Feminism should never be used as a consolation prize

In a recent article for the Spanish newspaper El País, Peruvian novelist and Nobel Prize winner Mário Vargas Llosa questions the validity of defending parity quotas in academic, artistic and literary events as a way to achieve effective equality between men and women in the face of such real and daily gender violence that women are indeed subjected.

The author criticises a manifesto published during the third Biennial and the Romance Prize that not only contains untrue information (further reducing the participation of women in the event to amplify the effects of the manifesto itself), but also leaves aside the fact that other authors have been invited and refused to attend (including, says Llosa, three of the signatories of said manifesto).

Like him, I also don’t believe that mere parity at event tables is part of the path to equality, and there are examples that parity is not even the goal, but only an excuse to try to replace quality with quota and for one side to win in an imaginary “battle”.

It is not about defending a (quite fashionable) model of exclusion of women; it is not open to discussion that there is a real problem in events that often do not even invite women or whose presence is only testimonial. That women are often excluded from certain events and are severely underrepresented is simply the truth. But the chosen model for overcoming such issues (quotas and parity) is not the best way to move forward as it creates additional problems.

Instead of creating policies to attract women to certain areas, to fight sexism and harassment or even, in academia, to cite more female authors, the first choice of action is to simply assume women are inferior and need to have reserved spaces, because otherwise they would not be able to achieve visibility with their own efforts.

There’s a striking difference between choosing to invest in diversity, seeking to give visibility to under-represented groups, and imposing objective quota policies under penalty of threats and repudiation. 

As seen in the 2017 edition of famous Brazilian International Literary Festival of Paraty (FLIP), in Rio de Janeiro state, the objective – for many – is not parity, but a victory in an imaginary battle of sexes.

In said edition of the festival, more women were invited than men to compose the panels, however the quality of such invitations was not discussed – it wasn’t even open for debate. It is not a question of saying that the quality of debates or authors has been inferior, but rather that this concept has been removed by force of identity politics. News and debates about the presence of women have quickly become more relevant than the event itself and its discussions.

What it mattered was the small victory against patriarchy and the payment of some sort of historical debt. Also, it’s worth noticing that “parity” was, in said case, achieved by one side being overrepresented. 

I have no problems with those who clearly state that this is a war in which one side must win and the other must pay supposed historical debts. The problem, however, is to try to disguise the fact with speeches for equality – even more so when parity is achieved by creating an artificial majority.

At the time, Brazilian writer Eliane Brum commented that the inclusion of women (and blacks) would not be a concession, but “a space conquered by the struggle”. The doubt remains whether this “struggle” is based on actual literary quality or only the ability to scream louder of some groups politically organised.

As Vargas Llosa recalled, “[the] only acceptable criterion in this field is that of quality, not quantity. Nothing would be so offensive and discriminatory to women as to be invited to the conference as extras or numbers, to fill an arithmetic quota that would pretend to respect equity and make it a caricature, that is, would leave them in pieces.”

The Peruvian author’s article reminds me of that of Helen Pluckrose, an independent scholar and editor of the Areo Magazine, who was one of the authors of the “Sokal Squared” experiment that uncovered several academic publications of dubious quality linked to feminist and gender studies, critical theory, postcolonial studies, etc., dubbed “grievances studies“.

Pluckrose, along with professor of philosophy Peter Boghossian and writer James A. Lindsay, have published a series of clearly fanciful and even offensive articles (one of them a text based on Hitler’s writings in his book “My Struggle” that was published by a feminist academic journal or another on “rape culture” in dog parks) that were accepted as eminently academic by magazine editors with a certain degree of respectability in their fields. Four articles were published and three others were accepted, but had not yet been published before the farce became public.

Pluckrose, like Vargas Llosa, is a critique of the moral panic created around the need for total parity in academic, artistic and literary events. In an article published in March 2018, “This is why we need to talk about diversity,” the author criticises the fact that she was invited to speak at an event merely because she was a woman.

The invitation made to her was not made because of her knowledge of the area or theme to be discussed that was, ironically, “diversity”.

The Freethinkers of PSU (Portland State University) group had initially invited the philosopher Peter Boghossian and the controversial former Google employee, James Damore, to speak on the topic. Faced with external pressures, since in the understanding of some people two white men could not deal with the theme (especially one that had already been harshly attacked when exposing his ideas that, even if they were wrong, were worthy of debate), the Freethinkers of PSU was forced to seek female guests.

Five professors from the university’s Faculty of Women’s Studies were invited to participate in the debate, none of them accepted, forcing the organisation to seek external debaters – but not one, two. Remember: “parity”.

One of them, Helen Pluckrose, said she felt “delighted to be offered this opportunity, even if I couldn’t fully overlook that my inclusion was at least in part a demeaning and tokenistic ‘diversity’ demand by the university.”

No matter how capable she was of addressing the issue, Pluckrose was invited only because she was a woman.

Vargas Llosa analyses without hesitation the possible consequences of this attempt to impose parity over quality (or possibilities): “Feminism is in danger of being perverted if it adopts a fanatical and intransigent line, of which there are, unfortunately, many recent manifestations, such as that of wanting to review the cultural and literary tradition, correcting it in a way that fits the new canon, that is, censoring it. And replacing the desire for justice with resentment and frustration.”

Unfortunately, feminism is not only in danger, it is already in a spiral of radicalism. As psychoanalyst and professor of the Faculty of Psychology of the University of Buenos Aires, Alexandra Kohan, said to the Panamá Magazine website: “But a certain sector [of feminism] sins for selfishness, for voluntarism, for individualism, things that catch much more the young [people]. Relationships are not easy. Having sex is not easy at any age. It’s not about accumulating experience. And these are reassuring speeches. So, let’s give the young people a chance to calm down, but this puts patches in the holes that will remain open for life. What seems dangerous to me is when it leads to punitive action, escrache, and building an ‘evil’ [or enemy] all the time.”

Vargas Llosa comments on the inequality that exists between men and women, affirming that “this is not a battle of women against men, but of all conscious and responsible men and women,” while Kohan explains that “feminism has to include men, first because they are also victims of patriarchy and, second, because the struggle should not be gendered. Because if not, we will subsume everything in gender and that is to retreat against what we are fighting: that women are not defined by their genitals.”

If it is true that “patriarchy is not masculine, it is a system of oppression, because there are even patriarchal women”, as Kohan affirms, Vargas Llosa’s conclusion makes perfect sense: “the only criterion with which the participants will continue to be invited is that of literary excellence.”

Feminism will not, then, be used as a consolation prize.