I’m not a pacifist but …

Eirene, goddess of peace.

Two events collided today. Firstly, the troops are ending combat operations in Iraq and secondly the Tories mumbled something about not replacing Trident.

Those of a traditionally militaristic nature, or who subscribe to fears about rogue nuclear states launching stuff at us, look away now.

I find the idea of having an aggressive military presence a piece of nonsense in a modern democracy. I think having folk in uniform is useful for some ceremonial outings once or twice a year and in case of natural catastrophes. Other than that, we can all read up on guerrilla tactics if we are invaded and concentrate on building a world-class diplomatic presence to help avoid testosterone-driven bloodshed.

There is a huge range of personality types in every society and I can understand and even sympathise with those who need firm boundaries, strict routines, lots of physical action, and an aversion to having to decide what to wear of a morning. But they don’t need to be given guns and other expensive penis-substitutes, instead they can be kept busy keeping the peace.

A subset of this group will be efficient killers and I can see that in some extreme situations that is a handy evolutionary adaptation, but my faith in human nature is such that I refuse to countenance the idea that there are sufficient numbers in that category that we need finance an army just to keep them out of jail. Those types can be encouraged to join foreign mercenary forces and be trained at the expense of the shareholders in those companies. Not that I in any way approve of mercenaries, but they might, again in extreme circumstances, serve a purpose, as long as they are strictly regulated.

Of course, other military organisations such as the navy could be retained because we are an island, so that makes some sense (not entirely sure what). These vessels need not be equipped with leaky nukes. The airforce; um, I’ve not thought through what their role can be. But you’re getting the picture.

Equally, we don’t need plans to invade other countries just because some of our citizens delude themselves that they still live in an empire, and contemplate the red parts of the map while twirling their mustachios. Would it not be more honourable to be an active force for peace within the UN sending the adventurous types off to assist in this, rather than engage in illegal wars that bring destruction to women and children and allow warlords to control the female populations in the name of their gods?

I’m aware that much of any population has at least a sneaking regard for their warrior class, and speaking out against them makes one unpopular. However, more and more people see the fairly obvious links between lack of respect for other nations, cultures and the health of the planet as well as the way women are disrespected and animals kept in conditions that allow their viruses to mutate to affect humans. Those who do not, are generally subjects who source their information about the world from heavily censored publications and broadcast media, and may never have heard the term critical thinking.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_thinking

As for Trident, well, at least on that topic I can be confident that most of the population in my country are against it, want it removed and are adamant that it not be renewed. Parliament voted against it in 2007.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_west/6752089.stm

Here’s a discussion we’d never get in the UK.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=10569222

This is what we get…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/apr/28/david-miliband-private-military

Stop Nagging!

There is no special tendency of biospheres to preserve their current
inhabitants, and certainly not to make them comfortable. Lynn Margulis

Stop nagging! Yes, you lot at the back there, that's right, the ones in danger of being mistaken for sleazy politicos. Cease and desist with the toddleresque whining about nuclear power plants. We, the sovereign citizens of Scotland, have made it clear we do not want nuclear power on our soil.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/south_of_scotland/8000580.stm

What is it about you that you cannot hear the message that nuclear, or if you prefer the GWB version, 'nucular' power is a bad thing, not a good thing. Do you really want to provoke Gaia until she bites back, 'coz that is what you are on course to do with your earth killing unnecessary vanity project crony pocket-lining atomicaly imperialistic colonising plans.

Some interesting stuff.

http://www.pantheon.org/articles/g/gaia.html

http://www.gaianvariations.com/learn/ap22.htm

Time on my hands

I had a spare few moments this morning and decided to spend them browsing info relevant to wymmynofacertainage.

I’ve had to retype this more than once while I edited out the less circumspect comments, but really, there is only so far I can go towards gaining a measured post on this. This is the “calm down dear” version.

Oh my good goddess!!!!!! What a colossal amount of virtual and virtually useless drivel! Wymmynofacertainage blogs/websites appear to divide into the following categories:

The “check out my blog with its real-life experiences while I flog you ‘natural herbal remedies’ ". It’s not that I don’t admire women making books out of their own experiences or providing a place for others to comment and share stories, but really, I do not want endless (or so it seemed) white middle-class muddle-educated Ladees telling me ‘how it really is’.

Then there are the idiot male doctors telling partiarchally mind-controlled credulous Ladees about their own bodies when wymmynofacertainage should not be dealt with using such blatantly patronising language. Boys, hands off our systems! It is 2009, if I want medical info on women’s matters I want it from a woman, not a pseudo-empathetic patronising lecture from a non-bleeder.

In comparison, and although no one has much respect for the drug companies, at least their online presence seeks to inform and usually avoids unhelpful images. They are upfront in their attempts to push HRT or whatever is the latest chemical ‘cure’ at women.

As is the way of things, there is an infestation of the evol biologists propagating their credo. Listen, you numbskulls, I do not like what you say as it is by and large insulting to wymmyn. Also, as the only evol biologist site not to offend me this morning talked about menopausal great apes, this was not useful - I am neither zookeeper not animal experimenter. In fairness (dunno why I should be fair to those unspeakable nitwits) but ... actually, I forgot what I was going to say, the effort of trying to find a reason to be fair drained my brain for a moment.

Where you get the evol biologists, their co-henchpersons the evol psyches will also manifest in the end-of-usefulness-to-patriarchy business. One site wittered unconvincingly about the age-related changes in the female brain precipitating divorce. I didn't, but maybe you all knew that our brains have a ‘mummy part’ which changes in wymmynofacertainage?

Looks like I am gravitating towards the relative calm, uncommercialised sanity of the new-age-goddess-wisdom-crone corner of the interwebby for a breather. But that’s not my natural home really.

So, what do I want? Well, straightforward, woman-centred feminist info would be a start. Oh! Of course! Why didn’t I think of this in the first place?

http://www.ourbodiesourselves.org/book/chapter.asp?id=26

Sensibly, the Boston Women's Health Collective has always maintained that "pathology/disease approach to normal life events (birthing, menopause, aging, death) is not an effective way in which to consider health or structure a health system."

The image at the top is from Wikipedia and is of the triple goddess.

Heteronormative phallocentric piffle

Heteronormative is my word du jour, having recently learnt it from reading radical feminist websites. Unsurprisingly, Word spellcheck doesn’t recognise it, so here is a definition:

HETERONORMATIVITY (heteronormative): Those punitive rules (social, familial, and legal) that force us to conform to hegemonic heterosexual standards for identity. "

This explosion of polysyllability was induced during a visit to the Manchester Art Gallery to see the Holman Hunt exhibition. Hunt was a prominent figure in the Pre-Raphaelite movement, and this exhibition gathered together a range of his work. The Pre-Raphaelites used to be a favourite but the more varied art I view, the less I find to praise in this movement. I can appreciate the quality of the artistry, but the subjects are too sentimental for my current tastes. Hunt’s are of particular interest because of his religious overtones. For example, in the Awakening Conscience, he depicts his interpretation of a “fallen” woman.

The quotes below are from a deconstruction of the painting.

"The Awakening Conscience is a fine example of popular Victorian painting. It tells a story. Its theme is the fate of the fallen woman. Many details are intended to be read symbolically. The moral message is stern and strongly disapproving.
There's a ring on every finger except the "wedding finger". She is a kept woman, entirely dependent on the support and whim of the man. If he rejects her, she is likely to resort to prostitution in order to survive.
The soiled, discarded white glove on the floor symbolizes the woman's fate if she stays with her lover." Ref: Robert Cumming's Annotated Art , DK Publishing, 1995

It is fair to say I was most Victorianly not amused by this.

Other Pre-Raphaelites in the Manchester Gallery include Rossetti (the bloke, not his more admirable sister). Some of the notes beside his paintings gave me the distinct impression of a sleazy over-entitled male, which I'm sure was not the intention. For example, his Astarte Syriaca has these comments:

"Astarte was an Ancient Middle Eastern goddess, an earlier, more malign version of Venus, the Classical goddess of love. Above her head is her emblem, the eight-pointed star, and behind this the sun and moon meet. These are symbols of her power over nature. In legend, Astarte's girdle made her an irresistible force and Rossetti has conveyed this by cramming the picture space so that it seems as if Astarte might stride out of the painting and confront you, half-threatening, half-alluring. Astarte has idealised feminine features that recur in Rossetti's paintings: soulful eyes, sensuous rosebud mouth and luxuriant, flowing hair, based during this period on the features of Jane Morris, his friend's wife."

Not a Pre-Raphaelite painter, but hanging opposite Astarte Syriaca is Sappho by Charles-August Mengin which has this explanation on the card beside it:

"The painting has an intense sexual charge intended to appeal to male viewers visiting the officially endorsed Paris Salon exhibition. Its eroticism was legitimised for them by the meticulous finish of fine brushstrokes and the scholarly reference to Classical history."

So much for heteronormativity and the male gaze; could these descriptions not have alternative notes written by informed radical feminists? I'd really enjoy myself reading those but instead, public art galleries remain places of mild disgust to me, owing to the preponderance of pudenda and nipples parading as “high art”. It is the basic dishonesty that is so insulting; these are paintings for men by men, often with the explicit double standard of female objectification and moralistic control of women's agency. And yet, we are expected to admire this as 'art' and to swallow an extremely slanted patriarchal analysis of what we are looking at. More erudite feminists than I have expounded on this subject, notably the Guerrilla Girls.
From their website:

"In 1985, (in the USA) a bunch of female artists, incensed by an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art that included 165 artists but only 17 women, founded the Guerrilla Girls. Dubbing ourselves “The Conscience of the Artworld,” we started making posters that bluntly stated the facts of discrimination and used humour to convey information, provoke discussion and to show that feminists can be funny. We assumed the names of dead women artists, and began wearing gorilla masks when we appeared in public, concealing our true identities and focusing on the issues rather than on our personalities."

http://www.guerrillagirls.com/admin/moreherstory.shtml

Manchester Art Gallery has a painting by the first woman to be admitted as an associate of the Royal Academy - Annie Swynnerton, a Manchester lass. The gallery has one of her paintings on display, although disappointingly, no image of it on their website. However, below is their description which differs from my perception of it. In fairness, I didn’t warm to this particular painting, but some of her other paintings which are more to my taste.

Manchester Art Gallery has this to say about the Swynnerton on display:
"Montagna Mia means 'My Mountain'. Natural features in a landscape are often personified by the humans who live near them. The painting may show a protective mountain 'spirit', but breasts and arms metamorphosing into peaks create an ambiguous, erotic, perhaps symbolic image. Is Montagna Mia waiting to be conquered?"
http://www.manchestergalleries.org/the-collections/search-the-collection/display.php?EMUSESSID=eeb6690341ca67e575aba7014dbe44de&irn=3904 Above is a Swynnerton painting I do like.

Here is a link to the Society of Women Artists history page which discusses the difficulties of women being admitted to the Royal Academy. Other pages on their site contain glorious art by women.
http://www.society-women-artists.org.uk/History.html

Holman Hunt Exhibition http://www.manchestergalleries.org/whats-on/exhibitions/index.php?itemID=45