The Guardian Weekend | January 8 2005 31

you live in a country where you’re required to wear aburka, these are instruments of control.”

I remain dubious, though, that all the iniquities andcontrolling ideals meted out to women are the fault ofmen. The fact is, a lot of the images that exert a nega-tive and/or controlling effect on women, their self-image and their sexuality, are produced by womenandchosen by women. The magazines that tell women tobuy more shoes in order to be happier are, generally,edited by women and chosen by women. Stoller batsthis off: “We live in a very sexist society. Women per-petuate it because they know that the best way to grabpleasure and success in this culture is still to fit into amale idea of what a perfect woman is.” I don’t buy this— you can’t blame anyone for wanting you to act andlook a certain way if you’re not prepared, en masse, toobject to it. In fact, I’d go as far as to say this is, andalways has been, one of the great flaws of the women’smovement, a certain shyness about expecting indi-vidual women to account for themselves.

In the end, the most powerful attack against anytaboo or double standard will come from thoseagainst whom it operates, not those in whosefavour it works. I didn’t say that, though,exactly — I said this: “Yes, but if we’re doing itfor individual pleasure and success, we still

need to take responsibility for the fact that we’redoing it.” “I don’t think that women perpetuate it asmuch as men do. You know what, who is reallypulling the purse strings at those magazines? Whatabout the companies advertising in those magazines?I’ve seen women take over at those places, and try totake a different perspective, and they get fired,because advertisers won’t advertise any more.” “Butadvertisers just want maximum exposure — they’lladvertise wherever they think they’ll reach the mostpeople.” “No. I used to say advertisers had no morals;they just want to go where the eyeballs are. But it’s nottrue, they still put a layer of censorship betweenthemselves and their media. They don’t take enoughrisks. They don’t always just follow the numbers,sometimes they follow their own personal feelingsmore than you would expect.”

But whether you can blame men for all things, orjust most things, is not the issue to get mired in, here.Stoller, besides her vigour and intelligence, has anold-fashioned valour that is inspiring. And she hasthe refreshing grace to admit that she realises asmuch. “I feel like we’ve had an influence on youngwomen in the past 10 years. It’s not enormous, butamong these young women, who talk to other youngwomen, we’ve created a space for people to thinkabout feminism and what’s possible in feminism.I don’t think anybody looks at Glamour and says,‘Well, they really made a mark. You know. They reallymade me think about what was good to wear withwhite shoes.’ People define themselves by this maga-zine, or it defines something, it carved out a culturalspace. And I’m really, really proud of that.”

The patterns are taken from Stitch 'N Bitch Hand-book by Debbie Stoller, published by WorkmanPublishing. To order a copy for £9.99 with free UKp&p, call the Guardian Book Service on 0870 8360875 or visit guardian.co.uk/bookshop.

Alien illusion scarf chart

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MC; purl on right side, knit on wrong side

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