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Stranger Danger, People-Pleasing and Neurosis

Tuesday 9th March, 2010 in Accepted Social Situations, Politics, Violence Against Women, feminism by Melaszka | No comments

I recently advertised for a language exchange partner on the internet. You probably know the kind of set-up I mean – they are native speakers of the foreign language I’m trying to learn who live in my town and want to improve their English, and the idea is that we meet up on a regular basis to practise our conversational skills in each other’s language. I soon received a number of replies to my ad, including one from a couple in their 20s who seemed very friendly, lived close to me, and it didn’t take us long to set up a date to meet.

The thing is, I’m well-versed in internet safety etiquette. I know all the rules backwards: don’t give away too much personal information about yourself online, never give out your home address, never take what strangers say about themselves online at face value and, above all, never meet up with someone you’ve met online in real life in a private home. Always set up the first meeting in a public space, like a pub or café. And yet, when my new online pals suggested we have our first meeting at their flat, I immediately agreed, even though the idea made me feel anxious and uncomfortable.

I think one of the reasons I didn’t insist on meeting on neutral ground is that I do tend to be a tad on the neurotic side – I’m the kind of person who goes through a nightly ritual of checking the inside of the wardrobe and under the bed for intruders and regularly exits an Underground carriage the minute a young man carrying a rucksack gets on, just in case he happens to have a bomb in it. It’s a side of myself I’m trying to battle with, so I didn’t want to indulge my paranoia here.

And maybe I was being overcautious – after all, while my love life is solidly vanilla, my more sexually adventurous friends seem to spend half their time in the bedrooms of people they’ve only just met and no-one’s taken an axe to them yet.

But deep down, I suspect that the real reasons I completely ignored the ground rules I’d decided to set were because:

(a) like – I’m guessing – a lot of women, I have a horror of seeming rude, of putting people to any inconvenience. They preferred to meet at their home – who was I to say different?

(b) I am also reluctant to be viewed as the local nutter. I know through personal experience that women who insist on taking taxis short distances at night instead of walking, refuse to open the door to strangers or demand to see IDs from tradesmen, tend to get treated like they have acute psychiatric problems, even those are all things which we are officially advised to do.

On my way over to my language partners’ place, my anxiety grew. As I walked the couple of miles to their address, I mentally replayed what I knew about this couple and all sorts of innocent things they’d mentioned in their e-mails suddenly seemed to take on a sinister significance. They’d seemed very eager – suspiciously eager? – to set up a meeting as soon as possible. They’d made a big deal about the fact that they were a couple and had attached a photo, but that’s exactly the kind of thing a solitary rapist or people-trafficker would say to try and put his potential victim at ease and the photo could have been of anybody – any idiot with a search engine could find a picture of A Random Couple and pass it off as himself and his non-existent wife. After my first e-mail, they’d Googled me and found my Facebook page, which hadn’t seemed odd at the time, but now started to appear macabrely stalkerish. And, come to think of it, all their e-mails had been in English, so I had no proof that they even spoke a word of the language which they claimed was their native tongue. Before long, I could hear Kirsty Young’s voice in my head, appealing to the public to help solve my murder on Crimewatch.

Well, I eventually reached their block of flats and, as you’ve probably gathered from the fact that I’m here writing this blog, they weren’t axe murderers: fortunately, they were exactly who they said they were. They were, in fact, utterly charming, I spent a highly enjoyable couple of hours with them and I’m hopeful that the language exchange partnership will go swimmingly.

But this experience has, yet again, underlined for me how, despite talking the feminist talk and knowing the theory, in actuality I’m incredibly easily swayed by media crime scaremongering, yet equally easily convinced that, as a woman, my right to set boundaries which make feel safe and comfortable is negligible and that I am obliged at all times and in all places to accommodate others.

I wonder how many other women feel continually torn between two totally unreasonable and utterly conflicting societal dictats – on the one hand, we’re taught to be people-pleasers who shouldn’t inconvenience others with “selfish”, “neurotic”, “rude” demands, on the other we’re bombarded with victim-blaming propaganda that suggests that if we fail to observe a 24-hour curfew and apply for a full CRB check on anyone we speak to, should something untoward happen to us, it is somehow entirely our fault.

Thoughts on caring

Tuesday 15th December, 2009 in Health, Parenting, caring, feminism by Melaszka | No comments

When Suzi asked me if I would mind writing a blog about my experience of being a full-time carer for my elderly parents, I thought it would be easy to put my thoughts down on paper. Actually, though, it’s been extremely difficult, not least because I’ve found myself going through several drafts agonising about whether I’ve written too much about me and not enough about my parents.

My anxiety on this point probably stems form the fact that, like many of my sex, I have probably internalised the belief that we women have a special caring gene stamped all the way through our DNA like “Blackpool” through a stick of rock, and that, therefore, if we do not devote every waking moment of every day to others, or dare express any needs of our own, we must be “unnatural”, “cold” and “selfish”.

But we don’t need to internalise this belief, as there are always plenty of people ready to remind us of it. Not long after I first moved down here, I left a post on an internet message board devoted to advice on family problems, asking for tips on how I could build more of a life for myself around my caring duties for my parents, as I was beginning to feel a bit isolated, having moved hundreds of miles from my support network of friends to a more provincial community where there was a lot less going on. I was astonished to receive a response suggesting that I should “get local authority help for them as soon as possible, as it’s not fair that the care of your vulnerable parents should be dependent on someone as incredibly selfish as you.”

Since people like that are going to damn me whatever I write, I therefore make no apologies – this blog entry is focused on my feelings and experiences alone. Not because I don’t think my parents’ feeling are important, but because I’m not them and I can’t speak for them, I can only speak for myself.

One thing which I find very curious and very sad is that, when I tell people that I care full-time for my elderly mother and father, they look at me with sympathy, as if I’ve just announced that I have a terminal disease. It was a voluntary decision – I love my parents, enjoy their company, consider myself very lucky indeed to be spending large swathes of time with them while I still have the chance, and (while I acknowledge that caring for them has meant some very difficult compromises, as well) giving up paid work outside the home to go and live with them has also given me the time and space to do a lot of things I wouldn’t have been able to do while juggling a full-time job – and yet many of the people I meet assume that I feel like the child caught when the music stops at the end of a game of Hot Potato.

This probably stems largely from the societal belief that the only work which matters is paid work outside the home.

As full-time parents, the unemployed and those on incapacity benefit will know all too well, if you can’t answer the question “What do you do?” with something that involves a big salary, then you are all too often viewed as boring, valueless to society, insignificant and possibly congenitally stupid. Carers have little status and few rights in our society – carers’ allowance is derisory and when I do need to re-enter the workforce, probably in my 50s or 60, I’m a bit concerned about how potential employers will view the large “gap” in my CV.

But I’ve found that caring for elderly parents has also really brought home to me the social prejudices that exist about single, childless women. First of all, there was the automatic assumption in my wider family that I, not my married sister, would be the one to care for my parents. While I was more than happy to fulfil this role, it was because I wanted to, not because I thought that it was my rightful duty, and I still resent the assumption that, because I didn’t have a partner or children, there couldn’t possibly be anything at all important in my life that I might mind giving up.

Then there’s the caricature stereotypes that people try to hang on you. While working single women who live alone are often decried as hard-nosed, ambitious bitches, fecklessly ignoring their biological clock in a quest for ball-breaking career dominance and heading for a lonely, unfulfilled old age as their rightful comeuppance, at least people assume they are having some fun in the present. But there’s something about the stereotype of the “woman who stayed at home to look after mother” that has no redeeming features at all. I am presumed to change every night out of my horn-rimmed glasses, hard-wearing tweeds and sensible shoes into my high-necked flannelette nightie, before wistfully dreaming of the man I will never now meet who might have made sense of my life.

I think being a full-time carer for my parents has really brought home to me how narrowly most of society views fulfilment, as being entirely dependent on having a partner, children and/or a high-paid job. And where women are concerned, let’s face it, largely the first two.

People often say to me “Well, obviously, your sister can’t do more for your parents – she’s got her own family to think about.” To which I want to reply “And who, then, are her parents? Strangers?” As a society, we are so locked into the idea of the heterosexual nuclear family as being the only unit that matters, that we are in danger of closing ourselves off to the other relationships and paths that are possible.

Covert Eugenics

Monday 14th December, 2009 in Health, Parenting, feminism by Dorri | No comments

If you knew how many attempts I’ve made at this you’d laugh! But Suzi asked if I’d like to contribute, and I would, so I guess I’m just going to have to get used to writing in a new style – I don’t suppose anyone really wants to read an essay at the moment.

Anyway, Suzi wants me to talk about the perspective of a disabled feminist – so I’ve decided to share a story with you.

A few months ago, during a phone-call, my mother asked me if there was any point in her still keeping my old baby clothes.  I can still remember looking through them as a child; they were stored in my old pram body, I have no idea what’s happened to the metal frame. I was fascinated by them. Partly, I suspect, because the idea that I had once been so small was just so strange and partly because I liked seeing how much care my mother took of them. I found it reassuring. The care given to these tiny clothes seemed to demonstrate how much she must have cared for me as a child; the possibility that one day I too would have tiny infant of my own to care for; and that she would be dressed, at times, in my old well loved garments; it was the past the present and the future all tied together.

My mother’s comment made it clear that she was abandoning hope that I would provide her with a grandchild. It underlined something I knew, that it was getting very unlikely that I was going to be a mother myself. I was incredibly hurt by my mother’s comment. I knew it was a rebuke, the idea that I had let her down by not providing a baby.

So far this is story that many able-bodied women will know or have seen. But let me give you a little of my background.

Seven or eight years ago, when I was about 30, I knew time was getting short and I knew I wanted a child. Circumstances hadn’t worked out, my long term relationship had ended some time previously and there was no real sign of a new one coming. so I started thinking – could I do this alone? Getting pregnant didn’t seem like the real problem, that was the reality of being unable to work alone, broke, and looking after a child. While I thought I might be able to cope I was not naive enough to think that life as a single mother was going to be easy.

Anyway I thought about this, mulled it over – I became more convinced it was something I wanted to do, and I was open with my close friends about my thoughts.  Of course just when you give up hope of a relationship they do have a tendency to appear!  He was one of the people that knew of my plan and I was clear that us getting together only meant that I was prepared to delay getting pregnant by a year or so – if at that time he didn’t want to be part of it that was fine, but it was going to happen.

One person I hadn’t shared this plan with was my mother. A year later and my partner and I began planning. We both had disabilities, the same one in fact.  So I talked to my doctor about how to go about this and give my child the best start I could. Step one would be reducing my medication, we both knew that this meant a big increase in the amount of pain I was going to have to deal with, and that almost every other symptom I had would get worse but it would be worth it.

It was at this point, with a partner on board and my doctor not just on my side but almost as excited by the idea we were – which would have been a minor miracle if I hadn’t spent several years finding a decent doctor, that I talked to my parents.

My mother wanted to know if I was sure – I didn’t bat an eyelid at this, I assumed she was just be a protective mother but I had no idea what was really behind the question, or what was coming next.

 ‘Do you really think you should have a child with him?’

Now I was worried, had she seen something in him that I had missed? But no that was not what she meant.

‘I mean with his condition he really shouldn’t be a parent should he.’

At that point I felt sick. I remembered the little things my mother had said in the past. When a mutual friend of ours had committed suicide after battling with severe depression as well as the same condition as I had, my mother had said ‘perhaps its better that she is has been removed from the gene pool, the whole family is a bit…’  

I pointed out that he had the same condition as I did – she ignored that. I repeated the point adding that I thought it was probably slightly more relevant that I had the condition, after all I was the one contributing a life support system as well as DNA to the child. ‘Well I’m just trying to be helpful’, she said.

Those words are so … I can’t think of the word, but it feels like every time I have to deal with other people’s problems with my disability they excuse their actions by saying ‘Well I’m just trying to be helpful – there’s no need to be ungrateful.’ And now I had to hear it from my own mother.

I don’t know how to explain the level of pain this caused me; even if there had been a chance of there being some truth in what she said it probably would have hurt, but my condition is not genetic; it will have no known impact on my ability to carry a child to term, or on that child’s health.

But really, what could I expect of my mother? I have to remember that she trained as a children’s nurse, that she had dealt with neonatal babies, and all this happened at a time when it was normal for a disabled baby to be taken away from its mother, at a time when it was thought that she would be better off is her child died, and if that child was disabled enough it would simply be left uncared for in a room, probably the sluice, to die, slowly of neglect and starvation. I have no idea whether she was one of those people; I know it is easily possible, but how do I ask her? And how can I expect her to understand how much her opinion, her frankly eugenics-based opinion hurts and attacks me.  When she was a child the Nazi’s forced sterilisation on approximately 400,000 disabled people.[1] The compulsory sterilisation programme for genetically undesirables virtually ended in 1939 when the Euthanasia Programme was introduced – it is estimated that in the 4 years the programme was in operation at least 70,000 people were murdered.[2] As if this wasn’t awful enough the Allied authorities were unable to classify the sterilisation as war crimes because by the end of the war at least 11 European countries and 29 American states had passed similar legislation with regard to “unfit persons” which included both Black and disabled people. Compensation could only be provided by the West German authorities if the claimant could prove that they were not genetically alcoholic, epileptic, feeble minded, schizophrenic, manic-depressive, or in any other way disabled. So in their eyes no crime had been committed?

This is the world my mother grew up in – how is she supposed think about me. I am her daughter but I am also one of those people. The ones you don’t see on TV, or at school, or at work, or in the media. Don’t think I’m not furious, at her, and the world which condoned these actions. I am. Yes, my mother and I had a massive argument about it – the idea that she was using the theory of eugenics horrified her, she was angry with me for making such an accusation.

We pretend now that this didn’t happen – bigger things have happened and dealing with them has subdued that topic. But I am left caught between a mother who wants me to provide her with a grandchild but doesn’t want me, a disabled person, to breed. So, when she asked her question about my old baby clothes, all that followed was a hurt and painful silence on both sides.

[1]               J. Morris 1991 page 48

[2]               Ibid. page 49 & 54

She’s With The Band

Thursday 10th December, 2009 in Icons, Media, Popular Culture, Uncategorized, feminism, gender by Melaszka | No comments

I’m passionate about music and waste away far too much of my time surfing internet music sites and I’m wondering if I’m the only one who regularly seethes at the way that female musicians and fans are often marginalised and humiliated in the fan community?

One expression that’s doing my head in at the moment is “girls’ band”, which seems to be routinely hurled as an insult by male fans of one group at a rival group. The principle seeming to be that if too many girls like a band, that automatically proves that it’s a rubbish band with no credibility, as girls don’t understand music and have no taste.

All too often, on music message boards and forums there appears to be a widespread assumption that if a woman keenly follows a male musician, it can’t possibly be because she understands or appreciates his music, it must be because she fancies him.

This is strange, given that most of the time women get told that only men are visually stimulated and that (if we’re heterosexual) it’s natural for us to choose a partner for his nice personality, not his looks, otherwise we’re “superficial” and “mean”. And yet, when it comes to pop musicians, we apparently become raging balls of hormones who fork out oodles of money for CDs and concert tickets, regardless of the musical content, merely because we can’t resist being swayed by a pretty face. Even if the musician concerned is the wrong side of 50 and looks like Mr Potato Head.

Of course, I’m exaggerating a bit, here. I have also interacted with male music fans on the internet who have been courteous, friendly and genuinely interested in what I and other female fans had to say. But all too often, as elsewhere on the internet, anything posted by a user with an obviously female-sounding user name gets ignored, while exactly the same point made by a male fan a few posts later gets rapturously applauded and fawned over for its wisdom and perceptiveness.

And it’s not just female fans that get patronised or ignored, it’s female artists, too. One male artist I particularly like recently collaborated with a female singer/songwriter. I wasn’t at that point familiar with her work, but I knew she was respected in the industry for her technical proficiency (she was classically trained) and had gained critical acclaim for her debut album, which had been considered daring and innovative. Which of these aspects of her work might have drawn my favourite musician to work with her? Intrigued, I logged onto a fan forum devoted to him, to see what other fans thought.

“Do you think he’s fucking her?” was one of the first suggestions posted by male fans pondering this question, followed by a lengthy discussion of her physical attributes and a debate about whether other male fans would do her, as well, had they the chance. That a male musician might wish to work with a female musician because he was genuinely excited about her work or looked up to her as a songwriter or instrumentalist apparently didn’t even occur to them.

You would think that female artists might at least be safe from sexism from their own fans. You know, fans? People that allegedly like the artist? Alas, no.

While visiting a blog devoted to a little-known, long-deleted female indie singer, I was surprised to see that one male fan had confidently, but completely wrongly, attributed the writing of all three of the artist’s (self-penned) albums to her male accompanist. The most worrying thing is that he seemed a pleasant chappy who was obviously devoted to the artist in question and clearly hadn’t meant it offensively – when corrected on his assumption by another fan, he apologised, explaining “I read somewhere that he played the keyboards on her albums and I was led to the wrong conclusion that he had written her songs”. Well, yes, easy mistake to make, he had a Y chromosome, he was somewhere on the record…a far more “obvious” conclusion, apparently, than that the woman with her name on the front of the sleeve might be capable of a little creative autonomy.

This widespread tendency of fans and journalists to underestimate the creative input of female artists to their own work has been remarked on by many well-known musicians, including Sharleen Spiteri:

“No one ever wants to give the credit. There has to be a man up there pulling the strings.”

and Bjork (thanks to my friend Yoana for pointing this quotation out to me):

“I have had this experience many, many times that the work I do on the computer gets credited to whatever male was in 10 meter radius during the job. People seem to accept that women can sing and play whatever instrument they are seen playing, but they cannot program, arrange, produce, edit or write electronic music.”

Still, if even the god-like genius that is Bjork gets subjected to this kind of crap, perhaps it’s some small comfort to the rest of us, next time our opinions and ideas are belittled because of our gender, to know we’re in such exalted company.

Friends sometimes tell me it’s pointless getting worked up over something so trivial, that there are bigger battles to be fought, that in the scheme of things it doesn’t really matter that much whether my opinion on electropop gets listened to or not. But, for me, this is symptomatic of attitudes elsewhere – just another part of the everyday process whereby women’s experience is marginalised and women’s intellect, expertise and creativity doubted in our so-called “post-feminist”, “gender-neutral” society. And that’s what makes me seethe.

Breastfeeding in Public- Indecent Exposure?

Wednesday 2nd September, 2009 in Accepted Social Situations, Education, Parenting, feminism by Suzi | No comments

So tonight after reading some stuff posted on a friends Facebook wall, I went and had a look at  a Poll on Breastfeeding. The questions asks ‘Do you think women should be forced to cover up when breastfeeding in public?’. I’m was somewhat pleased to see that of eveyone who had answered the poll, 56% said no.  However, what really troubled me was a) the fact that this is even a question that needs asking at all and b) the comments section which was full of glorious examples of mysogyny such as men telling women that breastfeeding in public without covering up was ‘indecent exposure’.

So let’s deal with point a) first- the fact this question even needed to be asked. I’m against the use of the word ‘forced’ in the question. No woman should be ‘forced’ to do anything, especially not when feeding her child. Let’s all just take a moment here to remember that breasts, contrary to popular myth, exist so that women can breastfeed. It is in fact, the primary function of the mammary gland to produce milk in order to nourish infants. I suspect that the reason this question gets asked is because in our modern, western, over sexualised culture we seem to have completely forgotten that  breasts are not sexual objects designed to titillate and pleasure men.

Moving onto point b)- the misogyny in a lot of the comments. There were of course several comments from people pointing out the sheer ridiculousness of expecting Mothers to feed their babies in toilets or  under blankets etc – when Michael Jackson stuck his kids heads under blankets in public we called it child abuse. How  is it suddenly okay when the parent is a Mother who is FEEDING her child? There were several comments from people asking what all the fuss was about, when breastfeeding is a perfectly natural thing. And then there were the comments where people argued that urination is natural, but that doesn’t mean they do it in the street. Here’s the thing- babies need feeding. Babies, when not fed become quite upset. I am fairly certain, the same people who call ‘disgusting’ upon seeing the tiniest hint of flesh in a breastfeeding mother, are the same people who ‘tut’ and mutter ‘ can’t they shut that child up? shocking’ under their breath when confronted with a Mother who is attempting to soothe her hungry child when she is too anxious to feed in public because of people’s reaction.

Also- how do these people think women breastfeed? Having breastfed one baby, bottlefed another (for long and complex reasons),  and in about 6 months time I’ll be breastfeeding a third, I’m desperately trying to work out how on earth anyone is ‘exposing’ themselves enough to warrant being stared at by people in public. It’s not as if one flops one’s breasts onto a table while the child uses a straw or something! Breastfeeding requires a baby to be latched on so closely to the breast in order to suck, that unless you’re feeding over a vest top or topless it’s nigh on impossible to see any flesh. Ifyour an inexperienced breastfeeder, who’s just getting into her routine, then yes you might ‘expose’ a bit of flesh whilst latching on, but seriously ‘indecent exposure’? That’s a bit much really.

It seems to me that there are many things tied up in this question and the attotudes the poll has revealed. Primarily there’s an issue about women and their use of public spaces- these people feel women should not feel comfortable or able to use public spaces to feed their children and that their behaviour and autonomy should be censured for ‘moral’ reasons. Those moral reasons rest on notions of womens bodies and body parts as sexual objects designed to bring pleasure to men, but not to carry out their primary function- that of feeding babies. Then their an issue about ‘forcing’ women to comply with a ‘rule’ which is based on fallacious arguments and a dominant male based oppressive power structure.

I’m not that fussed about how or where women choose to feed their babies. Breastfeeding from many points of view is prefferable to bottlefeeding,  but  for many women it isn’t a practical, medical or cultural option, and  either way it shouldn’t matter. We need to support women and their partners and families to be comfortable with their feeding choices- this means access to breastfeeding cafes, and clinics and lactation consultants. This means access to peer supporters, and proper, accurate information about both breast and bottle feeding.  This means being able to feed your baby in public in any way you damn please without fear of censure or disapproval or abuse.

And it means that as onlookers, as other humans using a public space, we do not judge. We do not comment, becuase whether supportive or not, we are intruding. We do not ‘tut’ or mutter ’shocking’. We recognize that what we see is not indecent exposure, or bad parenting or shamelessness or a woman flaunting herself. What we see is a child being given it’s meal by it’s caregiver, and that is a perfectly normal, perfectly natural thing.

How Sexual Assualt leads to Identity Theft

Tuesday 1st September, 2009 in Sexual Violence, Violence Against Women, feminism, gender by andieberry | No comments

Warning: This post may be triggering for Sexual Violence survivors.

Standing up to a ‘minor’ sexual assault.

Picture the scene:  you’re a woman who is gaining confidence in who she is and what she does. Upon entering Higher Education (something you never ever thought you had the brains for) you find yourself looking at the top spot on the student union and thinking to yourself  ‘I can do that’ . You run for office, you succeed. The college administration has respect for you because you unearth diplomatic skills you never thought you had, students like you because everything gets sorted and at the top of your ‘to do list’  is student welfare, every single time.

You help to organise the end of year  ball, and  you dress up-  not in a posh frock, but in a ringmaster’s costume (because some wag said the student union was a circus). You turn up to the ball,  and naturally people want to talk to you and take photos because you are one of the few that has turned up donning fancy dress. You have a couple of drinks and go outside for a cigarette.

Its dark outside but that doesn’t matter this place is familiar to you, it is safe. Suddenly you feel someone place their hand on your arse and stroke right across the cheek. You turn around to see someone you barely know, another student. You tell them to ‘fuck off’ . The person towers over your five foot six small frame by at least a six inches. You figure the verbal warning was enough but the person takes it as a challenge and proceeds to do it again. Again you tell them to ‘fuck off’!  The person explains that you must be ‘up for it’, otherwise why would you be talking and joking with every one?  Why would you be in fancy dress?

You don`t move from your position because it’s the only way you can show you won’t be cowed. It happens again, then a male friend comes around the corner and the person runs off. You try and shake it off , after all, you’ve worked in bars for years and put up with all sorts of sexist shit, but this time it feels different-  the experience was threatening.

You shrug it off and drink some more and get back to the ball but you find yourself unwittingly clinging to your male friend. You find yourself talking to your male friend outside and then suddenly the perpetrator comes walking past you and  addresses your friend saying that you’re a ’slag’ and asking  ‘what are you doing with THAT mate?’  Next thing you know you’re cleaning blood off someone who has tried to help the perpetrator,  after he decided to put his head through a glass door.

You wake up in the morning and realise the danger that could have occurred!  How can the behavior of this individual go unpunished? He`s clearly a danger to women and to himself what do you do? Your best friend advises you to call the police and register a complaint; you were touched without consent in a sexual manner and also verbally abused.

The next day you are visited by a lone male police officer, you give your statement and hand over clothes for DNA analysis. You feel foolish, like you’re making a mountain out of a molehill, after all you’re thirty something tough cookie, you put it to the back of your mind and get on with things.

You explain what happened to your boyfriend, he`s sorry that it happened, it wouldn’t have happened if he was there, then if not me who would it of happened to? Would they have handled it the same way as me, what if my friend hadn’t walked around the corner , what if I was by myself when the verbal assault happened? No-one would have seen, they were all inside. Had he done this before ? Why didn’t I move? What if?  What if?

You go to the shops you start to see tall skinny men just like him, is it him? Your heart quickens and you freeze- what do you do if it is him? You walk through the park, see tall skinny men, is that him? What do I do?

You examine in detail what you are wearing, you dress down more than usual, a bit less make up, looser jeans. But then you look in the mirror and you realise it’s stupid- it’s not about what you wear.  In fact it’s not about you at all. It’s about him.  It’s not about sex it’s about power. He didn’t get what he wanted and he put his own head through a glass door.  This guy has serious problems but that’s not my concern. I want to stop being scared of what ifs .

I talk about it with close friends,  and the more I talk about it, the more I get angry, the more I want to get some people to go after him and kick the shit out of him. The rational part of me says it won’t solve anything. But what will happen? Will the police take it seriously? The P.C informs me that he believes me and he is reporting to a sexual assault ‘Tzar’ in the Thames Valley Police.  Why does a PC need to tell me that he believes me?  I’m smart, I’m in a position of trust, I don’t normally display intense emotional responses with complete strangers. I said I was willingly to take it to court without having certain protections such as a video link, instead of appearing in court in person. I know I’m right to report this I’ve never called the police in my life but I know deep down this individual has to stop and examine what he’s doing and what he thinks is normal behavior to females.

I go and report this to the principal ,she’s behind me one hundred percent as are two of my tutors , I find a different response with the third tutor who implies that I’m aggressive.  Aggressive how? Ok, I’m forceful but that’s my personality and anyway isn’t that a cop-out? Aggressive personalities don’t deserve to be sexually assualted anymore than anyone else. Examining my personality, this tutor knew me and knew that deep down I wouldn’t have taken such steps if I thought it was just a bit of `party banter’.

I go to the women’s officer, a Marxist feminist, and explain the situation and how I’m feeling. I was seeking support in bringing the case to the college authorities- I know he’s done this to other women on campus who for their own reasons won’[t speak up. The next thing I know its all about him according to our ‘Feminist’Womens Officer ‘well he is from a council estate you know’.  Erm…well so am I and believe me most males from a council estate would never act like that. Yeah I know he`s got problems but does that make it ok to act out in a sexually aggressive manner? A male friend of mine commented that every pat on the back side from a male to a female has two thousand years of patriarchy behind it. Well I never think that deeply I just thought the situation was bang out of order.

The P.C rang me up ‘we nicked him’.  Great.  Now what?  When questioned (after a night in the cells) he claimed that  ‘it was that sort of night…it was banter..I thought she’d be ok with it’. He claimed the time between taking photos and chatting was immediately prior to the assault. In short his word against mine, and therefore the CPS won`t take it up. ‘Well at least he got a night in the cells, that’s not very nice’ said the PC. No mate, but neither was the self evaluation, the anger, the fear and the retrospection. The feeling that no matter how much I gain confidence there’s always a patriarchal pat on the backside that can make me question my personality, my appearance and what  makes up my identity.

Techy sexism, Apologies and Pulling

Sunday 30th August, 2009 in Education, Politics, Popular Culture, Technology, feminism, gender by andieberry | No comments

Apologies to all for lack of posting on the site , Suzi and myself have been going through last term of  academic year hell and I’ve also made myself a glutton for punishment and been voted in as  Student Union President (again).

Pursuing my interest in the doctrine (or non doctrine) of anarchy, particularly the action, or non action of  forum use and the ‘feeling’ that being, in these anarchist forums is to them, a space of free thinking (or, to use Hakims Beys definition, a ‘ temporary autonomous zone‘)  I started a thread on an online anarchist community. So far so good. In a second year of degree act of stupidity I made too good an argument, leading to a situation where the forum users just blankly agreed with me.

Thing is, I used an androgynous handle (name) so I decided to stir things up a little and reveal explicitly that I was female-  can you guess what happened dear reader? Yep, the thread wasn’t pulled, but, my explicit reply was!  I  e-mailed the sites administrator to ask why my reply was pulled and  he replied that my mentioning radical womens squats ‘marginalised’  a lot of the forum users!  I’m sorry I forgot there are no female anarchists! My topic was valid and a useful talking point, oh, pat on the head for me then for being clever, erm WTF?

I’hm not immune to the notion that there is inerrant sexism in the world and on the net ,I just thought that there may be a little less sexism  on the net.  The net is a place of deception as well as a place of truth telling and yes you could argue that my handle gave no clue to my gender, but should it matter  on an anarchist website? In an anarchist utopia we are all equal and not subjected to the mindless actions of blokes in balaclavas smashing up shop windows and ‘us’ women keeping the collective home fires burning. We are elders as we always (and have been ignored for many a generation and governmental policy) have been within the collective, just as men pass on their wisdom, so do women.

I know I may sound naive but I really feel that this is 2009, I’m a working class, single parent woman and I am  free to be educated, select partners etc, however, I have to also acknowledge that  I’m blonde ,’skinny’, white with technological advantage.  I have to acknowledge this privileged in off-line life , but do I have to on-line? Why, if the Internet is a virtual space where everyone is supposedly equal am I bombarded with adverts for pink computers, dating sites and online bingo halls? Its time to campaign against on-line sexism as well as offline sexism.

I watched the last episode of Pulling. It was ok at times its quite sexist towards men. However,  hey how many times to you see a BBC programme where the women get the funny lines?

I`m reading ‘The Dispossessed’  by Ursula K.Le Guin. Anyone else read it? I’ll do a review in a few weeks time.

Standing Up To Offensive Comments

Friday 8th May, 2009 in Accepted Social Situations, Feminist Allies, feminism by admin | No comments

I work in Customer Services for a London-based company, taking calls and answering emails. The calls range from easy to difficult, from complicated to simple and from happy to intensely frustrating.

Yesterday I had a conversation on the phone with a customer who was looking to obtain a refund. He’s been given some wrong information by staff at the company, had experienced some problems, but by and large had behaved himself well. After our phone conversation, I realised I had made a mistake in what I was saying and emailed him to correct my error and clarify exactly what I was going to be doing next.

I received in reply a long and rambling email in which he went over all the points we had talked about again and complained about them. Most interesting, though, was the point at which he said:

“so in essence. i have gotten more different answers than brittney spears has sexual transmitted diseases”

I stopped reading and spoke to my manager, stating that I did not think I could reply to this email in a professional manner. For someone to write that, no matter how frustrated or annoyed they were, pretty much makes my blood boil. I appreciated that the customer wanted to get a point across, and that may have been trying to be humorous, but still.

Happily, my manager read the email and completely agreed that I should not have to respond to that email. He took on the response himself and put in the phrase:

“I absolutely accept that you find the situation frustrating, and am of course willing to believe that your comments regarding diseases etc were intended to be humorous, however in this instance they caused offence and upset to a colleague and I feel it is important to remind you that colleges expect their students to conduct themselves, and to correspond, in a professional manner at all times and I feel on reflection you would agree that this correspondence fell short of that standard.”

Now, I have slightly mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, he has told the student that his language “fell short of a professional standard” and that it caused offence.

On the other hand, he has not quite gone as far as I would have liked, in that in that a later email he did end up giving the student what he wanted. I personally felt that using this sort of language should effectively take you out of any chance of getting something that it wasn’t clear was yours to get.

Suzi asked me to blog about how it feels to be a pro-feminist man, and this is one of those times it becomes relevant. I can’t help but feel that many of my work colleagues would have shrugged that comment from the customer off without mentioning it, rather than challenging it and asking for it to be noted. Whilst I’m happy that it was noted and addressed, I also certainly feel that the response was not quite what I had hoped for.

Last bastion of sexism in the retail sector?

Thursday 7th May, 2009 in feminism, gender by andieberry | No comments

Ever felt your money wasn`t good enough when you walk in a shop?  Or been completely patronised, ignored or at worst treated like the only customer in the shop because of your sex? If you’re a woman then yes, let’s see if your experiences match mine.
I was in an upmarket pub/restaurant a while ago with Suzi and her partner, Lovely Admin, who is in fact, a dude. We ordered a lovely meal and were served by a waiter, who was sporting a recently received black eye. Incidentally, I mention the black eye because I thought to myself , if one of the waitresses had turned up with a black eye, would she have still been ‘allowed’ to work and to walk around and tell the tale of heroics associated with obtaining said black eye?  Would the reaction of the party of men lapping up this tale of a partner in distress, and the other partner obligingly stepping in to resolve the matter, and,  receiving ‘a good kicking ‘ for their trouble, have been the same if the waiting staff was female. Would they have assumed that a woman could of got into the same kind of scrap and not been the victim? No, I didn’t think so either.
Anyway, overpriced but delicious food was served,  and we argued about the bill as per usual.  Suzi slipped off to the loo and I requested the bill from the waiter. The waiter presented Lovely Admin with the bill – he then explained that I was paying  (well that’s what student loans are for sometimes!)-  and the waiter looked a little embarrassed and then presented me with the bill.
I went to P.C World with the express mission to buy a laptop, I was clued up enough to know exactly what I wanted because I hate to shop, I like to go in, make a purchase and get out. The laptop section was at the rear of the shop, and there was desk close by that seemed to be the ‘consulting desk’ .  Two suited men who had name tags on were discussing some important postmortem comparison notes from the night before, so I decide to just have a look over at the laptops to ’show’  that I may wish to purchase one. Big mistake.  I saw that several customers, mostly men had decided to use the same tactic as myself,  except for some reason their use of the tactic had worked and said salesmen completely ignored me when I said ‘Hi ,could you help me?’ (apparently men don’t have to say that in shops).

After being ignored for a good ten minutes I decided to go over to one of the salesmen (who wasn’t with a customer) and say “I want to buy a laptop ,this model in fact’”.   I didn’t even get mid sentence as the salesman said ‘I’m just with a customer’ . “What what the hell am I ?”  I said . Obviously some kind of penniless ghost given the lack of service .
I went into an electronics shop (the geeky computer hobby kind of shop) to get a refund on an item that I’d mistakenly bought.  The (by now) inevitable wait to be recognized as a paying customer was remarkably quick as I’d learned that standing at the sales counter just wasn’t going to work, so I looked for the manager. I explained to the manager that I wanted a refund, I needed the next model up and explained (as it was a geeky tech shop) exactly what I did need and what I planned to do with it. The transformation in service was instantaneous; the manger summoned one of the sales staff to get the stuff I needed, transaction done big smiles all around.
Like I said you’ve probably had these kinds of experiences . I could put the first example down to be dressed like a scruffy student, but we were all dressed like scruffy students.
I could put the second experience down to being short with a chameleon like ability to blend into the background, except that, even with wishing to having the chameleon like superpower at times, I don’t.

I could put the third experience down to being an informed consumer who the staff was happy to interact with, except that I had to take steps before I could prove I was a ‘worthy’ customer.
All three experiences were, in my opinion,  down to gender socialised roles.  Men always pay and women don’t know anything about computers . I don’t get that sort of treatment on-line , I know there, that I’m an anonymous consumer and the only time the website requests my gender is to market the ‘pink’  products in their store,  so I avoid it .The only trouble is (call me old fashioned) I actually like to go to the shop, have a good look at the product and compare before I buy. Why should I have to be conscious of my gender when going into a shop and receive inconsistent degrees of service ?

Why yes, Fat is STILL a Feminist Issue!!

Wednesday 6th May, 2009 in fat acceptance, feminism by Suzi | No comments

So, I’ve just complete a month long stint of guest blogging over on The F Word. I didn’t get to post much- once a week or so, simply .because of my huge time commitments to work, study and family. However, while I was there I wrote a piece I had been meaning to write for a while about Thin Privilege.

Whilst the start of my post is straight up wrong- a valuable lesson for me to learn-, when talking about privilege and oppression, I stand by the points I make about how being fat puts one at a disadvanatge in this world, and how thin people, do have privilege over fat people.

I got an email today from a friend asking me if I had read this piece by Amanata about fat hatred. So I went and read it……… and then had to fight the urge to applaud, loudly, because she says everything I try and say, but does it a million times better.

I recommend you read the piece I wrote at The F Word, and please accept my immediate apologies for the first paragraph or so- I made a mistake, and in doing so said something highly offensive. Bloggers, are humans too.

I also recommend you read this piece written by Anji, from Shut Up, Sit Down, and then read Amanata’s piece. And if you don’t find yourself agreeing, or find yourself thinking  ‘but being thin is hard too….’ then Shut Up, Sit Down, and Learn Something.

Being fat is not easier than being thin. Being thin is a socially acceptable, and desirable thing to be. Being fat is seen as deviant, unattractive, sexually inadequate, and a characteristic of someone who lacks in self control. Being fat means people will criticise your day to day life- if you eat they will tell you it is the wrong thing, if you don’t they will praise you for ‘being good’ (becuase of course being fat, you will also be infantilised. A lot). You will find it difficult to buy clothes that fit- and I don’t mean, difficult to find clothes that fit in a flattering way, I mean find it difficult to buy clothes at all. People will publicly humiliate you, and everywhere you look you will be told you are unnaceptable, unlovable, sub human. You will have to listen to people tell you all about how much of a health risk you are, and how much of a drain you are on NHS resources- despite the fact that smoking causes more disease and costs more of tax payers money a year than obesity, and despite the fact that links between obesity and the things it supposedly causes (like Type 2 diabetes for example) are tenuous at best.

And if you try and complain that you are being discriminated against and oppressed because of your shape/size people will promptly tell you, you are wrong and you don’t know how hard it is to be thin.

Actually, I do know how hard it is to be thin. I have had an active eating disorder for 10 years. I’ve been in a state of recovery for about 18 months. Not living in a state of starvation, and a cycle of purging, alongside several injuries and existing medical conditions means I have put on about 6 stone. I have gone from a dress size 8 to a dress size 18. And at no point in any of that time, have I experienced anything, which has made me glad that I am bigger. At no point has anyone made a single comment that has made me glad that I no longer have a socially acceptable body. And ironically- now I no longer starve myself, and purge, and smoke to try and keep my body weight down, I am significantly healthier than I was when I was thin. I have struggled, and continue to struggle to accept my body as it is, and to accept that fat or no I am still a vibrant, intelligent worthy, sexually attractive human being.

Don’t tell me that Thin Privilege doesn’t exist. If you are thin, you will have the privilege of not being discriminated against and abused daily, based on the completely arbitrary factor of your weight/ body shape. If you are thin, your food choices are less likely to be interrogated, you are more likely to be employed and less likely to be informed by doctors that every medical condition you have, regardless of whether you had it before you gained weight or not, is caused by weight. And you will have to listen to completely ableist crap that equates health with thin-ness and the ability to perform lots of excercise.

Fat is still a feminist issue. It’s even more of a feminist issue now that society has become obsessed with the ‘obesity epidemic’. And it is about time that fat acceptance got to be a part of mainstream feminist discourse, and thin privilege got recognised alongside other privileges.

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