The wonderful Anji of “Shut Up, Sit Down” has a brilliant new piece up over on The F Word titled “Why cis attendees of RTN are letting trans women down”. For those of you unfamiliar with the argument, every year London Feminist Network host a Reclaim The Night March, protesting Violence against Women (VW). I’ve been once in 2008, and found it an uplifting experience but one which also left me somewhat uncomfortable after hostility between LFN and members of a Sex Workers Rights group arose. I’ve also noticed that every year multiple feminist groups call upon LFN to explicitly state that trans women are welcome on the march, and every year LFN fail to state this. It’s a horrific example of transphobia, which I don’t think can or should be ignored any longer. Anji explains why LFN need to be explicit in their welcoming of trans women, and I would urge all feminists, cis or trans, to call on LFN to be explicit in their stataements regarding who is and isn’[t welcome to march with them. I would even go so far as to urge feminists to boycott the London March this year- many cities have RTN marches which welcome all self identifying women- Oxford has one on October 22nd – and so in order to put an end to the hideous transphobia routinely perpetrated by LFN, go to one of the smaller marches. That might seem a bit extreme but we aren’t good feminists or allies if we ignore, and are complicit in the abuse of our trans sisters.
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Reese Witherspoon was on TV last week talking about her work with Avon’s Four Ways to Make a Change campaign.
1 in 4 women are dealing with domestic violence
2 women die every week at the hands of their partner or former partner
This got me thinking – how has domestic violence affected me?
In the work I’ve done as a psychotherapist I’ve had many clients who’ve had to deal with the issue to prove to me that a great many women have experienced domestic violence, and that it is much more insidious than I had realised – however, for obvious reasons, I’m not gong to discuss that any further.
I have not had to deal with it myself, but from a few comments my mother has made I think that she was brought up in a house where it was an issue.
When I was 16 I started my A-levels. I used the opportunity to get out of my country school and go to a college in a neighbouring city. I made new friends – some great, some not so great. One of the great ones was a woman who was a few years older than me. She was someone I met through other people, we didn’t share any classes but she had worked out in the real world for a few years and now had a determination to get the grades she needed to get to university. She studied hard, held down a job, and kept an active social life going. I’m guessing you can see why I admired her; as time went on that admiration turned to a deep and abiding friendship that I treasure to this day. She is funny, witty, rude, kind, compassionate, brave, and tells me the truth; simply thinking about her makes me smile. When I left home at 17 she helped me find a job and introduced me to city living and our friendship deepened again. It was then that I found out that she had once been the victim of domestic violence.
I was shocked to be honest – it didn’t seem to fit with the gutsy, take no-nonsense, woman I loved and admired. As she told me her story, not all at once, but a piece of information here, a word there, I began to see how it had happened.
Of course she was younger then and he was older – she was impressed by his age. That was uncomfortable to hear because I could see that happening all around me, heck I could see myself having done that! He was nice to her and to begin with his concern about her whereabouts looked like caring, not an attempt at control. The abuse really started long before he hit her – her friends, the places she went, what she told her parents all became things he influenced; a thousand small methods of control. She told me that the first time he hit her he had been so sorry, so apologetic, and so certain it would never happen again that she believed him. After a long period of abuse (long to a teenager perhaps if not an adult) it ended – not because anyone stopped him, or because she left him, but because he was sent to prison for something else altogether. My friend visited him in prison, wrote to him, stayed faithful, but her friends used his absence as an opportunity to remind her of their friendship and its’ joys. She saw how much her life had changed. She was reminded what it was like not having to worry about the violence she had endured yesterday, or might endure today, and how much better she felt not lying to her parents to hide the abuse from them (how she managed that I don’t know, she was still living with her parents when all this happened – I can only say it is a credit to her ingenuity but perhaps, just this once, I do wish she wasn’t quiet so clever.) Anyway, the time apart allowed her to see what her life really should be – safe, and this lead to her ending their relationship while he was still in prison.
It’s an old well-worn story – the detail, or at least the details I have, are not really that important here. What is important is that if a woman as smart and strong as my friend could be the target of domestic violence then I knew any woman could be. It’s an uncomfortable truth. Since then I have known too many women who have had to deal with the same difficulties, some did not escape, some did. But I always remember that first encounter and I remember how she escaped – because her friends were her friends and stepped up to the plate when they were needed, they saw an opportunity and made the most of it. In the end even making a cup of tea, or telling a story, can be a powerful feminist action – it can help change a life.
Please take the time to visit Avon’s Four Ways to Make a Change campaign.
Tags: campaigns, domestic violence, power, VAW, women
I recently saw this photo- it’s from a friend of a friend of a friend, from a face book account. This photo made me mad, made me think, made me analyse what else the photo does represent to me. Ok, its not a picture of the moon landing, the first image of earth from the moon or the mushroom cloud of Hiroshima, but I feel it’s just as important.
At first we can clearly see that it is taken at a protest . You, dear reader, may have even been there. You may even be one of the individuals in the photo. Even if you are not, in another time and place, it could be you. Your fellow protesters all around you clashing and being penned in by the police, you look forward and a police officer grabs you by the throat in order to restrain you! What have you done ? Exercised your civil and human right to protest? Or, have you identified yourself as a threat to national security, because you have chosen to exercise that precise right?
The image speaks volumes to me about civil liberties, feminism and class struggle. It conveys to me that there are individuals that will come together in order to stand up for a cause. It also tells me that no matter how big the group is, how just the cause is, the authorities (or oppressors) will always be there to grab the idealists by the neck in order to suppress them. That said it doesn’t make me want to give up protesting , blogging , and airing my views. It makes me feel mad that protests have to be approved by the authorities, and that the same authorities, then use illegal and unjustifiable actions in the form of “kettling” and violence in order to restrain the very protest they approved.
According to Noam Chomsky, “power is illegitimate unless proof of legitimacy can be found”. In the case of the photo, the police are an institution of the state. That fact gives this institution the right to police citizens of the state legitimately, but how far should the police be able to go in enforcing the laws of the land? When did violence and the containment of citizens exercising their legitimate rights, become acceptable actions the state could take against its own citizens? Pictures like this make clear that the authorities should always be questioned and observed, just as much as the authorities question and observe us.
This is my life changing photo , whats yours?
Tags: Chomsky, Civil Liberties, G20, legitimacy, life changing events, Politics, power, Protests
We are lucky enough to be able to host some amazing photos of Million Women Rise, taken by the very talented Rowan Fulton (who is also very lovely). Do enjoy the photos, and do also please consider writing to the major newspapers, who once again completely failed to highlight Million Women Rise. Whilst this does mean we get to host some excellent photos, I would much rather be seeing them in the paper, highlighting our cause!
All photos are Copyright of Rowan Fulton, Photographer
Tags: Education, equality, feminism, Marching, Million Women Rise, Politics, women
So, in a repetition of last year I have injured my knee and am on bed rest for at least the next week. Luckily this year, I did it the day AFTER Million Women Rise, and so now there are various photos of me on the Internet carrying the London 3rd Wave Banner.
More embarrassingly there is video footage of me attempting to lead some chanting and talking to the very fabulous and talented Laura of shemakeswar about why marches matter.The video is one Laura made of the whole march and why it’s so important to marc h and maintain a visible presence, and also features Finn Mackay of London Feminist Network and Jess McCabe of The F Word
So here is the video. And very good it is too! More reports of MWR, along with the FemAcadem photos will follow.
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 .
Tags: de-construction, feminism, feminist identity, space, Womynsspace
My history of utilising protest as a form of political action is quite frankly pants. It’s only in the last year that I’ve had the confidence to even contemplate going on marches and each time I’ve tried nothing has quite worked – RTN London 07 I was ill and couldn’t march, Million Women Rise 08 I injured my ankle two days before the event and couldn’t walk for three months never mind march, RTN Oxford 08 my friend and I got the date entirely wrong and took our kids to the fireworks display only to turn up the following evening and realise we had the date wrong.
So I was pretty determined to make RTN London 08. And make it I did, and so did the 1,999 other women who gathered in Whitehall Place yesterday evening to remind London that violence against women still happens and it’s still shouldn’t be.
The march was, in a word, amazing!! Everyone was really happy, the chanting was great, there was singing, the public seemed generally supportive and I got to meet some really nice people.The only downsides for me really was the random guy who accused us of ‘demonising gender’ and the conflict between the sex workers rights group and the rest of the marching body.
Whilst I am strongly in favour of sex workers rights and am pro porn I do think that a march which is highlighting the need for an end to VAW is not the place for this conflict to be played out. I don’t know though, I’ll be the first to admit I’m not a sex worker and thus have no subjective understanding of the need for sex workers rights, but I am deeply conflicted about where I stand on the tension that occurred on Saturday night.
Ending VAW is a massively important issue. 8 out of 10 women will experience sexual violence in their lifetime¹ and in the UK 1 in 4 women will experience domestic violence in their lifetimes and on average 2 women are killed a week by their former/current partner. Internationally VAW accounts for between 40- 70% of female homicide victims. This is in comparison to the figure for men which is 4-8% ². These figures for me indicate that this is a serious problem – and it’s something we need to do something about, whether that be by taking part in marches to highlight the issue or by fundraising for women’s shelters, rape crisis centres or otherwise.
On a person al note I’d like to say thanks to Louise and her husband for helping me GET to the march. I have issues with agrophobia- whilst I’m generally quite comfortable travelling on ‘known’ routes around my hometown or with my partner/friends, going to London on my own to places I am unfamiliar with is a real issue for me. Thanks are definately due to Louise and Matt for being supportive by text and for meeting me in Trafalgar Square and showing me where the march was and then introducing me to people so I didnt feel quite so ‘ARGHHHHHHH’ about the whole thing.
I’ll definitely be going to RTN next year…. and other accounts of the march can be found here, here and here .
¹Taken from Liz Kelly’s book ‘Surviving Sexual Violence
²From the Womens Aid website
http://www.womensaid.org.uk/domestic_violence_topic.asp?section=0001000100220036§ionTitle=Statistics