I’m tempted to stop this blog, I don’t have enough time or motivation really. Yet at the same time I don’t want to as I like having space to rant.
So much has annoyed me recently, I should get vocal again. Ironically I’m being a bit too busy with off the internet ‘real life’ activism.
This story really angered me over my branflakes ‘Disabled student sues Abercrombie & Fitch for discrimination’
I hope she wins.
Eh I shall post somethign substantial and meaningful soon. I hope.
Today a racist, homophobic, sexist , misogynist and downright fascist party got elected to the European parliament in my constituency. Mostly becuase 70% of people didn’t vote.
I am angered becuase so many of my peers don’t vote. They don’t see the point. While I understand frustrations with mainstream politics this apathy is to my mind both dangerous and stupid. It has in short lead to this.
I have always voted, I have always been told it’s important; people died so I could vote. I do not take that sacrifice lightly.
Whilst I have sympathies with anarchists and those who don’t vote for well thought out ideological reasons, while I don’t agree with them, at least it’s not apathy. It’s not sitting back and letting shit happen becuase you can’t be arsed to do something so simple that really does make a difference.
Yes I know a lot of it is mainstream politics ‘fault’ and people are apathetic for a reason, but you can’t just opt out of a system and bitch about it until it’s the way you like it. After all if you’ve chosen not to use your voice haven’t you lessened your right to complain? Willingly silenced yourself?
Erg, this is all incoherent babbling; but I’m angry and upset. As much with the apathy and selfishness as much as anyone who did vote for an openly racist party.
Hopefully people will realise that their vote is important and use it in future.
People died so I could vote, people are still dying all over the world so people can vote. It’s a bit of a kick in the nether regions that so many of us who, despite our problems, are really bloody lucky can’t be bothered to take 10 minutes out of our day to vote. If we don’t use our vote what’s to stop someone taking it off us?
Our complacency has elected fascist wankers.
These words are too often uttered by women. I think every woman I know has said something along these lines at least once.
As much as it an ‘old hat’ issue; whenever I hear someone say these things it makes me sad. Why do we hate ourselves so much? Is it a reflection of a misogynist society; does our society hate women so much it’s teaching us to hate ourselves?
I am reminded of the feminist classic ‘ Our bodies Ourselves’ and I feel that while we hate our bodies so much they cannot truly be ours; in addition to the constant public dissection of female bodies. We are trapped in a state of dissociation from our bodies. We are just not at home in our bodies, we are not ourselves in our body. We are taught to hate them, to not be too familiar with them, to keep them in a way benefiting others with little thought for our own comfort.
I hate the way I hear every female I know express scorn and distaste for her own body. It makes me angry, it makes me deeply sad. These are our bodies, they carry us through life they are amazing wonderful things; why do we hate them so much? Why do we cover up our ‘problem’ areas with shame? Why do we cut ourselves open and insert bits of plastic? Inject toxic chemicals into our faces? Why do we never ever feel we are good enough as we are?
I hardly ever read women’s magazine, and flicking through a few the other day I realised why I stopped. This is only one small sample of a larger culture that seeks to shame women and our bodies. Every other page was dissecting a celebrity’s body, what they wore, how much they weighed, circles around bad skin, sweat patches, a stray hair. It is no coincidence that the majority of celebrities subjected to such treatment are women.
Even the ’serious’ media is guilty. For example of all the articles on Michelle Obama I can recall many more focusing on her body and her wardrobe than those which highlight her considerable career achievements and intelligence. Female leaders are subject to scrutiny of their looks and ‘image’ far more than their male counterparts; they cannot win. If they show cleavage or legs they are ‘inappropriate’ yet if they cover up they are frumpy and ‘not making the most of themselves’.
It is a hideous double standard that shows how women are still regarded as having a purpose to look good to please men. How our bodies are never our own but held up for public scrutiny, especially if we dare deviate from the norm by being too thin, too fat, too short , too tall, too pale, too dark, too ugly, too pretty, too available, too un-avilable.
You can dismiss these pressure as just ‘in the media’ but when it saturates so deeply and is indeed borne out of attitudes already present in society; offering us a hideous magnified view of our own views and prejudices. I don’t read women’s magazines, I know this is all bollocks and I try my hardest to not let it get to me; yet sometimes it does. I wish I didn’t get a self esteem boost from someone saying how pretty I look, or asking me if I’ve lost weight. But I do. I wish I could be happy in my body all the time. I wish I didn’t look in a mirror and feel a sense of hatred and disappointment that I do not match some mythical ideal unobtainable without photoshop.
I wish I was at home in my skin instead of wondering if it’s too flabby, too pale, too spotty. Wondering if I need to slather it with make-up, fake tan and hoist it in with underwear that would do Isambard Kingdom Brunel proud before I am deemed ‘acceptable’ and presentable to the world.
I wish my body was myself. I wish my body was mine and I did not feel I was in front of judge, jury and executioner every time I walk out my front door.
I hate these pressures put upon me by society yet as I am part of society I feel unable to escape them. It’s no use telling us to just ignore all this stuff, that it doesn’t matter and to call us ’silly’ for ‘obsessing’ about weight and body issues. We have it constantly thrown in our faces that we are defective, that we are in need of a magic potion and a nip and tuck; and all those attacks hurt. They damage our self esteem, they damage our mental health, they damage our physical health and it is not a trivial issue.
I’m watching this hideous BBC programme called ‘The Trouble With Working Women’
It’s driving me mad. Not once has anyone mentioned that women may be less ’successful’ is due to the fact that our society is set up to male norms, what is seen as ’success’ is traditionally male. It is not seen as a success to bring up 5 kids in the same way it’s seen as a success to earn 5 billion quid.Women are held up to standards of sucess that favour male by an intrinsic bias.
Women are successful. We should be able to succeed in business and other traditional ‘male’ areas but I am sick of hearing that women are not ’successful’ becuase they are not ‘male’ enough. We are successful it’s just that are success is not seen as equal as it is not ‘male’. Women are implored to become more ‘male’ to be successful, surely this is further proof of inequality? You just have to compare the value placed on traditionally ‘male’ careers vs ‘female’ careers.
Why should women have to become more ‘male’ to achieve success?
another inane question ‘how should MOTHERS balance work and family’? note the reference to ‘mothers’ , why does no one ask how fathers should balance work and family? *headdesk*
If one more person says ‘why aren’t women rising to the top? they were liberated!’ or some such bollocks, heaping all the blame on US and not on a society that is still geared towards the male and the male idea of success. That tells us the best way to success is to ‘act like a man’.
A question that’s just been asked is ‘can a woman ever succeed like a man?’ I think to address inequality and sexism we need to ask ‘Why should a woman have to succeed ‘like a man’?
I read this – ‘The scourge of artistic aparthied’
over breakfast today, I may be a bit over emotional today but it nearly made me cry, then it made me filled with rage.
Then I found it online, read the comments and got even angrier and decided a blog was in order.
Our culture does value white western art much more than anything else. Our culture is ’superior’ ; you just have to look at the trite wording of ‘ethnic’ and ‘native’ etc etc and the dumbing down of non white western art as trinkets for tourists and ‘ohh look how PRIMITIVE it is ohh it’s so EARTHY’ and other such trite bollocks.
‘Art for Arts sake’ is a very recent phenomena in human history, ritual and sacred art has a much deeper history and was developed by pretty much every culture on earth. Our modern perception of art, even we go back to medieval times before the renaissance is just a teeny tiny spec in the whole history of art and human creation.
As an archaeologist I strongly believe that there is no such thing as a ’superior’ culture. Just becuase one culture developed big stone buildings , it doesn’t mean it’s better than nomads who live in tents, it’s just an adaptation of a different lifestyle. Another thing I have learnt is you cannot judge another culture by the standards of your own. You cannot say something is less worthy of being ‘art’ as it is ’simplistic’ and not as ‘detailed’ as a grand master’s painting or it does not conform to your understanding of art, cos guess what; it wasn’t created with your understanding of art.
There has been so much stuff written about anti depressants in the ever reliable about medical issues press over the last few years. (like that story that said they weren’t effective in mild cases, which everyone took to read ‘they don’t work at all’ despite the thousands, millions of people with severe cases who had been helped…)
There has also been a growth in the amount of people who assume all medication , especially for things like depression is BAD and you are a BAD PERSON for taking them and you’re just buying into OMG BIG PHARMA CONSPIRACY for taking them.
I am sick of being judged for taking medication. Sick of people who do not live with my illness every day, do not know how it affects me feeling they can pass judgement on me. Taking anti depressants does not make me ‘weak’ it does mean I am delusional and think ‘pills can cure me’.
Invisible Disabilities
I ‘don’t look sick’. I look ‘normal’ but I’m disabled. Both by my own definition and by the government’s:
‘A physical or mental impairment that has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on his or her ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities.’
I am not always open about it. There are people in my life who know me quite well who don’t know. I can ‘pass’ as able bodied as ‘normal’ and ‘not ill’.
I seem to have lucked out and acquired not one but two misunderstood and maligned illnesses, physical and mental.
I suppose the stigma I’ve already faced makes me weary about bringing things up. I suppose I hide it sometimes becuase it’s bad enough having to deal with chronic illness and get on with my life without the added bullshit of peoples misconceptions and ill-informed and often offensive comments. or becuase i spent so long aching to be ‘normal’ that now I can pass for it I do.
Sometimes I speak out, but sometimes, I’m ashamed to admit, I hide; I just don’t have the physical or mental strength sometimes to deal with it.
But I’ll say it here. I have M.E , I have Depression.
Most people see me when I’m on a good day, when I’m functioning. That’s the trouble, that’s why I look so ‘normal’. People just don’t see me when I’m having a bad time of it as I rarely go out, I’m too ill to cope with uni, socialising, most things beyond bed and a sofa.I also get good at ‘faking it’ for other peoples comfort. Especially the depression. When people ask ‘how are you?’ I just say ‘O.K’. It’s not easy, or indeed acceptable or recommended to admit to a casual acquaintance you feel terrible and felt like throwing yourself under a car earlier.
It’s easier to say I was off with a cold, than explain my complicated medical history or delve into the depths of my flawed psyche.
‘Coming out’ as disabled is hard. It’s an odd issue; I feel guilty I spend so much of my life ‘passing’. Being able to fake it as the way my health is at the moment, I can pretend to be ‘fine’ for the most part. As much as I feel like a traitor, sometimes it’s just easier to pretened to be fine. It seems like I have enough shit to deal with being ill and trying to get through uni that dealing with other peoples misconceptions and having to explain everything is more than I can face.
I don’t want the painful memories of my adolescence dragged up. The doctors who said I wasn’t ill. The years I spent denying my depression becuase I thought it would mean I really was faking it after all and it was just ‘all in my head’. I can’t even remember half of my teenage years, I seem to have blotted them out. I just don’t like talking about it, in fact I’m getting tearful now.
As much as I wish I could be a flag bearer and waver for disabilty and invisible illnesses as I belive there really is a lot of work to do to create more understanding and tolerance. I can’t. I don’t have the strength.
I find it easier to fight other things, feminist activism etc, it’s less personal, it doesn’t touch such a raw nerve that’s liable to leave me in tears on a regualr basis. I just don’t have the pyshcial or emotional strength to be as open or active about the disability thing as I’d like.
This post has taken me longer to write than any other, and I’m still not happy. I still don’t think it’s relevant, coherent or worthwhile. But I’m posting it anyway becuase I feel my random thoughts on the issue have some merit, however small and disjointed.
Hopefully I’ll be able to pull a more coherent blog that actually says something tomorrow.
Blogging against disablism Day
Excellent idea, I shall be blogging. If i remember. I’m trying to formulate thoughts on the whole ‘but you don’t *look* disabled’ issue and the joys of living with such fluctating illnesses and flitting between being ‘normal’ and the wondeful world of chronic illness and the added stigma of mental illness and how I can’t ‘pull myself together’. Oh and how I don’t talk to people much about my illnesses so most people don’t know I’m ‘ill’. So many issues. Thre may be more than one blog…
Also check this out, 101 note to able bodied readers ; yup comparing a ‘migraine’ (I wish people would not use that to describe a ‘bad’ headache, migraines can leave you in bed for days in agony no painkillers will even dent, ah the joys of being high on opiates and still in agony…) to chronic pain IS annoying and offensive.
Two weeks of CBT;
It scares me. I feel like I have no space for myself any more, I have to analyse every last aeon of my day. I have all this forms of ‘what I planned to do’ and ‘what I actually did’ and how did this make me feel. In some ways it’s really good for me and is slowly dragging me out of ridiculous thought patterns but at the same time, I dunno it feels like it’s sucking all the fun out of life. I’m not sure I’m comfrotable with my day being so defined, having everythign i do written down on a little sheet, plus when your life gets redcued to a timetable it really does become the most depressing and mundane set of boring little ‘events’.
The whole WHY do you feel like this? what happened? WHY WHY WHY???? Feels a bit Kafka-esque. Sometimes there is a reason but sometimes there just isn’t and that’s the worst type of depression becuase of it’s sheer nonsensical nature . The most terrifying things are the things that hapen for no reason, no meaning, they just ‘are’. I’m not sure if my philosophy on this fits in. I’ll probably need years of therapy delving into my childhood, my fucked up adolesence, and how I have never ever felt like I’ve belonged anywhere ever.
I hate planning things. I hate having everything set out, it doesn’t feel real somehow. It feels too sodding 9-5 get a jobs ettle down be sensible but dear god whatever you do don’t LIVE. Plus I’m far too forgetful to actually fill half the things in and the end up being handed back in a messy crumpled mess from the bottom of my bag.
My friend once said, you can tell someone’s personality from their bag. Maybe you can; I have lots of bags, things get muddled up and lost between them.
I’ve also been told to deep a diary of how I feel and think about in trying to get to the bottom of the ‘I think about everything so much and it wont stop and it hurts my brain’. I think I may have written a bit too much, especially as it’s doubtful the poor guy will even be able to read my handwriting (I refuse to write like a 14 year old girl in print, I have some bizzarre sense of snobbery about handwriting).
My handwriting is like my personality, it changes all the time, it looks like it could be written by a million different people. It’s confsued and messy. It’s like a spider crawled on the page, had a seizure then gave up and died in a full stop.
I’m a bit dubious about turning up next week with a sheets full of thoughts and half arsed ‘what I planned to do and failed becuase I thought ‘oh but it’s much more fun to do something else I’m not supposed to do’.
I do have some sort of inner inability to do what I’m told. If someone tells me to do something I just don’t want to do it.
I’m in the oddest mood today.
Hellions: Pop Culture’s Rebel Women Why are white, young, male ‘rebels’ celebrated and revered in pop culture, while women who push against society’s sexist and racist norms are marginalised and dismissed? Michelle Wright reviews a book which brings to light stories of the female rebel
@
Think this ties in nicely with my post on ‘clever girls’ and the whole “when men do it it’s fine but women ‘OMG NOES END OF THE WORLD WHAT A BITCH ECT ETC’ “ attitudes.
I’m sure I’ve seen this in News From Nowhere (in light of the amazon fail debacle I am soo glad to have a radical lefty feminist collecyive bookshop in my hometown)before and been intirguied but was no doubt skint.
I think I’ll pick up a copy later today, ohh birthday money yay.
Also tempted to go round writing ‘epic fail’ on all those posters advertising ‘escorts’, but eh this needs more debate as I can not entirely agree with object’s campaigns and I have been very rudely insulted for daring to mention burlesque and that I liked it by certain sections of feminism. It’s a complicated issue that is forever black and white -ed. But having prone, passive women with ridiculous surgical breasts whose sole purpose is for the pleasure of MEN and whose whole marketability and ‘retail value’ hinges on thier excessive passiveness to the point of being sub-human THINGS (debate on why this is bad but other forms of things aren’t nessecarily bad coming up perhaps) shoved in my face every time I get the bus isn’t fun.
