The Answer is No

Readers of this blog will know that I tend not to engage with the “issues of the day” unless my hide gets seriously chipped.

Well… there’s a chip in my hide.

Sometime this week, Conservative MP Louise Mensch wrote a poorly articulated piece on how you can totes be a Tory and a feminist.

Cue in the media frenzy that has everyone clicking and ignoring the issues that matter.

I ignored this media frenzy because, honestly, I have a life to live and a huge pile of irons to sock.

But today I read the last straw.

So I’m going to engage with this argument that “you can totes be a feminist and a conservative because omg Emmeline Pankhurst joined the Conservative party”.

British people do this all the time. They suffer from “me-centre-of-Universe” syndrome.

Teenagers believe they are the first generation to discover sex. And white middle class people from Rich Industrialised Countries believe they are the first to invent Feminism. Or Pacifism. Or Atheism. Or a whole host of other things.

I’m sorry to burst anyone’s bubble, but none of this is true.

And just because Mensch says that “feminism starts with Emmeline Pankhurst” it doesn’t make it so.

I am shocked, but not surprised, that all feminists up and down the country are willing to accept this: a Conservative woman suddenly gets to decide WHEN feminism started, and (Quelle Surprise!) it turns out that feminism started with a Conservative woman.

I’m sorry, but WHAT???

Fast forward a good decade; Mary’s knowledge of Emmeline Pankhurst extends to one mention in Mary Poppins.

But Mary attends high school, and eventually the curriculum stumbles onto a small oasis of feminism: Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz born in 1651. Mexican scholar and poet, and one of the first great writers of Latin America.

Her positions on women’s rights were so radical they would make most contemporary feminists blush scarlet.

Then again, why travel so far? Mary Wollstonecraft, who needs no introduction, was born in 1759. She is regarded as one of the founding feminist philosophers.

So precisely why are we heralding Emmeline Pankhurst as the “founding mother of feminism”, born a good century after Wollstonecraft? Because Mensch says so? Because she was a conservative?

Why not choose EmmaGoldman? Is it because she was an anarchist?

Or Rosa Luxemburg, for that matter? Is it because she was a Marxist?

Feminism has been around as long as patriarchy, because every time a man has said “you can’t because you are a woman”, there has been a woman who replied “unfair!”.

Yet Feminism is probably the only political ideology to lose itself in the name of “inclusivity”. And the inclusivity agenda has gone absolutely bonkers: a conservative calls herself a feminist, and that makes her so.

H*gh H*ffner calls himself a feminist and that makes him so.

And those of us who want “Feminism” to mean SOMETHING are seen as arrogant. We have no right to exclude anyone from the Feminist label…

Well, I’m sorry, but no. And to argue otherwise is to put the ideas of Louise Mensch and H*gh H*ffner above this feminist; and countless others.

No, you can’t be a Tory and a feminist. Because to be a feminist means fighting to end the oppression of women as women. All women.

Feminism does not mean “I am a wealthy woman and I want to end the oppression of wealthy women as women”.

But the real reason why Tories can’t be feminists is this: because Conservative ideology is so extremely patriarchal it would be 100% impossible to even end the oppression of wealthy women as women.

To be a Feminist Tory is to fight a lost battle. Which is why I’m suspicious of any Tory who calls themselves a feminist: because most of the time what their goals amount to is “I want to end the oppression of myself”.

And that’s not even a political movement, much less “Feminism”.

One last thing. Remember that when those in power want to appropriate your ideas and your language, that’s a sure sign that you are winning.

For a most excellent, well reasoned and original take on why these Tory powered “austerity measures” (ie: cuts) constitute an attack on women, you can read my post forThe F Word.

How Not To Use Politics - A Tale of Christmas Jealousy

I felt good during Christmas Eve, when I would normally feel depressed. I made myself a tasty meal and watched The Sound of Music.

And I had a fun time on Christmas Day… I went to a friend’s house and spent the day with nice women…

It wasn’t until I sat down to write the next day that the fish hit the fan. 

Like this

First, I wasn’t even aware that there were troubling feelings lurking around. I just sat down to write.

I must have looked at the broken keys on my keyboard, which always triggers painful emotions. And this made me wish I had a new laptop…

At this point, the feelings started pouring over (not that I was aware of it then). Fresh in my mind was the memory of the nice presents the women exchanged the day before, and the modern gadgets they had.

But it wasn’t about presents or gadgets; these are only “symbols” for something else: a life that is lived. These women were living lives… they have jobs, a home, friends, adventures. They live.

And I don’t have any of these, you see. So my mind associates these “lack” with “not living”.

Shortly after I started exploring these feelings, I found myself landing square into the field of politics. And this is where things get interesting.

I know politics; a lot. I know far more than I let out. This means that I could have easily “made myself feel better” by using politics. Here’s how:

* The women at the Christmas party had x, y and z

* I felt bad about not having x, y and z

* I use political arguments to undermine x, y and z, which has the effect of a) putting those women down and conversely b) pulling myself up.

So to take a completely random example: the old chestnut of “vegetarianism”. Someone has a nice, cushy job that allows them to have a nice, middle class living. I feel bad about not having a nice, cushy job and therefore not having a nice, middle class living.

I could easily pick at their choice of being a “vegetarian” and undermine their nice, cushy job and their nice, middle class life. How?

I could point out how hypocritical it is to care about the exploitation of animals and not the exploitation of humans. I mean, can you name one job in this global economy that does not result in the exploitation of someone? Exactly. I am knowledgeable enough to spot how any job contributes to the emiseration of people.

So I could easily argue: if “dropping out” of meat consumption is supposedly a good thing for animals because it boycotts the meat production industry… then why isn’t “dropping out” of the wage economy a good thing as well? After all, unemployed people do not, by definition, contribute their labour to the growth of an industry that will exploit people and the environment. Unemployed people do not contribute to capitalist production.

When seen under this light, unemployment is a very ethical choice indeed. If everyone was unemployed, we would soon see the capitalist system collapse.

Right?

Please feel free to point out where I’m wrong.

But that’s not the point. The point is I shouldn’t be using political arguments to put someone down in order to pull myself up. As my friend says, “that’s not on”.

The problem is not “vegetarianism” or “the economy” or “unemployment”. The problem is not that some people have nice, cushy, middle class jobs.

The real problem is that I felt depressed and that I don’t want to feel depressed. What other people do or don’t do, have or don’t have should not impact on my wellbeing. I should not get depressed because other people have better lives.

If my problem is that I feel like I’m not living, then I should either start feeling like I am living or start living.

Putting other people’s lives down is not going to bring me up. That is just a way for me to not deal with my pain. It’s just an “excuse”.

And if I don’t deal with my pain, if I don’t address my feelings of not living, then these feelings won’t go away.

This does not mean that I can’t question vegetarianism, or the economy, or unemployment, or the middle class. Of course I can. But I shouldn’t do it because I am suffering from jealousy, or anxiety, or insecurity, or anger. I should do it because I believe in what's right. 

It's not easy to separate the two, and granted I've only just begun. 

If you find yourself using politics in a similar way, know that you are not alone. I have a sneaking suspicion that we all do it, more often than we realise. 

On the Matter of This Nov30 Strike...

Here it is; in just a few hours, the biggest strike in living memory will be taking place in Britain. Well, a big enough strike anyway.

And I have nothing but pain and disconnected thoughts in my head.

First and foremost, yes, I am indeed very glad to see Unions getting their act together and finally taking industrial action.

And yet, I feel that familiar frustration with the nature of the strike and the kind of unions involved in it. I experienced the same feeling during the last “anti cuts” demonstration organised by the Unions a while ago.

That frustration watches them and asks… “Really? After all that’s going through only public sector workers go on strike and over the matter of pensions? Really?”

It has a general feel of… middle class England wanting to better their lot. You know, that portion of Britain you see on the media, the only portion that seems to matter. They drink expensive fair-trade lattes, read the Grauniad, are ubiquitously white, and only “see” the misery of those at the bottom of society twice, three, four times removed. By which point the truth has been bleached and sanitised so much that they mistake making better consumer choices with saving the world.

I fully realise that these feelings are just that: feelings, not an accurate depiction of reality. And I know that the better conditions public sector workers have, the better the working conditions will be for all workers. That the better pensions they have, the better pensions everyone will have. And I’m also aware of the fact that Thatcher has made “general strikes” almost impossible, unless they are over pensions.

But still… pensions? Really? Did everyone miss the riots?

I am entirely convinced that “middle class England” simply has no idea how bad things are for the poorest members of society. And I literally mean NO EFFING CLUE.

They don’t understand the desperation, or the urgency for that matter.

They have the luxury of thinking about their “pensions” because their position in society is, relatively speaking, so “good” that they can physically think about the future and plan ahead.

They cannot imagine how it feels to not be able to even think about next month, next week even, because the future can only mean more of the present, which is unbearably painful. They can’t imagine what it’s like to be stuck in a cycle of “nothing ever gets better”, of “nothing to look forward to”, of “more of the same crap day after day”.

They are not, in short, “numb” to the future. They have the luxury of thinking about pensions.

Then there’s the Occupy movement, which, by its very nature, is born out of desperation, out of frustration of seeing no other “tactic” work. Occupiers go and stay there; not because they hope to achieve something, but because they literally can’t stand to carry on like this. They share one certainty only: things have to change.

People are so politically exhausted that they deal with their desperation by turning it into action. Nothing is in the world works anymore, so they go and do something that doesn’t work either. And they keep on doing it. Because at least while the Occupation is taking place, “something” is working; even if it’s just a small general assembly, to try to keep functioning something that could be swept away at any minute.

The Occupy movement feels like the politics and the actions of the hopeless. “Work without hope”, as a WWII poet once wrote.

The strike, the Occupy movement and the riots. From the most privileged workers, who “do the right thing” and “keep Britain running”, to the most desperate amongst us, who are literally told “they do are not part of society”.  

From public sector workers striking to keep things as they used to be, to the Occupy movement demanding an end to the “1% and the 99%”, to the riots, the most literal manifestation of “wealth redistribution” there could be.

You know what I would like to see? More strikes; for longer periods of time; over many more issues. Public sector workers should leave the workplace and stay out. Or occupy it and not work.

It is not enough to strike over pensions. Public sector workers, as the most privileged members of the work force, need to show solidarity to everyone else. I don’t know how; but they need to find a way to do it. Enough of trying to fix a broken system, or forcing the bad to not get so much worse; we need to start moving towards building an alternative.

Perhaps public sector workers could organise sit-ins with unemployed people? That could be rather fun. And I am pretty sure it would build solidarity like nothing else.

In a few hours most of us will be either striking or joining demos. Remember this: 2.5 million workers will, according to David Cameron, “draw Britain to a halt”.

Presumably the 2.6 million workers who are unemployed merely provide the desperation that keeps the cogs in the machine compliant and obedient?

As for me, I won’t be striking, since I don’t have a job. Instead, I’ll be doing by first ever “subbing” session for Women’s Views onNews. Voluntary work I hope one day will turn into paid employment.

Because I’m desperate. And I only know one this: things have to change.

Wanted: An Alternative to Debate

Ok, I admit it: I’ve only been half-heartedly following the “Occupy” movement. And I’m not sure why.

When you are a political activist, you spend your whole life dealing with the question at the back of your mind… “if things are so bad… why aren’t people on the streets?”. Then, like the proverbial three buses arriving at the same time, all of a sudden there are people on the streets. On the actual streets; occupying them; refusing to go anywhere.

And I fail to muster more interest than the average politically minded person.

Part of the reason for my lack of interest in the occupations has to do with the absence of… well… politics. There are no grand theories to explain the present, no plans on how to change things for the future… Everyone is rightfully and mightily pissed off, but when it comes to the “whys” and the “hows” people get so anxious they can’t take a step forward. A simple debate on producing a list of “demands” turns into “well, should we or shouldn’t we?”. And the conclusion to that is… “we need to have a debate over this”.

Ah, yes. “Talking” will surely provide the answer. “Talking” is, however, the only answer being provided. And I would be more excited about the prospect of “debating” within the Occupy movement if I hadn’t seen its effects within the feminist movement way too many times.

This trend takes place throughout the political spectrum, actually; I’m just focusing on feminism because it’s what I know best. Whenever you see a feminist in the mainstream media, and she’s asked about the “solution” to any problem that could be filed under “regulating industries”, aka: “telling corporations to do as we want, not as they want”, said feminist’s reply will invariably be… “I think we need to have a national debate over this”.

“This” could be pr0n, lapdancing, maternity leave, sexualisation in the media, etc. Feminism’s answer to it all is “let’s have a big debate”.

I’m beginning to fear that calls to “debate” are actually an attempt to “disengage” from the situation, to not deal with the issue at hand. Because to arrive at an actual plan of action would mean upsetting someone who disagrees, leaving someone out.

True, the “we are the 99%” surely joins everyone under the same collective grief. But when it comes to deciding what to do with that “99%”, everyone freezes.

This scares me for several reasons. First, because “life must go on”, and if “occupiers” don’t spring into action, the momentum of the status quo will sweep over them.

Madrid was one of the first cities to become “occupied”. It was so early on, in fact, that nobody thinks of it as part of the “Occupy” movement. Never mind the fact that the very word “occupy” was used, since the word “ocupa” in Spanish describes “squatter”, and the tactics were the same, ie: tents, kitchen, pharmacy and, you guessed it, “public debates”.

That was summer. 15^th of May, to be precise.

Today, the Conservative party has won a “landslide victory”in Spain. Something tells me this is not what the “occupiers” at Puerta del Sol wanted, seeing as how they rejected “all political parties”.

What are the plans of the conservatives to deal with the economic crisis and reduce unemployment? If your answer contains the words “austerity” and “deficit reduction” give yourself 1000 points. The very same “policies” that the Tory government has been ruthlessly forcing through since they rose to power… achieving precisely no reduction of unemployment or bettering of the “economic crisis”. As my dad said about the elected president: “he also wants to fail, he doesn’t want to be left out”.

What happened to the occupiers? I don’t know. What came out of their debates? I can’t remember. And I say this having listened to actual members of the Puerta del Sol occupation during Marxism in July.

Now, political debates are lots of fun. But eventually a decision must be agreed on and actions must be taken. The alternative is no alternative at all; that is, if we fail to change course, course doesn’t change. We get the same politicians, with the same policies favouring the same people.  

But there’s something else lurking under the surface… and that’s a general sense of “frozenness” throughout the whole of society. People are emotionally and ideologically exhausted. Nobody can come up with an alternative, and nobody is enthusiastic about the future. It’s a sense of “bleh”, followed by “what’s on the telly”.

I am by no means the first to point this out. Mark Fisher does so in his book “Capitalist Realism”, for instance. There’s a collective “apathy”, fear of moving in any direction, and the result of that is paralysis.

And I’m scared because I don’t just see it all around me, showing up also within the Occupy movement. I’m scared because I feel it in my bones. I struggle with this feeling of “frozenness” every day. I notice other people struggling as well. We want to move, but we don’t know how, or where to.

We are petrified, literally scared stiff. And because we can’t do much else, we talk.

I’m afraid I don’t know what the answer is. But I do know that it isn’t more “talking”. Something must be agreed upon and put into action. Quickly. Before the momentum of the status quo squashes us with “more of the same”.

It’s getting to the point when anything, yes, “anything”, would be preferable to “more of the same”. If only to save our minds and hearts from paralysing ennui.   

The Answer to Online Abuse - Compassion

As you have probably heard by now, this past week has seen an outpour of writing by women who are sick and tired of experiencing online abuse. I wrote a small summary for WVoN, and Cath has gathered all the links on her blog.

I have given this matter a lot of thought these past days, trying to find a way to either share my experience or ignore the issue altogether.

I had to fight a few “demons” on the way. “Outsider Syndrome” came out in full gear, and I was left feeling, once again, like the “odd feminist out”.

Because, you see… Well… there really is no other way to say this, but…

I have never experienced online abuse.

So when I read Ray’s words, saying

“the internet is a society where being (perceived as) female and writing about feminism invariably leads to responses on the theme of *nasty abuse*”

I was left feeling… well… “different”.

For I am on the internet, and have been blogging for 3-4 years now. I am universally perceived as female and I write about feminism. But…

I have never experienced online abuse.

Faced with this reality, my demons (aka “Outsider Syndrome”) began screaming with rage, and expressing irrational, incorrect, and downright silly ideas:
“OMG, how can they say that all feminists experience abuse? I haven’t! What is she trying to say? That I’m not a feminist? Or perhaps it’s because, oh, I don’t know, NOBODY HAS EVER HEARD OF ME! NOBODY READS WHAT I WRITE. And so nobody even bothers sending me abuse.”

And when I say silly, I mean it. For a split second my demon went on:
“You know what? They should be downright grateful they are getting abuse! At least it shows someone is reading what they write. How would they like it if nobody took any notice of them? HUH? ‘Cuz that’s what happens to me! You know what, I wish I was getting…”

Yeah, my demons are silly. They are made up of an emotional response to a painful situation. It’s complicated, but you can read about how they work in Havi’s blog.

So I had to calm them down before I could think clearly about what is going on. And I have a couple of theories.

• Is it possible that I haven’t experienced any abuse online because I’m just not that popular? After all, if nobody reads what you write, then nobody can get angry at you.

• Or is it possible that what I write about is not all that “feminist”? Or controversial? I have been keeping a low profile on the feminist front, mainly because I’ve been bored of it. But then again, I have written a post titled “Feminism: it’s all been co-opted”. And “The meaning of sexualisation”. So yes, I do write feminist-y things.

• This is the most interesting and exciting one of all. Is it possible that the language I’m using to write is somehow not “triggering” to those people who are most likely to spout abuse at women/feminist writers?

Oh, if only this last one was true. If you’ve been following this blog, you’ll know that I’ve been trying to come up with a different language to use when discussing politics for a while now. A language that is less confrontational, which seeks to explain things rather than “force” one’s argument onto someone else. Based in dialogue rather than fight.

The answer is likely to include all of the above, along with things like “sheer luck”. But it’s the last one that provides the gate to “the alternative”.

I believe that the people sending abuse to women are in a lot of pain. It has been said before, I’m not breaking any new ground here. But it’s important to remember.

Perhaps it’s because I’ve been in a lot of pain myself. Perhaps it’s because the Universe decided I should be extra sensitive to it. But the fact is that I can see the suffering that many men are under. For it appears to be mostly men who are “triggered” by feminist words.

Sometimes this knowledge scares me, for I have no idea where on Earth it comes from. Compassion, I suppose. It is a difficult thing to have compassion for the oppressed and for the oppressor. But fortunately, compassion is unlimited.

So if this is true, and a different “language” helps to not trigger abuse, then my suggestion to women/feminist writers would be… compassion.
Yes, I know it’s difficult. It’s only taken me 4 years to get here, and I’ve only just started. But it seems to be the only thing that works, judging by the success of other writers.

Not to mention that Buddhists would not have it as one of their core practices if it didn’t work in some way.

Notice that I use the word “trigger” to mean “what makes abusers angry”. I do this for a reason. When we are in pain, a few words can trigger an emotional response much like the one I had when I read Ray’s post.

In my case, her reference to “all feminists getting abuse” triggered by Outsider Syndrome, along with my “Popularity Deficiency Affliction”. My emotional response (or demon) said “Omg I’m different to all of them! And I’m unpopular as Hell!”.

And it drove me so angry and sad that I was within meters of saying not-so-nice things at Ray (in my head). Things like “Oh, you should be grateful you get abuse, you popular feminist; I bet you sleep in a bed of roses and bath in Champagne”.

Because the demons responsible for this kind of response are very silly. (And in my case, also funny).

These demons only come out when we are in pain. So when you see abuse, this is in all likelihood the words of someone’s demon raging in their heads and driving them to type horrible things.

I hope this makes some sense. What I’m trying to say is this: “people say horrible things when they are in pain”. And it helps if we remind ourselves that the horrible things are an expression of someone’s pain, and have nothing to do with us.

Just like in my case, the reactions from my demons had absolutely nothing to do with Ray, who is an amazing feminist doing a fantastic job. My rational, not-in-pain self has nothing but positive things to say about her.

I give my own experience as example because I think it will help. Because it shows how the “hurling abuse at someone on the internet” gene is present in all of us. Because we are all human, we all have pain, and we can all be triggered at any point by anyone.

And that’s why the answer to abuse is likely to be compassion.


Note 1: I want to make it extra clear that I do not have a single negative feeling towards Ray. I really think she's great. And I don't hold her responsible in any way for how I felt, because that would be stoopid. I believe she said the right thing, and my own personal demons have nothing to do her.
Note 2: For more about compassion and Buddhism, Pema Chodron's cds are a good place to start.
Note 3: I want to make it absolutely clear that having compassion for online abusers does not, in any way, condone their violent behaviour. Nor does it mean we should stop talking about what we need to talk about, ie: feminism. It just means that we can both a) put a stop to escalating abuse and b) we can use less triggering language. Though as my example shows, it will be pretty impossible to eliminate all triggering language, for anything at all can provide a trigger. Just think of it as sanding off some rough edges so that our words are not unncessesarily spiky.

Added bonus: "The Problem with Favouring Women"

Continuing on the fine tradition of writing after getting angry at something someone said on Newsnight… I ended up writing a guest postfor The F Word.

That’s right! I have published something on The F Word. I have only been trying to do it for 5 years… YAY ME!

Now, about the actual post… It’s on the attack on publicsector jobs as an attack on women.

The point I was trying to make was that since women are socialised to be the carers in society, any attack on the jobs that provide the “care” will constitute an attack on women. And an attack on what we could even call “women’s values”. Not because women are intrinsically more caring than men, but because patriarchy has decided that they are, and socialised them accordingly. Throughout the world, “caring” is seen as something women do, more often than not, for free. So any attack on the “caring” jobs will be an attack on women’s labour and women’s values.

And that is how you explain the Tories’ cuts as “ideologically motivated”. They are driven by the assumption that caring is expendable, certain in the belief that if caring is needed, women will step up to do it, for free. Women’s work is therefore devalued and made invisible.

This is just a template to understand the cuts; it is not enough to explain them. For instance, police services are being cut as well, and these are not “caring” jobs, and neither are they more popular with women than men. So this “template” has its limitations; but I believe it’s useful anyway.

New NHS Bill - Who will be responsible for the NHS?

(Woop Woop! A shorter version of this piece has just been published at Liberal Conspiracy). 

I have just made it my goal to explain one aspect of the new NHS Bill and give it some political context. Why? Heaven knows.

This is what I’ve learnt. At the moment, and in accordance to the “2006 National Health Service Bill”, the Secretary of State for Health has the “duty to provide” health services for people.

Yet this new NHS Bill making the rounds removes this “duty” from the Secretary of State for Health. They are no longer “legally and constitutionally responsible” for providing these services.

So who will be responsible for providing these services? “Clinical commissioning groups”.

You may be wondering, “does it matter who is responsible for providing these services so long as the services are provided?”. I’m glad you asked.

It matters because it has to do with “accountability” and “responsibility”.

Under this new bill the “duty to provide” will be passed on to unaccountable “clinical commissioning groups”. What does “unaccountable” mean? It means that we don’t vote them in, and, correspondingly, we can’t vote them out. That’s the trouble with taking roles away from elected officials and passing them on to unelected groups.

And as for “responsibility”. Try to take your mind back to the boarding school you never attended, and picture an authority figure towering before you after you have done something naughty and booming “who’s responsible for this?”.

If this new bill becomes law, nobody will be ultimately responsible. The people in charge will be “clinical commissioning groups”. Not people who can be held responsible for their actions and brought to a court of law if need be.

Do you know who these groups are? Me neither.

Granted, you may not even know who the Secretary of State for Health is. But at the end of the day, Mr Andrew Lansley had to be voted in by the citizens of this country before he was given this “duty”. And we know his name. He is a real person, alive and everything. Ultimately, the ball stops at his feet.

This whole situation reminds me of this documentary I saw a few months ago. These female hotel cleaners in London were trying to get their wages raised to the London living allowance.

But they were caught in the middle of this “lack of accountability” dance. The workers would go to the hotel and say “raise our wages”, only to be sent back with the excuse that “the hotel doesn’t manage your wages, it hires an agency”. Then they would go to the agency and say “raise our wages”, only to be sent back with the excuse that “the hotel doesn’t give us enough money to raise our wages, nothing we can do, go to the hotel”. Three years on, and they keep dancing.

This is what the “lack of accountability” dance looks like. You may have found yourself caught in it more than once. We often experience it as “the failure to get anything done because nobody seems to be responsible for it”. So, for instance, you call a phone number and ask for something to be done only to be told that “we don’t deal with this issue, you have to call somewhere else”. After they gracefully give you this other number, and you call it, you find almost the exact same response from the person at the end of the line “we don’t deal with this issue, you have to call somewhere else”. At its most ludicrous, the second “somewhere else” may in fact turn out to be the first place you called, which instantly sends you into a spiral of rage, confusion and hopeless frustration.

And this is what corporatism does: it dilutes responsibility to the point that nobody can trace it any longer, and nobody is found responsible for anything. Above all “Nobody” is responsible. Which means the ball never stops at the feet of a real, breathing human being.

This also means that when things go wrong, they go very very wrong indeed. If I can direct your attention to the Grand financial crisis of 2008… Who caused the crisis? The banks, of course. But “who”? Well, “nobody”. Of course, when it came to paying for the damage, “Nobody” was nowhere to be found, and the taxpayer had to foot the bill. Also, when it came to taking responsibility for the damage, “Nobody” did not make an appearance. And nobody else did either. The Government couldn’t be held responsible because the Government has very little responsibility over banks.

For yet another example you can look at the Oil Spill in the Golf of Mexico.

Now, the Grand financial crisis of 2008 was bad enough. But can you imagine what could happen if some shady “clinical commissioning group” messed up somewhere? What would we do? We would understandably rise in anger and point our finger at the government. We would ask the Secretary of State for Health to take responsibility for what happened under their watch... And then we would see the Secretary of State shrug their shoulders and say something akin to “we don’t deal with this issue, you have to call somewhere else”.

That is what happens when you remove accountability. The ball no longer stops at a person we all know because we elected them. Instead, some group or other is in charge of things, which means that when things go wrong and we confront this amorphous, inhuman entity, the response we get comes from its PR department is something like “measures will be taken to avoid similar outcomes”.

Yet when it comes to matters of Health, “similar outcomes” could be personal tragedies.

The Meaning of Politics

I wonder why keep going back to politics. Surely if the ultimate goal was finding “truth”, I could choose other fields to go about it?

Nicer fields, more popular, more “people friendly”… more compatible with earning a living and actually living a life. More “womanly”. Like history of art, or literature. Or even philosophy.

I have a complex about not being more “womanly”. And my obsession with politics doesn’t help. When I say to people that I want to be a writer, they inevitably ask me “what do you want to write?”. And at that moment I know that I would have a much easier life if the answer was “well, I want to write about nature and surrealism” or “postcolonial history” or “romance in Victorian England”.

But no. What I want to write is politics. And to make matters worse, my answer never takes the form of “well… *whispers demurely* politics”. Oh, no! What I say is “Politics!”, with a strong emphasis on the “P”.

It’s not that I’m not interested in other fields. I’m passionate about philosophy, and I really enjoy Fantasy. That’s all well and good, but when I go back and read something like this, clear, to the point, and aimed unapologetically towards changing the world, I get a feeling of “THIS! THIS! Say no more!”.

Other fields are… you know… interesting. And you can read about them for ages. It’s all very instructive; you do expand your mind and your consciousness and as a result you can better appreciate the world around you. This, I believe, may be the reason why we humans have this compulsion to learn, to understand: because it allows us to experience more of the world. It’s like opening new eyes and seeing something for the first time, even though you may have seen it many times before. Now that you understand how trees grow in forests, you don’t see those trees you passed everyday in the same way. They are now richer, fuller.

Yes, learning is fascinating. I could easily spend my life doing it.

But politics? Politics puts “humans” at the centre. And I mean “humans” with an “s”. Politics has a very clear goal “we live better”. I’m not speaking Tarzanian here. Politics is the language we use to say to God, the Universe, those in Power, ourselves, that “we” are going to “live better”. No apologies.

As fun and enriching as learning is, politics is not learning for learning’s sake. It wants to change things, and unlike other fields, it measures its “usefulness” by how much it cares about people, and how much it improves their lives. It is the practice of medicine on society.

It has a strong moral component: it says “this is wrong”. And it’s not interested so much in finding “absolutes”. Politics says “this is wrong because it’s bad for people, see?”. What guides us is a moral compass we are more interested in using than finding and defining.

Too often politics is about saying what we all feel and know, but no one has the guts to spell out loud. As such politics is intrinsically “honest”. It is the direct articulation of our wants and needs in a social level. It is the demand for our wants and needs to be recognised and met.

And that takes guts. It’s one thing to say “I need this”; quite another to say “we need this”. And another still to say “we need this and you better give it to us”.

As for why I keep going back to politics? I have been blessed and cursed by a childish ingenuity and hopeless outspokenness to point to the Emperor and denounce his absence of garments.

And that’s why politics has chosen me as one of its many writers.  

Note: Re: this whole post. Don't ask. It was midnight, I suddenly get the urge to start writing and this is what comes out. 'Cuz, ya'know: I'm a writer.

"Savages"

Savages. “Feral savages”. Those words have been used to characterise the rioters. Not just the rioters, but all the people who belong to the “class” that rioters are presumed to come from. And because there isn’t a social class called “rioters”, pundits have rushed in to fill the description by making unfounded assumptions: they are black and brown, they have single mothers, they are on benefits, they live in council housing, they don’t have fathers.

And every time someone has referred to the rioters as “savages”, this very song would pop up in my head.

Melanie Phillips is the picture of a friendly, progressive, liberal lady who goes to yoga classes and makes vegetarian soups. It came as a shock to learn that she’s a rightwing Daily Male pundit.

I don’t usually engage with the insanity that pesters in the Daily Male, so I’ll just use her words to make a wider point. In a recent piece of hers, Phillips wrote:

“(…) the most important thing that socialises children and turns them from feral savages into civilised citizens”

That most important thing turns out to be a “father”, in case you were wondering.

I want to go back to this song because it provides a neat context on which to judge this accusation of rioters as “feral savages”.

For those who haven’t heard of it, the song is from the movie “Pocahontas”, which tells the story of British Settlers arriving to the “New World” with the intention to pillage and plunder in good old British fashion.

The word “savages” is, as you may have guessed, used by the settlers to refer to the natives. The settlers were “civilised”, and the natives were not. This state of affairs was essential for the settlers to justify the carnage they inflicted upon several peoples in order to steal their land.

Some of the descendents of those peoples, referred today as Native Americans, are still around and there is no shortage of activists ready to condemn the carnage and the destruction that the settlers brought to their ancestors.

But that’s the thing, you see: they condemn the Americans for their actions. And Britain is left off the hook. To my knowledge, Native American activists have not laid the blame for the actions of the White Man at the feet of the “Mother Country”.

It was British settlers who first arrived to America. And the idea of natives as “savages”, and of Europeans as “civilised” grew, partly, on British soil. It clearly hasn’t been extirpated yet.

I find it fascinating that these ideas share the same root with the accusations of rioters as “feral savages” in need of “civilising”. The words are the same for a reason.

And the template for dealing with the rioters is the same as the template for colonization: there are “feral savages” in need of “civilising” by the White Man or Great Father.

I also wonder if Melanie Phillips would have been able to get away with using these words in a country like Australia.

It didn’t work in the case of Native Americans, and it won’t work with the rioters. That much is obvious. The mindset that considers “brown people” or “children” (notice how in the case of the rioters those two categories are blurry) as “feral savages” is not the mindset that will “civilise” them. If by “civilising” one means educating them, clothing them, feeding them; all the noble goals that colonizers adopted and which, as you might expect, amounted to nothing. Instead, the "savages" were exterminated or turned into "second class citizens" of a nation they didn't not choose.

The problem is Patriarchy. The problem is Civilisation. And we must end both.

Note: Yes, I do know that "Pocahontas" is problematic in a bazillion ways, but I'm making a very basic point here, which still stands.

News: I "Published" Something!

I’ve just joined the website “Women’s Views on News”. I am a “co-editor”. My mum was well impressed by that title!

And my first piece consists of debunking the idea of “erotic capital” that some subpar academic has been writing about. I write about exploitation, commodification, “feminism and attractiveness”, the market and homo economicus. Plus I mention Laurie Penny.

It’s has had a great reception, where “great” means a couple of people on twitter liked it, and all feedback has been positive. I’m really happy about it, I won’t lie.

Now, here’s what I’ve realised from “publishing” my first piece: it hasn’t changed the world.

In my previous post, I mentioned how attending UK FeministaSummer School taught me that it’s not enough to understand something for it to change. It sounds silly because it is. I always knew this on a conscious level, of course I did. But something clicked during that session on reproductive rights: my understanding of an issue does not make the issue go away.

A similar thing happened yesterday: I wrote about something, but the world didn’t change. The problems I addressed (and they weren’t many) are all still there. Somehow my subconscious seemed to convince itself that “once I publish my ideas, the world will change and everything will be much better”. Again, a silly thing to believe, but that’s the delusion my subconscious seemed to be under.

Never fear, though, for my subconscious seems to have come up with a solution: I shall keep writing. Surely after I’ve written lots and lots, the world will change.

I am pointing all this out because I am worried about the mismatch between “knowledge” and “change” that is prevalent in our society. We seem to “know” what is wrong, but we have no idea how to change it.

I don’t have an answer to this dilemma and believe me that in itself has caused me enough suffering. What could be more painful than knowing that your writing is essentially useless? Furthermore, I don’t even know myself how to go on about changing the world. So what good could my writing do if I can’t say to people “this is how we change things”?

What I’ve done is to settle for “explaining” things rather than “informing” people about them. I have always been eager to distance myself from the word “journalist”. I am a writer; I don’t just inform people of what is going on. I want to explain to them the whys and the hows. For instance, we all know that the economy is “effed”, but people don’t seem to know why that is the case, or how we can change it.

I’m beginning to realise that I like explaining politics to people, so who knows? Perhaps that’s what I’ll devote my life to.

And if you have come across a way to deal with this dilemma of “knowing what is wrong but being unable to change it”, then please let me know about it. I’ve been searching for an answer for a really long time.

The Divide Between "Reform" and "Change"

I’m beginning to notice a “divide” in the dissident movement, between the boomers and generation X (for lack of a better word), between those with jobs in the public and voluntary sector, and those who have only known the “private” one, between those who have made quite a nice middle class living through a job that consists of “making society better” and those whose jobs have only involved making shareholders wealthier, who have no hope in Hell of a middle class livelihood, and who don’t believe this system is redeemable.

I want to explore this because if such a divide does exist, I believe it is better to prepare ourselves for it so we deal with it better.

In essence this divide takes looks like this: while the boomers want reform, calling out for using existing institutions to make things better, generation X either wants a radical overhaul of society or nothing.

This may very well be caused by the differences between the old and the young. But is there more to it than that? I have noticed it doesn’t always take the form of “old” vs “young” but rather “person employed in the public sector” vs “person who has only worked in call centres”.

I was reminded of this divide once again yesterday, during a social gathering with fellow feminists. I noticed those discussing their jobs with pride and joy, jobs which consisted of “doing very worthy things for society”, while others remained suspiciously quiet. I was amongst the latter. Working part time for Evil Coffee Company on the minimum wage is not something that brings me (or my mother) either pride or joy. It is also something which most certainly does not consist of a “very worthy thing for society”. If anything, the opposite is true.

Today this “divide” showed up in the form of a post inLiberal Conspiracy, on the topic of people’s low trust for public institutions. From the title alone I could tell that the author must be middle aged. She was. I have never heard a young person wondering why the public doesn’t trust the institutions in our society. Compared with what we have to face in our daily lives “trust” is the least of our worries.

So while middle aged, middle class public sector workers ask “how do we improve the system we have so that it works better for people”, young dissidents go on a mad one and ask “smash the damn system!”. Or they remain entirely apathetic; one extreme or the other.

I seems to be the case that older dissidents working “inside” the system, believe it to be a possible force for good. And believe it has been a force for good. However, for those people “outside” of the system, who have neither benefited from its good deeds, nor have contributed to it, the “system” is an alien entity that must be ignored or gotten rid off. In short, we can’t work with it. It never gave us anything, it has never come to us asking for our opinion, why should we even consider it when trying to build an alternative?

This attitude is dangerous. The public sector may be under attack; it may be dwindling away; it may have been out of its depth for the past few decades. But it’s still there, and ignoring it won’t help. It may be a crap ally, but it is the only ally we have in an otherwise very corrupt system.

Similarly, it may not be very wise to put all our eggs in the public sector basket. The public sector is, at the end of the day, a grand collection of plasters. It does contain the torrent of pain and misery that the system would otherwise inflict but it can’t stop it.

The solution may lie somewhere in the middle. If the goal is to help people who are suffering, the first port of call should be meeting their most urgent demands. That is something the public and voluntary sector can do. However, in order for things to really change, in order to capture the hearts of people, we need to keep waving the flag of radical political reform. Revolution. Socialism. You name it. In the face of universal suffering a bit of reform here and there won’t do.

As always, it all starts with compassion. (I believe this will be the sentence I shall use the most in my whole “career”). I would greatly appreciate it if middle aged, middle class people could try to imagine what it must feel like for a struggling young person in today’s world. I know they can do it.

Last year a 40 year old man working with young people said to me, very plainly, that things are “sh*t” for young people, there’s nothing for them. And it’s true. A young woman working with homeless people said that banks, when dealing with crisis loans, “treat you like a piece of sh*t”.

I know for a fact that working in the public sector does not automatically blind people to the reality of the dispossessed. Yet it must be said that those two public sector workers I mentioned were members of the Socialist Workers Party, an organization that, for all its defects, keeps the fine tradition of rebelling against the economic and political system alive.

The current system has failed us, or we wouldn’t be in the position we are in at the moment. Improving people’s lives momentarily is a very noble goal. But if we want to radically change society, we need to go back to political struggle. Except for those who have never left.