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founded on total unquestioning obedience and love for the master qua master, and her nascent political awareness which takes the form of hatred for the Sultan as the embodiment of the patriarchy, and of a singular outburst of generalized hatred for men: “nothing left but the portal that the man might enjoy. The filthy, selfish beast, the animal” (Roquelaure, 1985:99)’ (Ziv: 70). The last quote by Roquelaure is from the Beauty trilogy itself, and Ziv does not make it clear whether all men are referred to as ‘animals’ here, or only the Sultan. My concern is that there is no mention of the racialized dimensions of this portion of the text. It is surely no coincidence that a non-Western ‘Arab’ society is taken by Beauty to exemplify the horrors of patriarchal power, drawing on a powerful discourse of sexual slavery which constructs the East as the exotic but uncivilized Other. If the reference to the ‘animal’ in the text does refer to the Sultan, then remaining silent about the racialized—and racist—connotations of this association is inexcusable. I am not writing to Amalia Ziv in the first instance, because my concern is over the editorial practices of FR. To operate an editorial procedure which allows authors to remain so totally silent over ‘race’ and racism when discussing SM (as both Ziv and Lewis do in this issue) sits very uneasily alongside recent FR issues on ‘Thinking through Ethnicities’ and ‘Nationalities and National Identities’. Understanding the operation of power relations around ‘race’, ethnicity, sexuality, gender, disability, class and age means that we must notice where and how those relations of domination and subordination occur. Remaining silent lets them past us to continue their work. Feminism is about breaking these many silences, turning a spotlight on to oppressive discourses, practices and ideologies. I would hope that FR can develop an editorial policy which aims not to tell contributors what to write, but to encourage them (us) to address such questions of power where they are relevant in all issues of the journal. Christine Griffin University of Birmingham
DOI link for founded on total unquestioning obedience and love for the master qua master, and her nascent political awareness which takes the form of hatred for the Sultan as the embodiment of the patriarchy, and of a singular outburst of generalized hatred for men: “nothing left but the portal that the man might enjoy. The filthy, selfish beast, the animal” (Roquelaure, 1985:99)’ (Ziv: 70). The last quote by Roquelaure is from the Beauty trilogy itself, and Ziv does not make it clear whether all men are referred to as ‘animals’ here, or only the Sultan. My concern is that there is no mention of the racialized dimensions of this portion of the text. It is surely no coincidence that a non-Western ‘Arab’ society is taken by Beauty to exemplify the horrors of patriarchal power, drawing on a powerful discourse of sexual slavery which constructs the East as the exotic but uncivilized Other. If the reference to the ‘animal’ in the text does refer to the Sultan, then remaining silent about the racialized—and racist—connotations of this association is inexcusable. I am not writing to Amalia Ziv in the first instance, because my concern is over the editorial practices of FR. To operate an editorial procedure which allows authors to remain so totally silent over ‘race’ and racism when discussing SM (as both Ziv and Lewis do in this issue) sits very uneasily alongside recent FR issues on ‘Thinking through Ethnicities’ and ‘Nationalities and National Identities’. Understanding the operation of power relations around ‘race’, ethnicity, sexuality, gender, disability, class and age means that we must notice where and how those relations of domination and subordination occur. Remaining silent lets them past us to continue their work. Feminism is about breaking these many silences, turning a spotlight on to oppressive discourses, practices and ideologies. I would hope that FR can develop an editorial policy which aims not to tell contributors what to write, but to encourage them (us) to address such questions of power where they are relevant in all issues of the journal. Christine Griffin University of Birmingham
founded on total unquestioning obedience and love for the master qua master, and her nascent political awareness which takes the form of hatred for the Sultan as the embodiment of the patriarchy, and of a singular outburst of generalized hatred for men: “nothing left but the portal that the man might enjoy. The filthy, selfish beast, the animal” (Roquelaure, 1985:99)’ (Ziv: 70). The last quote by Roquelaure is from the Beauty trilogy itself, and Ziv does not make it clear whether all men are referred to as ‘animals’ here, or only the Sultan. My concern is that there is no mention of the racialized dimensions of this portion of the text. It is surely no coincidence that a non-Western ‘Arab’ society is taken by Beauty to exemplify the horrors of patriarchal power, drawing on a powerful discourse of sexual slavery which constructs the East as the exotic but uncivilized Other. If the reference to the ‘animal’ in the text does refer to the Sultan, then remaining silent about the racialized—and racist—connotations of this association is inexcusable. I am not writing to Amalia Ziv in the first instance, because my concern is over the editorial practices of FR. To operate an editorial procedure which allows authors to remain so totally silent over ‘race’ and racism when discussing SM (as both Ziv and Lewis do in this issue) sits very uneasily alongside recent FR issues on ‘Thinking through Ethnicities’ and ‘Nationalities and National Identities’. Understanding the operation of power relations around ‘race’, ethnicity, sexuality, gender, disability, class and age means that we must notice where and how those relations of domination and subordination occur. Remaining silent lets them past us to continue their work. Feminism is about breaking these many silences, turning a spotlight on to oppressive discourses, practices and ideologies. I would hope that FR can develop an editorial policy which aims not to tell contributors what to write, but to encourage them (us) to address such questions of power where they are relevant in all issues of the journal. Christine Griffin University of Birmingham
ABSTRACT
founded on total unquestioning obedience and love for the master qua master, and her nascent political awareness which takes the form of hatred for the Sultan as the embodiment of the patriarchy, and of a singular outburst of generalized hatred for men: “nothing left but the portal that the man might enjoy. The filthy, selfish beast, the animal” (Roquelaure, 1985:99)’ (Ziv: 70). The last quote by Roquelaure is from the Beauty trilogy itself, and Ziv does not make it clear whether all men are referred to as ‘animals’ here, or only the Sultan.
