Mansplaining Feminism

Fascinating conversation with the founder of Feminist International Relations about prostitution, militarisation, academia and nationalism. Cynthia Enloe, who wrote the influential feminist book Bananas, Beaches and Bases (discussed on Mansplaining Feminism in Season 2) is not just an excellent researcher and writer, but a brilliant teacher - something she shows in this conversation.

A hugely influential feminist, economist, and politician, Professor Dame Marilyn Waring spoke with us about her worries about the lack of change, her hopes for the future, and ways in which she has helped shape our understanding of measuring success in public policy. Her 1988 classic, If Women Counted, her 1988 classic, will be discussed in Season 2 of Mansplaining Feminism.

Our first season ends with Woman Hating by Andrea Dworkin. She is particularly famous for her consistent stance against pornography but in this book she starts by laying out the fundamental flaw in assuming any real progress in the rights of women. She shows, through analysis of fairy tales and pornography, that the ways in which we understand gender roles are highly limited to patriarchal and abusive systems of control. A highly controversial figure, she makes a fitting finale to our first season. We also read a few reviews.

In 1972, Selma James wrote, photocopied and distributed a text that would become the bedrock of any wages for housework campaign that followed. She was critical of the way societies demands on women were reinforced by the left and asked for the socialist movement to include a call for true freedom for women. That would only happen if women were paid for their work at home, she argued.

In 1975, Susan Brownmiller published the very popular and controversial book "Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape". In it, she argues that rape is an ever present force within sexist society and not some distant event that happens in the margins of every day life. Rape should be brought to the forefront of our consciousness as a society, so we can eradicate the culture that leads to it. Her main controversies came in the chapters on race, where many accused Brownmiller of resurrecting racist imagery. A difficult subject, but an important one, discussed in an extra long episode. We also speak about MeToo.

In the 1970s, after the Stonewall riots and the renewed empowerment of the LGBTQ movements, a collective by the name of Radicallesbians wrote a manifesto. This was their resistance against the exclusion of lesbian rights within the feminist movement and against the anti-homosexual statements of Betty Friedan. The manifesto is not just a piece of resistance literature, but also sets out its own understanding of an 'organic revolution', and liberation for both women and men.

In 1970, Germaine Greer published the Female Eunuch which went on to shake American society and bring new energy into the feminist movement. Calling on women to "taste their menstrual blood", and with a confident energy rarely seen on mainstream TV, Greer convinced many women to resist all types of repression and oppression and to not be content with the status quo. We also talk about films again.

In 1970, Germaine Greer published a book which was a burst of energy into the feminist movement. Like Betty Friedan, Greer managed to reach many people who weren't active in the feminist movement and the book was a success. A classic of the second wave, The Female Eunuch was perhaps not the most original text, but it was absolutely influential in how it re-energised the movement with both supporters and critiques weighing in. We also discuss movies again.

Slight detour through the 1970s, we return to the start of the decade with a book which made waves in the second wave. Kate Millett’s Sexual Politics might be one of the first feminist literary critiques, but it also shifted the debate from the rights of women to the creation and reinforcement of patriarchy. The focus was no longer on women, but on men as well, and the very foundations of sexual politics.

In 1975, Laura Mulvey wrote what would become a highly influential analysis of how cinema reproduces patriarchy. She coined the term "male gaze" and argued that the cinema goer is manipulated by being forced to connect to the cinema experience through the prism of heterosexual male desire. We also talk about Frozen, The Royal Tenenbaums and more trucks.