Angela McRobbie - Feminism for Girls (RLE Feminist Theory)

To the world at large it might seem a bit strange, linking the Women's Liberation Movement and feminism with ideas of adventure. Hardly surprising, when most of the mass media do their best to reduce anything to do with women's liberation to the antics of a minority fringe group. As far as they are concerned, we are all dull, boring, and quite united in our lack of humour. With this kind of publicity to contend with, it does indeed take an adventurous girl to give feminism more than a second thought. But what exactly is the basis of this war waged on women who refuse to conform to society's image of how women should look and act and be? This is a question that touches on the whole way in which sex and gender are understood in our culture. It also relates to the way in which any challenge to the patriarchal status quo is greeted with fear and dismay if not outright terror. In this sense it is possible to interpret these stereotypical characterisations of feminism and feminists (bearing grudges, unpopular with the boys) as something which is created right across a range of institutions, precisely as a response to this threat, and as a clearcut defence of patriarchy the power of men over women. If the women who challenge this power, who question the inevitability of their own subordination and the naturalness of their inferiority, are reduced to a group of eccentrics, then half the battle is won. The threat is deflected and diluted what woman in her right mind would want to join with this mob? Yet such unrelenting ridicule suggests something deeper. The fears, perhaps, of a patriarchy which is somehow beginning to lose its grasp, but doesn't know quite where to put the pressure on. The easiest way to deal with it is to hit back wildly, caricature it, trivialise it... and then hope it goes away. This anti-feminist promotional campaign depends then on transforming some of its representatives, those women who are no longer captured by suave masculinity, by machismo and charisma and charm (your sex life complications are not my fascination as the song by Grace Jones puts it), into unfeminine oddballs, women who are going against nature.

The problem for us is that these vindictive images do feed into popular (mis)conception, they do penetrate consciousness and create prejudices. Two recent examples of this will suffice. At an interview for a job, one gentleman thought he was paying me a compliment: You don't look like someone who bears grudges, he said, do you have a happy personal life, are you a (nervous cough) a, women's libber? Even more obvious was the uproar surrounding newsreader Anna Ford's claim that body fascism was virulent in television and ensured that only young and attractive women got jobs and succeeded, where such criteria simply were not relevant for men. The popular press took this comment, made at a Women In The Media conference, as an insult to men and to themselves as indeed it was intended. They responded in terms of how dare she bite the hand that feeds her, and then resorted to suggesting that she's got a nerve to speak, and then the usual, She's got extremely large hands and a big bottom. So she's not really so feminine after all! Later that week on television Robert Robinson mocked her, Whatever next? he said, Plain women reading the news!

But there is something more to this than just a childish ritual exchange of insults. For so many years any kind of media recognition, any kind of visual publicity, has been the epitome of success for a woman. Getting your picture in the paper; whether as actress, model, television presenter or pop singer, the result has been the same. Made-to-measure images, glamour, smiles and thank you very much, I owe this all to my manager, my producer, or to the talent scout who saw me on Opportunity Knocks , and so on. Women have been so flattered to succeed in these spheres that they have rarely dared to voice any complaints that they may have. Until recently they haven't ever publicly challenged the authority which has kept them in their places and which continually reminds them that there is always a large army of eager young women just dying to take their place. So when one of these figures does articulate her exasperation, not only is she risking her career, she is also directly accusing all those men who work around her. And she can be assured of having a far from easy future with them. Fortunately, she's not quite alone. The fact that Anna Ford made these statements at a Women In The Media conference, and that she has the support of this group behind her, is evidence enough of this. So perhaps patriarchy, in this case the media, really does have something to fear. For example, the tabloids may resist it wherever they can, but women's magazines