Grace Elshafei

ಯWomen, even when they are not silenced, still have to pay a very high price for being heardರ, said Mary Beard, in 'The Public Voice of Womenಬ, London Review of Books, 20th March 2014.

How plausible is this claim, and what, if anything, does it imply for womenಬs freedom of speech?

Today, with the widening accessibility of social media, to speak out is to open oneself up to the opinions of almost every member of society. This is a condition of freedom of speech of which one must have an authentic understanding in order fully to realise that freedom. For any person of ei- ther sex, freedom of speech requires a lucid awareness of the risks, responsibilities and conse- quences intrinsic to it. Thus, the need for affirmation of others’ liberty of expression and its inter- connectivity with one’s own is present within the experiences of both men and women. This is a necessary condition for the value of universal freedom of speech to be meaningfully promoted within society - ‘If I grasp my freedom in a fulfilled intuition as both the source of my projects and requiring universal freedom, I cannot think of destroying the freedom of others’1. In this respect, everyone pays a ‘very high price’ for being heard. It seems clear that, in taking a public voice, everyone is opening themselves up to a range of possible responses. However, it appears that there are certain types of abuse which are inflicted only on women who speak up. This is what is prob- lematic; this is the ‘price’ Beard speaks of. While this certainly has implications, perhaps these implications are not on women’s freedom of speech, but rather on women’s very existence, both existential and within society. This essay will argue that, in being heard, the ‘very high price’ a woman pays is the loss of her sexuality and femininity - core aspects of her very humanity - and that the fact that society perceives this loss both infers the need to create a sense of self in which subjectivity and femininity do not conflict and perpetuates a structure of patriarchal authority.

One implication of the ‘price’ that women pay for speaking out is the loss of an aspect of their human existence: their sexuality.2 Although both men and women who choose to have a public voice can (and often do) receive criticism and even threats of violence, there are certain forms of abuse which are specifically aimed at women and are simply not translatable to the male experience. The specific abuse which can only be targeted towards women clearly aims to subjugate, dominate and objectify - whether it is describing Mary Beard as ‘stumblingly vapid’3, taunting her with "Mary, Mary quite Clunge-hairy, how does your Lady Garden grow?” 4 or threatening Caroline Criado-Perez with rape unless she "shut up” (sic). This seems to infer that what triggers the response is not an- ger at what the woman says, but at the fact that she says it at all. That the above responses would sound strange if targeted at a man implies that there is something about the perceived essence of what it is to be a woman that evokes the urge to objectify and restrict women. Through this form of discriminatory abuse, women are reminded of their comparative physical weakness; they are brought down from the clouds of political and intellectual discourse to the harsh biological realities of earth. They are made consciously aware of their status as erotic objects - as pure facticity, al- ienated from the (male) community of those regarded as having the capacity and authority to es-

1 Sartre, (1947ದ48) cited by Heter, (2006) http://www.iep.utm.edu/sartre-p/#H3 2 de Beauvoir (1949) p690 3 Liddle, 2013 http://www.spectator.co.uk/columnists/rod-liddle/8830261/its-not-misogyny- professor-beard-its-you/ 4 http://timesonline.typepad.com/dons_life/2013/01/internet-fury.html

Grace Elshafei tablish values and meanings. As de Beauvoir phrases it in her discussion of Hegel’s Master-Slave relation, ‘Men have presumed to create a feminine domain’5 of submissiveness, a nurturing nature and an unbreakable tie to physicality or ‘animality’6 - a collection of ‘essential’ properties and func- tions which compose a sort of Platonic form of ‘woman’. To demand to be heard is to transcend these ‘essential’ properties and to attempt to achieve a sense of ‘self’ beyond the sexual, physical function as a means to an end, beyond the ‘animal type of life’7. However, if these properties are thought by society to be ‘essential’, it follows that if a woman loses any one of them - most crucially the vital status of ‘object’ or ‘facticity’ - she is no longer a woman in the environment in which her sexuality is most relevant: the society in which she exists. While men are able to both possess sexuality and be a ‘subject’ without conflict between the two arising, a woman must renounce one for the sake of the other8. Here lies an aspect of the ‘high price’ women pay for speaking out: they lose that attribute of their human existence which compromises their sexuality and femininity.

Another implication of the ‘very high price’ that women pay is that there is still the need to create an ontological female existence. That those forms of abuse specific to women who speak out imply that a woman who does so is rejecting the domain of femininity - “a vile, spiteful excuse for a woman”9 - implies that, upon demanding to be heard, women are forced into the domain of masculinity - for what other domain exists? They thus define themselves, to a certain degree, as masculine, the only other possible definition of self. The implications of this can perhaps be seen within the frameworks of Sartre’s analysis of the Negritude movement10 and of existential phenomenology. Essentially, when the woman demands to be heard and to transcend her physical status, the con- tent of the valuation is inverted such that woman is now man and object is now subject, but the structure of value is still there, as are the terms of the valuation - sex. That female-specific responses imply this rejection of femininity in demanding to be heard means women are still forced to understand their identity in male terms of value. This is an implication of the ‘price’ that women pay for being heard - they are reminded of the lack of an ontological female existence and forced to be seen in relation to men11. Perhaps then the ultimate goal and responsibility of the woman who demands to be seen as equal to men should not be to transcend femininity, but to redefine and reevaluate it - to create a legitimate female identity which is not antonymous with subjectivity.

The ‘price’ paid by women who demand to be heard is not only implicit in women’s struggle to be equal, it ensures that this struggle exists. The very act of telling a woman who is, for example, speaking on a history show that she "really should be kept away from cameras altogether”12 be-

5 de Beauvoir (1949) https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/ethics/de-beauvoir/2nd- sex/ch05.htm 6 Hegel, cited by de Beauvoir (1949) https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/ethics/de- beauvoir/2nd-sex/ch05.htm 7 Hegel, cited by de Beauvoir (1949) https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/ethics/de- beauvoir/2nd-sex/ch05.htm 8 de Beauvoir (1949) The Independent Woman 9 http://timesonline.typepad.com/dons_life/2013/01/internet-fury.html 10 Sartre (1948), cited by Acampora (2002) http://web.mit.edu/~philos/wogap/ESWIP02/Acampora.html 11 Irigaray, (1996), cited by Hansen (2013) http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/femapproach- continental/#Phe 12 Gill, cited by Day (2013) http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/jan/26/mary-beard-question- time-internet-trolls

Grace Elshafei cause of her looks, does not merely embody the idea of discrimination, it actualises it.13Just as how a ‘Whites Only’ sign does not simply embody the idea of racial discrimination but realises it, without someone actually saying that women should be in the kitchen, the denigration could not be ac- complished - the ‘very high price’ could not be paid. It is not simply the fact that there are forms of abuse which are specific to women which ensures their inequality - this simply implies it. It is the act of directing this abuse at women and the fact that women receive and internalise it which actually perpetuates the inequality. In other words, imperatives such as ‘get back in the kitchen, you won’t understand’ should not only be regarded as someone expressing the idea that women should not be heard on topics such as, for example, politics. They should also be regarded as acts in themselves, for social hierarchies could not exist without being embodied and expressed through words and other communications. That is, the very act of saying someone is inferior is what makes them so, within the framework of a social structure. As it seems clear that there can be no true Platonic form of ‘woman’, and definitely not one which contains the essential property of ‘object’, it follows that this definition of femininity, as well as women’s struggle to transcend it, is socially engendered. As words and pictures are surely the major form of communication within society, it must be through these media that women are defined. The ‘very high price’ Beard speaks of - receiving the forms of abuse which attempt to objectify and denigrate, and which is almost in- variably exclusive to the female experience - is then not merely something with implications, but something which creates social reality by its very existence.

I think, therefore, that while Beard’s claim is definitely plausible, the implications of the ‘very high price’ women pay are not on their freedom of speech, but on their identity and human existence. That the specific types of responses that only women receive when they demand to be heard have the aim of objectification implies not only that, in taking a public voice, a woman renounces vital aspects of her humanity: her sexuality and feminine identity, but also denotes the fact that the cre- ation of a subjective female identity is necessary if women are ever to be truly seen as equal to men. Furthermore, it seems that the ‘price’ in itself is not only symbolic of this inequality, but cen- tral to its existence. It appears that, in this way, universal freedom of speech results in female op- pression, since it is through its expression that social stratification exists. Without restricting freedom of speech, gender equality can only be achieved through the establishment and acceptance of a legitimate female identity - one that does not conflict with women’s subjectivity. If social hierarchies are formed through words and communication, it follows that, despite the ‘very high price’ women pay for being heard, they must not cease speaking up if they are ever to be defined in their own terms.

13 McKinnon (1993)

Grace Elshafei Bibliography

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Philipson A., 2013. Woman who campaigned for Jane Austen bank note receives Twitter death threats, The Telegraph (Online). Available at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/10207231/Woman-who-campaigned-for-Jane-Austen-bank- note-receives-Twitter-death-threats.html (Accessed 13th February 2015)

Day, E., 2013. Mary Beard: I almost didn't feel such generic, violent misogyny was about me, The Guardian (Online). Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/jan/26/mary-beard- question-time-internet-trolls (Accessed 13th February 2015)

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Acampora, C., 2002, Authorizing Desire: Erotic Poetics and the Aisthesis of Freedom. Available at: http://web.mit.edu/~philos/wogap/ESWIP02/Acampora.html (Accessed February 17th)

Heter, S., 2006, Sartreಬs Political Philosophy, Internet Encyclopaedia of Philosophy. Available at: http://www.iep.utm.edu/sartre-p/#H3 (Accessed February 17th 2015)

Anon, 2014, Two guilty over abusive tweets to Caroline Criado-Perez. BBC (Online). Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25641941 (Accessed 13th February 2015)

Cornell, D., 2000, Feminism and Pornography: Only Words by Caroline Mackinnon (1993). New York: Oxford University Press

Liddle, R., 2013, Itಬs not misogyny, Professor Beard. Itಬs you, The Spectator (Online). Available at: http://www.spectator.co.uk/columnists/rod-liddle/8830261/its-not-misogyny-professor-beard-its- you/ (Accessed 23rd February 2015) de Beauvoir, 1949, The Second Sex: On the Master-Slave Relation, Marxist Philosophy Archive. Available at: https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/ethics/de-beauvoir/2nd-sex/ch05.htm (Ac- cessed 13th February 2015)