versus advice.”

“Yes! If you do any of those things, is any consequent assault deserved? No. But should it have been anticipated? Yes.” Satisfied, Spike took one, then another, bite of the profiterole, finishing it.

A moment later, she continued. “SlutWalk organizers don’t think through the male over-dependence on visual signals. The gawkers and hecklers who typically undermine the event should be expected. The inability of men to process verbal messages, even those just a few words long, in the presence of so-called ‘fuck me’ heels should be expected.

“And given men’s inability to pick up on subtle cues and/or their refusal to understand the difference between yes and no, let alone yes and maybe …” She waved another profiterole. No idea what kind it was. But it was the last one.

“Maybe when men can handle a sexually charged atmosphere without assaulting— Maybe when other men do speak out and take action against the rapists, one way or another— It’s no coincidence that there are close to 400,000 samples of DNA evidence in rape kits that remain untested and therefore inadmissible in court.” She bit into the profiterole. It was—actually, she still had no idea what it was. Kind of nutty, kind of creamy. Cashew cream? Almond cream? No matter. It was good. Very good.

“But here and now,” she said, “given our culture, given men, if a woman is wearing ‘fuck me’ shoes, she can hardly complain when someone fucks her.”

Jane raised her eyebrows. “No, that can’t be right,” she said a few moments later.

They both stared out the window for a bit.

“The civil rights movement had lots of white people accompanying black people into white-only places, didn’t it?” Jane asked.

“So, what, it’s hopeless until some men help us out?”

“No, that can’t be right either,” Jane muttered.

They stared out the window again.

“It’s one thing to just go without a shirt on a hot summer day and another to wear a push-up bra halter top,” Spike tried again, backing up a bit. “SlutWalk comes across as advocating our right to tease. Which is not only immature, it’s legally uninformed.”

“The provocation defence.”

Spike nodded.

“But the provocation defence stinks,” Jane said. “Apart from using ‘an ordinary person’ as the standard for determining whether the act in question was sufficient to deprive one of self-control—as opposed to ‘a reason­able person’—because in my experience the ordinary person is a walking miasma of unacknowledged emotions and unexamined opinions, most of which are decidedly unreasonable—apart from that, it puts the blame back on the woman: ‘It’s her fault; she provoked him.’ Which is ridiculous!

“Even if we assume that so-called slutty attire is a promise of sex, ‘You promised!’ isn’t a sufficient justification for assault, let alone murder!” She leaned back. Nailed it!

“As Lucy Reed Harris* points out”—she got her sledgehammer out—“a flagrant display of cash in public may well precipitate a robbery, but in that case, the law doesn’t hold the victim responsible!”

* Lucy Reed Harris, ‘Towards a Consent Standard in the Law of Rape’, (1976) University of Chicago Law Review 43(3), article 7.

“I didn’t say it was a justified defence,” Spike protested. “I just said SlutWalks seem ignorant of the fact that provocation is available as a defence. You’d think, if they were aware of that, they wouldn’t encourage provocation.”

“Oh. Okay.”

There was more staring out the window.

“So the SlutWalk message shouldn’t be that we can dress however we want,” Spike ventured, “but that we aren’t sexually available to everyone. No matter what men might think. For whatever reason they might think that.” The more she added, the more she doubted. So she shut up at that point.

“But isn’t the message supposed to have something to do with appearance?” Jane asked. “Didn’t some police officer say that if women didn’t walk around looking like sluts, they wouldn’t be raped? Isn’t that what started SlutWalks?”

They considered that.

“So … he mistakenly equated an invitation to sex with an invitation to violence?” Jane asked, eyes wide.

They stared at each other then. It all made perfect sense. If men equated the two.

“And speaking of going shirtless,” Spike said as they got ready to leave, “remember that woman, post-bilateral-mastectomy, who was barred from swimming in a public pool unless she wore a bathing suit top?”

“Yes …” Jane had yet to figure that one out.

“That proves it’s not about covering up. Or whatever. It’s about maintaining sex-differentiation. Because the patriarchy, men’s power over women, depends on it. So focusing on appearance, as SlutWalk does, is a red herring”—Spike had reached a new conclusion—“a huge distraction from the real issue.”

“Which is?” Jane wasn’t sure at this point.

“Apart from the systemic subordination of women by men? That men rape women.”

“So instead, we should have a Kill the Rapists walk.”

“Or just a Kill the Men walk.”

“So,” Spike asked once they were out and standing on the sidewalk, “best ever pain au chocolat?”

“Well, no. We went over that this morning, remember?”

Spike groaned.

“Probably best ever.”