flow of non-rational thought
Part 4
Introduction idle women addresses the urgent need for women’s space – for a radical redress of power, acknowledgement and voice. Flow of non-rational thought is the fourth part of the idle women on the water journey – we spent an Autumn in Nelson with resident artist Noor Afshan Mirza and women who ventured into the darkness of long frosty nights with us. We embrace the flow of non-rational thought described by Audre Lorde, reflected on here in new writing by Claire Heuchan and share news of ruptures in Ireland as women unite to repeal the 8th amendment, which constitutionally places the life of a woman in equal status to her unborn foetus and denies her autonomy over her body. ‘As women we have come to distrust that power which rises from our deepest non-rational knowledge.’ Audre Lorde In this heliocentric society we carelessly talk about the dark in negatives. Dark thoughts, dark actions – outlawed, cast out, feared and warned against. No celebration of the power of the dark to unify, to blend or merge, how detailed landscapes solidify as we become the same. Darkness is the time of irrational skills, heightened senses, beyond sight that lead us to where the academy can never walk. Seeds planted will germinate in the dark. This is for all women who are planting seeds, somewhere in the darkest corners…may they grow unseen until they are strong enough. idle women is a place for all women and girls to belong – a growing network of connections, friendships and co-creation. Cis O’Boyle and Rachel Anderson idle women caretakers 2017
Redefining the Erotic: On Lorde & Liberation Politics by Claire L. Heuchan
Redefining the Erotic: On Lorde & Liberation Politics
Claire L. Heuchan (Sister Outrider), Scotland, 2017 “As women, we have come to distrust that power which rises from our deepest and non-rational knowledge.” – Audre Lorde Erotic is a loaded term. As a consequence of porn culture, it has come to convey a commercialised and hollow vision of sexual experience. Understandings of sexuality have been hijacked by the sex industry 1, power imbalance fetishised by pornography 2. Yet the erotic has the potential to articulate a great deal more and, at its best, to provide a solution to the root cause of porn culture: white supremacist capitalist patriarchy 3. As Audre Lorde would have it, the term erotic denoted knowledge existing beyond the constraints of rationality. When understood as such, the erotic becomes not a tool of patriarchy but rather a means of escaping it. Recognising the plural nature or reality (or rather, plural understandings of the same reality) is a central aspect of Black feminist thought. Lorde herself once described Black women as ‘watchers’ 4 in the belief that observing our oppressors, establishing motives and subsequent patterns of behaviour, is central to our survival. To learn how to watch, when you move through this world in a Black and female body, is to learn how to protect yourself. Patricia Hill Collins built on this idea, claiming that where Black women are positioned within society by dominant structures of power shapes our understanding of that society. As knowledge is shaped by socio-political context in its creation, Hill Collins is argues that proximity to power (and an absence thereof ) plays a key role in determining the framing of a perspective – situated knowledge. In order to assimilate, to gain credibility within the existing system, we are taught to set this knowledge aside in the pursuit of rationality. The construction of knowledge is not a neutral process. If history is written by the victors, so too are the ways of contextualising and understanding information that is mined from that history. Under white supremacist capitalist patriarchy, oppression is business as usual. There is nothing exceptional about
1
Dines, G. (2010). Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality. Boston: Beacon Press Boyle, K. (ed.). (2010). Everyday Pornography. London: Routledge 3 hooks, b. (2000). Feminism is for Everybody: Passionate Politics. New York: South End Press 4 Lorde, A. (1984). Uses of the Erotic: Erotic as Power. IN Sister Outsider. New York: Crossing Press 2
Audre Lorde
Audre Lorde
racism, classism, misogyny – all of which are positioned as standard aspects of life. Indeed, it is this depiction of marginalisation as ‘normal’ that discourages challenge in the form of liberation politics. Complacency undermines resistance more effectively than any concentrated opposition ever could. Although Hill Collins developed the theory of situated knowledge within an academic context, it is applicable beyond the confines of scholarship and follows the logic of liberation politics – in such ways does feminist scholarship seek to bridge the gap between theory and practice. The notion of situated knowledge – an awareness framed by who we are and where we are subsequently positioned within society – also explains how women reach awareness beyond the scope of knowledge defined as rational. The erotic, then, is a form of situated knowledge open to women: “The erotic is a resource within each of us that lies in a deeply female and spiritual plane, firmly rooted in the power of our unexpressed or unrecognized feeling. In order to perpetuate itself, every oppression must corrupt or distort those various sources of power within the culture of the oppressed that can provide energy for change. For women, this has meant a suppression of the erotic as a considered source of power and information within our lives.” 5
The erotic is disdained by masculine rationality not because it is insignificant, but rather as it has the power to disrupt the status quo – white supremacist capitalist patriarchy – when recognised. It creates a depth of feeling and sense of fulfilment in women that exists independently of how we exist in relation to men. From a lesbian feminist perspective, Lorde’s vision of the erotic manifests to greatest effect in the connections forged between women. Accessing the erotic requires women to grant other women space within their lives, to acknowledge their true significance. Under patriarchy we are taught to dismiss other women, that male attention should be our priority. Women are raised to believe that the primary recipients of our energy ought to be men, that female friendships are a secondary, less meaningful concern. Women are conditioned to centre our lives around men, encouraged to consider connections with other women as peripheral to our ‘real’ lives in the domestic sphere – lives in which men have access to our
5
Lorde, A. (1984). Uses of the Erotic: Erotic as Power. IN Sister Outsider. New York: Crossing Press
emotional, domestic, sexual, and reproductive labour. In so ranking women’s priorities, patriarchy limits the possibilities for us to live truly empowered lives. I do not speak of the hollow ‘empowerment’ marketed by neoliberalism, but of a deep and uplifting power stemming from self-actualisation. In cutting off routes to fulfilment, patriarchy keeps women subordinate by denying us access to our true potential. In rejecting the erotic, we reject connections with other women beyond the superficial. We reject the possibility of living a womancentred life. Affections between women beyond the limited roles patriarchy presents, relationships with women that defy patriarchal logic, are the product of the erotic. That is not to say the erotic enables only sexual relationships between women – it facilitates a whole spectrum of emotional bonds that Adrienne Rich termed the “lesbian continuum” 6, none of which are fully acknowledged by patriarchy because of their revolutionary potential. The erotic has the power to radically alter our world, restructure our society – when embraced, it is capable of reshaping every facet of our approach to life. Adrienne Rich once said that “when a woman tells the truth she is creating the possibility for more truth around her.” 7 In excavating the erotic from the depths of our minds and giving voice to it, women enable our self and our sisters to pursue the path to liberation. “This is one reason why the erotic is so feared, and so often relegated to the bedroom alone, when it is recognized at all. For once we begin to feel deeply all the aspects of our lives, we begin to demand from ourselves and from our life-pursuits that they feel in accordance with that joy which we know ourselves to be capable of. Our erotic knowledge empowers us, becomes a lens through which we scrutinize all aspects of our existence, forcing us to evaluate those aspects honestly in terms of their relative meaning within our lives.” 8
6
Rich, A. (1993). Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence. IN Adrienne Rich’s Poetry and Prose. New York: W. W. Norton & Company 7 Rich, A. (1979). Women and Honor: Notes on Lying. London: Onlywomen Press 8 Lorde, A. (1984). Uses of the Erotic: Erotic as Power. IN Sister Outsider. New York: Crossing Press
Audre Lorde
Audre Lorde To access the erotic is to access fulfilment. And if all women realise that our contentment does not depend upon men, the very premise of patriarchy is called into question. If knowledge is power, then selfawareness is strength. Patriarchy is able to function because of how gender is imposed upon women 9 – we are socialised to be subordinate, to accept our oppression as a product of the natural order. Our focus is, we are told, supposed to be directed towards the needs of others. Women are praised for nurturing others, condemned for nurturing ourselves – told that self-care is selfish.
It is not coincidence that selfishness is discouraged in women. If women are self-centred in the truest sense, prioritise our own wellbeing first and foremost, then we cease to provide the labour on which patriarchy depends, the labour it demands and subsequently renders invisible in order to strip it of value. Living for others at the expense of the self is not conducive to happiness, despite patriarchy’s insidious message that self-sacrifice is the most fulfilling act a woman can perform in her life.
9
De Beauvoir, S. (1949). The Second Sex. London: Vintage Classics (2nd Edition)
It is the trap set by patriarchy that separates women from our knowledge of the erotic, tells us that such awareness is false. In order to find true meaning in life, to escape that trap, women must reestablish that connection with the erotic and rebuild the link severed by male domination. The erotic brings about joy in women, the secret of which Alice Walker 10 names as resistance. “For as we begin to recognize our deepest feelings, we begin to give up, of necessity, being satisfied with suffering, and self-negation, and with the numbness which so often seems like the only alternative in our society. Our acts against oppression become integral with self, motivated and empowered from within. “In touch with the erotic, I become less willing to accept powerlessness, or those other supplied states of being which are not native to me, such as resignation, despair, self-effacement, depression, self-denial.” 11
The politics of liberation are the purest manifestation of the erotic, as they promise the removal of the spiritual shackles imposed by hierarchies. Through living a life of resistance, the oppressed assert that our worth is greater than what little our oppressor decrees it to be. It is to assert that we are deserving of rich inner-lives, of pleasure and delight. To embrace the erotic is to lead an enriched life, to grant yourself more than the narrow limitations imposed by the hierarchies. The erotic is an essential part of moving away from exploitation, challenging the notion that structural inequalities are a ‘normal’ part of life. The erotic offers a solution to the spiritual malaise created by white supremacist capitalist patriarchy. The erotic offers a credible alternative to the status quo, the blueprint for how women should relate to our selves and the wider world without adhering to the pattern of behaviour set by male dominance. In the erotic, there is freedom.
10 11
Walker, A. (1992). Possessing the Secret of Joy. San Diego: Harcourt Lorde, A. (1984). Uses of the Erotic: Erotic as Power. IN Sister Outsider. New York: Crossing Press
Bibliography Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, London: Vintage Classics (2nd Edition), 1949 Karen Boyle (ed.), Everyday Pornography, London: Routledge, 2010
Gail Dines, Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality, Boston: Beacon Press, 2010 bell hooks, Feminism is for Everybody: Passionate Politics, New York: South End Press, 2000 Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider, New York: Crossing Press, 1984 Adrienne Rich, Women and Honor: Notes on Lying. London: Onlywomen Press, 1979
Adrienne Rich, Adrienne Rich’s Poetry and Prose, New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1993 Alice Walker, Possessing the Secret of Joy. San Diego: Harcourt, 1992
Biography Claire Heuchan is a Black radical feminist who blogs as Sister Outrider, covering themes such as intersectional feminism, race in the feminist movement, and Black feminist praxis. is a PhD candidate at the University of Stirling, where she attained her MLitt in Gender Studies and is now researching contemporary Black feminist activism in Britain. Her work covers Black feminist theory and activism, with particular focus on the relationship between Black women’s writing and self-definition. sisteroutrider.wordpress.com
The Sheela-na-Gig Irish Collective
Some Sheela-na-gigs started appearing recently in various places. We noticed it first in Dublin, quite dramatically. After a particularly contentious pro-choice action we were walking home enrapt in enthusiastic discussion about bodily autonomy and there she was, close to the pavement on the Peppercanister church, a Dublin spot well known down through the years as a location for street prostitution. Then we started coming across more around inner city Dublin. We found Sheela’s on maternity hospitals, the ruins of Magdalene laundries, prisons, religious institutions; and after sharing photos on line, people got in touch to say they had spotted Sheela’s in other parts of Ireland and let us know of a couple of sightings in England. Talk and sightings of Sheela continues to spread further and further afield. The Sheela-na-gig was a medieval figure carved into churches across Ireland and parts of England. Scholars say she was a warning to the devout against the dangers of women. The local stories go that the Irish church-goers ignored that warning and dipped their fingers first in the holy water font at the church door, then in the Sheela’s vulva over the door, before blessing themselves and entering the church. The priests, outraged at this, moved the Sheelas up high on the wall of the church to discourage touching. But the Irish continued to see the Sheela-na-gig as representative of the glory of living, and an aid to fertility, and touched this sacred female to bring that glory to themselves. We, in this dark age, need to touch the Sheela again, and awaken women’s glory.
Because the Sheelas we found in Dublin are in such contentious sites we have come to associate this current rash of Sheela-na-gigs with a female rage. This rage is emerging spontaneously everywhere that harm has been done to the feminine. In Dublin women are angry, our feet are stomping the ground marching against injustice and for equality. We have stood to mourn the many women who died because an abortion was denied them. We have gathered in remembrance of the thousands of women incarcerated by Church and State in Magadalene laundries, Mother and Baby Homes, and other institutions, for the crime of being female. We stood to mourn our babies who died in those institutions and our sisters, mothers, friends who were never released. We marched to demand redress for the victims of these abuses, to seek the repeal of laws and changes in the policies that allowed these injustices to happen and we continue to pound pavements for change. We have stood on stage demonstrating for our voices to be heard equally in this culture. We are on the streets to tell those in power that enough is enough, we cannot pay more while we are being paid less. We are standing against the violence that is done to us and the violence done in our name. We march in solidarity with our sisters and brothers for equality, human rights and justice for all. And after all that, we are
marching again to protect our maternal care from those same institutions who locked up our mothers and our sisters. The pavements are worn from our feet and now the foundations have to shake so that we will be heard. Our poets, our writers and our artists are angry. We are making art and making waves, kicking and screaming on the ground as well as on stage, our stomping feet fracturing the concrete status-quo. And the Sheela-nagig is angry, her rage swelling up and bursting out through those cracks. Some might argue that someone is making these Sheela figures and placing them around the city. But we believe that the earth itself has had enough and the feminine is bursting out everywhere, a force of nature that can no longer be suppressed. The Sheela-na-gig is just one manifestation of this. We’ve taken photographs of the Sheelas we have come across so that people can be warned that the female is loose. The Sheela-na-gig (or Sheela, Shelagh, SĂle) is rising to remind us all that this is who we are and this is where we come from. Look out for a Sheela near you and let the rest of us know that she is there, ready for action.
Design Laura Salisbury laurasalisburygraphicdesign.com
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