blogging in a confused, exploratory feminist kinda way.....
working class women have always been feminists so why do we find the word the word feminist an alien term which doesn`t apply to us? I want more women in politics and in I.T and more men teaching primary school and running play groups.
The right out of white
The right out of politics
Fave chant “Not the church and not the state, women must decide their fate”.
nerdiest thing i`ve ever said , (in politics class) “Well, peace of course will be achieved circa 2280 when Cochrane tests the first warp engine” (its star trek, to none nerds)
DOS attacks on Xbox Live gamers
Government opensource plans.
As my guitar hero controller languishes under a film of dust, I laugh at how far the obsession could of gone courtesy of South Park.
Free lemmings like puzzle game ,designed to waste time and drive you mad!
Surface computer,coming to a snooty bar/club near you soon.
So the economic doom and gloom continues, more high street stores closing, pieces of companies being sold off and the downturn apparently hasn’t even bottomed out yet. According to government statistics for January, the number of job vacancies were 179,000 with the benefits claiming count coming in at 1.23 million and this months figures set to be even worse.
The jobcentre has to move with the times, its not just dealing with underclass ,job dodging scum like me anymore. No the middle class are out of work now ..eek.. quick scrub those fake jobs off the computers that lie about how many job vacancies there actually are, give the security guards nicer uniforms and call them greeters, get a cappuccino machine in here and for gods sake give them their own floor so we can keep them from mixing with those benefit culture lot.
How can Jobcentre Plus possibly find vacancies for the middle-class professional? Their bosses reply “We’ll outsource and get an agency in to deal with these highly skilled professionals”. Crikey we wouldn’t want any intelligent sorts on the bottom of the economic heap now would we? Especially ones with a posh accent, it just wouldn’t do.
Then Mr Brown pipes up- “lets get this green low carbon industry going that’ll get us out of this pickle!” . Reskill and everything will be grand. Firstly, I was at an MPs question time last October when Ed Vaisey and Andrew Smith were directly asked if green technology was still going to be implemented in light of the coming recession and both of them said that plans would have to be shelved. Secondly where the hell is all this surplus of cash coming from, if its from reserves then why the hell wasn’t it put into public services? In light of the tragic Baby P case didn’t it show that social workers were under intense staffing pressures and that children were being abused/murdered and it was missed because of lack of resources? Thirdly ,who will be re skilled to do these ‘green’ jobs? Manual workers, or the newly out of work middle class ?
Well of course in my opinion, it’s the middle class. Have the postmateralistic values of the middle class actually led to the reduction of their economic earning potential? After all if you have a ‘green’ collar job a new status is attached and just as the banker had a champagne lifestyle won`t the new green collar professional lead a elderflower wine lifestyle?
The goverment are bailing out the middle classes and still ignoring the working class. In the current climate there is a chance to look at benefit traps and the scrappy amount people on benefits have to survive on. Will the goverment reform the welfare state? Only if enough of the middle classes are out of work.
Here are some useful links for you all
The best firewall protection I’ve come across. successfully stopped my laptop being `penetrated ` whilst on a wireless network .
Suffering from Heroes withdrawal? Cruise this secure site for clips and spoilers.
For all you gamers ,prepare for piss takes of the big games.
Beginnings of Skynet (Terminator) anyone?
Ok it’s a Microsoft beta program, but it’s still an excellent personal file sharing utility.
Info about the Open Source Movement in India.
As I feel it’s necessary to claw my way out of the academic/geek cocoon I seem to have weaved around myself, from time to time I venture into the world of the mass media. Since starting my degree I found that I hardly watch T.V (I don’t think Cbeebies counts) and I never buy ‘womens’ magazines. It wasn’t due to studying commitments, it was due to the repetition- this is how you should look/dress/feel/D.N.A tests/cook/parent your child and what you should aspire to be (apparently the aspiration is happiness,which obviously can’t be achieved without at least four of the afore mentioned). It never really occurred to me that these t.v programmes and magazines were actually reinforcing gender and class stereotypes, I just thought they were just thought they were crap.
For some unknown reason I bought ‘That’s life!’ magazine, maybe because of the sensationalist headline “Mum sold me for a bottle of Gin!”, but mostly because that’s the sort of magazine that were knocking around my Grans house when I was growing up. For 78p I had fifteen minutes of other peoples lives, saw photos of cute kids dressed up, read how daft ‘Men’ are, fashion on a budget, health/relationship problem pages and survival stories. What I took from the magazine was that maybe this cut-price magazine and the others of its ilk, are a space for working class women to express their lives. OK they were paid for their stories and the stories were polished up by proof readers,but the kernel of the stories were issues affecting women.
During a particularly boring lecture I asked Suzi what she thought of these particular magazines and the conversation went like this:
(A) ” Do working class women’s magazines such as ‘That’s Life!’ empower or keep working class women in their place?”
(S) “They keep them in their place. Also the mags reinforce dominant social discourse- weight loss, cookery and cosmetic surgery”.
(A)” On balance though,do you think these magazines are better than , Marie Claire, Grazia and the like?”.
(S) ” All the women’s magazines are exactly the same just aimed at different classes of women, however, Marie Claire magazine runs many feminist stories . All in all the women’s mag market is generally designed to re-inforce gendered roles and dominant discourse”.
I decided to buy Marie Claire (for the first time) and see for myself . For the sum of £3.30 and a reassuring glossy heavy magazine with non-descript headliners ‘Perfect trousers to suit your shape’. Seven adverts for the top end fashion and cosmetic industry and then onto the contents page, more adverts, editors blurb, rundown of contributors and then at last first articles which were the letters page. More adverts then an article by Katherine Fleet (ala The Observer). I’ll confess now, I do read The Observer but tend not to read the columns about ‘nothing’ . Fleets piece was entitled ‘Superwoman:who needs her?` Who indeed I thought to myself.
More adverts , fashion news, eco news, adverts, fashion news, adverts, Celeb interview more adverts, wheres the feminism? I think to myself.
An article on women sex professionals was sort of on the right track,women’s attitude to drinking,child bride divorce in Afghanistan (why wasn`t this the front cover?) and then the life changing experience story or as I like to call it the ‘I went to a poor country and talked to poor hungry black children and now I realise how lucky I am, my life is going to change for the better,hurray!’ story.
So , like ‘That’s Life’ the kernel was there, but for me there was more sharing of female stories in ‘That’s life!’. The survival of domestic violence, birth stories , rape, betrayal, consumer rights. But hold up, I thought to myself, aren’t these stories used for fodder on shows such as Jeremy Kyle,Trisha and like? Women and men being paid to tell their story on national t.v, shows such as This Morning dispensing consumer advice and how to make the most of yourself cosmetically wise.
Where is the Marie Claire T.V crossover? It’s with programmes like Ten years younger, Come Dine with me and Location, Location, Location. OK its easy to see the class differences even if you just took at look at the advertising in both magazines, when you look at the barriers of price and style of magazine it brazenly states that the working class are cheap, throw away and a bit tatty, whilst the middle classes are aesthetically pleasing, substantial and seemingly valuable.
Whats does this tell me about feminism in the mass printed media? Everyday survival stories of the working class woman is a readily available commodity, because lets face it ,whatever the world throws at the working class woman she can handle it as long as she can get a few quid for the retelling of said horrid event. Pretty clothes, cosmetics and lifestyle aspirations , ohh! and with the odd ‘lets find oppressed women /girls abroad’ stories to show us how good our lives really are, are the fodder of Marie Claire.
These magazines have sat on the newsagents shelves for nearly fifty years now. Have you ever noticed that you never see Marie Claire magazine on the same shelf as That’s Life? If we live in a meritocracy why isn’t the mass media portraying the fact, instead of keeping us all in our boxes?
I love to end this article with a statement about what I’d put in a magazine if I had the chance, but I don’t have a clue. I can’t believe in either magazine though. One tells me how I should look , what clothes I should buy and that I’ll just never find shoes fabulous enough, punctuated by adverts from luxury brands (which I find contradictory to the post materialistic statements of the sustainability of the making of the magazine). The other tells me that shit happens, the adverts tell me that the government is watching and that I need to be reminded not to feed my kids whisky and deep fried mars-bars and that post-materialism is just a posh word for sharing money saving tips.
This post is about a pivotal experience in my life- a visit to Womynspace. I feel its relevant to write this because it changed my perceptions about my attitudes to other women, left wing politics, the legal system, the list could go on. The point is that nearly every week I find myself drawing on the experience.
To rewind…before I started at uni I never thought about feminism. Once or twice when I’d heard the word it was portrayed in a negative light. I myself come from a dysfunctional family and the women in the family had been subjected to cycles of abuse which in turn trickled down to me. I felt the only person I could trust was my father figure and therefore even though I did have female friends, I never really trusted them, they were all out to’ get’ me.
This visit also coincides with the beginnings of a great friendship with Suzi, my first interactions with another very intelligent role model who pointed me in the direction of Womynspace and myself for the first time in my life , truly being out of my comfort zone.
Necessary arrangements had been made, directions gathered, feminist peer grabbed in order to be my comfort blanket and off we went to London . I’d been to London only twice – once on a school trip and once on a jolly with an ex boyfriend. I took the car, I realise now that that was a comfort blanket too- I didn’t know my way around and the car was safe in the fact that I could get into it and drive away should anything untoward happen.
We drove into a rough looking area of London, a police car seemed to follow us in to a side street and observe where we were going. I parked up and we approached the metal security gate. A woman appeared unlocking the various padlocks in order for us to gain entry , she chatted whilst we went through the door and as she fortified the the door via a plank slatted against the door.The entry was dark damp and forbidding and the woman starting to show us around. The welding room,the smoking room and then up the stairs.
Once we got to the top of the stair case the atmosphere started to change ,there was some sunlight coming through the windows and I could see artwork on the walls. A photographer was taking pictures and two other women were chatting. We were shown around this tier of the house and the atmosphere was almost church- like, we were offered tea (thank you womynspace for introducing me to rooibos tea)and then sat down to chat.
I for once didn’t have anything to say for myself. Suzi on the other hand starting talking and drawing out the other women’s stories (usually my ‘job’). I felt for once that I really didn’t have anything to contribute and on reflection the way I looked didn’t matter this opportunity to just be `me` had never presented itself and therefore I was at a loss .
We left and got back into the car and Suzi and I didn’t say anything until ten minutes later when we both let out a collective sigh. We both felt peaceful and then talked about the experience.It wasn’t until much later that we realised we’d both had completely different experiences – Suzi had felt comfortable and confident, I felt the opposite.
I wrote the experience up as a feminist reflective essay and thought that would be the ‘end of it’….not so. As time went on and suggestions about space from tutors started to make sense to me I started to figure it out and de-construct what society had socialized me in to thinking. Feminists..bad, squats are only used by druggies and homeless people, the law is always right.
Womynspace taught me that its ok just to ‘be’ rather than ‘doing’, in the respect that we as women are always supposed to be pre-occupying ourselves with caring for other people, caring about what other people think of us and caring if the sexually preferred gender finds us attractive.The one sentence that sticks in my mind from the experience was a woman saying ‘he doesn’t know anything about me’, that’s the best thing I ever heard in my life. Complete strangers don’t know anything about you. How dare they comment and judge someone they know nothing about?!
Another thing that struck me was the the premise of what space is – whats the difference between a woman’s group hiring a village hall or making use of a near derelict building in order to empower women? Money and the legal system that protects an investment. How much is a derelict building worth? Why shouldn’t it be put to use instead of being left to crumble until the owner gets the ‘right’ price from a developer?
Womynspace changed and still is changing my perception of the world and society around me. Without it I wouldn`t be writing here, have the strength to show the world who I really am(ok, I’m your basic geek, but there you go) and that the ‘hidden’ shit’ – the issues that are swept under the carpet like the empowerment of women really does matter. Thank you Womynspace .
Reading through the Sunday papers today two articles caught my eye. The first one is an idiotic article regurgitating the same old nonsense about hetero women being attracted to rich men because its part of our genetic code. It was “backed up” by a quote from a female Lawyer – well she’s a professional so it must be true! Apparently being a rich man gives you the capacity to deliver top notch orgasms which of course next to money are the only things we women require.
But wait… further on it stated that men can pick up how fertile a woman is , and this observation was concluded from watching men tip Lap Dancers. Apparently the more fertile you are the more you get tipped.
My question is do lesbians, transgender, infertile and women with poor partners therefore have really crap sex all the time? That’s what this *ahem* ’scientific’ led piece suggests.
An excellent article over at The Guardian points out that employers are more likely to dismiss women first because of the belief that there will be a man around to financially support her. Surely this a massive sign of sexism given that most households need two wages in order to survive? An adjoining article pointed out that just being financially secure does not eliminate the feeling of redundancy and social isolation. In short you can’t buy fulfillment.
The link in my mind is this – according to The Times article we hetero women can take the rough with smooth as long as we get a good orgasm out of it. According to The Guardian we can take the rough with the smooth as long as the goal of personal fulfillment is in sight. Sorry to be a spoilt brat but……….. I want both.
So, according to the BBC our Internet service providers are being asked to retain and store our electronic traffic and, if needs be, inform the police if they find anything suspicious.The police then only need to get a warrant in order to look through your e-mails and text messages in order to gain evidence of any wrong doing.
Given that we live in the post 9/11 era we are ,apparently, all potential terrorists,I say this because every time the government trial these security ideas its because of the need to protect national security.
Let me ask you this- in the 1970’s & 80’s,were we all subjected to surveillance because of the terrorist threat posed by the I.R.A? Were all phones and paper mail bugged and tapped into? No. Why? Well there wasn`t the technology then and a lot of people didn’t have telephones. So did terrorists communicate via carrier pigeon? No they met up ,the police then did police work (using human intelligence not using a programme to sift out the words bomb ,kill,maim etc). Human intelligence ,if I’m not mistaken, is what differentiates us from the rest of the animal kingdom and A.I.
Human intelligence and intuition is what guides us through life ,enabling us to make decisions (to what ever ends) and the police use it to catch criminals and to protect citizens.
Why does the government put more faith in monitoring systems than it does the actual human intelligence and the intuition skills of police officers? Could it be because its a cost cutting measure? Tell me,can monitoring someones electronic messages stop a knifing ,mugging,rape,domestic violence murder? Surely these crimes are more of a threat to national security than the sensationalist statements of religious radicals.
We can`t rely on C.C.T.V . If you remember in the Mendez case the police used the C.C.T.V to back up their version of events, but in the end it was the human witnesses that convinced the jury of the truth. Yes the visual evidence of events were there, but it was manipulated so the police team could get a way with murdering an
innocent man and only with the honest testimony of human witnesses did the truth out.
There’s also the great moral panic about the electronic criminal,the electronic criminal who rips your credit card details of the net,the electronic criminal who clones your phone.
Listen carefully I shall only say this once…Hackers are not electronic criminals.
Why be afraid of the beast which is the electronic criminal, find the best firewall you can (you can download them free at Linux) ,change your passwords every couple of weeks, don`t use your birthday or name on your passwords and limit the amount of time you have blue-tooth switched on. If you knew someone had your debit card pin would you not change it? Would you walk down the street with your purse/wallet hanging out of your pocket so a pick pocket could easily lift it? Course not if you take the same precautions on-line as you do off-line then there’s a good chance you won`t be a victim of electronic crime.
So now here’s the bottom line: what a lot of people say is “I don`t mind, I’ve got nothing to hide”. Well you know what, I’ve got nothing to hide either , I’m not a criminal , I’m just a citizen going about my business, but I do mind that I’m being monitored by my services providers, whom I PAY for services, and likewise the Police (through taxes) .We are a nation that is paying for its own errosion of Liberty namely the right to privacy.
He who gives up liberty for security ends up with neither.
- Benjamin Franklin
This post is my response to a part of Suzi`s post `The Mummy Myth`and also expresses my thoughts on female competitiveness.
To begin with lets look at the two -sided coin which is the mainstream media…..
Can anyone remember any obviously pregnant women presenting the weather, reading the news or presenting breakfast T.V in the eighties? The only woman I can remember is Janet Ellis who presented Blue Peter and was subjected to complaints from outraged viewers because she was a)pregnant and b) shock horror, also unmarried.
Fast forward to the here and now, and pregnant TV presenters are commonplace,a good thing wouldn`t you say? Pregnant women can be seen, heard and are generally considered capable enough to carrying on working in their high profile jobs. Of course, the maternity leave ,pay and birthing plan are all held in the public eye, and maybe the expectant mother will do an interview with various magazines saying how wonderful she feels and how she now, inexplicably likes eating raw marrow with ice-cream.
After she’s had the baby, done the OK photo shoot and obligingly shown off said precious bundle it all goes downhill and becomes a media free-for-all.Why hasn`t she lost that baby weight yet? Why’s she depressed when she`s got lots of money and round the clock nannies? Should she be going back to work so soon? Does she breast feed?
All these questions in some shape or another have been asked for millenia at the water well,over washing lines and in recent times, at the coffee shop. The only thing is, now these questions are amplified through the media, and so the stereotype of the Yummy Mummy in upper/middle class circles or MILF in working class circles has appeared, demonstrating that women’s only true commodity is to be fuckable. Crude but more to the point.
These stereotypes trickle down into society, and, in my experience the ‘Yummy Mummies’ at my kid`s school (by the by, I live in social housing in a very desirable area and professional families frequently relocate from London to get into the schools catchment area)always look fantastic have the latest bicycle and trailer sets,talk play dates, eat organic food and about the marvelous kids boutique in town.There is one middle class mum there who talks to her child, doesn’t give a crap about her appearance and seems to do lots of volunteer work for the school ,but it doesn’t matter how marvelous she is, the nasty whispers are still there `Why doesn`t she lose some weight/Get some new clothes ? / Put some make-up on?’ (n.b I`m a semi goth skinny person who can look slightly scary to the untrained eye).
Of course this happens at school gates throughout the land and in also media land, but why does it happen? Consider the facts -the media is controlled and bankrolled by men and what do men do when the empowerment of women is seeped into the national consciouness? Give us what we want thats, what,the gossip. How else do the media get away with giving meek reports about women sacked for being pregnant, or for asserting their right to extended maternity leave which in short costs money, money that most important commodity of all. This all shortly followed by hiring an attractive younger woman to read the news, in order to attract male viewers.
It seems now (sadly) that even after we`ve competed with each other in order to secure said Mr Wonderful (I realise this statement is heteronormative, but lesbian motherhood does tend to be ignored by the media at large unless it’s being reported in a negative way and I have no experience of being a lesbian mother and so am basing this on my personal experience of motherhood and competition) that competition is nothing compared to pursuing the crown of `perfect woman`- it’s the perfect housewife amplified with new and improved features .Marvel at her organizational skills! She`s still fuckable after four kids! She makes her own organic baby food and brings home the bacon too!
The point is is that the media amplified and commodified women’s competitiveness, packaged it,sold it back to us in glossy form and we’ve brought it in every sense