Successful women should resist the urge to pull the ladder up behind them
RECENTLY, I was asked if I was a fan of a certain celebrity’s fashion choices to which I replied in the negative, citing her love for beige round-toe pumps and nude tights. When I’m Queen of the World — an inevitability at this point — all such offending items will be set on fire. You have been warned...
The person who posed that question gave a triumphant ‘ha!’ at my response, telling me that my aversion to another woman’s clothing meant that I was a ‘bad feminist’. I was baffled. I hadn’t torn this celebrity’s character apart, I hadn’t gone online to eviscerate her, I hadn’t commented on her body or weight, I hadn’t suggested that this woman’s taste (or lack thereof) made her less worthy of respect in any way. I’d merely expressed an opinion and somehow found myself deemed a traitor to the sisterhood.
The experience made me think about the idea of bad feminism, and the ‘sisterhood’ in general. Feminism is not a monolithic structure — the voices within the movement come from an incredibly diverse range of people. There is no single feminist voice — a person’s experience of feminism is going to differ according to their class, age, race, religion, or sexuality. No one person can speak on behalf of all feminists, and we shouldn’t expect, or want, that to happen. There’s always going to be disagreement, and as long as that doesn’t disintegrate into in-fighting, a level of healthy debate should be encouraged. The notion that as a feminist, you are never allowed to criticise another woman is utterly bizarre. (Sarah Palin identifies as a feminist. I’m going to need to be able to pass some judgment on her politics.)
What is necessary, I think, is to fight the temptation to automatically see other women as a threat. A certain amount of robust competition can be a good thing, especially in an academic or professional capacity where it can spur you on to improve your own performance. And while no one is obliged to use their position to assist others, I think it’s important that successful women resist the urge to pull the ladder up behind them.
I’ve been fortunate in my own career and have been helped by other, much more well established authors. Marian Keyes has been remarkably kind to me, offering endless encouragement and support, and her friendship has proven invaluable on both a professional and personal level.
Jeanette Winterson, Cecelia Ahern, and Sarah Perry have all given cover quotes for my novels, taking the time out of their incredibly busy schedules to do so. I’ve noticed a similar level of solidarity online; female authors tend to be more likely to shout about each other’s work, congratulate one another on awards won or accolades received, and to recommend books written by other women.
The interesting thing about social media is that, while it can often feel like an unsafe space, it has given women a voice that might not that been so easily afforded to them by traditional media. VIDA, an organisation that champions women in literature, publishes an annual assessment of literary criticism, and they consistently report that while women buy two thirds of fiction sold, the majority of reviews found in magazines/newspapers are written by male reviewers about books written by male authors.
The Western literary canon has always skewed towards white men to the exclusion of women and people of colour, and many of us have become tired of waiting to be invited to sit at that particular table.
Whenever I’ve spoken about this issue before, I have been told that by making a decision to consume more art created by women that I am being sexist against men. “Shouldn’t you just buy what’s ‘good’?” I am asked, “Rather than allowing the gender of the artist to influence you?” I would love to have the luxury of doing that. Truly, I would.
And maybe men don’t feel the need to champion each other’s work in the same way but all too often women know that if one of us fails, then somehow all of us do, because women and people of colour are not afforded the same opportunities to learn from their mistakes as straight, white men are.
One strike and you’re out. When the all-female Ghostbusters was released, many women I knew went to the cinema multiple times for fear that it would under-perform, causing CEOs of Hollywood studios to shrug their shoulders and use its failure as an excuse not to green-light women-centric movies for the next five years. (The same goes for Wonder Woman and the wonderful Girls’ Trip.) So while I may not agree with every woman I meet, or even like them, I am still committed to using my voice, such as it is, to amplifying the voices of the women around me. I want women to be taste-makers. I want them to be in positions of power, making important decisions that affect other women’s lives.
I think many of us want to see women on screen, we want to read their stories, we want to see them in the houses of parliament and sitting at boardroom tables across the globe. In short, we are hungry for equal representation. Not more, not less. Just equal.
Louise Says
The stage adaptation of my novel, Asking For It, is having its world premiere at the Everyman Theatre during the Cork Midsummer Festival in 2018. The team behind the production is compromised of some of the best people in Irish theatre, and I know the book is going to be in safe hands. Tickets are on sale now at everymancork.com
Louise McSharry’s podcast, No Filter, is about ‘extraordinary women with extraordinary lives’ and it’s available on RTÉ - The Collective. It’s so excellent I binged all available episodes in 24 hours. Give this woman a chat show...
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