The Political is Personal.

At the moment I am busy listening to Tori Amos’ latest offering, American Doll Posse. I have been excited by the concepts behind it for some time after seeing and reading interviews with her in different places (including ‘Loose Women’ of all programmes- I don’t think they quite knew what to make of her!) On a first listen I am pretty impressed, but I imagine as with most of Tori’s work, it will be a grower.

Things I like about Tori Amos:

• She is, first and foremost, a musician; a classically trained pianist to be exact. She is also a songwriter, and, when she’s on form, one of the finest ones in contemporary music. This as opposed to being a singer of other peoples songs (usually men’s) like so many world class women artists are, or worse, being foremostly a model or dancer with not much musical talent.

• She is an interesting character with strong opinions about life, art and the world. I don’t always agree with her, I sometimes find her pretentious and annoying, but I can never tear my attention away from her when I watch her perform, or in an interview.

• Her lyrics rock the house. She is a poet who is not afraid to experiment with language, form and style.

• She is unashamedly political.

• She is not afraid to be herself and since ‘Little Earthquakes’ was released has fought for control of her own sound and image in an age where artists are more and more dictated to by record companies. Kudos to someone who would rather turn down their first significant record deal rather than have her record and musical vision massacred.

• She can be silly, whimsical, earnest and poignant within the same song, sometimes even in the same breath.

• She makes me think

• I like her voice.

• She tackles taboos.

• For example: She explores female sexuality in an honest, genuine way. This is all too rare in an age where despite an abundance of page three models and Ann summers shops, an exploration of woman’s true sexual psychology and drive is a deeply taboo subject.

• She has a sense of fashion and aesthetic style that even I can appreciate is interesting.

• She pours scorn on the fickle ‘celebrity’ lifestyle.

• I believe she genuinely cares about her fans.

• She pushes the boundaries of her own music in her live performances, and never plays the same show twice.

I could go on, but won’t. Anyway, when I am excited about an album, especially an album from an artist with a lot of depth, I like to read a bit about it first. So before listening to American Doll Posse I went on Wikipedia to see what it had to say. The thing that really caught my eye was this quote from Amos herself:

‘The main message of my new album is: the political is personal. This as opposed to the feminist statement from years ago that the personal is political. I know it has been said that it goes both ways, but we have to turn it around. We have to think like that. I’m now taking on subjects that I could not have been able to take on in my twenties. With Little Earthquakes I took on more personal things. But if you are going to be an American woman in 2007 with a real view on what is going on, you need to be brave, and you need to know that some people won’t want to look at it.’

Now, don’t get me wrong, this isn’t the first time I have heard this kind of argument. Recently, Natasha Walter wrote an entire book on the subject, and there has been (especially post 9/11) a call from within the feminist world to become more linked with wider issues than feminism has traditionally focused on. More and more articles and books are being written by feminist authors on a diverse range of subjects, including what I call ‘big P’ politics.

I say, right on. To this direction, to all of this.

It’s not that I don’t believe that the personal is political, I blatantly do. If it is already not obvious from the small amount of posts I have written, then I will spell it out: thinking about the significance of my day to day actions is of tremendous importance to me. I believe that the devil is in the detail, as they say, and huge victories can be won by focusing on what might initially seem like small aspects of your daily routine. You know, the whole Rosa Parks thing. The greatest injustices, I have always found, often manifest themselves in a whole range of day to day inequalities and it has only been by reclaiming this personal sphere, and politicising it, that feminists have managed to make the gains they have.

However, I read a lot of feminist blogs and over the last couple of years have been more and more concerned by the fact that the overwhelming majority of posts, especially by young feminists, seem to revolve around traditionally ‘female’ spheres. For example, feminist posts on fashion, makeup, food, family, relationships, motherhood, domestic chores, childcare, body hair and at the more radical end of the spectrum, sexual issues like abortion, pornography and rape can all be found in abundance. But the feminist bloggers and journalists who are writing about law (that’s not abortion law), science, Party and international Politics, global news stories, religion, critiques of capitalism, human rights, war and conflict, technology, space travel, economics, philosophy etc. Where are they? I don’t come across them very often, and when I do it’s the same few names again and again. I find this compartmentalising of the feminist movement very worrying. Life is a rich tapestry, yet the vast majority of the feminist movement seems to just focus on things designated as ‘women’s issues’, and by focusing on such narrow topics we seem to get into such wars amongst ourselves.

Sometimes, the personal can become too political. We get obsessed with tiny little details and lose sight of the bigger picture. We turn on each other and forget that there are different ways to live life, different ways to express feminism. We forget completely the concept of sisterhood, and instead behave more like cliques at a high school, obsessed with dogma, labels and outward codes of behaviour rather than the true spirit of liberation. Anti porn or sex positive, Pro choice or pro life, to wed or not to wed? Yes, the personal is political and I’m not disagreeing that these issues are important to many many women (including me). However, I’m right there with Tori on this one, there is so much more to the feminist vision than simply debating for hours whether having hairy armpits make you an authentic feminist or a hardcore loony that gives the women’s movement a bad reputation. After all, there surely comes a time where you have to say to yourself a hairy armpit is just that. Women are dying and starving all over the world. Atrocity after atrocity is being committed on our behalf and in our names. There comes a time that, as western feminists we should stop fighting amongst ourselves. Then, with or without a Venus razor, we should stand up, united, and do something to help.