Meeting held on Monday 15th March 2021 By Zoom
6 people were present. 10 gave apologies for not attending. There was no face to face meeting due to corona virus restrictions.
The meeting focused on the issues of male violence towards women, sexism,
racism, the monarchy and class. These issues have been prominent in the media
lately and we saw them as being related.
Underlying racism and sexism and other forms of prejudicial behaviour is a tendency, which may be natural, to categorise people and ‘other’ those who differ from ourselves. This tendency is very deep and, linguistically, extends down to the level of gendered pronouns he/she and the suggested use of ‘they’ as a non gendered alternative.
We considered how the press treatment of women reflects, but also reinforces, the ‘male gaze’ which views women as objects of male violence. This is often quite explicit, for example, a paper of the Murdoch Press in Australia encouraged photographers to only show ‘attractive’ women in their reporting and not “pigs in lipstick” (as they called females who fall outside their narrow notions of attractiveness).
We noted that it women have often been the subject of hostility in relation to the Royal Family. Thus Meghan Merkel is vilified whereas Prince Andrew gets off almost scot free. Such dramas have often been presented as placing the monarchy under stress, but it was suggested that quite the opposite may be the case: interest in the Royal Family is assured by the stream of dramas. It thus provides the soap opera in which we all take an interest
Discussing the Merkel/Winfrey interview we noted the common feature of the
coldness of the Royal Family as it is presented. There was sympathy with the racism that seemed a feature of Merkel’s problems with ‘The Firm’. Racism is built into the structure of monarchial privilege. However, we noted that Merkel is no insecure, unconfident woman. She has enormous experience and professional achievement as a celebrity in her own right, and now has enormous wealth from Harry as well. The interview’s presentation of her as the victim was contrived and rehearsed.
Finally, we considered what might be the kind of process that would lead to the
eradication of racism, sexism, etc. It was suggested that this would require an
educational system that prioritised a sense of self-worth rather than the domination and subordination that seems to be the inevitable accompaniment to the highly competitive relationships that constitute our present educational system.
Our next meeting is on Monday 19th April. We hope that, for that meeting, it will be possible to have a face to face meeting (outside, at 2.30pm) as well as the Zoom alternative at 7.30pm. A decision about that will be made later in the light of government restrictions.