The necessary rant

Penny's 'The Bitch Doctrine' explains appropriation of word, 'bitch', used by online trolls at women

The Bitch Doctrine

Essays for Dissenting Adults

Laurie Penny

Penguin Random House

373 pages; Rs 499

US President Donald Trump’s twitter updates and meltdowns – including a misleading one this week purportedly banning transgender persons from the army – have sparked outrage and filled reams of newsprint with analysis, critique or sheer befuddlement. Mr Trump seems to prefer using the micro-blogging site more than conventional routes to communicate his policy decisions, and in that respect, could be described as the first Twitter president. While there is an entire army of his supporters online re-tweeting and sharing his rants, he has his fair share of detractors too — a result of the inherent democracy of the internet. One of the most vocal of these is British journalist Laurie Penny.

With 160,000 followers on the social media website, Ms Penny, the winner of the 2012 British Media Award’s ‘Twitter Personality of the Year’ prize, is one of the most audible critics of Mr Trump today. As the editor at large of The New Inquiry and a columnist and contributing editor of the New Statesman, she has often performed the essential political role of provocateur — not only for the conservatives but also for a section of left-liberals, who have felt besieged by her kamikaze opinions. Her new book is provocatively titled, Bitch Doctrine, suggesting an appropriation of the cuss word, “bitch”, often directed by online trolls at women they perceive to be vocal feminists. One of the epigraphs of the book is taken from Madonna: “Sometimes you have to be a bitch to get things done.”

Ms Penny takes the trouble to explain the title: “when I present what seem to me quite logical, reasonable arguments for social change, I find myself called a bitch.” With this is the confession: “The title is a provocation... How could it be otherwise? Anything any woman ever writes about politics is considered provocative.” This essential “bitchiness” is evident from the very first sentence of the book: “In case you hadn’t notice, there’s a war on. The field of battle is the human imagination.” It is like throwing down the gauntlet, and Ms Penny is more than willing to wade into the mud and blood and sweat of this conflict. Unfortunately, her opinions are not really new or innovative — we have heard these repeated ad verbum in the liberal media. And the language she employs to express these, though forceful, is essentially rhetoric over substance. 

For instance: “The lemming-like rush to the political precipice may be premature.” Or this one: “The democratic sentiment in the United States has been tortured and twisted into a dark, violent thing.” Or this gem: “A mental health asteroid has smashed into the carapace of a culture already calcified with anxiety and ambient dread.” While these might teach an aspiring writer a thing or two about how to use similes and metaphors, what political solutions can sentence after sentence of this pitch offer? The only solution she seems to offers is negating negotiations with the Right. But last week, it was conscientious Republican senators led by former presidential hopeful John McCain who voted against the repeal of Obamacare, displaying yet again the power of principles in politics and the utility of negotiations.

Those familiar with Ms Penny’s books, blog or website would be aware that electoral and legislative politics are not the only subjects that she writes on. A number of essays are neatly classified into seven sections — “Love”, “Culture”, “Gender”, “Agency”, “Backlash”, “Violence” and “Future”. Much of her writing is about popular culture. One might even argue that she is a player in popular culture, having seized some agency through her online callisthenics, and in this context, her writing is infused with self-consciousness.

Carol Hanisch taught us that the personal is political back in 1970, and feminist writers have used this as a powerful tool ever since. Ms Penny is no exception. In the essay “Maybe You Should Just Be Single”, which went viral around Valentine’s Day this year, she advises young straight women to stay single through their twenties, and pursue work and other aspirations than trying to build a relationship with men, many of whom are likely to turn out to be insensitive and unsupportive. Much of the advice has been gleaned, as she accepts, from personal experience. Then she expands her argument: “Buried under the avalanche of hearts and flowers is an uncomfortable fact: Romantic partnership is, and has always been, on one level, an economic arrangement.” Yet again, the arguments are not new, but what they lack in invention they make up for in earnestness.

The structure of these short pieces is a form that has become common online: Ranting. Like “bitch”, it is also an appropriation by feminists, in particular, of a pejorative term used to critique women considered too vocal in the public space. Rantings, such as that of Ms Penny, are essential in these times, as the space for reasoned public debate shrinks. Ms Penny describes Mr Trump's presidential campaign as “industrial scale trolling”; perhaps one needs an industrial-scale rant to reclaim the liberal space.