Feminism is actually always about taking or reclaiming ground. Terrain that you were denied or had to give up - just because you are a woman. The female body is such territory. How her body looks and what it should do and feel is - as crazy as it sounds - the subject of debate. Let me clarify and nuance that.
In recent weeks, a debate arose among women following Halina Reijn's erotic film Babygirl. Whether the film is feminist or not. The film, made by a woman, revolves around a female ceo. She has a well-paid job with power and submissive sex with her intern. Her husband does not manage to bring her to climax, a dominant young god does. Reactions to the film showed that it was seen as a feminist statement that Reijn shows women as lustful beings.
LUST
Also in a hit among women, Miranda July's witty All Fours, the female (unnamed) protagonist enjoys sex. The book deals with a 45-year-old woman who is in the early stages of menopause. She expects to be found less sexy and attractive and this triggers a sexual revival in her. In a sexual rethink, the main character lets go of what is seen in the image as typically female sex, namely pleasurable, focused on connection and love. Sex in which the woman uses her body as a palatable object, consciously or unconsciously, to achieve that intimacy.
Her round curves of buttock, breast and leg, her soft, smooth skin and sweet scent. For many women, self-objectification has become part of sex pleasure. From an early age, women learn - from all those films, books, magazines and countless comments - that 'the man' experiences certain body parts as aphrodisiacs. Now that the protagonist in All Fours thinks she is no longer so appetising, her sexuality takes on a new dimension. When she sees the bare upper body of a young man she is walking with, it triggers in her the 'masculine' sex of objectification. As she fantasises about what that tasty body can do, she becomes adrift. July describes glowing sex that shows creativity, imagination and humour. Her main character masturbates to it and minnows in abundance with people of all ages and genders - she no longer gets around to working. One of the messages in the book is that women want to connect with others, but can also experience lust without that longing for love. Although, as the story progresses, it becomes clear that this does not quite work out.
EVA'S INHERITANCE
Showing women having selfish sexual pleasure is seen as a feminist statement. After all, our culture has a long history of control and suppression of female sexuality. Men found women's lust so threatening that they rigged whole religions to contain and control her supposed sexual drive. With the myth of the vagina dentata (the vulva with teeth that castrates men) to the creation story in which Eve snacked on a juicy apple and then had to carry the entire original sin on her shoulders; all the while she only came from a rib of Adam. Why is her lust so threatening? Well, a woman's body serves society. Ooh woe, if she loses her body to promiscuity and lust. Next thing you know, you won't know who the father of her fruit is and then we'll have the puppets dancing.
For the ruling power (which had been in the hands of men for centuries), women's bodies became a political tool and women's shots had to be ruled from above. For men, sex became a right, for women a duty. Woman, be pious and subservient. This interference went so far that since time immemorial women have had to experience that what grows in their bellies is their responsibility, but in the meantime is not theirs anyway. Developments in the US in recent years show how narrow the dividing line is between self-determination in this area and political interference - and how quickly it rolls in the wrong direction, a dangerous development that is also thundering into Europe.
THE BODY IS POLITICAL
Since the female body is political territory, reclaiming it is a subject for female artists. Last year, for instance, I saw an exhibition of recent acquisitions at Museum Arnhem. One room was filled with 'feminist' art. I saw work with female bodies, references to wombs and vulvas. They are images I already know, with the difference that now it was made by female artists. I get where it's coming from, but I think there's something about that too. The artist has changed gender, but the imagery is not tilting with it. Still her body is shown as a subservient object. Museums often choose just this kind of art when they highlight women artists.
How I long for the day when an exhibition of women artists is not about their bodies and what those bodies do and bring about. Unfortunately, resetting this perception feels like slogging through the mud. The road is long and goes in small steps.
AM I PRETTY ENOUGH?
In July's story, the protagonist works her ass off at the gym to prevent her round buttocks from going pear-shaped. Because only then are you attractive in the eyes of others. In real life, we see this in Babygirl. Here, Hollywood star Nicole Kidman plays the lead role. The actress is well past 50 but has a young-looking body due to all kinds of smoothing procedures. And she plays a successful woman in her mid-forties who looks younger because of all kinds of smoothing procedures. That wriggles. More Hollywood actresses adjust their bodies. Why do these actresses find it necessary? Do these actresses sell fewer films if they look age-appropriate? Why actually? How does it affect perceptions of ageing women? And, to what extent does Reijn's choice of Kidman really tilt perceptions? In the end, she only picks out a small aspect of the territory to be regained, in a way that - not coincidentally - sells well: sex sells.
OK - I swallow my disappointment - small steps.
UNIFORM PERCEPTION
It saddens me that a woman's image is still so often reduced to her body. Stop it, I think, because I do not identify with this at all. I think it is fantastic that my body has carried a child. I cherish it, but I am not just body. In the outside world, my body is seen as a 'female body' with its own meaning. I know how it is judged: for attractiveness, for usefulness. And I know the reckoning when those attributes no longer apply-as a woman of 'certain' age. But for me personally, my body matters only to me. Whether I am healthy, can move, make, think, look, sing, live.
Why do I see so few layered women in our cultural expressions? They are there, but sparsely. Miranda July does to some extent, but I think mainly of authors like Elisabeth Strout, Rachel Cusk, Anne Enright and Alice Munroe. Although they do tell stories with themes that mostly women identify with. The female characters have dreams, desires, ambitions and drive. They are right and wrong, just like real people. If we look across the gender divide of stories, a male protagonist is more likely to have a multifaceted character. His body hardly plays a role and you can identify with the character regardless of your gender. This is an artistic freedom that women are also allowed to take more of, as far as I am concerned.
Be patient, I think then, small steps. Only they lose ground very quickly. A conservative wind only has to blow for a moment and we are back to square one.
