Porn 2: Why men should be mad

So I wanted to call this post Feminists: a man's best friend, but someone pointed out to me that it could well be read to infer women are dog's which wouldn't be great!. But I just wanted to share with you a couple of things that were said at this amazing conference I was at that have got me thinking.

"Men, feminists are your best friends. We're the ones who don't think your born rapists, we're the ones who don't think you're born murderers. We're the ones who think your fully human."

I know a lot of men who don't feel like this, they feel that feminists hate them, are man eaters, want to castrate them and lock them up. Feminism is a broad group but from my experience this could not be further from the truth, we are talking about a group of people actively opposing violence and de-humanisation it would be a little hypocritical to want to do that to men. The problem lies I think in the fact that mostly there is little conversation between men in general and feminist discourse and what does happen is mediated by the press so that what people fear when they hear 'feminist' (and I have huge numbers of female friends who run from that label) is not feminism but a phantom created by the powers that be because actually they don't want men to realise what feminism is actually saying.

Why? because Patriarchy though it privileges all men all of the time it benefits some men some of the time and harms most men most of the time. Patriarchy is just hierarchy where only men get to be at the top, and only one type of man at that.

The second thing that was said that I wanted to share was this:

"Feminists are the ones who don't think your a life support machine for your penis"

That's what the porn industry thinks of you, it thinks you are a life support machine for your penis and your wallet, and it capitalises on that dark side of all of us that is capable and able to oppress.

It's time to get mad at how the porn industry manipulates and de-humanises you whatever your gender. This is the other thing you should know feminists don't want men to feel rubbish about being a man, we want you to feel good about it, we want you to get mad with us, mad at the dehumanising forces that squeeze us all into little boxes, so that,  in our current context, they can squeeze money out of us.

Men if your mad here's a couple of place you can go:  http://www.antipornmen.org/
http://www.whiteribboncampaign.co.uk/

A Mothers Love

So Wilma is among my hero's. I asked her recently if she would write a guest blog. She very kindly obliged.

My name is Wilma , I am 51 years old. I never got to higher education, to sit degrees, I am the average 5 o' levels with c passes and plenty of training in the jobs that I have had in the past. I have worked in offices (many years ago) , I have been a shop assistant. I have have modules in N.V.Q 1,2,3. in care, I have worked as chalet maid in hotels, done voluntary work in two day centres for the elderly and still I have not listed all the work I have done..... But nothing could have equiped me for the job I have had in the past 10 years.....  So be kind and let me try to tell you all about being a Carer for my daughter who has a Mental Illness Diagnosis of Paranoid Schizophrenia.

It all started ten years ago when my daughter Carly and I were walking in Highbury Grange on a sunny day,  my day off from work as I had to work saturdays then, we both did. "Something is wrong mum " said Carly. A feeling of shock went through me, coming from a teenager of 19 nearly 20 years of age, well you can guess what I thought. Carly continued,  "My head mum, something is happening inside my head, it is making me so scared. I have been to the doctor and made an appointment to speak to a Psychologist and been given medicine to take."

That's when my whole life started to crumble apart slowly as the weeks went by watching my girl struggle to cope with Mental Illness. Carly tried so hard, going to college one day a week and working the other 5 days in a Hairdressing Salon. Completing and passing her NVQ in Hairdressing was a huge achievement considering how ill she really was. It was also the time when her illness was becoming so severe, several months later I got a phone call from Carly's boss, to come and take her home, she was in floods of tears and couldn't go on any more at work.

Many diagnosis's later, and many years of visiting my daughter in Mental Health Hospitals and a Women's Prison my daughter was put on the right medication for her Paranoid Schizophrenia. Court case after court case, tribunal after tribunal I finally have my daughter at home again and slowly getting back a daughter, someone I used to know.   Thanks to the right medication and love and support. Many friends disappeared from our lives completely and family too busy with their own lives, is often a common story that you will hear from Carers of loved ones who have Mentall Illness. They are made feel unworthy of a pittance of an allowance from the government , Mr Cameron himself stated in one of the news papers Carers were" ponces ", when infact it is him keeping Carers on the breadline (while they save the government millions) and allocates Carers a 55:55 pounds for a 38 hour week, allowance, that works out to be worth 20:00 quid a week more than being unemployed.

Drawing nearer to my God in praying with New River Baptist Church through every situation, handing it back into God's hands to deal with and finding comfort in the Word, while reading passages in the bible has kept me strong, to keep going until my daughter got released from hospital.

It has been a wonderful year having Carly back home and better in health , but 1 out of ten years is only the start of our 'NEW BEGINNING'

by Wilma x

ASSERTivness

For New Year I resolved to be more assertive. It was going well, till recently, and now I'm thinking maybe I've just been avoiding confrontation, maybe I'm not sure.

Many people who know me will probably be thinking that the last thing I lack is assertiveness. But the thing I find is that its very easy to be assertive when you feel confident its when you need it most when you feel unsure of yourself that it runs away and hides in a small corner of your personality and refuses to come out.

Today I started trying to develop resources about saying yes and no. Yesterday I think I failed quiet miserably to be assertive. So next time I deliver a session on how to say No, I'll feel like even more of a fraud.

I think I failed I'm not quiet sure. I know I don't feel assertive I feel whiny, put out, undervalued sat on and naffed off. I guess you don't have to feel assertive to be assertive but I imagine it helps.

I was wondering the other day why we all struggle so much with saying no as it must constitute up to 60% of what we hear the first few years of our lives!

Anyway this whole experience of attempting to be more assertive and coming into situations where people make that really difficult lead me to wonder if I do the same, do I make it hard for people to be assertive? Because as well as being collectively not very good at saying no, we are also not very good at hearing it. And as a women I have the eternal fear of being accused of being aggressive or nagging because often that's what people hear it as, or they don't hear you at all unless you actually are being aggressive or nagging.

It just always seems such an uphill struggle - an endless battle, and just seems, easier safer and a lot less work to retire into a 'thats ok' shrug and smile. But its not ok. Tired.

Any formulas for staying assertive? 

Free Speech

One of the things I have been in turmoil about recently is what I think of free speech. I haven't come to an answer, but here are my rambling thoughts.


As an undergraduate a certain debating union invited Jean Marie La Pen to speak. There was outcry about this, opinions, anger and long words I didn't understand were thrown around. The repeated argument for, was that free speech was important. I couldn't help feeling that inviting someone to speak was slightly different to allowing people to say what they wanted. The other argument sited was that he would get torn apart by the audience, with overtones of 'Where else will he get so well scrutinised?'. Which I had a suspicion at the time and am now certain is just a touch arrogant.  


I couldn't quiet make up my mind what I felt, which is not something I felt I could admit (proving that speech isn't free!) as your meant to know everything when your 19 and headed off not sure whether I would go in or stand outside with the protesters. In the end I got there late so the decision was made for me, doors were closed and I was stuck with protesters, engaged in heated debate with other late students. I was repeatedly given a socialist workers party paper, asked to pay 50p, explained I had no money on me and gave paper back. This honestly happened about 3 times in a row. Was told by a woman wearing an anarchist bag that people who didn't believe in democracy shouldn't be allowed to engage in political debate and overall came away no more clear. 


It sounded from reports like it had been a bit of a farce inside with the translator clearly miss-translating and getting very angry when students replied in French. 


My thoughts about what extent we should allow free speech went on the back burner till last year and the whole ridiculous Terry Jones Koran burning thing. Watching the Americans with their hands tied unable to act because of an absolute commitment to free speech made me quiet glad to be European and have curbs on 'free speech'. 

But whether or not people are officially free to say what they like, speech is very very rarely free. The guardians 'comment is free' thing is not really true, it's a nice prophetic statement a hope of what could be but really we are very rarely free to say what we want, there are so many ways discourses are silenced. Inviting Strauss-Khan to the above mentioned institution may "provide a neutral platform for free speech" but what does it do for free speech on other platforms, what does it do for free true real narrative, how does it help people take back control of their own stories? How does it help us hear those stories that are true? 

The thing is you can talk but your speech is only free if its given permission to fly, to transform the world with all the power you gave it, much that is spoken is not free it is silenced, squashed, entrapped, belittled, mocked. And typically the powerful tend to be the ones with the power to determine which speech is freed and re-freed and repeated ad-nauseam so that no one can remember when it wasn't 'true' and it is the disempowered who's shouts become whispers by the ever squashing of the controllers of truth.  

If the Cambridge Union want to really 'provide a neutral platform for free speech' then they need to put a lot more effort into making their platform neutral and free.

I was incredibly moved by these honest and real words (link bellow, blog entry carries trigger warnings), that in no way were free they cost many people much to give but they gave them to the world, they gave them for free. Lets keep this speech free, don't let them silence and imprison this:   http://feministactioncambridge.wordpress.com/2012/03/10/i-am-still-shaking/comment-page-1/

Democracy and Capitalism

I awoke this morning to the Today Program interviewing a woman about a new branch of China's most successful business school opening in London. I was too sleepy to hear who the interviewer was or the name of the interviewee but what he was 'trying to get at' was what was an understanding of what was distinctly Chinese about the school. Because, he said, in the West there is an understanding that democracy and capitalism are linked.

Really? Try telling that to the people who just got evicted from their tented home. The Occupy Movement from all I can tell practise a far greater degree of participative democracy within their community than most of us experience through the parliamentary process.

The Chinese must also be thoroughly fed up with our obsession with how they are different from us. It's no way to build a friendship, recognising our common humanity would be a better place to start. Before people get jumpy, I am in no way defending human rights abuses, but I think in relation to China the West definitely needs to take the log out of its own eye.

To me capitalism is the major thing standing in the way of real democracy. Our version of capitalism puts the generation of wealth as the bottom line, not the generation of wellbeing. That's why we measure GDP. But this means nothing if you don't know how it’s distributed. Butan measures gross national happiness. True democracy puts people before profits.

Our version of capitalism is based on the free market which necessitates competition. It pits people, companies, cultures and nations against each other, fundamentally contradictory to true participative democracy. I'm fed up of hearing that ‘competition brings excellence'. I believe it can motivate it but excellence comes through work and creativity - some of our image bearing qualities. The other thing that motivates excellence and transformative action is collaboration - often better in my experience. Surely that is more in line with the kind of democracy we want.

Our competitive capitalism also means that power accumulates not with who we vote for but who we buy from and as we don't all have the same purchasing power we don't all have the same vote.

I'm not sure I like the idea of communist capitalism any more than the version we have but I'm pretty sure there is a groundswell of disillusionment with our current paradigms of both democracy and capitalism. Indeed there is an audible outcry, so long as you’re listening. The problem is most people of power and vast sections of the media aren't.

Enough talk about 'bad' or greedy capitalism it’s time for a complete reworking of our economic and democratic systems a thorough critique of all these discourses and an offering of a real and viable alternative.

About a year ago I was on the bus and a man had a badge saying ‘March for the alternative’. I asked what the alternative was he said it’s a march! It was a good march and some great voices raised some great points and those voices are still rising.

So this is just my little contribution to de-constructing the construct that democracy = capitalism.

But thanks to the Today programme for irritating me out of bed!