Mr Steerpike has checked his privilege, and he’s a radical feminist. Middle class, self-loathing and instinctively liberal, how could he not be?
A devotee of feminist blogs, I was intrigued to read MadamJ-Mo saying that she felt ‘cheated’ by Laurie Penny’s Meat Market, a pamphlet published in 2011. And MadamJ-Mo has a point. Compare this passage from page 62 of Penny’s pamphlet:
‘Judith Ramirez, co-ordinator of the Toronto-based International Coalition to End Domestics’ Exploitation (INTERCEDE) insists that there is no simple solution to what she calls “a modern day variation on the slave trade” – hiring a nanny or a housekeeper is really a question of women trying to fend for themselves. “I don’t see any other way when there are so few day-care places for young children. We’re nowhere near a universal day-care system accessible to everyone. As long as that’s the case, there are going to be a lot of women hired as domestics.”’
With this passage from an article in the New Internationalist, dated March 1988:
‘[Judith] Ramirez [co-ordinator of the Toronto-based International Coalition to End Domestics’ Exploitation (INTERCEDE)] insists that hiring a nanny or a housekeeper is really a question of women trying to fend for themselves. ‘I don’t see any other way when there are so few day-care places for young children. We’re nowhere near a universal day-care system accessible to everyone. As long as that’s the case, there are going to be a lot of women hired as domestics.’
The plight of domestics and the day-care problem have not improved since the late ’80s, so it is not surprising that Ms Ramirez still insists that there is no simple solution, as Ms Penny reports.
It would, however, be a surprise if Ramirez had given exactly the same quote to two interviewers. Yet even that would not be as surprising as Laurie Penny using precisely the same filler wording (‘hiring a nanny or a housekeeper is really a question of women trying to fend for themselves’) as the New Internationalist did in March 1988, when the precocious Penny was one and a half years old.
UPDATE: Laurie Penny has this to say, in response to MadamJ-Mo:
‘Laurie here. Just to clear up some queries – I wrote Meat Market as part of Zero’s series (which also includes Nina Power’s ‘One Dimensional Woman’) of long pamphlet-style books, all of which are collections and extensions of the authors’ previous articles and blog posts. I received no money for it (indeed, I haven’t had a penny from the book yet). The book contains much fresh material and an overarching critique of the separate issues, but I’ve always been open that there’s old stuff in there – why wouldn’t I be? It’s not something I’m ashamed of.
‘When I wrote the book, I had no idea at all that it would be so widely read. It’s a tiny publisher’s, I was virtually unknown at the time, it was just a collection of thoughts I’d had and articles I’d written between the ages of 20 and 23. I’ve been surprised by the response, and obviously reading it now makes me cringe, because there’s so much I’d write differently and better. But I don’t feel I have anything to apologise for in terms of being honest with readers about my sources and where the writing comes from — I’ve always been entirely open about that.’
‘Oh, and I cite the 1988 New internationalist Story article in the back of the book — that’s where the quote came from, Ramirez certainly didn’t speak to me! I had thought the way the quote was phrased made that obvious. That whole 1988 special issue is actually brilliant and well worth a read. If that citation isn’t in there then something’s gone wrong with the (admittedly rather shaky) sub-editing process and I’ll check it out.’
PS: Here is a screen grab of the relevant passage of Penny’s book. Can you spot the citation?
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