Published in The New Statesman sometime in 1998*, this short piece ‘Material Girl’ by Arzu is a response to Natasha Walter’s article overviewing her book ‘The New Feminism’
Purity has become such a dirty word. Even more so, when attached to Natasha Walter’s definition of old school feminism. This ‘ism’ hasn’t delivered material equality due to its preoccupation with the theory of it all. The New Feminism appears to be an impassioned cry for the freedom of the individual feminist to decorate her body, mind and soul the way she wants, without the constraints of an all-encompassing philosophy to forbid what goes against its belief system. Secularism has arrived for the women’s movement.
Money and power are now accessible to the miniskirt clad, Cosmo reader. Still behind statistically, women can become QC’s and defend men we know are guilty of rape, or even lead the country into recession and senseless bloody wars. The problem isn’t the proportion of women to men at the bar or on the government benches. It’s still the theory.
Madonna’s self-made parody of Marilyn Monroe’s ‘Diamonds are a girl’s best friend,’ exists in a world where men still create and ultimately consume female imagery. ‘Material Girl,’ (aka Walter’s pragmatic girl?) still sells the idea that women, well, sell. Exploitation isn’t expunged by women participating in the same. Material equality, is worth nothing without respect. When Suzanne Kappeler wrote about the pornography of representation, she and other feminists were looking to the cause of all degradation.
We have an intrinsic desire to decorate ourselves, Walter is right. But we need space to do so without perpetuating stereotypes that imprison us as the object of male fantasy at work or home. Home. The kingdom of women? Until women enjoy a respectful role in the home (when precisely in Western culture did they?), men won’t be rushing to follow suit.
Women are then, constricted in what they wear, talk about or how they act in the movement to true equality. That can only be realised in a world where purity of principle reigns over the pragmatism that degrades women and men today. Then again, as a Muslim, maybe I would say that.
Arzu Merali is 27 and a freelance journalist. She is also a campaigner on women’s issues and human rights.
* Unfortunately the New Statesman version cannot be located and seems to be behind a firewall, the date on this page has been approximated.
