Feminists Don’t Bake Bread

My history knowledge has not improved if the only people in it are all white.

When I originally set out to write about women in history this month, not only did I foolishly think I would be able to pull off a post every weekday (I had goals, dreams, plans….), I also thought I would write something balanced. I have a whole list of important women in history that cross time periods and social barriers and continents and colours, and so many of them that weren’t European, American, or Canadian were completely off my radar.

But what’s been even sadder, to me, has been that so few of the women that make up the history I know are Black. Or Native. Or Asian. These women seem to have disappeared for me entirely.

And what’s sadder than that - until this past year, I never noticed.

The first time I learned about someone in history as specifically a Black Woman was through a rant over on, of all places, Fandom Wank. There, I learned about Harriet Tubman, a black woman during the time of slavery. I learned she was part of the Underground Railway, and that when she was helping slaves to escape to Canada, she carried a gun with her. If they faltered, if they said they wanted to stop, were too tired, too scared, whatever, she would pull out the gun, point it at them, and say “You will live free or die here.”

That’s it. She’s the only non-White woman who enters into my knowledge of history with a name, with some bit of information, with an anecdote, that isn’t from China.

And I didn’t even notice.

I have a history degree. I have deliberately spent most of my adult life learning about dead people, and my blind spots were such that I noticed the lack of women’s voices, but not the lack of black voices, and even less the lack of native voices, because I’ve never had to notice. I’ve never had to be aware of their absence. When I look into history to see someone like me, I can look at Eleanor, at Artemisia, at Anastasia Romanov, at Laura Secord, at so many white women, and for all that their voices are few and rare and often overlooked, they’re there. They exist.

I don’t know the name of one Native Canadian woman in history. I took Canadian history for two years. How is that possible?

It’s the silences, I think, that define what we feel is important, and what we feel is not. If you think that the history of women is important, you’ll notice the silences. If you think the history of Black women, of Native women, of Asian women, of Mexican and Jewish and South American women are important, you’ll notice the silences.

I’ve noticed the silences.

I want to learn.

There seems to be a great deal going on in this article.

Appeal Judge Draws Fire Over Sex Consent [Look, it’s news from Australia!]

APPEAL court judges have erased an alleged rapist’s criminal record after ruling that a man could not rape and have consensual sex with a woman in the same encounter….At trial, the jury heard the 54-year-old defendant drove the woman to a location as a favour, saying “it will cost you”. Shetestified he took her to an isolated area and partially undressed her,then forced her to perform fellatio and have intercourse. The defendant argued the woman consented and the jury verdict was “unreasonable”.

Having done some reading, the jury apparently agreed the sex was non-consensual because she had a condition that caused all vaginal sex to be painful for her.

In his judgment, Chief Justice John Doyle said there was “no satisfactory explanation” for the verdicts, because the charges came from the same evidence.

…

Which is where my brain starts to get a bit broken.

First - heck yeah! She said she didn’t consent to either sex act, so why won’t the jury believe on both?

Second - what? I’ll have you know that I can be quite happy to have oral sex with someone and not feel up to anything else. One sex act can be consented to and it doesn’t mean I’m going to do anything else. If that second sex act is forced on me it’s still rape.

Yesterday,the State Government vowed to table new laws, wherein sex would become rape as soon as consent was withdrawn – even if the act had already begun.

Darn skippy.

Opposition legal affairs spokeswoman Isobel Redmond warned the new laws may interfere in people’s private lives. “When reading the legislation, one gets the feeling even married couples will need to sign a contract before they have sex,” she said. “You reach a point where you’re trying to legislate for every human behaviour. It’s not possible and it doesn’t lead to justice.”

Wow.

Yeah. Because (wait for it):

OBVIOUSLY it is a big huge deal to say to your sexual partner “Is this what you want?” OBVIOUSLY we will RUIN MARRIED SEX if we insist that no does in fact mean no. That no means no if I’ve had sex with you before, that no means no if I’ve had sex with you five minutes ago, that no means no IF I MARRIED YOU.

Where does Isobel Redmond get the idea that being sure your partner is wanting what you’re doing is such a horrible burden? Isn’t that supposed to be part of the fun?

In related news: