Blame the babies

Does the name Bidisha ring a bell? She's a regular commentator on Newsnight Review. And a rather sensible one at that. Or so I thought until I read her article in the Guardian yesterday (yes, MGF G, I am 'a Guardian reader' and a proud one at that). Over 3 pages she is going through numbers of men and women on each panel and every show put on this summer, showing that only 1/4-1/3 are women. She calls this Femicide.

Now, as this is the interweb, I can immediately share with you the history of the term: "Femicide, defined as the misogynous killing of women by men (Russell and Radford, 1992), has its roots in the larger feminist discourse, which emphasises the patriarchal nature of society and the tendency to use violence as tool of repression in the maintenance of male dominance. The term, which – unlike the term genocide, for example - has no legal basis, is elaborated in the work of Jill Radford and Diana E.H Russell in a compilation of works entitled ‘Femicide, the politics of woman killing’, published in 1992. It takes its form from the word ‘cide’, a derivative of the Latin word ceadere which means to kill and femina which means woman or female."

So you see, the use of the term Femicide in this context is a bit, how should I put it, extreme. That's not, however, the root of my disappointment (although it is the source of my anger - I just don't take the use of the cide suffix lightly). Rather, it is Bidisha's complete lack of intellectual curiosity for alternative explanations. Ratios of women low => Femicide is just a bit shallow.

How about showing historical trends? Well I am willing to bet a sixpence those will not be as supportive of the argument at hand. Can't imagine things were much better a century ago, with women not allowed to vote and all that. How about an alternative explanation? Nope. That will defocus the argument. And by argument I mean 'rant' ["Hey, don't be so quick to throw stones, whitey" she says when she assumes her, naturally, white male readers, will blame the fact that only 1 of 5 contenders for the International Prize for Arab Fiction was a woman on Arab conservatism (which by the way I am and would)].

So, I thought I'd make an effort at finding a competing theory. Here goes.

Yes, women outnumber men in art schools and the humanities. Yes, they go more to galleries and dance theatres. They definitely (I can only imagine) are the majority of those attending poetry readings in town halls. At the same time, I can imagine that the number professional women artists competing for the slots on shows and events Bidisha is referring to, is smaller than the men. You see, this is true in almost every profession. Now there are many reasons for that and prejudice against women is likely to be one of them. But it's not the only one. A major reason is rather more fundamental: babies. You see, only women can have them. Moreover many would rather [by choice that is] spend time with them rather than compete for top spots in their respective professions. I don't need to look further than MBH who did a PhD in the best department in the UK on the hotest topic at time, yet had two babies during, one after and decided she would rather stay with them than seek a full time position and see them at best at bed time - there are no part time posts, and on that one I am with Bidisha.

So, where does that leave us? Am I saying that women are not discriminated against? Hell no! Bidisha even accuses women of being just as bad as men in that respect. All I am saying is that there may be other explanations for smaller number of women participating in art events; or as I said in the title: blame the babies!

PS 360km down. 640km to go.