The duality of feminism and liberation: There can be no freedom until there is gender equality

There is little that has more consistently undermined idealistic movements than inequality. The United States faced this in the sixties, when it was forced to see that it couldn't claim to be the purveyor of freedom when it disenfranchised people at home on the basis of skin colour.

One issue that is often sidelined, and yet continues to plague progressive movements, is gender inequality. The persistent failure of many civilisations to treat women fairly has often been excused on the grounds that other issues have priority. But such arguments miss the point: if anyone remains subject to oppression, no one else can truly be free. As Oscar Wilde's points out in The Soul of Man, they continue to carry the burden of that suppression and to feel its negative effects (1891).

Gender equality is absolutely essential if we are to move forward. Our most pressing task is finding a way to overcome the prejudice against, and subjugation of, women around the world. That prejudice is at its most dangerous when it becomes mundane and accepted as part of the routine of normality. It is also the hardest form to tackle and overcome.

One group, which was active during the Spanish Civil War, called 'Mujeres Libres' or Free Women, considered the emancipation of the people and the emancipation of women a dual struggle. Mujeres Libres campaigned for the liberation of women as an intrinsic part of the general spirit of revolution and so sought ways to break through the toughest forms of sexism (O'Carroll, 1998). Their campaign made two particularly important points:

• The first point is that women are subjugated by something deeper than open oppression. That they are trapped by a socially conservative imposition of traditional roles, rituals and expectations. That this subjugation distorts society so much, that even those who benefit from it would find it impossible to liberate themselves from the most corrupt and corrupting parts of our society, without ending this inequality.


• The second important point is that people must first be made aware of the subjugation. The response of Mujeres Libres was to organise a network of groups that gathered information on sexism in order to study it and understand how to respond. They also developed a platform, in the form of a magazine of their own and columns in other magazines, from which to expose the sexism and promote their responses.

These points are, sadly, still relevant today. The most pressing foe of equality remains, as ever, everyday sexism. Following the same course adopted by Mujeres Libres over eighty years ago, the blog Everyday Sexism works to lay bare the affect that sexism has on the lives of everyone. Its work is essential to challenging a dangerous and illiberal status quo that still holds us back.

We see how essential that work is when those who claim a place on the political left struggle to overcome these dangerous sexisms. Progressive political parties still largely fail to achieve equal representation of gender in electoral candidates (Ferguson, 2013; Mason, 2013) and horrendous stories of hypocrisy and male chauvinist exploitation (Muir, 2013) show that there is still a long way to go.

If we are to break free of oppression we must be vigilant for sexism in all its forms. We must educate ourselves about it, share what we find with others and use our awareness to challenge this dangerous orthodoxy. We must acknowledge the reality that we cannot break the stranglehold of corruption and inequality until the basic standards to which people are held are fair for all, and equal for all.

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References:
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+ Oscar Wilde's 'The Soul of Man under Socialism'; London, 1891.

+ Aileen O'Carroll's 'Mujeres Libres'; from 'Workers Solidarity' No 54; June 1998.

+ Mark Ferguson's 'Why aren’t more women winning “open” Labour Party selections?'; on labourlist.org; 15 March 2013.

+ Rowenna Mason's 'Liberal Democrat minister rues party's record on female MPs'; in The Guardian; 18 September 2013.

+ Hugh Muir's 'Diary: Adieu, Comrade Delta. The SWP leader at the centre of sex abuse allegations departs'; in The Guardian; 29 July 2013.

Social networking has pros and cons, but still has the potential to be a tool of liberation

Throughout history, the advent of new technology has often been a double edged sword. The development of social networking over the last decade has not been exempt from that pattern.

Social networking arrived with the promise of a world that was better connected, better informed, and freer from the divisions caused by boundaries and borders, corruption and ignorance. Unfortunately, those same tools that were to provide us with faster, cheaper and surer connections, have also become the tools by which surveillance and monitoring are enhanced. The traditional forms of control, interference, and intimidation have made use of the break down of personal privacy that has been widely accepted as part and parcel of bringing people together.

So, in the face of that technology being used to infringe liberty, it is refreshing to see that those tools are still being used also to seek liberty.

In Ukraine,  Pro-European protesters are campaigning hard against the government's decision to abandon the path to EU integration (BBC Trending, 2013), as well as showing solidarity with opposition leader and former-Premier Yulia Tymoshenko (Smith-Spark et al, 2013), whose continuing imprisonment has been a source of controversy and embarrassment for Ukraine. Many world leaders refused to attend the Ukrainian hosted parts of the 2012 European Championship in protest of Ms Tymoshenko's internment.

The Ukrainian campaigners and protesters have taken to social media to promote their movement and to share the experience with people around the world. Social media is showing itself to be a valuable means of sharing information, gathering support and for organising co-ordinated action.

This certainly isn't the first example of social media being used as part of a protest movement. The Green Movement in Iran (Esfandiari, 2010); The Arab Spring across North Africa (Srinivasan, 2012); The Occupy movement around the world (Benson, 2013); all of these have made use of social media.

But what the situation in Ukraine shows us is that social media is not just a campaigning fad. Use of it for connecting people politically is persisting. Furthermore, it is connecting people across traditional boundaries, barriers and borders.

If we are to get away from the restrictions that prevent us from living free and in peace - restrictions such as violence, intimidation, and coercion - then communications and connections have to be made. We need individual space for rational critical thought, and then a means of bringing those individual voices and thoughts together in co-operation.

The internet and social media have brought us the means of connecting which will help us to co-operate, but it has yet to perfect the privacy that protects our right to think freely for ourselves. But there is promise, even though online campaigning is still only in its infancy. If we can be responsible in our use of these powerful tools they might still become everything that we were promised.

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References:
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+ BBC Trending's '#BBCtrending: How social media is shaping Ukraine's protest movement'; 3 December 2013.

+ Laura Smith-Spark, Victoria Butenko & Marie-Louise Gumuchian's 'Ukraine's Tymoshenko ends hunger strike at pro-EU protesters' behest'; on CNN; 6 December 2013.

+ Golmaz Esfandiari's 'The Myths And Realities Of New Media In Iran's Green Movement'; Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty; 11 June 2013.

+ Ramesh Srinivasan's 'Taking power through technology in the Arab Spring'; on Al Jazeera; 26 October 2012.

+ Thor Benson's 'Occupy has become a social media campaign'; on the Daily Kos; 2 November 2013.

Doctor Who and the X-Men try to show us that peace is the braver course

If you were to describe what it means to be a hero, based on how they are portrayed in western movies, books and comics, you would have to conclude that fighting is an essential component. It is rare for that narrative to have any competition.

However, there are alternatives out there. Two such examples are Marvel's X-men and the BBC's Doctor Who. Both try to present heroic characters who seek solutions through non-violence, reasoning and discourse. Though they aren't always perfect examples - with some large inconsistencies, such as the pacifist idealist Professor Charles Xavier having his own team of fighters - the fact that someone is trying to present alternative courses is important.

It is becoming inevitable that movies see their disputes settled with violence (Blair, 2013). That is a pattern that needs to change. Western culture has become so immersed in the idea of the 'action hero', that is becoming blind to the dangers of the violence, blind to the cost of violence, and blind to the bravery required to be peaceful.

In Marvel's X-Men, this struggle is best represented by the competing methods of Xavier and Magneto. Xavier seeks to be a teacher, while his friend and rival Magneto seeks to be a liberation fighter. Both of them struggle for the same cause, but via very different end goals. Xavier wants a peacefully integrated world in which his people will be safe, while Magneto seeks to ensure his people's safety by possessing the power and dominance to enforce it.

The problem they face is that, on the surface, violence is the easier course. In fact, Xavier runs his own team of fighters, trained to defend humanity. More often than not, it is this team that saves the day in a fight, rather than Xavier's own ideals.

The troubling part is that this kind of failure, in real life as well as pop cultural portrayals, is taken as proof that idealism is flawed and that violence is ultimately necessary. That troubling interpretation is itself missing the point. As a monk tells X-Man Wolverine in an episode of the X-Men animated series:

'It is often the braver man who chooses not to fight.'

The dangers you face multiply greatly when you reject fighting and violence. You expose yourself to a great number of dangers that might be easily subdued with violence, but you do so to avoid the long term damage wrought by such actions.

Doctor Who is one of the best shows on television for demonstrating this struggle. The Doctor, the time travelling, regenerating, protagonist, stands against violence and war wherever he finds it. But the show doesn't shy away from the difficult situations that are created for The Doctor by his unwillingness to use violence.

The Doctor Who 50th anniversary episodes, 'The Night of the Doctor' and 'The Day of the Doctor', really lay bare his commitment to non-violence.

In 'The Night of the Doctor', the Paul McGann portrayed Doctor is an idealist. He refuses to fight. He identifies himself by his unwillingness to take up arms, even as the Time War is beginning to rip reality to pieces. That path, however, leaves him isolated, faced with prejudicial hatred he cannot overcome, and eventually leads him to his death in an attempt to rescue a single person.

His successor, John Hurt's Doctor, lays down the title Doctor, in order to become a warrior and fight in the Time War. He is able to find a way to stop the threat to the universe that the war presents, in one cathartic act of violence. But violence is never that simple. He must make a utilitarian decision: kill everybody belonging to the two warring factions, including his own people, or watch the whole universe be consumed in the flames of war. The choice he makes, to kill, is a decision that haunts him for the next four hundred years.

These narratives get to the heart of the matter: to fight is the easier path for the immediate future, but there will be consequences. Every 'victory' will be won at great cost, possibly at the cost of things irreplaceable.

When you choose the path of violence and destruction, you destroy not only the danger of the present, but also the innocent possibility and enormous potential of the future. Both X-Men and Doctor Who attempt to show us the forces at work in this struggle. By taking the path of violence, an aggressor takes upon themselves the burden of all of the lost possibilities. The burden of the peaceful is the fear, the intimidation and the threat of death, for themselves and their loved ones; fears they can only face with ideas, reason and compassion.

The difficulty, and the fear, that comes with peaceful ways is what makes it the braver path. As X-Men and Doctor Who both try to show us, there is plenty for our art and culture to explore in terms of heroes, without resorting to the short term cathartic satisfaction of violent resolution.