The rhetoric of evasion revisited: strange logic in the gender segregation debate

The other day I was bemoaning the absence of Madeleine Bunting from the pages of The Guardian. Regular readers of Normblog will remember Our Maddy of the Sorrows (© Norman Geras circa 2005) as the leading exponent of a certain kind of world-weary, anti-Enlightenment 'liberalism', which often included a perverse desire to understand (what Norm, in her honour, dubbed ‘mbunderstanding’) the actions of religious fundamentalists.

But hey, who needs Madeleine Bunting when we’ve still got Priyamvada Gopal? Like Bunting, Gopal, a lecturer in English at Cambridge University, has a reputation for writing Guardian columns in which she ties herself in rhetorical knots defending the indefensible. Norm wrote about her efforts here, here, here, here, here and here, while my own humble attempts to understand Gopalian logic can be found here, here and here.

It was only a matter of time, surely, before Ms Gopal weighed into the debate about gender segregation in British universities. If you’ve ever wondered how a secular, liberal feminist might end up supporting the right of religious fundamentalists to segregate men and women in a place of higher learning, then you need look no further than her article about the issue, published earlier this week, not in the Guardian for a change, but (perhaps surprisingly) by the New Humanist.

Actually, the article is really an object lesson in how to avoid engaging with a contentious issue. Rather than taking on the arguments of the anti-segregation campaigners, or suggesting counter-arguments, Gopal uses some familiar rhetorical strategies to ensure that she doesn’t have to, which include:

Delegitimising the opposition

Gopal takes up a lot of space in this short piece, and certainly expends a great deal of linguistic energy, portraying those who campaigned against gender segregation in a negative light. She argues that the campaign has taken place in a context ‘heavily shaped by an intolerant Western 'liberalism’ passing itself off as ‘secular’, ‘enlightened’ and more knowing-than-thou.’ One wonders who she is talking about here: who exactly are these liberals who are somehow also ‘intolerant’ (how does that work?), who are only pretending to be secular and enlightened (so what are they really: religious, and living in the Dark Ages?), and who claim superior knowledge? Can we have some names, perhaps?

Having erected this straw man, Gopal moves on to specific accusations against those involved in the recent campaign. Her main target is Student Rights, which we learn is ‘an offshoot of the bullishly paternalist Euro-American think tank, the Henry Jackson Society’ and a ‘reactionary and opportunistic formation’ which has ‘cynically’ seized on this issue. Elsewhere she describes their campaign as ‘aggressive’, though she doesn’t substantiate this accusation. In fact, Student Rights was only one of a number of organisations taking part in the campaign, and hardly played a leading role, but it makes a very convenient scapegoat, especially as it can be tarnished with the brush of being both pro-American and right-wing. Never mind that many of those arguing against the ruling by Universities UK were non-western feminists. Later in the article, Gopal characterises the anti-segregationists as ‘so-called "muscular liberals" (generally, in fact, deeply conservative white males with a commitment to the idea that West is Best)’.  This will come as a surprise to Maryam Namazie and the other left-wing, non-white, female activists who played a leading role in the campaign. And once again there’s that completely unfounded suggestion that liberals who oppose religious fundamentalism are somehow patronising and superior, when there’s not an iota of evidence to support this.

By falsely linking her opponents with everything that her intended audience can be assumed to be against – America, conservatism, a certain kind of sexist masculinity (‘bullish…muscular…paternalist’) – Gopal seeks to undermine their arguments without ever having to confront them.

Changing the subject

Rather than take on the arguments of the anti-segregation campaigners, Gopal hurriedly moves the discussion on to a different set of issues. She claims that ‘the group’ – presumably she means Student Rights – ‘has not addressed greater gendered problems on campus, such as the pay gap or sexual violence’ and has been ‘silent about far more widespread forms of gender and economic segregation including the private, often single-gender schools for the wealthy’.  But Student Rights was set up explicitly to combat extremism on campus, not to tackle these other issues. Nevertheless, many of the other activists involved in the current campaign do have a good record of fighting against wider institutional sexism and inequality. But even if they didn’t, would that mean they weren’t allowed to discuss this example of gender discrimination? It's rather like criticising Rosa Parks for highlighting the issue of racial segregation on buses in the American South in the 1950s, rather than focusing her attention on the 'real' issues of black poverty and inequality. It’s a strange and self-serving kind of logic. 

Off-limits to outsiders

Gopal’s third rhetorical avoidance strategy is to suggest that those who campaign against gender segregation don’t really have the right to do so. Having established her own cultural street cred (‘I grew up in a context where gender segregation in many public spaces is common’) she adds: ‘It did not take the proverbial "decent, nice, liberal" Europeans to get us to ask what segregation meant in both ideological and institutional terms’. It sounds like Gopal is saying that western liberals and feminists should keep quiet about discrimination within minority communities. She bolsters this by characterising criticism of cultural practices – such as segregating men and women – as ‘selective attacks on our communities’. Elsewhere, Gopal accuses the anti-segregation lobby of ‘targeting’ Islamic student groups – when of course, these are the only groups that are actually enforcing segregation. Somewhere, buried in the dense and tortuous final paragraph of her article, is an appeal to women from minority communities to ‘express a dissenting view’ from religious traditionalists. At least I think that’s what she’s saying. But it's so wrapped up in qualifying clauses, and tangled up in the message to outsiders to mind their own business, that it gets lost in the thickening rhetorical fog.

Gopal’s smearing of the anti-segregation campaigners as a bunch of condescending white male conservatives is given the lie by two other contributions to the debate that appeared this week – both  written by women, one a secular white feminist, the other a liberal Muslim. Yasmin Alibhai-Brown offered her critique of the pro-segregation ruling here and celebrated its defeat here. Ophelia Benson takes Pryamvada Gopal’s arguments apart here and here. Ophelia ends with this appeal to Gopal:

Liberal universalists are not your enemy. We’re not the ones who think you should be at home instead of teaching at Cambridge … Why… are you ignoring Maryam Namazie and Yasmin Alibhai-Brown and Abhishek Phadnis and focusing on Student Rights who had nothing to do with the protest against gender segregation? Why are you ignoring the very possibility of international solidarity, and the reality of it that is so conspicuous in everything Maryam does? What the hell do you think that accomplishes? Why not drop the fake accusations of imperialism and just join Maryam and the rest?

Why not, indeed.

No more burqas - but no ban

I loathe the niqab and the burqa and everything they represent. As Kenan Malik says: ‘The idea that in the 21st century women should be hidden from view for reasons of modesty or religious belief is both troubling and astonishing.’ When I see girls at my daughter’s school starting to ‘cover up’ on reaching adolescence – in one case so that only the young woman’s eyes were showing through a narrow slit in her black covering – it makes me both sad and angry.

I regard the burqa as the exact equivalent, for women, of the chain on the ankle of African slaves two hundred years ago: a visible token of servitude and control. It’s a feudal relic and should have no place in a society that has any claim to gender equality. Progressives and feminists should be deeply uneasy, rather than complacent, about its persistence on our streets and in our schools.

If I had a magic wand, I’d wish for the niqab and burqa to disappear from the face of the earth, along with the misogynistic religious mumbo-jumbo that sustains them, and which they reinforce. But I don’t have a magic wand, and nor do governments. Politicians sometimes fall into the trap of using the law as a means of wishing away things that bother them. However, not everything that is worrying or disturbing should necessarily be illegal. Moreover, there’s a danger that using the law as a blunt instrument to solve complex social problems can have undesirable and unintended consequences, such as limiting individual freedom, or causing suffering to the very people the law was intended to help.

That’s why, on balance, I don’t approve of the French government’s decision to ban the niqab and why I’m worried about campaigns to introduce similar legislation in Britain. I wouldn’t go as as far as Madeleine Bunting who says of the new law: ‘It sends a shiver down the spine’. What sends a shiver down my spine is the tendency among the pro-faith lobby (for whom Bunting is the cheerleader) to rush to the support of every new expression of religious fundamentalism. And I don't disagree with many of the things that French politicians, including some on the left, have said about the burqa/niqab and its deleterious effect on women’s lives. I often wish we had progressive politicians here who would be equally outspoken and not leave criticism of fundamentalism to the anti-immigration right. I also understand the support that feminists in Arab and majority-Muslim countries, such as the blogger Saudiwoman and the French organsaition Ni Putes Ni Soumises, have given to the proposal. For them, it's a small step forward in the long struggle against women’s oppression in their communities. If only we had more outspoken feminists saying such things in Britain, and getting media coverage for it - which is not to understate the fantastic work being done by Southall Black Sisters and the One Law For All (No Sharia) campaign, among others.

Sadly, discussion on these shores of the French plan has seen people slipping back into their comfortably polarised defensive positions: the ban has been supported most vocally by the anti-immigrant right (such as UKIP and Tory MP Philip Hollobone), while opposition to it, on the grounds of freedom and toleration, has become a badge of honour on the left. The Guardian's Gary Younge tweeted the other day along the lines that it was equally wrong for states to require women to force women to wear the burqa, and to prevent them from doing so. Fair enough, Gary, but the left should be just as vocal in pointing out that it's wrong for individual men, not to mention 'faith communities', to tell women what they can and can't wear - and the state has a role in protecting women against pressure to conform to patriarchal or religious requirements.

I don't think that every aspect of the French law is unworkable. The proposal that public institutions should be able to insist that both employees and customers uncover their faces seems eminently sensible. However, as Malik says:

If wearing a burqa is incompatible with the needs of particular jobs, then those particular employers – hospitals, schools, shops even - can legitimately demand that employees not be clad from head to foot. But again, one can impose dress codes for certain jobs without banning a type of clothing for everyone. After all, we don’t have judges and teachers wearing bikinis on the job either.

Similarly, one can applaud the French proposal to prosecute husbands and fathers who seek to control what their female relatives wear. But prosecuting women themselves for covering their faces in public risks making them victims twice over. And how exactly do politicians expect women who currently wear the burqa to respond to the new law? Will they defy the pressure of family, community and clerics and tear off the veil, so that they can go shopping, or work as teachers? A few brave souls might. But the danger is that others will simply be driven further back into the home, and become even less visible, even less active, in public life: which is presumably the aim of the burqa, and the whole plethora of patriarchal prohibitions that go with it.

If similar legislation were to be introduced in Britain, you can predict exactly what would happen. Firstly, there would be an intensification of fake Muslim victimhood, with the mullahs and their allies on the faith-bedazzled pseudo-left crying ‘Islamophobia!’ at every turn. Secondly, there would be a new focus for anti-immigrant feeling both on the 'legitimate' far right (UKIP, maverick Tories) and among the neo-fascists of the BNP and EDL, seeking to exploit the emotions whipped up by the debate. Needless to say, Muslim women would suffer most as a result: condemned by the fundamentalists if they comply with the law, or the racists if they don't.

So what’s the alternative? Well, I don’t have any easy answers, but I have a few suggestions, and would be interested to hear others from readers who, like me, are both anti-burqa and anti-ban.

Firstly, we should look to strengthen our gender equality and human rights law, making it a criminal offence for anyone, whether family member or religious leader, to force women to dress in a particular way, or to restrict their freedom of movement, employment or leisure outside the home.

Secondly, politicians of all stripes - but especially those on the left - should make clear their commitment to full gender equality and their opposition to customs and traditions that hinder women's freedom. They should stop appeasing conservative religious leaders in the name of 'community cohesion' or out of fear of losing the 'Muslim vote'.

Thirdly, gender equality, and human rights generally, should be a key plank of citizenship education, and all state-funded schools, including faith schools, should be required to promote it. This should have priority over the wishy-washy complacency of a 'multi-faith' education that teaches that all belief systems are to be 'respected', even if their practices contravene women's rights.

In other words, we need a broad strategy that may include some legislation, but is also focused on education and cultural change. As Kenan Malik says:

The burqa is a symbol of the oppression of women, not its cause. If legislators really want to help Muslim women, they could begin not by banning the burqa, but by challenging the policies and processes that marginalize migrant communities: on the one hand, the racism, social discrimination and police harassment that all too often disfigure migrant lives, and, on the other, the multicultural policies that treat minorities as members of ethnic groups rather than as citizens. Both help sideline migrant communities, aid the standing of conservative ‘community leaders’ and make life more difficult for women and other disadvantaged groups within those communities.

Update

Another Arab feminist voice in support of the ban: Egyptian writer Mona Eltahawy

Update 2

A surprisingly (?) balanced and thoughtful editorial on the whole affair from Catholic weekly The Tablet. It sets out the 'dilemma' facing multicultural societies such as France and Britain, caught between not wishing 'to be culturally imperialist by treating ethnic minorities with disrespect' and not wanting 'to set aside their own core values such as opposition to the exploitation and abuse of women.' Then it makes this very good point: 'A society like Britain which insists that girls from very conservative Muslim families should nevertheless be sent to school to receive a good education has already taken sides in that debate.'

The editorial ends with a similar message to my own in the above post:

The British would not tolerate something as dirigiste as a state-imposed dress code, even though many British people would personally deplore the suppression of female identity that the burka seems to signify. It is by education and cultural influence that the values of Western civilisation will prevail in the end, and anything that divides or antagonises minority communities is unhelpful.

Update 3

Via Bob, a thought-provoking contribution to the debate (with lots of useful links, especially to French sources) from Tendance Coatesy.

Alternative footie anthem

This seems timely (via Stephen Fry). Doesn't seem fair, though, that gay men are 'allowed' not to like football, whereas the rest of us have to pretend we do, if we don't, especially over the next four weeks...

Murder and masculinity

What can on earth can one say about the awful mass shooting in Cumbria yesterday? I only hope that in all the legitimate discussion of tighter gun laws, the possible influence of violent videos, etc, some attention is paid to the question of masculinity.

Whatever the 'explanation' for these apparently pointless murders turns out to be - whether its origins lay in a family property dispute, a row with fellow cab drivers over status, or taunts about being a 'mummy's boy' (depending on which tabloid you believe) - there's surely something to be said here about male anger, and the easily wounded pride inherent in certain kinds of masculine identity.

As I listened to neighbours and friends describing Bird as a decent, ordinary type, I was reminded not of Dunblane or Hungerford - this wasn't a psychopath or someone already known to the authorities - but of those news stories about men who suddenly and unaccountably flip from being doting fathers to murdering their children. As in the case of Bird (who began his deadly spree by killing his twin brother), their intense male narcissism can't conceive of anyone surviving and thriving without them. If they have to go down, then they're going to take everyone else - including their 'loved ones', whom they actually only love as reflections of themselves - with them.

I'm not sure what the answer is, but despite the currently unfashionable nature of this kind of gender analysis, we need to keep asking the questions...

Update

On the other hand...

Jacqui Smith - the nation's headmistress?

Moving on from spying on our emails and banning foreign politicans she doesn't agree with, the nation's nanny-in-chief - sorry, the home secretary - is turning her attention to the makers of clothers, computer games and videos that she believes are 'inappropriate' for young girls. Announcing a three-month 'fact-finding review' into the 'sexualisation' of teenage and pre-teen girls, Jacqui Smith declared: 'It is time the manufacturers saw the writing on the wall over this and stopped producing these sort of things for young girls'.

Well yes, maybe it is, and as the parent of a 14 year old girl I'm not completely unsympathetic to such arguments. But I wonder what power Smith thinks the government has to tell industry what it can and can't produce? And if it has no such power, then won't this review be just another expensive exercise in paternalistic moralising? Smith's tut-tutting reminds me of the regular missives sent out by my daughter's headmistress, bemoaning the rising hemlines of pupils' skirts. Except that a headteacher has a legitimate role in determining what can be worn within a school, whereas the home secretary has no business trying to influence the fashion and consumption decisions of the nation's teenagers and their parents.

The review is being touted as part of an initiative to tackle violence against women and girls, on the pretext that there might be a link with the sexualisation of young girls. But this is spurious, and risks reinforcing the deeply reactionary assumption that victims of rape and sexual violence are 'asking for it' if they dress in a sexualised manner. By focusing on the behaviour of young women - the potential victims - Smith's review will inevitably draw attention away from the real roots of abuse - the attitudes and behaviour of a minority of men. It's the persistence of certain kinds of masculinity, and not the mutations of contemporary young femininity, that should be the focus of policy-makers' attentions.

Palin panic?

Staying with the US election: 

After Sarah Palin's trainwreck of an interview with Katie Couric (hilariously sent up by Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, though the real thing was beyond parody), the McCain campaign is reported to be in a panic about Thursday's vice-presidential debate. One theory has it that McCain's proposal to postpone last Friday's presidential debate was actually a ploy to make sure that the Palin-Biden encounter never happens (he cannily  suggested moving the first Obama-McCain meeting to the Thursday VP slot).

Given the damage that a poor performance by Palin could do to McCain's chances, plus the latter's propensity for theatrical gestures when things get desperate (postponing the first day of the Republican convention to fly down to hurricane-threatened New Orleans, announcing the choice of Palin to undermine the impact of Obama's acceptance speech, 'suspending' his campaign to ride to the rescue of the bailout plan), it's a fair bet that the old maverick will stage another distraction before Thursday's showdown.

While acknowledging that I'm only a humble transatlantic observer of the campaign, I'm going to go out on a limb and predict that the coming week will see one of the following strategies adopted by the McCain campaign:

1. Plant a smear story about Joe Biden, perhaps digging up some long-forgotten dirt from his past, in order to neuter him politically before the debate.

2. Do the same to Obama - maybe going public with some scandal that they've been keeping in reserve for just such a moment - to create a media storm and distract attention from the debate.

3. Announce that Sarah Palin, or one of her children, has been taken ill, necessitating a sudden return to Alaska, and a postponement of the debate.

4. If all else fails, go for the nuclear option and declare that (perhaps because of some version of No.3) Palin is withdrawing her candidacy.

Thanks to the growing chorus of disillusionment with Palin among conservatives who only recently hailed her as an inspired choice, No.4 no longer seems quite so unlikely - despite the enormous risks. As to who would step into Palin's shoes, here's a question: why did Rudy Giuliani accompany McCain to Oxford, Mississippi for the debate, and why did he and not Palin take on the traditional veep role of boosting the candidate's performance in the spin room and on the networks after the debate? It's just a thought - but if anything comes of it, remember that you read it here first.

Update:

I didn't think of this one. The (London) Sunday Times has picked up a rumour from inside the McCain camp that Bristol Palin's wedding could take place just before the November election, thus creating a distraction and garnering sympathy for her mother's candidacy. Alternatively - should we look forward to an announcement before this Thursday's debate that Bristol has gone into labour and needs her mother at her side? In this increasingly unpredictable election year, anything is possible.

Queer as (ordinary) folk

There was a fascinating programme on Radio 4 the other day (you can listen to it again here), in which Olivia O'Leary interviewed a man and a woman, both of whose spouses had undergone a sex change. What made the interview particularly interesting was the fact that, despite the emotional turmoil that they had clearly gone through, both had decided to stay with their partners. When questioned about this by O'Leary, the interviewees talked movingly about still loving the person they married, regardless of their altered gender.

I found the story of the male interviewee, a very down-to-earth ex-policeman, especially affecting. Despite initially recoiling from the prospect of sleeping next to a man (made more traumatic by the fact that he himself had once been a victim of male rape), he had now come to terms with it and was even able to consider resuming some kind of sexual relationship with his partner, at the same time as realising that his own sexuality might be more complicated than he had once thought.

For me, these people's stories were a challenge to a view of sexuality (which at the risk of being accused of po-mo political correctness I'm tempted to label 'heterosexist') which sees it as based simply on the attraction of polar opposites, and fails to recognise that individuals are often attracted to each other by qualities that have little to do with their belonging to the 'other' gender (and indeed might find appealing in members of the same sex, if they were able to fight free of heterosexual conditioning). I remember reading an interview some time ago with a female writer - someone who had been in both heterosexual and same-sex relationships, but was now single. The interviewer asked her which gender her next partner would be, to which the writer replied that she had no idea - it would depend on the person. Incidentally, the ex-policeman's experience is also a riposte to those who would dismiss gender and sexual quality as an elite, metropolitan 'lifestyle' issue (see this post).

Other good news on the gender/sexual equality front: the USA is about to get its first lesbian poet laureate, while it looks likely that the excellent and openly gay Rachel Maddow will soon be hosting her own show on MSNBC. Anyone keen to dismiss Maddow as a stereotypical leftie on account of her stint at Air America and background in HIV advocacy should note that her dad was an air force captain in Vietnam and that she describes herself as a defence-policy wonk and 'national security liberal'. 

Speaking of transsexualism: have you seen Hercules and Love Affair? Disco electronica is not usually my thing, but I love the way this band not only challenge gender stereotypes but also deconstruct the whole idea of what a band should be. Their core membership consists of a gay man, a lesbian and a transsexual, but audiences and critics have often got confused about who is which. What can you say about a band whose presiding genius is a geeky bearded guy who looks as though he's still playing in his bedroom, whose backing singer has virtually no stage presence, and who feature a celebrity vocalist (Antony of 'and the Johnsons' fame) on their debut album, but then replace him for their first world tour with the virtually unknown club singer Nomi? Incidentally - could the latter be the most convincing male-female transsexual ever? Judge for yourselves:

Live-blogging the tennis

As if to prove my point about the sexism of BBC tennis coverage, the tweedy-voiced male commentator has just (2.05 p.m.) described Anne Keothavong's blistering performance against Venus Williams (4 games all in the first set as I write)  as the 'hors d'oeuvre' before the 'main dish' of Andy Murray later on. Yuk. If you're not already doing so, you can watch the match here right now.

2.20 pm.

I don't know, I may be totally wrong, but perhaps there's a hint of something else besides sexism in play here. The same commentator has just described the spectators on Centre Court bedecked in Union Jacks as waiting to lend their support to Murray. But hang on, Anne Keothavong is the British women's No.1 - isn't it possible that their patriotic garb is as much for her as for her male counterpart? Or was the commentator betraying a feeling, however unconscious, that Keothavong, born in London of Laotian parents, isn't quite as  - well, you know - 'British' as Murray?

A backlash book for boys

Remind me never to watch any programmes featuring Neil Oliver (a 'TV archaeologist', apparently), who was on Radio 5 yesterday afternoon spouting some of the most naive and reactionary garbage about gender roles that I've heard in a long time.

It seems Oliver has written a book called Amazing Tales for Making Men out of Boys, stuffed full of stories of the kind of male heroism that the author thinks we've lost and ought to recover. As in all such backlashes against contemporary trends, there's a tiny scintilla of truth in Oliver's argument that, in the creation of the 'new' man, we've discarded some of the things that were admirable about the 'old' version: a sense of duty, responsibility to others, etc. But in suggesting that we may have thrown out the baby with the bathwater, Oliver seeks to re-import some pretty murky bathwater, such as the notion that boys and girls need clearly defined gender roles, that real men don't cry, and that staying home and looking after the kids is women's work. And he tends to come pretty unstuck once interviewers push him on the implications of his argument for gender equality.

Another problem with Oliver's tales of old-fashioned masculinity is that most of them derive from the age of empire, and in his historical and political naivety he fails to see how supposedly timeless values such as duty and self-sacrifice were actually bound up with ideas of conquest, exploitation and racial superiority. In fact, Oliver's attempt to recreate an outmoded colonial-era masculinity neatly combines the themes of two other recent books that also get my goat: The Dangerous Book for Boys, and that book whose title escape me but which I see every time I'm in Smiths, by a Dad who wanted a 'real' history book for his kids, full of kings, queens and dates of battles, etc.  Yes, I know the former is written in a post-modernish between-quotes sort of way. But there does seem to be a lot of nostalgia about for a pre-feminist, sweaty-armpits kind of masculinity with patriotic overtones.

Hearing Oliver interviewed reminded me that there are two books I'd really like to see (write?): a book for boys about growing up that is pro-feminist and honest about gender and sexuality, and a history book that tells the progressive story of Britain, i.e. with the likes of Tom Paine, the Chartists and suffragettes as its heroes, rather than Nelson, Wellington and Scott of the Antarctic.

Sex, race, class, politics

David Cameron has been trying to persuade northern English voters that he's no 'namby-pamby': with some success, it would seem. Meanwhile, in the US Democratic primary campaign, Barack Obama has been attempting to overcome the perception that he is something of a 'wimp'.

Much of the coverage of the primary campaign has inevitably focused on issues of gender and race - not surprising, given that Clinton and Obama are, respectively, the first serious female and non-white candidates for their party's nomination. But the discussion has tended to be quite simplistic and (dare I say, without turning off those of you whose antennae are trained to pick up the merest hint of academic post-modernism) essentialist: will men vote for a woman, can white voters be persuaded to support an African-American candidate, etc.

Less attention has been paid to the ways in which gender, in particular, has become a key factor in shaping public perceptions of both candidates, regardless of their actual identity. As the gender theorists say, masculinity and femininity are not so much fixed, biological attributes, as clusters of meaning that float around in the cultural atmosphere, and get tangled up with other sets of meanings.

The set of meanings that gender got tangled up with in Pennsylvania was class. So the fuss following Obama's 'bitter' speech, and more trivially his weak performance in the bowling alley, was simultaneously about him being not only elitist and 'out of touch' with the working class, but also somehow not a 'real' man.

Meanwhile Hillary Clinton, who previously had no qualms about capitalising on her femininity by shedding tears in New Hampshire and complaining about the 'big boys' ganging up on her, overhauled her image in Pennsylvania and emerged as a keen hunter and hard drinker. In other words: not only as apparently more working-class than Obama - but also as somehow more masculine. (Incidentally, did the young Ms. Rodham ever dream, when she was working for a radical law firm in the '60s, that one day she'd be running for president - as the redneck candidate?)

We saw something similar happen in 2004, when Karl Rove's campaign to get George Bush re-elected managed to paint John Kerry as effete - once again, a term that has gender as well as class overtones - when contrasted with George W. the good old southern boy. This despite Kerry's war record and Bush's cosseted upbringing. 

And, as the campaign against Kerry showed, this particular cluster of meanings around masculinity and working-classness also contains a racial component. In Kerry's case, it was his French tastes that did for him, enabling Rove and his associates to portray the candidate not only as elitist and wimpish, but also as somehow alien and unAmerican. In the case of the Clinton/GOP attacks on Obama, I think the racial element is more insidious, since attacks on the masculinity of black men have long been part of the toolkit of racism. 

I wonder why it's become so important for modern political candidates in the US and UK, whether they're biologically male or female, to prove their masculinity to the public? And why, at a time when traditional, working-class masculinity is said to be increasingly redundant, is it such an outdated form of masculine toughness that has to be proven?  Finally, in a period of heightened awareness about gay rights, surely terms such as 'namby-pamby', 'wimp' and 'effete', which disparage public figures by making implicit suggestions about their sexuality, should be well and truly binned?

Male sexuality in the dock

Levi Bellfield was convicted yesterday of murdering two female students he stalked at bus stops in London. He was also found guilty of the attempted murder of a third woman and is suspected of carrying out 20 other attacks on women. The conviction comes 3 days after Mark Dixie was found guilty of the vicious, sexually-motivated murder of Sally Anne Bowman, and 4 days after Steve Wright was told he will spend the rest of his life in prison for the killing of five women in Suffolk.

Last week the Guardian carried an obituary of the American historian and chronicler of gay life Allan Berube. In 1993 Berube gave evidence to the Senate hearings into the US military's policy of barring gay men and lesbians. He argued that the problem that should be investigated was not homosexual behaviour, but heterosexual masculinity.

It's easy to dismiss this as po-mo rad-fem posturing. But after the depressing news of the past week, you begin to wonder...