Edifying and unsettling

Posted on October 31, 2011 by Danson Kahyana

African Sexualities: A Reader edited by Sylvia Tamale, Pambazuka Press, 2011.

 

African Sexualities: A Reader brings together 66 contributions on African sexualities, ranging from critical essays, life stories, fiction and poems, to diary entries, conversations and interviews.

The book is divided into nine sections, each addressing particular issues related to the topic of African sexualities. Framing essays by writers such as Sylvia Tamale, Jane Bennett, Desiree Lewis, Nkiru Nzegwu, Beth Maina Ahlberg and Asli Kulane, Kopano Ratele, Stella Nyanzi, Chimaraoke O. Izugbara, and Mensah Prah introduce each section respectively. These framing essays are so seminal or provocative that each calls for its own review/discussion. In fact, this is true for most of the contributions in the book, which is hefty reading at 656 pages.

From the outset, the title of the Reader establishes sexualities as pluralised, thus dismantling the dominant ideology of heterosexuality. It also captures the complexity of the topic at hand, for the concept of African sexualities encompasses a variety of sexual orientations.

This is one of the things that makes the Reader alluring: it does not present a homogeneous, monolithic position on sexualities. Its contributors belong to different sexual and philosophical orientations: some, like the editor, are heterosexual and happily married; others are gay, lesbian, transsexual, and transgender.

This is as it should be, for as the World Health Organisation puts it in a report entitled Defining Sexual Health, sexuality is experienced and expressed in different forms – “thoughts, fantasies, desires, beliefs, attitudes, values, behaviours, practices, roles and relationships” — that are influenced by “the interaction of biological, psychological, social, economic, political, cultural, ethical, legal, historical, religious and spiritual factors” (WHO, quoted in chapter 59, Reader).

At the launch of the book at The Book Lounge in Cape Town on 11 October 2011, the editor, Professor Sylvia Tamale, revealed that the title is meant to “tantalise, stir and awaken, to take you to another level of awareness where you start thinking about sexuality and asking yourself: Is there such a thing as ‘African Sexuality’, let alone ‘Sexualities’?”

Professor Sylvia Tamale

 

I certainly found the book to be “tantalising” in the sense that it kept me in a state of expectancy from beginning to end. By the time I reached page 656, I could only take a breath and gaze at the Reader with a sigh: “What a book you are! You are both edifying and unsettling.”

The Reader is edifying because there is so much to learn from it, what with the many theoretical perspectives, research findings, and polemical stances it contains. But it is also unsettling because some of the issues brought to light are frighteningly brave. I will give an example. In a life story that I wish were fiction, Everjoice J. Win gets rid of the uterus that she finds bothersome and enslaving. Entitled “Ode to my Uterus,” she gives us a first-person account after the deed:

So here you are. Lying all dead and shrivelled in a jar of formaldehyde. [. . .] We have had a long 41 years together, you and I. I no longer want to be defined by your presence. [. . .] So, dear uterus, rest in peace. I can’t say I am going to miss you, because I definitely will not. I look forward to living out the rest of my days without being reminded of your presence every month. More than anything, I am now a free agent. The rest of my body belongs to me. Nobody is going to get a cut from you, my little reproductive machine. (375-376)

I find this conception of freedom disturbing. Perhaps it is her poetic style that makes me feel so sorry for her helpless uterus: by giving it human attributes of hearing and understanding as her addressee, Everjoice’s “revolutionary” act strikes me as wanton, especially when we remember that there are several other ways the “little productive machine” could have been stopped from reproducing. But Everjoice is an emancipated subject with absolute freedom over her body; so uterus, rest in peace.

The book is revolutionary in many ways, but perhaps most importantly it lifts the shroud on the deity called sexuality. Unveiled, sexuality is presented to the gaze of the reader without any qualms about blasphemy. In a sense, the book makes das Unheimliche of sexuality become das Heimliche. That which has been hidden, or discussed in whispers, is exposed and demystified.

One of the strongest points of the Reader is the intensity and profundity of theorising, especially in the framing essays. Sylvia Tamale, for instance, gives a deep analysis of research on sexuality in Africa, showing how it has been approached by different interest groups — missionaries, colonialists, imperialists, patriarchal governments, etc. Jane Bennett does a related analysis in the area of activists’ subversion of and resistance to monolithic sexual regimes. Desiree Lewis uses postcolonial discourse to demonstrate how western/Eurocentric/US-centric conceptions of Africa are not only sometimes misleading but also racist.

In a startling analysis of African erotic sexuality (which she calls “osunality” after the Yoruba goddess of erotic pleasure and fertility), Nkiru Nzegwu turns phallocentrism on its head by demonstrating that the phallus is not a symbol of man’s power; on the contrary, it is evidence of his helplessness, for it is devoured by the vagina. “After the semen’s extraction,” she writes, “the depleted male is physically and emotionally drained, while females are powered to continue.” And shortly after: “Because of its importance in the continuation of birth and the expansion of families, the vagina becomes the seat of women’s power” (264).

Another area that is re-theorised, is the issue of female genital mutilation (FGM). It turns out that FGM is not always and already a mutilation or a patriarchal imposition on women. On the contrary, some of the practices that have been lumped together in the category “FGM” are modifications, not mutilations, and they are sometimes voluntarily undertaken by some women to enhance their sexual pleasure or that of their partners.

In an insightful essay that anti-FGM crusaders need to read carefully, Brigitte Bagnol and Esmeralda Mariano write: “Some women modify the diameter of the vagina, its temperature, lubrication, humidity and consistency through steam baths, smokes and application or ingestion of various preparations” (271). In an endnote, they report something that will surprise many white South Africans: “Anecdotal accounts suggest that some white South African women are getting in on the act [of manually elongating the inner folds of the labia minora to create the culturally approved organ modification, which is deemed sensuous and critical for enhanced sexual pleasure] in order to keep their men from crossing racial lines” (267). Clearly, the Reader challenges us to discover issues that might seem too “archaic” to interest modern and postmodern people, some of them carrying Master’s and Doctoral degrees.

There are also some humorous (albeit serious) chapters in the Reader. One of them is entitled “Ob/Gyn Experiences – Life Stories”. It is a list of twelve experiences compiled by the editor, Tamale. “In more ways than one, the relation between gynaecologists and their women patients is quintessentially one of power,” she writes in her introduction to this chapter. The first of these stories  presents us with a lady called Mumbi (not her real name) whom a male doctor asks while at his job, “Did you know that you have grey hair?” Imagine that!

“How old did you say you were again?” another male doctor asks Ndanatsei, who has spread out her legs as much as she can, making her wonder if the question has been raised because she “looked older or younger down there”.

The Reader is encyclopaedic in its coverage of African sexualities, and the range of issues raised is admirable, with very insightful contributions from different parts of the continent. Karim Mahmoud Tartoussieh gives us an illuminating essay on “clean cinema” in Egypt – a genre that requires “a reconfiguration of the cinematic bodies of artists (especially female artists) to fit within a normative religio-ethical project” (218).

From Uganda, we have the experience of Julius Kaggwa, Director of Support Initiative for People with atypical Sex Development, who lived the first 17 years of his life as a woman, having been “born with an atypical body anatomy close to 40 years ago” that made her/him “a victim of emotional blackmail” — a story that reminds the reader of Herculine Barbin, the 19^th century French intersexual who eventually committed suicide.

Sally Gross, a South African Jew born intersexed, gives a chronicle of her life, specifically the legal activism in which she has been involved. She observes that the public needs to be educated about intersex as “part of the fabric of human diversity and not a threat, a rights issue and not pathology” (236). Indeed, the definition of the term “intersex” given in the Oxford Dictionary of English (2010) as “the abnormal condition of being intermediate between male and female; hermaphroditism”, indicates the extent to which intersex is still inscribed as an abnormality.

Despite these strengths there are a few shortcomings in the book. Firstly, heterosexuality seems to be marginalised in favour of other sexualities. This is understandable, given that one of the aims of the book is to dismantle what Adrienne Rich called “compulsory heterosexuality”. However, it does make the book seem activism-oriented. Of course there is nothing wrong with this, except that it gives the feeling that heterosexuality is “guilty” of something – of suppressing other sexualities, if you like.

Secondly, there are cases where some contributors are blatantly biased. In the ob/gyn experiences I have referred to above, all twelve experiences portray “bad”, unethical male gyns. Surely there must be accounts of “a few good men” out there?

Finally, the Reader does not provide a note on the contributors that would have helped readers to follow up on the work (and biography) of their favourite contributors.

These shortcomings are of course nothing when compared to the wealth of information presented in the Reader, and I commend Tamale for enriching the African library with a book that is destined to change the way we talk about and teach sexualities in Africa. Indeed, the last section of the Reader offers pedagogical approaches to the teaching of sexualities both at school and in communities. The book will certainly change the way some people experience sexuality, for instance by encouraging those in “hiding” to open up and embrace their sexuality the way contributor Kipkemboi [Jeffrey Moses] did.

In 2003, the readers of Uganda’s leading daily, New Vision, named Sylvia Tamale, at that time an associate professor of law at Makerere University, “the Worst Woman of the Year” for suggesting to the then proposed Equal Opportunities Commission, in her status as a lawyer, that the term “minorities” should cover lesbian and gay citizens of Uganda. Reading African Sexualities: A Reader,  it becomes clear that the woman they vilified as a moral degenerate is a great humanist who is using her scholarly talent and calling as a lawyer to give hope to the millions of people on the continent who are being oppressed for embracing who and what they are, sexually.

FEATURES

If Sexuality were a human being ...

Introduction to 'African Sexualities: A Reader'

Sylvia Tamale

2011-05-11, Issue 529

http://pambazuka.org/en/category/features/73150

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‘African Sexualities’ is a groundbreaking new volume, forthcoming from Pambazuka Press. As well as using popular culture to help address the ‘what, why, how, when and where’ questions, the book’s contributors provide a critical mapping of African sexualities that informs readers about the plurality and complexities of sexualities on the continent – desires, practices, fantasies, identities, taboos, abuses, violations, stigmas, transgressions and sanctions. At the same time, the contributors pose gender-sensitive and politically aware questions that challenge the reader to interrogate assumptions and hegemonic sexuality discourses, thereby unmapping the intricate and complex terrain of African sexualities.

The following article by ‘African Sexualities’ editor Sylvia Tamale comprises the book’s introduction.

If Sexuality were a human being and she made a grand entrance (l’entrée grande) into the African Union conference centre, the honourable delegates would stand up and bow in honour. But the acknowledgement of and respect for Sexuality would no doubt be tinged with overtones of parody and irony, even sadness, because although Sexuality might represent notions of pleasure and the continuity of humanity itself, the term conjures up discussions about sources of oppression and violence. In fact, once Sexuality got to the podium and opened her mouth, the multiple complexities associated with her presence would echo around the conference room.

The Reader on African Sexualities (hereafter referred to as the Reader) intends to translate these echoes into comprehensible notions and concepts, carefully examining their different wavelengths and the terms of their power and laying bare the theoretical, political and historical aspects of African sexualities. The term ‘African sexualities’ immediately provokes the questions: who/what is African? What is sexuality? Who determines what qualifies as African sexualities? Among other things, the Reader attempts to address these deeply complex questions through the lenses of history, feminism, law, sociology, anthropology, spirituality, poetry, fiction, life stories, rhetoric, song, art and public health. In this way the Reader offers a rare opportunity to theorise sexuality through various modes. The idea is to deconstruct, debunk, expose, contextualise and problematise concepts associated with African sexualities in order to avoid essentialism, stereotyping and othering.

The material in this Reader has been carefully selected to surface the complexities associated with what has been pandered as African and the issues surrounding sexuality that have been taken for granted. One of the main challenges for contributors to the Reader was to refuse to perpetuate colonial reification of ‘African’ as a homogenous entity. Hence, the title’s reference to African sexualities is not because we are unaware of the richness and diversity of African peoples’ heritage and experiences. Jane Bennett’s essay in Chapter 6 addresses this issue at great length.

Any reference to the term ‘African’ in this volume is used advisedly to highlight those aspects of cultural ideology – the ethos of community, solidarity and ubuntu[1] – that are widely shared among the vast majority of people within the geographical entity baptised ‘Africa’ by the colonial map-makers. More importantly, the term is used politically to call attention to some of the commonalities and shared historical legacies inscribed in cultures and sexualities within the region by forces such as colonialism, capitalism, imperialism, globalisation and fundamentalism. Even as these commonalities are proposed, however, readers will find them challenged.

Although diverse forces interrupted the shape of sexualities on the continent – redefining notions of morality, for example, and ‘freezing’ them into social and political spaces through both penal codification and complex alliances with political and religious authority – differences among continental spaces meant that such interruptions had diverse effects. Such forces further attempted to standardise global ideas about African sexualities, often erasing questions of diversities and complexities of sexual relations. As the material in Part 1 reveals, however, colonial methods of researching, theorising and engaging in sexualities in Africa left indelible and significant imprints on people’s sexual lives.

This, however, is not to suggest that the continent became a hostage of its late colonial history. As the materials in this Reader clearly show, the continent is currently replete with vibrant movements, some seeking to reinforce sexual hegemonic powers and others challenging, subverting and resisting imposed modes of identity, morality and behaviour patterns. Some of the subversions have deep roots – Parts 2 and 3, titled ‘Sexuality, power and politics’ and ‘Mapping sexual representations and practices of identity’, respectively, offer expansions of these issues and excavate the political origins and social consequences of the politics of sexualities in Africa.

We speak of sexualities in the plural in recognition of the complex structures within which sexuality is constructed and in recognition of its pluralist articulations. The notion of a homogeneous, unchanging sexuality for all Africans is out of touch not only with the realities of lives, experiences, identities and relationships but also with current activism and scholarship. Ideas about and experiences of African sexualities are shaped and defined by issues such as colonialism, globalisation, patriarchy, gender, class, religion, age, law and culture. Because these phenomena are at play elsewhere in the world, and because of the various historical links that connect Africa to the rest of humankind, some theoretical and conceptual approaches that have informed sexualities studies elsewhere have relevance to the way writers think through questions of African sexualities.

Sexualities are often thought of as closely related to one of the most critical of biological processes, namely reproduction. But contemporary scholarship understands sexualities as socially constructed, in profound and troubling engagement with the biological, and therefore as heavily influenced by, and implicated within, social, cultural, political and economic forces. The study of sexualities therefore offers unending lessons about pleasure, creativity, subversion, violence, oppression and living. Attempts to define the term sexuality often end in frustration, and become in themselves exercises about writers’ own orientations, prioritisations and passions. As Oliver Phillips reminds us:

‘Sexuality can be defined by referring to a wide range of anatomical acts and physical behaviour involving one, two or more people. We can relate it to emotional expressions of love, intimacy and desire that can take an infinite variety of forms. Or it can be implicated in the reproduction of social structures and markers through rules and regulations that permit or prohibit specific relations and/or acts. In the end, it emerges that these definitions are far from exhaustive. None of them are adequate on their own but that when considered all together they reflect the multiple ways that sexuality is manifest and impacts on our lives, and that above all; these definitions all consistently involve relations of power.’ (Phillips 2011: 285)

It is this question of power to which the materials in this Reader return time and again.

As a continent, Africa has made significant progress in creating the space at policy level for discussion of sexual and reproductive health and rights. Since the International Conference on Population and Development held in Cairo, Egypt in 1994, the African Union has adopted the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa (Maputo Protocol),[2] the Plan of Action on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (Maputo Plan of Action),[3] and the Campaign on Accelerated Reduction of Maternal Mortality in Africa (CARMMA).[4] These continent-wide efforts have boosted the possibility of creating national policies on a wide variety of issues including gender-based violence, access to reproductive healthcare and a focus on sexualities education, among others.

Although these policies are numerous, missing are the theoretical and practical sparks to ignite the commitment required from both state and non-state actors to implement them. Moreover, studies have revealed the direct link between the delivery of sexual and reproductive health services and sustainable development (UN Millenium Project 2006). Part 5 of this volume addresses the latter, with the opening essay by Beth Maina Ahlberg and Asli Kulane clearly framing the link between sexual and reproductive rights and issues of development.

The law turns sexualities into a space through which instruments of state control and dominance can be deployed. For example, the criminal legal system in most African states attempts to regulate how, when and with whom we can have consensual sex. The offences of prostitution, abortion and adultery clearly curtail both women’s and men’s sexual autonomy (although as the Reader material suggests, it is women’s autonomy that is most severely under threat), and the criminalisation of homosexuality affects both men and women who do not conform to the dominant ideology of heterosexuality. The material in Part 6, titled ‘Sex and masculinities’, demonstrates this very well.

Western scholars have thus far conducted the bulk of studies on sexualities and a big chunk of what has been published on the African continent emanates from South Africa.[5] This phenomenon has more to do with geopolitical power differentials than academic superiority. The dominance of Western theories and perspectives on sexuality studies and the fact that the main languages of academia are colonial have serious implications for rapidly growing sexualities scholarship on the continent. African feminists and other change agents are well aware of the dangers associated with the uncritical application of Western theories to non-Western contexts (Adomako Ampofo and Arnfred 2010). They constantly struggle to overcome the limitations and encumbrances that come with creating and disseminating cultural-specific knowledge in a foreign colonial language. They understand the capacity of language to confer power through naming and conveying meaning and nuance to sexuality concepts. Concepts such as silence, restraint, choice, gay, lesbian, coming out and drag queen, for example, all carry specific social meanings steeped in Western ideology and traditions.

It is worth reiterating the point made earlier: as researchers and theorists of sexualities we must always take great care not to fall into the homogenising trap. One of the salient points made by various authors in this volume is to avoid homogenising and essentialising people’s sexualities (whether Africans, Europeans, Asians, Middle Eastern or Hispanics).

Although many writers often hold romanticised notions of pre-colonial African sexualities as having been unrestricted and unbridled, the facts are quite different. As in all social organisations, African societies historically involved the organisation of gender, sexuality and reproduction – the diverse shapes, fluidities, the visible and invisible, the spiritual and the political and economic dynamics of those societies – which resulted in certain restraints.

For instance, almost all societies on the continent would have treated sexual interaction with a child or between parent and offspring as abominations. Part 8 is titled ‘Sexuality, spirituality and the supernatural’, and provides a glimpse of some of the complexities that pervade African sexualities in light of traditional beliefs and practices.

In the context of a resurgence of cultural, religious and economic fundamentalist movements, feminists and gender activists on the continent have forged global alliances in the struggle for women’s bodily integrity and sexual autonomy. After all, patterns of control seen in sexual and gender-based violence, marital rape, sex trafficking, teenage pregnancies, women’s sexual pleasure and so forth bear no national, religious or cultural stamp. But as feminists across the continents increase their global political activism for women’s reproductive health and sexual rights, so do they have to account more carefully for the differentials in culture and history.

So, although it is important to pay attention to the intersections among nations regarding gender inequality, it is crucial that the strategies employed by African feminists be informed by the lived experiences of women and men on the continent and the specificities of what they hold as their culture, taking into account that there is not always agreement among people in the same locale about the nuances and meanings of culture. Part 7, titled ‘Who’s having sex and who’s not?’, surfaces some of the most common stereotypes and prejudices about sexualities and the lived experiences of marginal groups in our societies.

Professor Sylvia Tamale 

 

Debates on sexual inequality represent the most fundamental challenge to struggles for global democracy. One of the biggest challenges of our times is how to confront the complexities of intersecting oppressions so that people identified as sexual minorities, for example sex workers, lesbians, gays, transgendered, intersexed, rape survivors and people living with HIV/AIDS, are able to stand with full status on the same podium such as those representing groups fighting dictatorships, corruption, social injustice, insecurity, discrimination against women, or people with disabilities. There are of course sexual minorities within each of these groups and often implicit among groups are concerns about sexualities. Until we close the gap between different voices demanding justice and equality, embracing the infinite possibilities of our sexual, social, economic and political beings, the African renaissance or the transformation that we are striving for will forever remain a mirage.

One important way of closing these gaps is by raising awareness through formal and informal education on sexualities. Part 9, titled ‘Pedagogical approaches’, demonstrates how this can be done in creative and effective ways.

HOW TO USE THIS READER

The key objective of this Reader is to amplify the voices of Africans on the topic of sexualities. This is achieved through a critical mapping and unmapping of African sexualities.

The process of mapping is meant to inform readers about the plurality and complexities of African sexualities, including desires, practices, presentations, fantasies, identities, taboos, abuses, violations, stigmas, transgressions and sanctions. At the same time, it poses questions that challenge the reader to interrogate assumptions and hegemonic sexuality discourses, thereby unmapping the intricate and complex terrain of African sexualities. How is sexuality linked to gender and subordination? What is the ‘Africanness’ in sexualities? How has history shaped African sexualities? What explicit and implicit diversities exist within sexuality? 

The Reader exposes the hidden or subtle lines that link the various aspects of our lives and sexualities. Such exposure facilitates our understanding of the negative and positive factors associated with the complex phenomenon of sexuality, including how it is instrumentalised, commodified and politicised, as well as its reproductive, pleasurable and empowering aspects.

Generally speaking, by the time we grow into adults many of us have done a great deal of learning, most of it rote (uncritical). Mechanical learning (cram, cram, cram, drill, drill, drill) is the norm for most of us as we move along the conveyor belt of examinations in post-colonial African education systems. The informal cultural systems of education that largely emphasise children’s unquestioning obedience to adults do not help either. Both formal and informal education in the main promote learning in dualisms and absolute truths, such as right and wrong, good and bad, moral and immoral, inclusion and exclusion and male and female. These do little to foster reflective and critical thinking.

The end result is that our learning processes grossly neglect to instruct us in the important concept of unlearning. Without this skill, it is extremely difficult for us to think critically and to question unjust frameworks or challenge the established order. Most of us passively absorb the assumptions and perspectives of the dominant view and many of us have a visceral negative reaction to the concept of sexuality. Unlearning literally requires us to discard our old eyes and acquire a new set with which to see the world. It requires us to jettison assumptions and prejudices that are so deep-seated and internalised that they have become normal and appear to be natural.

The critical process of transformative learning requires us to apply our intellect, unlearn deeply entrenched behaviour patterns and beliefs and relearn new ones. It requires us to acquire the vital skills to critically analyse internalised oppression and complicity with patriarchy and capitalism. It further requires us to step out of our familiar comfort zones and enter the world of discomfort and anxiety associated with change. Such processes, which call for a reorganisation of the old, are always fraught with difficulty, disequilibrium and stress.

This Reader on African Sexualities calls on us to do exactly that. It challenges us to confront issues that society has clothed in taboos, inhibitions and silences, to unclothe them, quiz them and give them voice. It certainly requires us to unlearn and relearn many things that we take for granted about sexualities and may well leave us confused, shocked, offended, embarrassed, scared and even a little excited. Many of us, for instance, will be baffled by the fact that issues of sexuality and desire, which are viewed as apolitical and private, are in fact steeped in politics and power relations. But such realisations are part of transformational learning and are reflections of our intellectual and political growth and our personal development.

To get maximum benefit from this Reader we need to pry our minds open to fresh ideas, absorb new knowledge and apply our intellect, knowledge and experience to develop a critical analysis of the issue at hand. Opening our minds means to accept differences, to see the world through the eyes of others, to open our ears to diverse viewpoints and to venture beyond our familiar horizons. To appreciate the Reader we have to tap deep into our inner resources of respect, empathy, tolerance, self-reflexivity and courage. We have to let our minds drift beyond the box, to see with our hands, hear with our skin and taste with our mind’s eye.

The Reader is divided into nine thematic parts, each containing essays that introduce the reader to the main concepts as well as key issues and debates in the area, thus providing a solid framework for analysis, review of knowledge and transformative action. There is an inevitable overlap of issues across the parts, which serves as a constant reminder of the intertwining nature of sexualities in every aspect of our lives and the web-like political effects. The structured divisions are forced for conceptual neatness and reading convenience more than anything else. In addition to the essays, the Reader unconventionally carries a wide variety of genres including poetry, fiction, life stories, songs and diary entries. The range of writings is meant not only to connect readers to everyday, real-life sexual experiences, but also to stimulate creative, interesting and critical thinking about the inter-linkages between sexuality, power, rights, (under)development and various structures of inequality.

At the end of each thematic part, the reader will find a set of questions that acts as a guide for a systematic and critical approach to the key issues. Though this Reader attempts to use accessible language, analyses of African sexualities inevitably involve the use of complex and unfamiliar terms and concepts. For this reason, we have included a glossary at the end of book.

A final note concerns the authorship of the material. Almost all of the authors can be described as African writers, if the term African is understood as a geopolitical space. All of them can be termed African in the sense that the passion driving their research and writing comes from engagement with the idea that serious global knowledge creation requires that the lives, experiences, ideas and imagination of people throughout the continent be considered critically important.

The diversity of the authors defies categorisation: they are men, women, sex workers, intersexed and transgendered; they speak many languages and write, here, in English; they live in 16 of Africa’s 54 countries and in the diaspora; they have experienced multiple African realities; they live their own sexualities across diverse possibilities of desire, attraction, family creation, political activism and identity. When working with this Reader, it is also important to recognise that many of the authors represented here are prolific and previously published writers in addition to a crop of fresh and exciting new scholarship.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS 

* Edited by Sylvia Tamale, ‘African Sexualities’ is a groundbreaking volume, coming soon from Pambazuka Press.
* Please send comments to editor@pambazuka.org or comment online at Pambazuka News. 

NOTES

[1] The African philosophy of ubuntu (humaneness) refers to understanding diversity and the belief in a universal bond and sharing (Ramose 1999). Justice Yvonne Mokgoro of the South African Constitutional Court elaborated this difficult-to-translate concept:
In its most fundamental sense it translates as personhood and ‘morality’. Metaphorically … [it describes] the significance of group solidarity on survival issues so central to the survival of communities. While it envelopes the key values of group solidarity, compassion, respect, human dignity, conformity to basic norms and collective unity, in its fundamental sense it denotes humanity and morality. Its spirit emphasizes a respect for human dignity, marking a shift from confrontation to conciliation. (Quoted in Sachs 2009: 106–107)
[2] Adopted in 2003 and brought into force in 2005, the Maputo Protocol addresses the health and reproductive rights of African women in Article 14.
[3] The Maputo Plan of Action was adopted in 2007 as a strategy to implement the continental policy framework for sexual and reproductive health and rights.
[4] Launched in 2009, CARMMA was meant to speed up the process of implementing the Maputo Plan of Action.
[5] These facts are clearly reflected by the dominance of Western theories as well as the over-representation of South African scholarship in this volume.

REFERENCES

Adomako Ampofo, A. and Arnfred, S. (eds) (2010) African Feminist Politics of Knowledge: Tensions, Challenges, Possibilities, Uppsala, The Nordic Africa Institute
Phillips, Oliver (2011) ‘Teaching sexuality and law in southern Africa: locating historical narratives and adopting appropriate conceptual frameworks’, in Tsanga, A. and Stewart, J. (eds) Women and Law: Innovative Approaches to Teaching, Research and Analysis, Harare, Weaver Press
Ramose, M. (1999) African Philosophy through Ubuntu, Harare, Mond Books
Sachs, Albie (2009) The Strange Alchemy of Life and Law, London, Oxford University Press
United Nations Millennium Project (2006) Public Choices, Private Decisions: Sexual and Reproductive Health and the Millennium Development Goals, New York, UN Millenium Project

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Girls on Film:

Softening and Sexualizing

Lisbeth Salander

 

By Monika Bartyzel Dec 22, 2011

Girls on Film is a weekly column that tackles anything and everything pertaining to women and cinema. It can be found here every Thursday night, and be sure to follow the Girls on Film Twitter Feed for additional femme-con.

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The casting for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’s Lisbeth Salander was a long and arduous fight for Rooney Mara. She didn’t have the same clout as the big-name actresses circling the role. David Fincher himself wasn’t sure that she was right. Telling off Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network wasn’t enough; the actress had to battle through a series of auditions and prove to the filmmaker that she was right for the role – that she was prepared for the challenging scenes she would have to partake in.

Now Mara’s Americanized Salander is hitting theaters and grabbing rave reviews from American critics enamored with the character’s evolution into a more relatable and tough heroine. But is it really a better, or equally powerful performance? Or, more precisely – since the new Lisbeth Salander is not just a creation of Mara’s, but of director Fincher and screenwriter Steven Zaillian – does the American characterization of Salander really invoke the spirit of Larsson’s creation, or does it fall prey to the pitfalls that plague Hollywood’s artistic output?

Stieg Larsson and ‘Men Who Hate Women’

Swedish-born Stieg Larsson (1954-2004) was a man of many hats, including activist, writer, and journalist. He fought against right-wing extremism, racism, and sexism, leading him to create the story of Mikael Blomkvist (intrepid, moral journalist) and Lisbeth Salander (fierce victim of sexist men). But it wasn’t only politics that inspired Larsson.

As Kurdo Baski revealed in 2010, Larsson was haunted by a dark memory. In the summer of 1969, when he was camping with friends at the age of fifteen, he saw three of his friends rape a girl he knew. Her name was Lisbeth. “Her screams were heartrending, but he didn’t intervene. His loyalty to his friends was too strong. He was too young, too insecure. It was inevitable that he would realize afterwards that he could have acted and possibly prevented the rape.”

Larsson was haunted by his failure to act, inspiring the creation of Lisbeth Salander – the woman who survives in spite of men’s inadequacies. He was also fueled by the continual, perpetual violence against women, such as the 2001 murders of Melissa Nordell (a model murdered by her boyfriend for breaking up with him) and Fadime Sahindal (a Swedish-Kurdish woman murdered by her father because she wanted to lead her own life), and Sweden’s polarizing, unsolved murder and mutilation of prostitute Catrine da Costa in the ‘80s. Larsson told his friend: “There’s no such thing as soft or hard oppression of women: men want to own women, they want to control women, they are afraid of women. Men hate women.” He, therefore, refused to change the title of the first novel – Men Who Hate Women – though translated texts and films didn’t follow suit. These books were his way of responding and dealing with all of the imbalance and injustice he saw in the world.

The Millennium Trilogy

In 2008, four years after the author’s death, Danish filmmaker Niels Arden Oplev teamed up with Noomi Rapace and Michael Nyqvist to bring the world of Salander and Blomkvist to life. With Oplev in charge of the first, and director Daniel Alfredson stepping in for the second and third parts, the story was outlined in three long television miniseries subsequently cut into smaller feature films.

Though the adaptation made some changes, Lisbeth Salander remained the same – a strong and solitary woman almost universally mistreated by those near her, a woman with a photographic memory who can never forget the terrible things she sees and experiences. Violence against women infuses every part of her life; it defines her existence as well as the world that revolves around her: “By the time she was eighteen, Salander did not know a single girl who at some point had not been forced to perform some sort of sexual act against her will. … In her world, this was the natural order of things. As a girl she was legal prey, especially if she was dressed in a worn black leather jacket and had pierced eyebrows, tattoos, and zero social status.”

Lisbeth is cold, distant, and presumably autistic, though we’ll never know because she doesn’t trust shrinks, cops, or any authority figure. At the same time, she has the ability, as Larsson described it, to “get under the skin of the person she was investigating.” Lisbeth is alien in her looks and action (“a foreign creature” as described in the novels) due to how she’s been treated, but she’s also human.

In a video interview on the extended version discs (a must-buy for fans and those curious about who Salander is) Rapace talks about merging Lisbeth with herself, allowing her to completely and utterly understand and embody Lisbeth. Her Salander has a rigid gaze, a silent face that speaks to her discomfort and the chinks in her armor that reveal a woman in crisis. Rapace warped her body to look more masculine, to appear like the slight, easily misjudged Salander. She’s sexual, but not sexualized; she has vulnerabilities without being vulnerable; she cares for people without ever seeming warm or romantic. She’s an enigma to the modern moviegoer, and we’re the better for the challenge of knowing her, the challenge of not understanding her.

Pre-Fincher Press

The first teaser poster for Mara’s Americanized Lisbeth showed Daniel Craig’s Mikael holding her half-naked form close, protecting her as she held onto him. This one image immediately coded him as the troubled girl’s tough protector. Her image was further tarnished by the R-rated version full of bare breasts and sexual intrigue. Lisbeth became the objectified and sexualized heroine, the goth punk Bond girl saved by 007 himself.

Sadly, the leads didn’t see the problem. Daniel Craig liked it because Mara “looks great. I think it sort of really illustrates the two characters in the movie very well.” Then Mara defended it, asserting that “people have a hard time with strong females and with nudity. … It’s just a teaser poster. I think it did just that. It teased people.” Now Lisbeth was a sexual tease, and it was okay because she looked good doing it.

Rapace’s fully clothed Salander was replaced with Mara’s sexy Lisbeth – baring her cleavage for the camera, baring her ass for a tattoo, standing in front of a wintry landscape topless, straddling a bike in underwear and tights, or posing in a tutu. (All can be seen in Movies.com’s Image Gallery.) The woman fighting against objectification had become a sexual commodity to the public at large. Eventually, the marketing material changed focus, but it was too late – Salander was already made into the sex object. She had become another female ass-kicker swathed in sexy, revealing clothing, balancing tough smarts with alluring sexiness.

David Fincher’s ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’

If Larsson’s books didn’t exist, if there was never a Swedish version and no one knew who Lisbeth Salander was, Fincher’s Dragon Tattoo would be a great bridge to something more. It mixes typical female characterizations with a harsh toughness that begins to break out of that rigid mold. As it stands, however, Fincher and Mara’s Lisbeth must co-exist with Larsson’s creation and Rapace’s apt portrayal.

There are improvements. Mara embodies Larsson’s Whedonesque vision of an ass-kicker you’d discount because of her appearance. She certainly has “doll-like, almost delicate limbs, small hands, and hardly any hips.” You’d be more surprised by Mara showing physical prowess than the muscular Rapace (though that musculature certainly helped the Swedish actress look more “boyish”). Mara’s Salander gets more to do on-screen. We see her work more, and we see how she’s an outsider at work. There is also a nice forcefulness to her words that shows the strength behind her slightness.

But Mara’s Lisbeth is an entirely different woman, and while some differences are welcome between interpretations, it’s chilling to see what Fincher and Co. changed. A tar-filled opening credit sequence is a metaphor for the inner Salander, giving her a muddled and messy inner persona rather than the meticulous, photographic mind she has, one that solves complex math theorems and mysteries. Fincher removes the suffocating, repetitive sense that Lisbeth is prey. Bjurman starts off warm and seemingly logical. In comparison, Lisbeth appears like a rude, antisocial child spurning honest help. Mara’s version snarls before he gives her reason to. When she then gets attacked in the subway, it’s not a physical, sexual attack; one man merely steals her bag.

This is a subtle but important difference. Rapace reacts rather than instigates. There’s an unwritten understanding that she can’t go to the police. We see that her moments of self-defense are always misjudged. Her “helpers” abuse her. We see how the outside treats her as the sexual prey Larsson outlined.

Mara’s Lisbeth is seen through a Hollywood filter. She’s sexy, tough, in-your-face, always belligerent, and childishly snarky. Instead of t-shirts about aliens and Armageddon, hers are laden with cheap, Hot Topic-esque f-bombs. In one moment when Lisbeth wears a disguise, Fincher has her strip down to her expensive and revealing underwear. We watch her walk around like a Hollywood bombshell from the neck down, rather than a troubled girl so uncomfortable in her skin after years of abuse that “what she saw in the mirror was a thin, tattooed girl in grotesque underwear.” The Lisbeth who saw “her skinny body as repulsive,” but still had “the same desires and sex drive as every other woman” has become the modern femme fatale.

Larsson’s Salander is not a lesbian (as some viewers have seen her) set “straight” by Blomkvist’s manly ways. She commands her sexual encounters because she can’t bring herself to be vulnerable. She has learned to always have control, yet Fincher has Blomkvist quickly flip her over during sex and take command, as if Lisbeth is ready for a father figure, partner, and savior. When they later have sweet sex in grand romantic tradition, she becomes a romantic figure who softens as she takes on an older man of guidance.

In a pivotal moment in the book, Lisbeth says: “I’m going to take him” and runs off as Blomkvist tries “to shout to her to wait.” In Fincher’s film, she asks him for permission, and only acts with his blessing. Perhaps we can accept the changes in how Mara presents Salander. But it’s unacceptable to take a woman made into a phenomenon because of her solitary strength and particular moral compass and drive, and turn her into a romantic girl saved and guided by a man.

The final scene of the film sledgehammers this idea home if the rest of the subtle and obvious changes to Salander do not. Both end on the same note, but it means wildly different things on the page and screen. On the page, there’s an air of miscommunication – the reader can see both side’s motivations for what arises and how it’s all a sad comedy of errors. On screen, every sexy, romantic addition makes the final moments all about villains and victimization, especially when matched with a whimsical, child-like score. Lisbeth loses her agency.

The Critical Reaction

The critics have noticed the change, their comments reframing the appeal of Salander. Studying over 100 reviews seen on Rotten Tomatoes and elsewhere, almost every film critic that mentions Mara’s portrayal and Lisbeth as a character misunderstands her. “Vulnerable” comes up time and time again, as does “soft.” Eight even describe Lisbeth as feral, as if she’s an animal needing to be tamed by Blomkvist. As our Erik Davis summed it up: “she will turn you on and kick you in the face at the same time.”

The sex, the softness, the widely un-Salander comments continue through most reviews. Wesley Morris notes her “sense of decorum” and calls her a “doll of danger,” and “both a feminist fantasy and a male fantasy.” Anne Hornaday calls Mara’s Lisbeth a “fierce, brooding creature whose feral intensity proves as alluring as it is menacing.” Rene Rodriguez calls her a “vulnerable, almost child-like person,” while Gary Thompson believes that she “craves a father figure.” She’s seen as a “knockout,” “the epitome of cool,” “flashier” yet “diminutive,” “desperately fragile,” an “alluring outcast,” “more nude” and able to “warm up” and give off a “ripely kinky, menacing glow;” she’s “a woman enough for the guys, as you’ll see when she bares all.” Mark Rabinowitz thinks he’s “in love” with her.

Mikael and Lisbeth are often referred to as a couple or romantic pair. As Andrew O’Hehir summarizes, “Mara’s Lisbeth is voluptuous, spectacular nude, and Blomkvist literally can’t believe his good luck.” Damon Wise calls the film more about “broken hearts than broken people.” Brian Orndorf describes her progression as a character who “thaws,” and he’s “triumphantly sold through Mara’s warm-blooded sexual forwardness.” To David Germain, Blomkvist is the “anchor” Lisbeth “revolves like a demon” to have what Peter Keough calls “the hottest sex scene of the year,” though some, like Joe Lozito, luckily note that “she’s far too quick to play house with Blomkvist” in a relationship “reduced to the worst kind of pillow talk.”

Conclusion

Fincher’s Lisbeth is not Larsson’s. She is sexualized, softened, romanticized, and less empowered. Whether he intended this or not, it’s what countless critics see in the film; they don’t mind it – in fact most like it – but they’ve recognized it and have written about it.

There seems to be a relief that Mara’s Salander is a more relatable person, that classic “female” tropes like softness and vulnerability are visible. It speaks to society’s overwhelming discomfort with the unclassifiable, whether it’s a person’s sexuality, a terrible people who does good things, or the motivations of a young woman who has been horrifically mistreated, mentally and physically, for decades.

Yet the entire point is that Lisbeth doesn’t seem real to the regular Joe or Jane walking down the street. Even those closest to her don’t truly understand her. She’s got the double-whammy of an autistic mind and a hellish life with experiences we can’t begin to fathom. We’re not supposed to understand her, or lust after her. As A. O. Scott noted in his review: “We see all of Ms. Mara and quite a bit less of Mr. Craig, whose naked torso is by now an eyeful of old news. This disparity is perfectly conventional – the exploitation of female nudity is an axiom of modern cinema – but it also represents a failure of nerve and a betrayal of the sexual egalitarianism Lisbeth Salander argues for and represents.”

And if nothing else, any portrayal of Lisbeth Salander shouldn’t inspire the following words: 

“The film was not made by men who hate women, but certainly by men who are more comfortable with women as love interests for male heroes” (Lozito).

Record Numbers of

Incarcerated Mothers

Bad News for Women,

Children, Communities

Friday 27 January 2012

by: Gina McGalliard, Truthout | News Analysis

Tonya Drake, 35, a mother of four, had no criminal record or history of drug use when she was sentenced to 10 years in prison at the Dublin Federal Penitentiary in Northern California, for mailing a package that contained 232 grams of crack cocaine. (Photo: Monica Almeida / The New York Times) 

 

It is well known that the United States imprisons a higher percentage of its population than any other industrialized country. And while it is true that the prison population is predominantly male, the number of female prisoners has risen more than 800 percent in the last three decades, outpacing the approximate 400 percent increase in the male prison population during the same time period.And according to the Institute on Women and Criminal Justice report "Hard Hit: The Growth in the Imprisonment of Women, 1977-2004," in 1977, the United States imprisoned ten out of every 100,000 women , while in 2004 that number had increased to 64 out of 100,000. And because women tend to be caretakers, particularly of children, the effect their incarceration often has on families can be disastrous.

The Roots of Mass Incarceration

"The rise of what we now know as mass incarceration happened on the heels of the civil rights movement and the various liberation movements in the U.S.," says Vikki Law, author of "Resistance Behind Bars: the Struggles of Incarcerated Women." Lower-income communities began to be policed more heavily as a way to prevent people from getting organized, says Law. The war on drugs had kicked into gear by 1982, which "wasn't focused across the board on everybody," says Law. "There were specific images, like the black mother on crack and crack babies."

Because women tend to be nonviolent offenders, a large factor in the increase has been the popularity of mandatory minimum drug laws, which were seen as a tough-on-crime measure during the war on drugs.

"The Rockefeller drug laws mandated that first-time offenders for drugs got mandatory sentences," says Law. "Which meant that if you were, say, in a car with your boyfriend who happened to have two to four ounces of narcotic drugs, you could be charged and sentenced to 25 years to life even if it was a first-time offense." Minority urban women were disproportionately affected by these draconian laws, as more affluent white women tended to have greater access to drug treatment centers and better legal representation.

Furthermore, because women are usually low-level players in drug deals, they often don't have information they could use to negotiate a plea deal, says Executive Director Georgia Lerner of the Women's Prison Association, an advocacy organization devoted to helping women who are or have been in prison. "It's never the queen pin, it's the king pin."

Poverty is also a factor in the rise of women being imprisoned, because people sometimes resort to criminalized means to make ends meet. "In the 1990's [there were] a lot of cuts to social welfare programs," says Law. "So you suddenly see that [what] would keep a family of three - say a single parent with two children - afloat in terms of welfare and aid to families and dependent children and food stamps and housing benefits, are suddenly getting slashed." Women in prison are also more likely not to have completed high school, which undoubtedly has an effect on their ability to provide food, rent and basic necessities for themselves and their children. Also, Law noted that many women were thrown off of the welfare rolls during the Clinton administration's welfare reform, and there was a marked correlation between women being removed from the welfare rolls and the scores of women entering prison.

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"Much of what we know about women's pathways into crime has to do with earlier trauma, has to do with mental illness, addiction, relationships, so they're often involved in crime through the relationships they have with men," says Lerner. "And poverty is a big driver for plenty of women, so they're committing little crimes over and over again." For the drug addict or petty dealer who was trying to make extra money to pay rent, says Lerner, going to prison fails to address the underlying factors that led to incarceration in the first place.

The percentage of women incarcerated varies from state to state, with Oklahoma being the highest (129 out of 100,000 women) and Massachusetts and Rhode Island being the lowest (11 out of 100,000 women). Two-thirds of female inmates are convicted of nonviolent offenses and nonviolent offenders are more likely to have children. Nonviolent offenders are also the ones most likely to end up in a vicious cycle of reimprisonment.

"People who commit violent crimes are locked up longer and are less likely to reoffend," says Lerner. "People who commit nonviolent drug and property crimes tend to go in and out [of prison] over and over, because if it's addiction or economic issues driving the crime, it does not get solved, it only gets exacerbated by people being removed from the community."

Many people are also unable to afford legal help when arrested, which increases their odds of ending up behind bars. "There's a big difference between having a private attorney who can represent you and having publicly appointed counsel," says Lerner, who also noted that defendants who are able to make bail are statistically less likely to end up convicted. People of color are overrepresented in poverty-stricken communities, says Lerner, which are usually also neighborhoods where high schools tend to have high dropout rates and children are likely to enter kindergarten unprepared. In this we see how education, or lack of it, can affect a child's chances of ending up in prison as an adult: high school graduates are 70 to 75 percent less likely to end up involved in the criminal justice system.

Mothers Behind Bars

According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics Special Report "Parents in Prison and Their Minor Children," the number of children under 18 with a mother in prison grew 131 percent between 1991 and 2007, when approximately 65,600 mothers were incarcerated. Mothers are more likely than fathers to be their children's primary caretaker and to be single parents, so the mother's incarceration inevitably disrupts the lives of their children, as they must then be cared for by someone else.

"A lot of women who end up in prison were already single parents at the time of their incarceration, [so] they might not have strong family ties," says Law. "A lot of women who are in prison have histories of abuse, either childhood and/or adult abuse, which means they might not have the same connections and trust in their families that men who end up in prison do. So their children are actually five times more likely to end up in foster care than [those of] men in prison."

During the Clinton administration, the Federal Adoption and Safe Families Act was put into place, which was intended to free children from foster care for adoption if the child had been in foster care for 15 of the past 22 months. Unfortunately, this had the effect of permanently separating children from incarcerated mothers, whose parental rights were mandated to be terminated irrevocably after 15 months. Even if the mother was able to show she was able to care and provide for the child upon release, says Law, there was simply no way to get her child back. Eleven percent of mothers in prison report their children being placed in foster care, while 42 percent reported the child's grandmother as being the primary caretaker during her stay in prison.

Even in the majority of cases where a family member or friend is able to care for the child (very few fathers assume full-time care while a mother is in prison), this still may involve changing schools or neighborhoods and disrupting the child's life, and the absence of the mother while in prison inevitably causes anguish.

"No matter what their mother did - they could have seen their mother selling drugs or working as a prostitute in front of them - it does not matter, children love their mothers; they are attached to their mothers; it is pretty devastating to break that bond even if logic tells us that this person could not possibly be an appropriate parent," says Lerner.

In Search of a New Life

Prisons, as opposed to being places where people can be rehabilitated in the hope of establishing law-abiding lives and becoming productive members of society, are typically warehouses to store people until their time has been served. Furthermore, in these cash-strapped times, budget cuts often mean slashing what few services exist, such as educational, drug treatment or mental health programs.

"In Colorado now, they're actually cutting their educational and vocational courses from something like a few months to eight-week sessions," says Law. "Even though studies have shown that education is the number one factor in whether or not somebody goes back to prison." And because higher numbers of men tend to be violent offenders who pose more of a risk to society, it will often be decided that resources and programs will be given to men's rather than women's prisons. Nowadays, ironically, squeezed state budgets may mean fewer people end up behind bars, as states simply can't afford to house as many people as they used to.

Other states may be rethinking their approach of using incarceration as an all-purpose solution to social ills and instead are using alternative methods to deal with problems such as drug addiction. "In New York, our incarceration has gone down significantly and a lot of that is because much of the population in the state prisons was coming from New York City and so much of the crime being sentenced to state prisons was drug related," says Lerner. New York now has several specialty narcotics prosecutors and drug courts and a large network of drug treatment and services that work to offer alternatives to incarceration, says Lerner. Judges are more willing to use these measures than incarceration because people who complete treatment are less likely to end up back in the criminal justice system.

Once released, women face many barriers to rebuilding their lives. A job can be difficult to obtain with a prison record, and even though it is technically illegal to discriminate unless the crime was directly related to the work being performed, the criminal background checks many employers routinely do often mean former inmates have trouble finding legitimate work. Other obstacles exist as well. For instance, in the state of New York, says Law, women with prison records are not qualified to live in public housing.

"About half of the women who enter prison have not completed high school and about half have not had a legal job within the last year," says Lerner. "So when they come out of prison, they probably still have not completed a high school equivalency diploma and they haven't gained any job training or work experience in most cases." In one odd New York case, women had the option of training to be hairdressers or barbers in prison, but then the state had a regulation against obtaining a barber's license if one had a prior criminal conviction, and parole regulations prevented the women from moving to another state.

"Corrections budgets have become a huge part of state budgets," says Lerner. "[It's] crazy because corrections was created to remove people from community ... not to be a school, a doctor's office, a mental health clinic, a drug treatment provider and a job training center." Unfortunately, this is what the prison population often needs in order to become law-abiding and contributing members of society, says Lerner. "If prisons are going to do a good job of preventing people from coming back, they need to figure out how to make those things available. It's certainly not what they were created for and we're asking a lot of the system."

Ultimately, as we look at the numbers of Americans being incarcerated, we have to ask ourselves if prisons in their current state are making society safer or less so, even though many may label measures to reintegrate prisoners back into society as being "soft on crime."

"There has to be a belief that people who enter prison can come out of prison being better," says Lerner. "That's a change. It's not something we've asked people to think about."

Is Marriage Really for

White People Gina?

For my paper, I read Ralph Bank’s “Is Marriage for White People?” Banks is a legal scholar and professor at Stanford University.

This text is crucial in terms of the “Middle class Black women can’t find a man” discourse because it is both a scholarly book and because it has been reviewed widely in the popular press. In the book he provides research on Black women and marriage and he also cites his his own findings from interviewing middle class heterosexual Black women from across the US.

He essentially states that middle class heterosexual (MH) Black women are the most unmarried population in the US, that middle class Black women will marry someone who earns lower wages than they do, but they are reluctant to marry outside of their race. He states that across race Americans are less likely to be married now than they have been historically. In looking at Black women, he says that we can see how “Black people  are at the center of a social transformation  whose reverberations encompass us all”.

He concludes that MH Black women may want to consider marrying outside of their race because Black women’s dating market is highly segregated and when MH Black women marry outside of their race “the Black gender balance becomes a little less severe”.

Historically, marriage has been an economic, legal, familial and property arrangement. This is not to say that Black women are wrong for desiring it, as it is not my place to say. I will, however saw that I am very skeptical at this particular moment of any narrative that delves into the lives of Black women, that is not told by Black women.  I am not saying that Black women offer a “truth” as Black women, as I believe in the heterogeneity of Black women. We are not the same. I am also skeptical of narratives that do not explicitly acknowledge the context in which they exist.

While the book does acknowledge how labor an employment opportunities may shape marital statistic a more indepth conversation about labor and gender roles would have been useful. Our economy both in the US and globally is undergoing a major restructuring and I posit that this is having a major impact on the choices that heterosexual middle class Black women make. Changes in educational attainment for women across race, changes in technology and how technology shapes employment and the global movement of capital impacts all of our lives on a day to day basis. These social forces are impacting the lives of all adults, so they impact Black women as well.

There are some interesting tidbits in the book.

First he states that while popular media discourse paints MH Black women as “too picky” he has found that MH Black men are the ones who are in fact picky. He makes this statement for two reasons. First, the variety of women that the MH Black men have access to makes it less likely that they will desire marriage as they may want a woman who represents a combination of all the best attributes of the women that they currently date. This is a profound point.

His second tidbit is that MH Black men are less likely to think that their sexual life will improve with marriage. Sexual politics within monogamous and non-monogamous relationships are dynamic, negotiated and vital.

The third tidbit is that both many Black men and Black women assume that Black men are the only option for MH Black women. According to his interviews, Black women want to marry a Black man, so that they can have Black children. They see partnering with Black men as “fighting racism” because “we should never give up on our Black men”. However statistically, MH Black men have not been committed to marry MH Black women. And there is the rub gina.

The fourth tidbit is that Black women who date white men report more acceptance of their natural hair from their White male partners. I thought this was really interesting. I would like to see a conversation online about this!

The fifth tidbit is that he cites research which states that lighter skinned Black women tend to marry higher earning Black men, in comparison to their darker skinned counter-parts. In terms of erotic capital, I find this finding fascinating.

There are three things that could have been done in this book that were outside of the scope of the project as it stands today, but it would have made a more richer discussion.

It would have been interesting if he devoted a section of the book to looking at MH Black women who have been both married and divorced. Hearing them speak about the current discourse around Black women and marriage, having been married gives them a vantage point that could make for a much more nuanced and richer conversation.

The second thing that I would have liked to have seen explored more is the decline of the middle class in the US and the low marital rates of MH Black women. Place their marital options, choices and patterns within this context would make for a more nuanced conversation.

Many of the women he interviewed are either middle class, or high income earners. Statistically these African-American women are likely to be  “the only one” within their companies. As Black women they deal with both racism and sexism, and depending on their class background classism as well. It would have been interesting if he opened up a conversation about how middle a middle class or high income earning Black woman shaped her willingness to get married. Or to put it another way, how does navigating racism and sexism at work, the loneliness of this space impact Black women’s desires to marry. Giving the health statistics of around Black (and Latina’s) health in the academe, I wonder to what extent does navigating work issues of race and gender shape Black women’s desires to marry.

By and large the book is an interesting read, even if the title is in many ways sensational.

So, having written all of this I am left with a few questions.

When will he have a conversation about how dealing racism and sexism at work may or may not influence MH Black women’s desires to get married?

What does it mean that so many institutions are examining the marital desires of Black women?

Is this another way to call Black women deviant?

Who Killed It:

Yasiin Bey (aka Mos Def)

“N*ggas In Poorest”

By Toure | Jan 27, 2012

 

 

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The artist formerly known as Mos Def occupies The Throne—and he's goin' guerillas.

Written by Touré (@Toure)

Follow @ComplexMusic

We are in a crippling recession, but listening to hip-hop would you know that? The supposed music of the street has not, to my ears, noticed that the economic reality for most Black people has changed radically over the past few years.

 

The discussion of insanely expensive never-worn watches must sound crass to people who every day grow less and less hopeful of finding a job.

 

MCs are still all about spending money like it ain’t a thang. Their major trending topic is the cash. Meanwhile, the discussion of insanely expensive never-worn watches must sound crass to people who every day grow less and less hopeful of finding a job. I love “Niggas In Paris,” even though much of its self-congratulatory bragging feels out of place in today's climate. The song registers no awareness of how extreme financial brags may turn off some listeners during a prolonged recession. “What's 50 grand to a nigga like me?” is an honest rhetorical question. Jay’s a multimultimillionaire. But it’s also tone deaf.

So the song is ripe for a working class–focused MC like Yasiin Bey (formerly Mos Def) to remake into “Niggas In Poorest,” something more fitting with what many Blacks are going through now. It’s something more angry. Something more Occupyish. Something that gives us an MC who's aware of the current economic climate. “What's $50 grand to a nigga like me?” Bey asks. “More than my annual salary.” This song is a tragic blues. A scream to keep from crying. Or killing. There’s no self-pity here, but lots of soul-crippling pain.

The devastating portait Bey paints suggests the world should be scared of the narrator—not because he has innate violent tendencies, but because he's so crushingly oppressed that his soul is in danger. Bey takes us beyond the workaday details of poor people’s problems—"Doctors say I'm the illest / I ain't got no insurance"—and dives deep into the psychological and spiritual troubles poor people experience. In the song’s third line Bey says, “The whole world hate me.” My God. The loathing of the entire world is an impossible burden to shoulder, and surely one that would break backs and wreck minds. If you feel like the whole world hates you, then you’re a short distance from societally-destructive behavior—or self-destructive acts.

If The Man is watching you so constantly, "surveillance cameras following, police tracing," as if you’re guilty before proven indictable, then where can solace be found? Where can you catch your breath? Nowhere. “We be home and still be scared.” Damn. There’s myriad dangers at home for people who Bey describes as living in an “open-air prison” surrounded by “birds of prey.” So you’re born into a cage and it’s just a matter of time before they get you.

 

Where Jay imagines himself going psycho in terms of embodying one of the glorious, genius Black Michaels—Jackson, Tyson, Jordan—Bey knows what’s more likely is an explosion that’ll lead to going psycho a la Michael Myers, the vicious serial killer of the Halloween horror movies.

 

Is life at “home” just preparation for life in prison? “It’s easy and hard to be here.” A person who cannot rest even at home—who lives surrounded by fear and anxiety—can never recharge their battery. They can easily get stuck at wit’s end, mired in a psychological wilderness or spiritual exhaustion. Or both.

Where Jay imagines himself going psycho in terms of embodying one of the glorious, genius Black Michaels—Jackson, Tyson, Jordan—Bey knows what’s more likely is an explosion that’ll lead to going psycho a la Michael Myers, the vicious serial killer of the Halloween horror movies. And who could blame him, given this horrific world and the destruction of the souls inside it?

Bey encapsulates the life-span of this world in a few brilliant lines at the end of the first verse with a tragic story told in brief snatches of imagery: “Who getting faded? Little Maurice in the sixth grade.” 12 years old and he’s already getting high. Maurice is parentless and looking up to the leaders in the drug game. He’s livin’ just enough for the city. A line later he’s, “standin’ behind the deuce-deuce trey.” Behind a bullet, holding a gun, about to fire. That place is just slightly better than in front of it. The Malcolm X quote that follows suggests that they’re both already de facto dead.

The last line of the first verse is eight syllables that tell a familiar but heavy story: “Ice cold. Heat blow. Closed casket. Cold case.” The boy is heartless (ice cold) so his gun fires (heat blow) and he shoots so much and so viciously that he leaves someone’s body so epically destroyed that it cannot be seen by anyone (closed casket). Of course, this murder will never be solved (cold case) because the police don’t care. As one of the controllers of the underworld says in The Godfather, “They’re animals anyway, so let them lose their souls.” That plan, Bey suggests, has succeded.

Competition Secretary, 18 Hillside Road, Blidworth,  Notts., NG21 0TR , UK tel: - 07837 680821 email:- thynkspublications@yahoo.co.uk

Thynks Publications is a new small publisher based in the East Midlands.  We are looking to produce in the following areas:- children's books, educational, fiction,  general interest,  healing, humour, inspirational, mind body spirit,  multi-faith, music, philosophy, poetry, quantum physics for the lay reader, reiki, science-fiction, theology. MSS will be commissioned. Apologies but unsolicited items will be returned. ______________________________________________________________________

Registered Office: White House, Clarendon Street,  Nottingham,  NG1 5GF, UK

Entry form details and rules:- PRIZES:- 1st £100 2nd  £50 3rd  £25 JUDGED by the Thynks Team Rules;- For postal entries:- 1.Entries will be disqualified if not in accordance with the rules. 2.Poems MUST be your own work with your copyright, not more than 40 lines. 3.Each poem must have a title. 4.Deadline is January 31st 2012. 5.Winners to be announced on March 31st 2012 and prize monies distributed. The prizewinners will have their poems published in the 2nd Bards for Blidworth Anthology in 2012. 6.Copyright remains with the poets. 7.Poems sent by post to be typed or clearly printed on A4 white paper with a title but not poet's name. The poet's name,  address,  phone number,  email if applicable,  should be written on the entry form below, or a copy of it, along with the title(s) of the poem(s). Poems sent online see below*** 8.The entry fee of £3 per poem needs to be enclosed.  UK Cheques or postal orders are acceptable (no cash) and should be made out to 'Thynks Publications Limited.' Poets paying in foreign currencies will need to enter online.***Click here to make an online entry. 10.Correspondence cannot be entered into.   The Judges decisions are final. 11.Entries cannot be returned, so poets should keep copies of their work. 12.Competitors who would like acknowledgement of receipt or notification of winning entries can enclose stamped addressed envelope(s) marked 'Receipt' or 'Results' . (You will be informed by email if you have given your email address so SAE's won't be necessary). ____________________________________________________________________________________________ If sending by post please cut and paste the entry form below into a Word document and print off to send with your entry.

SERENDIPITY POETRY COMPETITION  Happy,  unexpected,  accidental discoveries - amazing coincidences - the  magic of Serendipity.

__________________________________________________________   _________________________________ .....................................................................................................   .......................................................... Please complete this form and send with your 1.poems, 2.entry fee, 3.entry slip, 4.SAE's (optional) to Serendipity Poetry Competition  18 Hillside Road Blidworth, Nottinghamshire NG21 0TR, UK Name...................................................Address....................................................................................... Tel.......................................................Email.......................................................................................... Titles (continue on the back if necessary) ...............................................................................................................................................................

Dear 100 Words or Fewer Story Writers,

Welcome! We want to see your stories, and we hope you will read the wonderful winning stories from Contest Eight.

 

 

NEWS IN REGARD TO CONTEST NINE:

We have decided, for fun, on two unique categories for this contest. Please write stories relating to:
(1) Eating or (2) Uncommon Character.

"Eating" can be the way someone eats, or the situation he or she is eating in, or buying food or kitchen or dining stuff, or whatever he or she believes or dreams they are eating, or whatever your imagination conjures about eating. The important element is still the character’s action.

The "Uncommon Character" story will concentrate on what your Uncommon Character might do in a situation. It must not be a character description or profile. It must be a story you make up! It must offer, as must the “Eating” category, a problem, complication(s), and a resolution (or ending or some kind)—that is, a classical story structure. Both kinds of stories can be told in first, second, or third person.

Your "Uncommon Character" can be a fireman you came across last week, your fantasy imperious princess, your heroic (Dawn Fraser), historic (Sakajawea, Teddy Roosevelt) or legendary (Big Foot) person, a fairy tale person, criminal (Al Capone), a 7-foot high mother-in-law in a casino—you see what I mean.

AWARDS
We shall continue with four opportunities to win. First prize winners for both the Eating category, and the Uncommon Character category will receive $400. Runner-up prizes for each category will be $50.

FEES
Entry: $15.00; checkmark evaluation: $10.00; critique: $40.00. Entry fee, plus checkmark evaluation: $25.00. Entry fee, plus checkmark evaluation, plus critique: $60.00.

BONUSES, BONUSES
Three entries will earn you a free checkmark evaluation, a very popular add-on. (See an example by clicking on “Checkmark evaluations” in the menu at top right.)

Four entries will earn you a free critique! Many contest participants write that the value of our critiques is as significant as the prizes. See examples of critiques by clicking “Critiques” on the menu at top right.

NOTE: If the name of the payer is different from the name of the author, both names must be provided in the author's initial email. (This will make it much easier for us to match author/payer in our records.)

 

 

OTHER WAYS WE CAN HELP
We also offer critiques on longer writings. In this way, we deepen our relationships with our writers, and the ensuing fun may be enough to keep us going through this Ninth Contest (or even Tenth??).

For more specifications, TIPS, and short, short story examples, please read the “What we Want and What We Don’t Want” page, which is listed second on the menu at right.

A NOTE ON THE 100 WORD STORY
The 100 word story can be an exceptional structural model for longer works. And if your story is as alive as our winners, it can engender as much emotion and lasting power as a major longer work!

Welcome to Contest Nine, Story Writers!

Sincerely,
Idore Anschell
Director,
100 Words or Fewer Writing Contest

Goofy and spaghetti graphics courtesy of Bing.com

 

 

The Hippocrates initiative

for poetry and medicine

 

2012  Awards
 

Open International

1st Prize - £5000

2nd Prize - £1000

3rd Prize - £500

Commendation - £50

 

NHS category

1st Prize  - £5000

2nd Prize - £1000

3rd Prize - £500

   Commendation- £50

 

 

The Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine is an annual international award for an unpublished poem on a medical subject.

 

Since its launch in 2009, the Hippocrates Prize has attracted over 3000 entries from 31 countries, from the Americas to Fiji and Finland to Australasia.

 

With a 1st prize for the winning poem in each category of £5,000, the Hippocrates prize is one of the highest value poetry awards in the world for a single poem.

 

Awards are in an Open category, which anyone in the world may enter, and an NHS category, which is open to UK National Health Service employees, health students and those working in professional organisations involved in education and training of NHS students and staff.

 

The Hippocrates initiative also includes annual international symposia at which the Hippocrates awards are presented and an international research forum for poetry and medicine.

 

The Hippocrates initiative was awarded the 2011 Times Higher Education Award for Excellence and Innovation in the Arts.

 

Entries are open for the 2012 Hippocrates Awards for Poetry and Medicine. The 2012 Hippocrates awards are being judged by US poet Marilyn Hacker,  broadcaster Martha Kearney and scientist Rod Flower, FRS.

 

2012 Hippocrates Awards closing date: 31st January 2012

Entries are open for the 2012 Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine

Open International and NHS categories

 

See link for more details