A Dyke A Broad #24
Paris lockdown #3479, erasing women's rights in the U.S., and the loss of a feminist hero, Nawal El Saadawi.
Hello from Paris!
Where I am feeling increasingly anti-human. Not that it matters. The third wave of Covid is here and we’re back in lockdown again. This time, in addition to the existing curfew in our café-less city, our horrible fascist government is not only not making us carry passes, they’re not limiting our visits outdoors in time, and not at all in geography— if you stay within 10K of your house. Down with tyranny!
As far as I can tell, the only real difference is that you can’t travel from region to region, more people will work from home, and nonessential businesses are closed again.
Except, by this point, almost every place has managed to get essential status, not just grocery stores and hardware stores, but the chocolaterie and that flower shop on the corner. So if I have an urgent need to plant some tiny daffodils in our window box and hide tiny edible Easter eggs under them, I can. In fact, maybe I should. Though surprises have by and large lost their appeal. What appears to be chocolate will often turn out not to be.
Last week, for instance, I watched a talk arranged by Women’s Liberation of University College of London about the much lauded Equality Act in the U.S. which is supposed to be a pretty sweet deal for LGBT people. But on closer inspection isn’t at all. Especially for women.
Sociologist and criminologist Dr. Callie H. Burt outlines it a lot better than I will, so watch the video. Her main critique? That in its current form, “the bill would institute sweeping changes that would prioritize in-the-moment gender self-ID over sex for ‘sex-based provisions’, no exceptions.”
No exceptions. None. So any time at all that females find themselves in conflict with someone claiming gender protections they will have no recourse under the law.
There will be massive consequences for single-sex spaces, especially those that evolved to protect women from male violence. Like domestic violence shelters, or women’s prisons where violent predatory males already try to game the system. As for shelters, I’ve been hearing stories for a while about women getting harassed, assaulted, and kicked out as transphobic for complaining about no-op, pre-op males who self-identify as trans women and do everything from following them into the bathroom and demanding sex to assaulting them, or just sitting around with their junk hanging out making lewd comments. This in domestic violence and homeless shelters where women deserve to feel safe, or at least more safe than where they came from.
This shouldn’t be acceptable. It’s not like there aren’t solutions to these problems—if anybody’s listening. Dr. Burt herself suggests alternatives on how to accommodate both trans rights and female ones. The biggest hitch is that you have to admit trans women and females aren’t exactly the same. Which is heresy at the moment.
I expect the Act to pass the Senate and be signed into law. Though it might still be worth dropping a line to your senator and begging them to amend, vote no, or at least take time to examine it more closely.
Aspire to be Savage and Dangerous
In the meantime, take your inspiration where you find it. Like in the life of the revolutionary Egyptian feminist Nawal El Saadawi. If you don’t know her work, check out her profile in the BBC. This quote alone is worth it:
"They said, 'You are a savage and dangerous woman.'
"I am speaking the truth. And the truth is savage and dangerous."
Born in a village outside Cairo in 1931, the second of nine children, El Saadawi wrote her first novel at the age of 13. Her father was a government official, with little money, while her mother came from a wealthy background.
Her family tried to make her marry at the age of 10, but when she resisted her mother stood by her.
Her parents encouraged her education, El Saadawi wrote, but she realised at an early age that daughters were less valued than sons. Later she would describe how she stamped her foot in fury when her grandmother told her, "a boy is worth 15 girls at least... Girls are a blight".
"She saw something wrong and she spoke out," says Dr Amin. "Nawal can't turn her back."
One of the childhood experiences El Saadawi documented with uncomfortable clarity was being subjected to female genital mutilation (FGM) at the age of six.
In her book, The Hidden Face of Eve, she described undergoing the agonising procedure on the bathroom floor, as her mother stood alongside.
Then there’s also this nice, long, juicy interview in which she talks about the patriarchy, why she writes, why democracy doesn't exist. And tells a brilliant story about writing a very angry letter to God when she was six about how unfair He was, giving her stupid, lazy brother all these privileges just because he was a boy, when she was a hard-working, intelligent student who deserved freedom too.
That’s it for this time.
Exhaustedly yours,