Tammi Tasting Terroir

I posted a piece over on RAW / ROAR, a new website of feminist writing from Australian women from the Left, on the stoush between Melinda Tankard Reist (MTR) and blogger Jennifer Wilson (No Place for Sheep). It’s not about MTR’s threats to sue for defamation, which I abhor. It’s about the ethics of dismissing an argument because of somebody’s religion.

You can read it here.

This is not a piece about Ben Pobjie. Nor is it about Justin Shaw, nor Gail Dines nor porn culture. This is a piece about what happens when feminists challenge those who would describe a feminist academic’s work as ‘hysterical screeching’. It is also a recap of a discussion on Twitter two nights ago where this actually happened.

Two nights ago on Twitter, Mike Brull (@mikeb476) challenged Justin Shaw (@juzzytribune) for referring to academic and anti-porn activist Gail Dines’ ‘hysterical screeching’ in an article Shaw wrote for the Kings Tribune. As I watched, the two squared off into what appeared to be pretty aggressive corners. I agreed with Brull’s critique, but admittedly, not with his debating technique, which I thought was a bit inflammatory, and so potentially unproductive.

This is not the beginning, but it’s a good place to start this very long post. These are between Brull and Shaw, with a very helpful interjection from @theriverfed:

@mikeb476: @juzzytribune Calling a woman “hysterical” b/c she’s too angry for you is like calling a woman “slut” b/c you think she’s too promiscuous

@juzzytribune: @mikeb476 Are you saying the word should be banned from use now?

@theriverfed: @juzzytribune Butting in, I would say ‘Choose more precise, less loaded words.” Feminism aside, hyperbole is bad writing. @mikeb476

@juzzytribune: @theriverfed yeah I’ll wear that. It’s my style tho. I usually yell about sport, where hyperbole don’t matter so much..

Then @cosmicjester made a contribution:

@cosmicjester: @juzzytribune haha @mikeb476 taking issue with a single word. Guess you didn’t get it approved by the PC thought police juzzy.

@mikeb476: @cosmicjester Oh life must be tough under the weight of oppression, someone not liking a few words b/c of their history and connotations.

This is when I joined the debate. What follows are the tweets between me (@tammois), @juzzytribune, @benpobjie and some from @mikestuchbery.

There were many many more contributions from a lot of people, and many were not just uncharitable, they were rude and insulting, while plenty attempted to engage in a civil discussion as well. There are far too many for me to collate here, so I have elected to share those between the primary debaters, and have included some from @mikestuchbery although he never engaged with me or directly in the debate, merely made snarky, ‘gaslighting‘ comments from the sideline.

(NB I think it would be great if someone wrote about what happens when a number of people jump in, especially when the numbers are imbalanced on one side – some call it a ‘mob’ or ‘pile-on’, but I think it’s worth further analysis. And if anyone has tweets they think are essential to this discussion that I’ve missed, please insert them in the comments to round out the picture.)

@tammois: @cosmicjester oh, CJ, it’s times like this I lose faith. Seems @mikeb476 is defending women from a sloppy sexist attack by @juzzytribune ½

@tammois: @cosmicjester @mikeb476 then @juzzytribune conceded ‘wrong word’ but defended his right to use it. Sure, has right, as M does to say ‘wrong’

@juzzytribune: @tammois @cosmicjester I use “hysterical” in the generic non-gender sense. Could as easily used “over the top” or “feverish”.

@tammois: @cosmicjester @mikeb476 @juzzytribune I must be careful as haven’t read the article, but ‘hysterical’, ‘shrill’, ‘slut’ all not okay with me

@juzzytribune: @tammois BTW, my attack was not sexist in any way, other than an extrapolation of my use of the word “hysterical”.

@tammois: @juzzytribune I believe you when you say you believe your ‘attack wasn’t sexist’, but that doesn’t make it true… @mikeb476 @cosmicjester

@tammois: @juzzytribunebut I guess my response to calling women you disagree with hysterical has so much historical baggage, I think it’s not okay.

At this stage, @juzzytribune involves @benpobjie:

@juzzytribune: @benpobjie you ready for the hate, big guy? It’s started…

@juzzytribune: @benpobjie our p0rn pieces. I’m a sexist pig, you’re (as usual) making rape jokes..

Then returns to the debate:

@juzzytribune: @mikeb476 @cosmicjester @tammois don’t fucking misquote me. I said “stingy jew bastard” would be wrong, but “stingy bastard” no problem.

@tammois: @juzzytribune ’hysterical’, like ‘shrill’, has been used as a way to be reductive of women’s contributions to debate, so I wouldn’t use it.

@juzzytribune: @tammois conceded. As I said, I used it in a generic sense. could’ve/should’ve used “fevered” or similar instead…

@tammois: @juzzytribune yes, I think it’s just that these words have way too much baggage & *appear* to be a perpetuation of misogyny, hence concerns.

@tammois: @juzzytribune so perhaps the easiest thing to respond to @mikeb476 is just what you did – could have used other word – bc that word was bad?

@tammois: @juzzytribune it’s a trigger for social justice folk, when someone calls you out, reckon is best to admit to error of judgment & not repeat

@juzzytribune: @tammois done and done.

@tammois: @juzzytribune apols if I sound a bit schoolmarmish. Not trying to be patronising, just to help.

@tammois: @juzzytribune :-)

And that should have been it, right? @juzzytribune had accepted the feminist critique as valid and it was really not a big stoush. On the sidelines, @mikestuchbery gets involved:

@mikestuchbery: @cosmicjester @juzzytribune Really a waste of time arguing with those two. Unpleasant, arrogant jerks.

@juzzytribune: @mikestuchbery MB, yeah… t’other?

@mikestuchbery: @juzzytribune Humourless Marxist

Now @benpobjie enters the discussion which had just concluded.

@benpobjie: @mikeb476 @cosmicjester @tammois @juzzytribuneif a Jew is stingy why can’t you say they are stingy? And if a woman is hysterical…

@tammois: @benpobjie @mikeb476 @cosmicjester @juzzytribune surely it’s best to acknowledge why someone isn’t forthcoming w $$ re stingy 1/2

@tammois: @benpobjie @mikeb476 @cosmicjester @juzzytribune & actually engage w a woman (or man)’s argument rather than labelling it ‘hysterical’?

@tammois: @benpobjie @mikeb476 @cosmicjester @juzzytribune these sorts of adjectives are a refuge for unwillingness to debate issues, IMO.

@tammois: @benpobjie @mikeb476 @cosmicjester @juzzytribune and I say that having called ppl ‘crazy shouty ppl’ a few times. But happy to be called out

@juzzytribune: @tammois thx. so what word could/should I have used/use in follow-up piece to describe Dines’ screeching?

@tammois: @juzzytribune to be honest, ‘screeching’ is a bit of a cheap shot as well, given, you know, it’s used about women…

@juzzytribune: @tammois seriously? Check my Drum pieces, I use it about men as well, and screeching is what it was..

@tammois: @cosmicjester @benpobjie @mikeb476 @juzzytribuneI don’t know the Dines piece, but surely ‘inciting moral panic’ will do?

@benpobjie: @tammois @mikeb476 @cosmicjester @juzzytribune in that case we can’t use any insults at all. If “hysterical” is accurate I say use it.

@tammois: @benpobjie that’s a pretty boring answer to critique, I reckon. You know, humourless left, etc. @mikeb476 @cosmicjester @juzzytribune

@benpobjie: My next column will be the words “Lighten the fuck up” repeated 250 times.

@benpobjie: @tammois @mikeb476 @cosmicjester @juzzytribune ”use words to accurately describe things” is boring? Christ, sorry for the tedium.

@tammois: @benpobjie okay, Ben, do it. Tell me how ‘hysterical’ is accurate & productive. @mikeb476 @cosmicjester @juzzytribune

@benpobjie: @tammois m.dictionary.com/d/?q=Hysterica… if any of these definitions apply to a person, “hysterical” is an accurate description. Easy.

@tammois: @benpobjie oh, wow, and you can’t see how calling a woman ‘uncontrollably emotional’ and ‘irrational’ is not okay? really?!

@benpobjie: @tammois are you saying women are never uncontrollably emotional or irrational? They are super-beings immune to these things?

@tammois: @benpobjie I am saying that to discount a woman’s contribution to debate that way is pernicious & unacceptable.

@tammois: @benpobjie I would think such behaviour is more common in the home than in a published piece of work, whether you agree with it or not.

@benpobjie: @tammois it may be more common – but Gail Dines’s work is irretrievably hysterical. It’s a very accurate descriptor of what she does.

@benpobjie: @tammois but it’s not necessarily discounting anything – if anyone’s contribution IS hysterical, why not call them on it?

@tammois: @benpobjie by what judgement do you decree that someone who has a considered (though anathema) position is ‘hysterical’?

@benpobjie: @tammois @cosmicjester @mikeb476 @juzzytribune what use is “stupid” to civil debate? Yet if someone says something stupid I’ll say so

@tammois: @benpobjie not saying we don’t all use unhelpful adjectives sometimes. But gee we should do better @cosmicjester @mikeb476 @juzzytribune

@tammois: @benpobjie and you know, if you want to call people stupid and hysterical, I guess you can, but it’s damaging & unproductive.

@benpobjie: It’s a blocky kind of evening. Also an I-hate-you kind of evening.

@benpobjie: @tammois by what judgment do YOU decree that someone’s position is “considered”?

@tammois: @benpobjie no more so than anything I read on the interwebz, really. But like to give the benefit of the doubt. Which I’m doing here x 1000.

@tammois: @benpobjie you know, we have a lot of followers, Ben. We could ask the women how they feel about hysterical.

@benpobjie: @tammois why? Is your opinion dependent on what other people tell you?

@benpobjie: @tammois if you think hysterical is the wrong word, put your case. Don’t pull this “sexist” nonsense to avoid having to.

@tammois: @benpobjieare you kidding? That’s your new approach to say I’ve not built one against hysterical as critique?

@benpobjie: @tammois point is, you say something is considered, I say it’s hysterical. We disagree. But neither of us is being bigoted.

@benpobjie: @tammois no, that you haven’t built one against it being accurate in a particular case. So you just issue a blanket ban on it.

@tammois: @benpobjie okay, Ben, sorry. Here we go. Your long history of white male privilege is totally blinding you here.

@tammois: @benpobjie I read plenty of things I think are very wrong, but still ‘considered’ in their fashion, as in come from a person with thoughts

@tammois: @benpobjie I guess there is a pretty good reason for dropping certain words until power structures change, yes.

@benpobjie: #block #fuckyou “@tammois: @benpobjie okay, Ben, sorry. Here we go. Your long history of white male privilege is totally blinding you here.”

@tammois: .@benpobjie that is really sad, Ben. Really really disappointing. This was an opportunity. This is your technique, hey? ‘#block #fuckyou‘

@tammois: Wow. I’ve never been blocked before that I know of? And certainly not by someone I don’t even follow. Hope others gained something.

@benpobjie: Anyone else want to be a fucking moron to me tonight? Anyone? Feel free.

@benpobjie: .@tammois it was an opportunity until you posted a tweet so stupid it brought home the futility of engaging you.

@benpobjie: @tammois sadly my twitter won’t let me block you so your idiocy continues to clog my feed.

@tammois: @benpobjie it is really unfortunate that you don’t want to engage with people when they tell you how they exp words, given you have a voice.

@juzzytribune: @tammois is there a parallel between accusing a white man of inherent blindness and accusing a woman of hysteria?

@tammois: No. RT @juzzytribune: @tammoisis there a parallel between accusing a white man of inherent blindness and accusing a woman of hysteria?

@juzzytribune: @tammois ok then.

@tammois: RT @mikestuchbery: Lovely of @BenPobjie& @JuzzyTribunevia @KingsTribune to highlight the how intolerant & pigheaded some Lefties can be.

@tammois: Nice one by @mikestuchbery there – of course it’s ‘intolerant & pigheaded’ of the left to point out intolerance. Very clever, Mike.

@benpobjie: Protip: don’t bother arguing with someone who decided your gender makes you incapable of being right before you start.

@benpobjie: @tammois I don’t engage with those who predetermined that I have nothing worthwhile to say because I’m male. Because it’s pointless.

@tammois: @benpobjie that’s not very helpful. I engaged w you respectfully at all stages, & don’t remotely think men have nothing to offer.

@tammois: @benpobjie that’s a total cop out. but your total unwillingness to listen indicated that you have *no idea* of your own privilege.

@benpobjie: Don’t call hysterical people hysterical. Don’t call stupid people stupid. Don’t call arseholes arseholes. Fuck that for a laugh.

@tammois: @benpobjie do you realise you have choices her beyond ‘STOP IT I AM NOT SEXIST I SWEAR I AM NICE’? There is also, ‘wow, thx for the input’

@tammois: @benpobjie bc, you know, I didn’t really think you were a terrible sexist. But defending reductive abuse of women isn’t very helpful.

Then people commence with the dismissive jokes about feminism.

@benpobjie:@cyenne40 misogynist album

@benpobjie: @tammois you don’t know me. You don’t know what I do. You don’t know what I think. You don’t have a fucking clue about me. So fuck off.

@tammois: @benpobjie I am not judging you – I’m judging your current words & response to critique *of somebody else’s writing*, btw.

@tammois: @benpobjie I don’t want you to feel bad, or that I think things about you. I just want you to *hear us* when we say don’t call us hysterical

@benpobjie: Twitter has finally allowed me to block @tammois and free my feed of her patronising sexist gibberish, thank Christ

@tammois: For those who follow me, I hope this has been helpful to understand structures of privilege & why it’s not cool to call women hysterical.

@tammois: Nor ‘shrill’, nor ‘sluts’… give me more, everyone, & I’ll RT.

@benpobjie: @crazybrave @ellymc nobody explained privilege because it didn’t need explaining. I’m very familiar with it thank you, patronising tosser

@benpobjie: The world is filled with petty witless fools who’d rather masturbate over their own superiority complex than have an original thought.

As I collected these tweets, I saw a couple where people had asked @juzzytribune what was going on. I’d like to highlight that his responses appear respectful and civil, as they had earlier.

@juzzytribune: @TudorGrrrl I used the “H” word, which started all this…. and I’ve clarified and acknowledged I should have used a non-gender word..

Sadly, @mikestuchbery (and others) chose to continue with dismissive acerbity of the ‘feminism is stupid’ variety:

@mikestuchbery: @jeremysear @JaneTribune @benpobjie You are a male. It will take a whippersnipper to your goolies & send you to a site on male privilege.

@mikestuchbery: @Twinarp @benpobjie Your derp privilege is derping you both to the derp.

Though consistency seems not to have been his aim:

@mikestuchbery: @JackieK_ Her initial criticism was fine & cogent. It was the resulting pile on with Brull & others on Ben & Justin I found distasteful.

Finally, this:

@mikestuchbery: @benpobjie Some of us admire your persistence in not losing your cool at the bullies, chancers & zealots.

To wrap up:

This all relates to my post on dissent and intellectual honesty (which was cross-posted to the Drum), except that this is specifically around gendered language. The history of hysteria is basically that women’s uteruses make us irrational. There’s more, but brevity is called for here. But let me attempt to articulate concerns around usage in this case.

Dines (or Greer, or any female commentator) says a thing (or things) that someone doesn’t like, in this case, that porn culture is bad. Perhaps she is passionate on the topic, a bit like Tony Abbott wound up about the price on carbon, but these are women. So some people (not just men) say she is being ‘hysterical’, which means ‘uncontrollably emotional’ or ‘irrational’. It is a deeply gendered term – try to imagine it being applied to men, and in most cases you can’t, unless it’s to queer men. In Shaw’s case, he didn’t just say ‘hysterical’, he said ‘hysterical screechings’. So in the first paragraph of his article, he has given us a position on Dines where anything else we read about her, she is a banshee character, so out of control she’s a danger to not only herself, but probably others.

Let’s say Shaw had said, ‘Dines is trying to incite moral panic’. In this example, Dines is a rational actor with an aim, not an out of control woman not to be taken seriously. In the second example, we do take her seriously, but we may just as easily reach a conclusion that we disagree with her position on porn culture as if we thought she was actually hysterical. The key difference is that Shaw hasn’t robbed her of agency and put her back into that female box of irrationality, emotions, tears and hormones.

Calling a male writer hysterical is just as unproductive to civil debate as calling a woman hysterical. But to call a man hysterical doesn’t have the historical baggage that leads to this act of continuing to marginalise women from public debate.

I have been challenged for calling a man out for being ‘blinded by his (white) male privilege’, as I did Pobjie when he grew more and more belligerent and unwilling to enter into productive discourse. Pointing out privilege is not remotely the same thing as calling a woman hysterical. Privilege is about power, being labeled ‘hysterical’ is about usurping power.

It is far too common a position for people who don’t want their privilege contested or acknowledged to insist they are being oppressed. We’ve all heard the undergrads who, upon learning of the ‘women’s room’, start up a culture of ridicule and demand a parallel ‘men’s room’. Because they’re being marginalised by women seeking a place to retreat from masculine aggression.

I looked at the timelines of a number of people yesterday. There has been a long stream of ‘oh, no, we’re sexist’, ‘don’t say gender, bc then we’re acknowledging gender’, and other such witticisms. They’ve even started a #hysteriagate tag – another tactic to silence dissent.

It’s hard to believe that we still live in a world where people feel so comfortable to retreat to (a very public twitter timeline) space where they make a number of sexist jokes to make themselves feel better about dismissing critique.

Ridicule the women who told you we felt ridiculed. Yeah, that’s really grappling with your male privilege.

You say a thing. I disagree with the thing you said and I tell you so. You say:

1. Everybody is entitled to their opinion.
2. Why are you so difficult?
3. nothing, and look surly or distraught.

The first example is a ‘non-answer’, designed to stifle discussion and debate. I may have information you don’t have about the topic. Telling me ‘it’s just my opinion’ rather than engaging with the opinion or assertion of ‘fact’ achieves nothing except to silence me. Your original statement remains unchallenged and unchallengeable, because anything anyone might say is ‘just opinion’. This isn’t true. Not everything is opinion.

Academics are trained to research a topic until they know it inside and out. That doesn’t mean there can’t be new data at any time, that may shift the scholar’s position once uncovered. It does, however, mean the scholar is considered ‘an expert’ who has authority to speak on the topic. This authority has come with years of work and constantly challenging assertions and so-called common sense beliefs. It has not come from reading an article in the newspaper and then citing that article for the next year as authoritative.

Newspapers are not authoritative. Research is, as carried out by academics and other knowledge workers across many sectors who read widely, ask questions, observe, and engage in constant discussion and debate on a topic.

What you read in The Australian about climate change is not authoritative. What you read from the Union of Concerned Scientists is.

The second response (that I am being difficult) is also a non-answer, but a more aggressive one in which I am positioned as an unreasonable person who won’t let a person speak freely. This answer, while serving the same purpose as the first (to silence me), is, I would argue, pernicious. It allows statements that commit symbolic violence to go forth and prosper.

You’re not racist/sexist/nationalist – I’m just difficult.

I’ll admit it. I’m contrarian when people unreflexively reproduce stereotypes and prejudice that keep us from progressing towards a more egalitarian/cosmopolitan/sustainable society.

I will tell you I disagree with you when you say things that maintain hegemonic structures such as white privilege. Calling me difficult when I tell you I disagree is tantamount to saying you don’t care that you are privileged, and in fact you bloody well like it this way, so bugger the global south/Indigenous Australians/asylum seekers/women… Why don’t you try an honest approach and just admit it – the status quo benefits you – rather than obfuscating the point by trying to dismiss me as difficult?

But wait, you meant no harm? That is why I will disagree with you respectfully. People often reproduce stereotypes while meaning no harm. Wouldn’t you like to know that’s what you did though, so you don’t do it again? And please tell me when I say something unintentionally offensive or inaccurate.

The third one, silence (often surly silence), is spectacularly disingenuous – you get to be a victim of this difficult contrarian. Make sure your eyes look pained in your silence so everyone around you can see that I’m picking on you. In fact, I’m the elitist one, sharing what I’ve learned as a researcher, ‘me and my fucking education’. Yes, it’s awful that I have learned many things that have made me want to do more so that more people in the world can feed themselves and have choices in their lives as to what and where they will eat, study, work, marry, vote, live.

Rather than being so wounded when I tell you I disagree with you and why, try something different. Try saying, ‘Really? Tell me more. I’m interested.’ There should be nothing threatening about learning something new, something that may even change your mind. It’s okay to change your mind. I’ll change mine if you provide compelling evidence for me to do so.

You say a thing. I disagree with the thing you said, but I say nothing.

• You believe I agree with you.
• I feel dishonest for not saying what I think/know.
• Your peace is kept, mine is disturbed.

If the world is to distribute resources and power more equally amongst all its people, then for me to imply with my silence that I agree with your statement that is promoting ignorance or prejudice is for me to support the very hegemony I am suggesting we should contest. I become complicit. My silence extends the symbolic violence of your words by giving the impression of consent.

I am then a lesser person for my intellectual dishonesty. I have remained silent and allowed you to believe that your comment about ‘those uncivil people of…’ was acceptable. I am unhappy with my silence, but I am so well versed in what happens (1, 2 or 3) that I have learned to pick my battles and ‘get along well enough’. In getting along well enough with you, I have failed to protect the voiceless. I have not used my own privilege to fight for the rights of others. I am wasting my privilege so that you may maintain yours.

You say a thing. I disagree with the thing you said, and I tell you so. You say:

1. Really? Tell me more. I’m interested.

 

 

‘How does it feel to be a farmer’s wife?’

‘It feels great TO BE A FARMER, and ah, I dunno, I’ve been married to Stuart for a bajillion years – feels kinda the same as always to be his wife.’

***

‘I’ll go ask Stuart where to plant this,’ our helper for the day says TO ME and walks away to find him.

***

‘You don’t have the strength or the skills to do what he does.’

***

These are just some of the phrases that have made me despair in these first two months of farming. We came here with a shared vision – to be sustainable, ethical pig farmers. We’d been heading towards this decision for a long time, and once we worked out what we wanted to farm, we spent the year researching pigs – emphasis is on we. We came armed with a reasonable amount of knowledge for city slickers, but also with a huge learning curve ahead of both of us.

I was obviously aware that sexism is an issue in agriculture, I just didn’t consider how it would affect me. As a vocal feminist in academic (and previously secondary education and corporate) spaces, I’m no stranger to sexism in the workplace. But I thought I had a handle on it. Anyone can see from my blog and interactions with me that I (as part of we) have become a farmer – this is the newest phase in my many lives, and I am embracing it wholeheartedly.

So here we are on the farm, learning together. We have a mad menagerie of animals for whom I have largely assumed the leadership. Both of us care for them, but overall, I spend a bit more time feeding them, obsessing about their well being, and drafting a whole farm plan that will guide our paddock rotations and fodder planting schedule. We both spend hours out there working on fences.

Stuart’s dad described this to me as, ‘You’re a planner, and Stuart’s a do-er’. With all due respect, while it’s true that I am more of a planner and Stuart can’t seem to stop doing, I hardly think my planning habits are slowing down my doings, and I am growing the forearms to prove it! Ah, but see, there I go – being defensive. Oh, how I despise being put in this corner.

I have never been anything‘s wife. I’ve always been my own thing who happens to be married.

One of the most exasperating aspects of the seemingly relentless gendering of farmers is the ways in which we do in fact fall into traditional roles. The most obvious one occurs around cooking. I have not given up my role as the primary cook in our house, a role I happen to adore. But it results in me coming in from the paddocks an hour or more before Stuart (and other helpers on the farm) to do meal prep, and consequently less involvement outside, especially when others are here to stay. So visitors witness me inside more, and I feel the need to be there to provide for everyone – compounding both their stereotypes and my frustration.

There are other behaviours that compound the gender roles – Stuart’s background is in building, so of course his skillset while we construct fences, erect new gates, and convert a shipping container into our new bedroom and study is a bit more useful than mine. I therefore defer to him on building matters, which I think is the right thing to do for quality control. But this also leads to further assumptions about who is doing what and how much, most of which involve assuming Stuart is a farmer and I’m a homemaker.

Stuart is a lot stronger than me, but in fact very little of the work requires mega-strength, and most can be done by normal strength people such as myself, especially if we work in pairs. Sure, Stuart can lift and carry huge fence posts inhuman distances, but I’d venture to say most farmers actually either couldn’t, or just wouldn’t. They’d use tools rather than brute strength, just as I do.

It’s interesting that nobody ever felt compelled to call me a ‘builder’s wife’ or similar – perhaps partially because our professional identities were distinct? But farming is such a masculine space in Australia – nobody has asked Stuart how it feels to be a farmer’s husband, I can assure you. And it’s such a disenfranchising experience having people fail to see you – in no other profession have people failed to acknowledge me for my work.

Let’s face it, we’re both learning farming skills and we’re both out there building and fixing fences, digging holes, feeding animals, and planting trees and fodder crops. I wouldn’t ask anyone to call me a builder, which I’m not, but I do want the respect of being called a farmer, because I am one.

Peggy Orenstein’s recent New York Times article ‘The Femivore’s Dilemma’ really struck a chord with feminists across the internets. In the last couple days I’ve seen the term ‘femivore’ (which Orenstein says is a combination of feminist and locavore) defined as everything from sapphic to misogynist cannibalism, and I’d have to agree that it’s an unfortunate coining etymologically speaking.

Orenstein’s concept of femivores arises from her friends who are raising their own chooks, and from Shannon Hayes’ book Radical Homemakers, that is, strong, intelligent women (and men, as it turns out) who are choosing to produce food in their own backyards as a way of nurturing themselves, their families and the planet. Unsurprisingly, there have been a number of negative responses to the idea that it is only women who are involved in the locavore movement, or indeed ‘downshifting’, ‘voluntary simplicity’, Slow Food or any other version of ‘slower’, less consumerist lifestyles.

It seems there are three primary threads then that require unravelling: gender, class, and sustainability. On gender, the most compelling argument for home food production and locavorism as intrinsically tied to feminist practice is that women are still by far the majority of the world’s domestic labour force. Before anyone starts yelling ‘my husband does most of the cooking’ (and to wit, my own partner is a regular and good cook, does most of our laundry, and is a passionate home gardener), I am not suggesting that men don’t do these things, but according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, Australian women in fact still do two and a half times more food preparation and cleaning up than men,whether they work outside the home or not.

One of ecofeminism’s claims is essentially that the patriarchy got us into this unsustainable capitalist mess, and feminism might just be able to get us out of it. Julia Russell puts it quite plainly in ‘The Evolution of an Ecofeminist’: ‘I call it the politics of life-style and I think it is a distinctly feminine politics in that it is both inner and universal, personal and all-inclusive. It is based on the understanding that lasting societal transformation begins with and rests on transformations of the individual.’

Russell’s valorising of individual responsibility perhaps leads us to the heart of claims that there are insurmountable class issues with so-called ‘femivorism’. Admittedly, Orenstein’s ‘femivores’ appear to all be white middle-class women. But Lindsay Beyerstein’s vituperative response “’Femivores’? Spare me.” is disingenuous sour grapes to the extreme. Beyerstein’s argument is tired and reductive. While I don’t believe anyone is suggesting that backyard gardens are equivalent to running a commercial farm, they are apparently important enough as to be encouraged by governments in times of war to address food shortages. Gardening can indeed be as simple as a hobby, but it can also be a significant means of saving money, ensuring the quality and freshness of one’s food, and reduce one’s carbon footprint substantially, and it is certainly hard work sometimes, as well as deeply pleasurable.

Beyerstein even attempts to elide the importance of nourishing one’s children if you choose to have them, with her hyperbolic question: ‘How about figuring out how to share domestic labor more equitably so that SAHMs have more free time to spend as they see fit, even if their hobbies don’t fit the stereotype of maternal perfection?’ Sure, domestic labour should be shared more equally, that’s a given. And of course mothers should have time to themselves without the constant pressure of the Good Mother mythology. But frankly, one’s tennis lessons (mother’s or father’s) are not in fact more important than feeding one’s children. And feeding your children well is at the core of good parenting, not external to it. Taking kids to swimming, tennis, guitar and dance lessons every weekday does not automatically a good parent make. Feeding them healthy food every day so they grow up without chronic illness or obesity is one essential component of good parenting. There, I said it, and now I’ll wait for those who would shrug off this essential duty to our children to attack me for not being a good feminist, because apparently feminists eat fast food.

Is it only middle class stay-at-home mums who ‘have time’ to cultivate a garden and cook wholesome food? Obviously not – families of many classes and cultures engage in gardening and cooking. And in fact, it is often those with the most spare time with partners in the highest income brackets who are least likely to spend their time on food production. By contrast, there are 18 community gardens in Melbourne’s public housing estates, with over 650 individual plots tended by residents.

It is obviously not just white middle-class privilege to have a thriving home garden, it’s for anyone who cares about their own, their families’ (if they have one) and the planet’s well being. It is also not just drudgery, and a new way to chain women to the kitchen sink. Our culture’s sense of entitlement to a life of convenience and uber-consumerism is neither making us happy nor providing our children with a future. Anecdotally, we talk of the Greek and Italian migrants of the 50s and their backyards full of tomatoes and fruit trees, plus the annual sugo making led by somebody’s nonna. For many, these traditions are being lost, whilst for others they are just being discovered.

At a salami making day I attended last winter, a third generation northern Italian claimed that even the ‘Skippies’ are getting into ‘the old ways’ now, and someone else quipped, ‘people are calling them ‘foodies’, when all they are is wogs!‘ The excellent group blog Progressive Dinner Party is awash with women one might call ecofeminists (even if they don’t), and the stories you find there make it obvious how much pleasure is gained from growing, cooking and eating their own produce or that sourced from responsible producers. There is unquestionably satisfaction, pride and pleasure in being competent and/or skilled in the garden and/or kitchen.

In my research, I am finding that for those who have the requisite kitchen skills, consciously practising frugality (in terms of purchasing and re-use) is a powerful form of agency, and one that evident across class and culture. One of my interviewees, an Anglo Australian woman in her seventies, is frugal through both habit and necessity, and expresses a great deal of pride at being so. She says it is just ‘common sense’ not to waste or overspend. A Vietnamese-Australian couple who arrived as political refugees in the 70s echo her arguments for common sense, and further claim to feel ‘smart’ about their sustainable and homely practices. And their son, born in Australia, also insists that he feels quite proud about his more frugal habits, such as never wasting leftovers, and in fact ‘ashamed’ when he is wasteful, either in terms of unnecessary consumption or food waste. A key point is that none are expressing resentment at behaving sustainably, rather it gives them enormous satisfaction.

Ultimately, it is not only a feminist issue to engage in homely and sustainable food production, though feminists will have a particular interest in it. The need to provide education and opportunities to develop skills in gardening and cooking is evident in the plethora of issues facing us, from climate change to obesity, and from depression to loss of entire food cultures. And perhaps most importantly, there is an urgent need to understand and promote the intrinsic value and deep pleasures of quotidian ‘chores’ such as growing and chopping your own garlic.