A Need for Feminism

So, my friend drew my attention to this: http://dontpaniconline.com/magazine/radar/women-against-feminism

These women are apparently against feminism. Often, people say they aren't a feminist because they love men. That they like being a mother and a stay-at-home one at that. Because they love heels and make up and short skirts.
Well guess what?
The only thing you have to believe, as a base principle, is that feminism is about equality for ALL. Genders, races, abilities, sexual persuasion, age. Everyone deserves equal rights and opportunities.
It's really simple.
And it's also about having the CHOICE. The choice to work or stay at home, the choice to wear flats or heels. The choice to love men, or not love men. Deciding that actually you don't really want to be involved in men is not misandry. Misandry is being prejudiced and discriminating against men simply because they have a penis.

It's more often the case that it ISN'T feminists who are using the language that people use in this Facebook page, and it’s usually more to do with MRAs and anyone else (mostly men) who hate women having equality.  (and when I say “mostly men” I mean it is mostly men disparaging the feminist movement, I am not saying most men are disparaging feminism. Very big difference. And seriously, have you ever, ever met a woman who didn’t want to be equal to men? To be treated equally, to be paid equally? To be dictated to about whether or not they can have an education, get married, do what they want with their body? EVER? REALLY????)

I have never met a woman, or man for that matter, who truly understands the base principle of feminism that would say feminism is about building a matriarchy, making women superior, that we need to oppress men, that we demonise men and tell others that all men are potential rapists (only that women are at far more risk of rape and sexual assault than men, and we do too speak up for the male victims of rape & sexual assault).

They don’t need feminism? Fine. I’m glad they have the free speech to tell us that, because feminists won that for them. Feminists won them the ability to vote, to have access to education, healthcare. They don’t need feminism? That’s great. Tell that to the women in Saudi Arabia who still can’t vote. Or drive. Tell that to Malala who was shot in the head for campaigning for education for girls. Tell that to the girls who don’t get an education in many countries across the world. Tell that to the girls who are abandoned in China because having a girl in a 1-child policy country is not something you want. Or in India, or other countries across the world where having a baby girl goes not just uncelebrated, but is positively a bad thing. Tell that to the girls and women across Africa, and in this country, and other countries, who have been the victims of FGM not because it’s part of any religion (though that would not make it ok either) but because it’s a tradition to make sure girls and women cannot ever feel pleasure from sex. Because women enjoying sex is a bad thing. But women not giving men sex is also a bad thing.

They don’t need feminism? Ok. But let them tell that to me, who was assaulted and then blamed myself because I had so strongly internalised the victim blaming that goes and for ages believed it was my fault he tried to rape me because I should have known better than to get drunk with him. One of my closest friends.

I need feminism to give me the voice to say "It was not my fault. The blame lies squarely on his shoulders."
Feminism is empowering. Not empowering victimisation. Just plain empowering.

 

When any person who says they are a feminist speaks about anything, they are representing themselves and their own understanding of feminism. Before I learned more, I thought feminism was about women being superior to men. Now I understand that society is constructed (and was constructed by white men btw) to make women inferior to men, to make blacks Asians Hispanics and all non-white races inferior to white, to make gay inferior to straight. And these are all things feminism fights against (it has its problems – feminism as it began was founded by middle-class white women and it does still struggle to be as fully inclusive as it needs to be but I believe huge steps are being taken to recognise and work towards a wholly inclusive movement. But it’s hard to do that when you’re talking about thousands, millions of individuals across the world – we all have different things we see as priority).

Every individual will say different things, but the one underlying principle remains the same:
Equality for all.

And if anything, feminism demonises ignorance. And so it should.
 

I'm running out of clock and that ain't a shock.

I'm 6 days away from leaving. I'm 6 days away from leaving an island of family, friends, memories, for an island of family, friends, and memories yet to be made. 

I'm sitting on a train carriage and the man across from me is clutching an oversized bottle of Stella Artois. I like Stella, but the smell reminds me of an ex, and his bedsit, and nights in front of the PS2 playing Lego Star Wars. 
And it reminds me that I think I lost one of my PS2 controllers to him. Just like I lost my DVD (or was it VHS, I was 16...) of the Nighmare Before Christmas to another ex. 

And it's trails of memories like that which I savour, and considering my terrible memory, feel precious to me. Granted, it's not pleasant remembering either of those ex's, but remembering the memories themselves is nice. It's comforting.

Someone commented to me recently that they didn't think I was the sentimental type. But I can be. That's why I have several memory boxes of collected items. That's why I have walls covered in postcards and pictures. But you can recognise the pleasure in remembering times gone past without being nostalgic for them, or wishing that in fact the past was the present.

I'm about to leave the country for anything up to a year, and at times I might be lonely, or homesick, and the memories of all the people I've left behind will battle for space in my mind. Some will come equipped with megaphones, others colourful banners; anything to get my attention.

But when I'm not feeling that way, or maybe despite feeling that way, I'll be in a new country, on a new adventure, making new memories. And that is so exciting. We document our lives so much these days - Facebook updates, 140-characters or less tweets, Instagramming our dinner. Even blogging. There's the criticism that we're so busy posting about our lives that we're not actually living them. 

But how can we resist having an instant memory recall?! How can we resist being able to find out how exactly we reacted to England qualifying for the World Cup or the major storm of 2013. Or our comments on the opening and closing ceremonies of the Olympics, or even as far back as Michael Jackson's death? It's like reading back old diaries and reminding yourself of all the ancient petty squabbles you had with your sister or the time your parents tried to ground you for doing something or other.
I can look back on my Facebook and the multitude of hair colours and clothes I've had in the last 8 years. I can see with a click of the mouse the people I've been sharing my life with up until now. I can see again all the places I've been: America, Belfast, Bologna, Brighton, York. London. Beautiful, miserable, sprawling and crowded London. I barely know London. I want to know it so much better. I still have time. But for now I can make do with getting to know Cairns, Brisbane, Sydney...

I'm going to miss you. All of you. Ok not all of you. In fact, I'm looking forward to putting some memories, some people, behind me. Hey! Hey you! Yes you, the one that acted like a jerkoff to me. I'm looking forward to leaving you behind. The Other Side of the Sea behind. Don't get me wrong, I'll still think about you, because you got under my skin and you're like a scab that I can't resist picking... But when I'm in a country where I'll be in a bikini because it'll be SO DAMN HOT, I won't want to pick that scab.

I'm not stupid in thinking that by going to the other side of the world, I'm leaving all my troubles behind. How many films have we seen when people run away from their troubles or think they've escaped them only to have them catch up with them? I'm taking my issues with me because they are to do with me. But people run away for a new scene, a new culture, a new perspective. So your issues? They might not matter so much an ocean away. 

So when I'm the other side of the sea, missing some of you, and being finally free of the presence of others, you just need to know I'm ok. But you'll know that, cos I'll have posted it on Facebook. You know, that photo of me on the beach in my bikini, in December ;) 

Blogging & Bagging

I haven't advertised this blog. On my old blog, I used to post links to it. Which wasn't a wise thing to do. It was mostly out of seeking attention and wanting people to listen to my opinions.
But for a while I have felt blogging is a shameful thing. Which is why I started this blog in secret. I don't know if anyone has happened across it, it's unlikely, and there are no comments as evidence and I have no followers. Which gives the impression that although I have told someone I write a blog, they, and no one else, have seen it.

What is the point of blogging? We live in a culture where words are vomit and disrespectful. I don't remember time before the internet, and time before blogs, Faceparty, VampireFreaks, MySpace, Facebook and Twitter. I have belonged to those websites in that chronological order. The reason I was on Faceparty, VF & MySpace was to connect with my friends and keep in touch for free because that was when I was on pay as you go. I joined Facebook shortly after my 18th because a friend of mine told me it was the easiest way to share photos (MySpace had a limit of photos in album (less than 60 like FB) and they were excruciating to upload and you could not tag friends either.) and Twitter I joined because...people kept mentioning it on the news and I sort of wanted to get in on the act.

The internet has become an arena for all those people who want to be famous, as well as for those who want to use it to connect and improve the lives of others. This blog probably won't improve the life of anybody, nor do I use it to connect, and I'm not using it to get famous or simply get attention. I use this blog because actually I find it easier to type than write properly in my diary. Plus I find the mental block of reserving my diary for personal feelings (I mean, really personal things) and using a blog to express opinion. My old blog had crossover entries where I ranted and vented, and I've learned from that. It's out of order to be rude about people on the internet. Mark Zuckerberg knows that too, if the narrative and screenplay of The Social Network are accurate.

Can you remember a time before Spotify? Before Facebook? Even before email? I still have a penpal, but we met on the internet. We write handwritten letters (which frustrates me because when I receive a reply I can hardly remember what I wrote in the first place), and instead of hearing or seeing that "You've Got Mail", I receive tangible, physical mail. And it isn't junk or a LoveFilm.

We live in an era of attention seeking, the internet is not the only arena for it. Reality TV for both celebrities and 'ordinary' people are simply ways to seek attention. It probably saves marketing budget for the celebrity, because shortly before their new single is released or their acting career is revived, they have some free advertising in the form of a reality TV show. I imagine before the internet it was harder to get a publishing deal, but now books are commissioned from people's blogs and Twitter feeds. People can get famous simply from their YouTube videos (the guy who cried about Britney Spears, the girl that dances and looks like an anime character?) and others are now celebrities because they blogged - Perez Hilton being one very obvious example.

This is more of a ramble than anything now, I have no conclusion at which to arrive except for that statement of the obvious that the event of the internet has changed how people connect, and write, and what they write about. Some blogs are specifically created for parts of people's lives (their weight-loss diary, a cooking lover's recipes), and others are seemingly pointless (like this one!) Will there ever be a time again where the internet doesn't saturate our lives? This woman is experimenting to see what life is like using just the internet to connect with people. This is the website.


The other reason for this blog was to talk about the activity/job of "charity bagging". I discussed with my friend whether "bagging" is a verb, and technically it is, but I'm not sure it is in the context of "charity bagging". Mostly it is a list of what I do and don't like about charity bagging.

• The worst thing about charity bagging is people. I hate asking people if they are in their gardens or at their door if they want a charity bag. It's about 50/50 of their responses yes or no as well. Some people say yes because they want them, some say yes because they don't really know what they're accepting. I've had a few "yes thanks"'s as well. But people who say no are the worst bit about this worst bit. Some of them know immediately and are prompt with their refusal, some even tell you before you get up their drive. But some just don't understand, or um & ah until they say no. Really very annoying.
  
• Also quite annoying are how people block off a path that could save you time between their house and their neighbour's, for example with a wheelie bin, a bush or a flower bed that you don't dare tread on. They could make my life, and the lives of people who deliver mail, free papers or even leaflets so much easier. Instead they consciously choose to make it harder.
• Long, long drives are actually the second worst bit. Just simply because they are long. Even worse is when you get to the door and the letterbox is irritating (I'll get to those shortly) or they have a sign that says 'No charity bags'.
  
• While we're on signs, I don't count charity bags as junk mail. They don't contain junk until you put it in there for the charity.
  
• LETTERBOXES. Why aren't they uniform? I remember this from doing paper rounds, and that was a lot harder to deal with. Why do people have really small letterboxes? Why do they have that don't match up with the door so when you push things through they come up against a small ridge? Similarly, why the bristles, when they make getting mail into your house so much harder? Also, letterboxes with knockers over them, I really don't get that at all. And mostly you find them in Purley & Sanderstead.
• And lastly (that I think is most important) are cul-de-sacs. These are both good and bad. Good because a fair amount of houses in one area so you can offload a good amount of bags and lighten your load in a short period of time. Except in the cul-de-sacs with about 4 houses. Bad because you are in that area for a period of time and there is no escaping. If these people were a community of psychos then you're done for, really. And they all watch you, if they're in or up that is, and that feels horrible as well. In roads I don't tend to feel that.

Also, as promised, a photo of my car after the crash. There was more damage underneath where you can't see. The radiator got shunted a bit too. Still waiting for the verdict from the insurers & bodywork mechanics.




Watched Traitor earlier - it was okay. And currently listening to the new Good Charlotte album, Cardiology on Spotify. It's okay so far. I used to be a big fan. Well, I had all their albums and I saw them live. I quite liked them, obviously.

A New Daily

Today was my first experience of the new daily newspaper 'i', brought to us by The Independent. It's basically a condensed version of he Independent, sort of like the Metro, which rips articles from the previous day's papers and puts them in one paper for commuters to read for free. At least, that's the impression it gave to me.
It was an easy read, I browsed and I find more than one article particularly interesting. In today's edition was an article critiquing the new film The Social Network, or more to the point, critiquing the society Mark Zuckerberg has created: 'They are forging a culture in which words are things you vomit out onto a keyboard - because without the keyboard, and the screen at the other end of it, the words are nothing - and one in which an experience isn't real until it's been ratified by a photo, or a tweet, or an "update" that your "friends" can gasp at.' (Christina Patterson, My View, 27/10/10)

She has a point. Why do we sit at our computer's, updating and tweeting, almost as if we have nothing else in our lives? It is so unheard of for someone NOT to have Facebook, and even people who don't see the point in Twitter are still signing up because their friends are encouraging them to do so. There are millions of blogs just like this one, that document the writer's life because they are so desperate to write it all down and make the experience real. Whatever happened to writing in a journal or diary? Was it just a predated version of the blog? They were more private, but now we feel free to write our hopes, our fears, our tears of sadness and joy on the internet for all to access. Is that evolution?

The Social Network was well-written, well-directed, well-acted and well-edited. I doubt it will win an Oscar, but it will be nominated for awards because it tackles something that everyone is involved more and more in, and people like films that tackle "real issues" (although the issue here is probably whether or not Facebook was a stolen idea and how the man behind it is an "asshole", rather than how our culture and society has developed and moulded around the Internet and its endless possibilities).

I will be seeing Paranormal Activity 2 tomorrow. I was extremely scared by the first one. And it's taken some persuasion to go and see the sequel. But I am currently reading Feel the Fear... and Do It Anyway, so I'm doing it anyway.