Of Black Dogs and Blogs

Kate Harding and Jay Smooth have something to say here:

Ok, so go away and read/listen to those two links that I posted up there before you come back and read this. It’s ok, I’ll wait.

Ok, back?

Right. This is more of a get-stuff-off-my-chest post than the usual Opinion piece that I tend to post. I’m actually writing this now on a WP, rather than straight to blog, because I don’t even know if I’m going to put this out there. But here goes:

I wrote one of the comments on that particular Shapely Prose thread, and even that half-hearted attempt was bloody hard. Even now, I’m struggling not to write out a list of what sucks about me, how I’m an awful, useless person – or qualify every single good thing about me with a “well, but so-and-so is better” or rather “I should be better.” I think it’s a really interesting discussion that should be had, and which I might start later – why women always feel they have to respond to compliments with a denial, or qualifying sentence – but it’s not the one I want to have right now.

See, I found that comments thread wonderful and painful to read at the same time. It’s amazing watching people be happy about themselves for a change, and acknowledge all the good things about themselves that make them awesome people. And not one of those posts seemed to me self-aggrandizing or boastful or stuck up.

But then I felt like crying, because I was thinking – why can’t I be like that?

Why can’t I be a published writer, instead of just an amateur? Why can’t I be a great singer, instead of just a mediocre one? Why can’t I be a great cook, or keep a spotless house, or do stand-up, or fix computers like a pro, or speak four languages like a native, or be someone or do something awesome like everyone else?

Why can’t I even do the things that I’m supposed to be able to do well? Like finish my novel(s)? Or send some short stories or poetry off to a magazine to get published? Or, hell, finish my God-damn PhD?

And then my “little hater” comes out and starts telling me that maybe I was never any good at those things that I supposedly do well. That I’m not just in a rut; I’ve actually reached my limits. That I don’t have what it takes, and deep down I know it, and the reason I can’t put pen to paper right now is because I’m putting off that moment of failure when the manuscript is finished and I send it off, and publisher after publisher rejects it, and I have to give up on the biggest and only worthwhile dream I have ever had in my life – to be a writer – without which my life is mediocre and dull, and just not worth anything anymore.

See, my “little hater” is called Depression. And right now it’s winning.

I’m not fishing for compliments here, or sympathy, so please don’t feel you have to post any. Nor do I, at the moment, need advice on how to cope, since I’m already taking steps in that direction. I just wanted to put that out there.

I don’t really think there is a conclusion to this. I want there to be a happy ending, or an uplifting sentiment for me to end on. Some sort of affirmation that we are all awesome and that I don’t hate myself really, but while the first bit of that is true, it would be disingenuous of me to lie and say the second half. The best I can come up with is this:

Mental illness is still a huge taboo in our society. Not enough people talk about it, or even acknowledge it. So I’m going to. It might be that the one way to get myself up and going and working again is to bleed this poison out of my system, and if that helps other people understand just a bit better, if it breaks down just a bit of that huge silence, and gets people talking, well that’s all to the good.

Expect more posts on this, and related topics.

More on Airbrushing

Ok, so some of you might remember my post on airbrushing in magazines from back in February, which seems to be generating a lot of comments at the moment. Most of the comments I've been getting there and elsewhere seem to agree with me (though often for widely different reasons) that merely pointing out that a picture has been airbrushed is not going to do a lot for female body confidence as a whole.

The next question would then be, so what is going to make a difference? Well, how about this for a solution. It seems that, over in the States, they've just introduced a new bill, called " The Healthy Media for Youth Act". You can read a bit more about it and what it entails over at Feministing, or read the whole thing here, though like anything of that kind, it's a bit on the dense side.

I do just want to quote this big specifically, from the Feministing version, because I think it's a huge step forwards if it gets through:

In addition, the GSRI has put together a set of Healthy Media Images Standards, a set of guidelines that are essentially a blueprint for creating feminist media, including:

• Feature and value girls and women with varying body types and ethnicities
• Show girls in age-appropriate attire
• Do not sexualize female bodies to sell products or amuse male customers
• Include a diverse cast of female characters in active and ambitious roles
• Feature females in traditionally male roles, such as CEOs or action heroes
• Feature girls and women who have confidence in their abilities and appearances
• Show equality and mutual respect between female and male characters
• Feature positive relationships between girls and women, showing them cooperating with each other
• Feature male characters who value female characters in their talents, intelligence, and overall personalities, not just their appearances

That makes me very happy.

Funny vs Offensive

Finaly a defnintion that makes sense.

I would just like to add my own $0.02 to MacInnes' working definition, which is probably the best one I've come accross so far. I don't think it can be stated strongly enough; "the powerful and rich should be subjected to greater mockery than the poor and underprivileged." You do not mock those who are less fortunate than yourself. You don't take the piss out of kids with Downs Syndrome - the world has already given them one of the shortest ends of the stick it has to offer, and they have quite enough in their lives to struggle against without "transgressive" "commedians" perpetuating further prejudice against them. Same goes for anyone who's been dealt a crappy hand in this world. How fucking childish is that kind of behaviour? Worse than childish. Seriously - if you had kids, and they started making fun of the one kid in the playground with learning difficulties, or the one with one leg, or the one Indian kid, you'd be horrified, and your kid would be grounded for the rest of his/her natural life. We punish children for this kind of behaviour, and yet laugh at adults who should be old enough to do better? No. Not funny, Frankie.

At the same time, I think it's also a question of relative power - not an absolute. Essentially - it's ok to make jokes when you are doing it compassionately, and from a standpoint where your privilege is not making you into a patronising git. As an example - Eddie Izzard joking that there are benefits to being dyslexic - because it meant you were a killer at I-Spy... "'S' is for 'Ceiling!'" etc. I have heard some really great jokes that were teetering round a whole load of -isms, but which managed to be handled properly and in an empowering way. The problem comes when straight, white, able-bodied men (and most of the time it is S,W,A,M, but I feel forced to add "or anyone else in a position of privilege" just to cover the small percentage of cases when it isn't) decide to make comments about a minority without knowing what the fuck they're talking about. They haven't lived it, and they haven't a clue how to handle it. That's not "alternative" - that's the dominant perspective. And again, that's not funny.

I will however leave you with something that is funny. Courtesy of my mate Nik who sent me the link. And who also has some insightful questions on the original subject here.

And something that will definitely make you smile, even if you didn't like the above.

Spitting mad. Again.

It's usually the Daily Fail, or something from America that gets me really worked up, but nope, this time it's The Telegraph. Specifically this article.

Essentially, it's explaining how being assertive at work and in the home, and expecting your SO to do his share of the housework, and let you have your say in how the house is run is turning him into an emasculated man-child who can't do anything because he's scared of doing it wrong.

Here's the anti-feminist buzzword bingo for you:
"Ballbreakers" - check
"traditionally masculine/feminine traits" - check
Any reference to "hunter-gatherers" or cave men - check
"male instinct to protect/ provide" - check, on both counts
"unfashionable truth" about "biological/ innate gender difference" - yup - (please, dear God go read Natasha Walter's "Living Dolls" before you go spounting that old chestnut...)
"Biologically programed/ hardwired" - check
"emasculation" - check
"feminism" - Nope.

Women today,"demand total equality at home." And why the hell not? but according to Ms Woods (the article's author) "It's by no means an unreasonable expectation – but it is an unwise one." Unwise? Unwise?? Why?
Because apprently men will be unable to do the chores up to the female standard; and then when women have to clean up after their SO, "By taking over every household task, women are effectively colluding in their partner's lack of involvement. Women are better multi-tuskers and so when our partners don't come up to scratch we complain bitterly as a parent would, and end up doing the job ourselves, infantilising them in the process," she says. (The "she" being Francine Kaye, aka "The Divorce Doctor") "We end up labelling our men lazy, because they have to be told what to do and nagged into doing it, but the truth is, we have pushed them to the point where they are afraid to take the initiative, because they feel they can never get anything right"

Her solution then? Massage your partner's ego, and he will become a Real Man again. Apparently, "To get our relationships back on track, we women must try to rein in our control-freakery and rediscover our femininity, which will (theoretically) reawaken our partner's dormant masculinity. We must praise our partners, thank them for taking us out to dinner (even if we split the bill) and generally massage their tattered egos." Instead of telling our men-folk to stop being such whiny children, suck it up, and get on with it the way women have been doing for centuries?

At least Woods aknowledges at the end of her piece that "It's a bitter pill to swallow for those of us who have spent our working lives striving for parity," and "If you find yourself slack-jawed in horror at the prospect of letting your partner off the hook so easily, then welcome to the club," but she still seems to be coming down on the side of Kaye's poison... why? because apparently it works. Yes, like decapitation solves your dandruff problems.

The thing is, if it was just about appreciating one's partner for being supportive and helping out, (never mind that this should be normal - do you ever thank your SO for not being a murderer? no! because not-being-a-murderer, like being-a-supportive-partner-and-doing-your-bit should damn well be the default state...) I might just be able to contemplate it. On the proviso that we women got appreciated just as much for doing our 50% (which we don't, and yet we still manage to get on with it...) but this is more than that. What is being advocated here is a massive step backwards. I'll leave you with the closing remarks, just to illustrate:

"My female clients are invariably amazed at how much impact an appreciative approach can have on their partner, and how quickly he responds when they show their more feminine side," she says. "It's not a case of being all helpless and girlie, but of being more feminine. If you behave more like a woman, your partner will act more like a man."

So yeah. The best solution would be for us all to toddle back to the 1950s, like good little girls, and just act more feminine. Who's betting we still get saddled with the washing up?

My Playground, My Soap Box.

Ok, so here's a question I'd like to add my $0.02 worth to, apropos of very little at all.
Is moderation censorship, and at what point can we tell trolls and oiks to shut the hell up and go away without compromising freedom of speech?

It's something that happens to a lot of feminist bloggers - or at least any of them who write about anything as controversial as their feminism, and happen to be lucky enough to get read by a decent sized audience - there will be people coming along, and instead of participating in the debate at hand, start trolling, being abusive, trotting out tired old misogynies and mansplaining. I even warned a friend of mine off* writing a blog post where she planned to discuss something very personal and sensitive, in case she got this kind of jerk turning up and directing abuse at her in the comments. It sucks, and so some people decide to have agressive moderation policies, and just filter out the unproductive crap and ban persistent offenders. And that's fine... until someone shouts "censorship" at you**.

See, I don't think it is censorship at all if I delete your comments on my blog, in the same way that if you excreted in my sandpit I would be well within my rights to remove the mess so that I and my friends could play safely. You may disagree. You are perfectly allowed to do so, and if you like you can go away and write your own blog post detailing how I am wrong and you are right, and no-one is stopping you from doing so. But see, this is my soapbox. You don't like it? Get your own. Kate Harding says, pretty much, exactly the same on her blog, which has, supposedly, a very draconian comments policy***.

This gets a bit different when the blog you write is one for a bigger organisation than just you: for example The Sexist blog, over at the Washington City Paper, which has fairly recently been asking whether they ought to tighten up their comments policy. In situations like that, because you are writing for a public institution, the assumption is that you ought to provide a public platform (that is, if you provide a platform - comments section - at all). And while that is true to an extent, I will go back to the playground analogy just for a bit. In this case, there are loads of kids, playing in the playground, under the watchful eye of a responsible adult (the mod). As long as they can all play happily, anyone can come play in this playground - no one is excluded... except for the one kid who can't play nice, who keeps stealing people's toys, hogging the swings and beating the other kids around the head with a barbie-doll or tonka truck. That kid? The Troll who keeps being abusive? They are banned. Because whilst we all have the right to freedom of speech, the blog-owner also has a responsibility to their readers to create a safe environment for comments and discussion. The reader's right not to be attacked trumps the troll's right to say what they like. ****

And this is different again to when you are the editor of a paper or similar, and one of your columnists decides to write something... disagreeable. It worrys me, it really does, when the chief editor of any publication (even a student one) feels she cannot cut or (ffs) edit a column for fear of "censorship". That's not censorship. That's being discriminating - and I mean that in the sense of being able to distinguish good writing from drivel; in the sense that one can have a discriminating palate. For God's sake, that's the JOB of an editor, to decide what goes in the paper and what doesn't. What should be printed, (and thus given weight) and what you don't want to put your name to, and yes, by all means have a "letters" column, and print everyone's views. All the above comments apply. You have to balance columnist's rights with the paper's responsibility, and remember, at the end of the day, that it's your sandbox and anyone who is not prepared to follow your rules can get their own.

See, what this all comes down to is platform availabilty. It is sensible discrimination and moderation when you simply refuse to share a platform with someone (or, rather, refuse to let them share your platform) and it is censorship when you actively prevent them from ever having a platform of their own - and sorry, but this is something only governments, or anyone who has a monopoly on media outlets can do with any degree of efficiency. And when that happens, then I'll start complaining... if they'll let me...




*Didn't actually say that she shouldn't do it, just that she ought to be prepared for this kind of thing if she decided to go ahead with it.
**And if they're American, citing whichever ammendment to whichever historical document it is that protects their freedom of speech (I'm not American, it's late at night, someone please remind me what it is I'm thinking of?)
***And still some hateful shit occasionally filters through. However, what with Ms. Harding's regular readership not only allowed but encouraged to take pot shots at the Trolls, that can actually end up being amusing on occasion. I fully expect to see Troll-baiting become an internet blood-sport soon.
**** Oh, and just to clarify, this isn't people being offended by "edgy" humour or political viewpoints or the like, this is people being personally insulted, degraded and threatened. See also. Just so we're clear.

Drunk in Charge of a Penis, and other Rape Metaphors

I've been diving into the Blogsphere recently, mainly at awesome places like The Sexist - a blog I think everyone should read - and there have been quite a few posts about rape*, and why it is or isn't a lot like X. And I'm noticing a few themes here. Aside from the usual victim-blaming crap, or at the very least, perpetrator-excusing crap **, there seems to be the disturbing tendancy to compare women to money or goods. I cannot count the times that I've seen a woman's wearing of a short skirt, or getting drunk, or making a bad decision (or several) being compared to someone openly displaying property. Even by feminists and allies.

I think just about everyone will be familiar with the "Jut because someone is flashing their wallet doesn't mean they are asking to get robbed" analogy (or its odious cousin which claims that they were asking to get robbed) but how about the Shop window full of goods, or the parking your car in the wrong place, or this one:

"Let’s say a short skirt is “sexually provocative.” If so, then putting a “for sale” sign on your car is also provocative. If you put the sign up, that means you hope someone is going to be interested in buying your car. That doesn’t give them the right to steal your car, nor does it oblige you to sell your car for any price they offer just because you “provoked” the car-buying public into making offers in the hopes that someone would propose a deal you thought was worthwhile" (post 39)

Why do, even people making the right kind of point, still have to return to the same stupid mindset of the people who coined the word "rape" (which, as etymologists will tell you, originaly meant the same as "theft") to try and convince people that it is wrong, no matter what the circumstances. All the time we seem to come back to this idea that rape is a property crime (or at least analogous with one). Why is this? Why not use a comparison with, say, murder? It's not person A's fault if person B murders them, even if person A was being deliberately (or accidentally) antagonistic and "totally asking for it" - and I think we can all agree on that. So why is it any different if person B rapes person A instead? Why do all those "they were asking for it" arguments get given so much weight now? I think that's pretty clear cut. But people get upset when you equate destroying another human life with "just"... well, destroying another human's life.***

So how about this one; let's stop equating the woman with property, and try a little role reversal. Instead of saying that a woman is a car who shouldn't be parked in a bad neighbourhood, let's equate a penis with a car; and why not - men do it all the time :).
If you get run over by a car, or are a passenger in a car when it crashes, is it your fault you got hurt, or the driver's? I'm going to say, (and I think the laws of the land agree with me here) that it's going to be the driver's fault - ie, the active participant. Over at The Sexist again, they agree with me, and Amanda Hess has done a great piece which includes a section about how driving is a privilege, and in some cases, while legally pedestrians have right of way, this sense of privilege tends to mean that drivers ignore the law and as a result people get hurt... (sounding familiar anyone?) only no-one would ever think to blame the pedestrian in this scenario, while we blame rape victims all the time...

I came up with a few others - the passenger-in-a-car one, explaining why it's often difficult to say "I want to get out" when your friend is driving dangerously, or the "flirting" one explaining that consenting to being given a lift home is not the same as consenting to being in a car crash, or the drink-driving one suggesting that even if your judgement is impared with regards to who you accept a lift from, it's still not your fault if the driver crashes - But the thing is, while I enjoy making up metaphors like this (and the drunk-in-charge-of-a-penis jokes that follow), the sad thing is that no metaphor can ever really do justice to the fact that rape is a hideous, heinous, horrific crime, and no-one should ever have to be blamed for it happening to them. I may complain about the kinds of metaphors being used to teach people that victim blaming is not ok but truth is, it's even sadder that we need to use metaphors, indeed that we have to explain this to some people at all.


* Yes, the "Alex" in the comments is me on this one...
** Not always the same thing - this one usually comes up in the "rape as natural disaster" analogies.
*** I never know if this is disengenuous or not towards rape survivors - is tying someone's life (and the destruction thereof) to their bodily integrity (and the violation thereof) trivialising the person? Or is it trivialising the suffering to say that rape does anything less? Suffice to say that I think rape has the potential to destroy someone's life and/or mental wellbeing - or at least f**k it up beyond recognition.

Fun thing!

This Post Has Been Airbrushed

Ok, so this is something that's been rattling around in my brain for a while - the arguments over airbrushing in magazines and the effect that it has on women's self-image.

I think we can all agree that being constantly shown images of perfection which, not only are unobtainable for you the reader, but which haven't been obtained in the first place by the model/ celebrity you're looking at, is a bad thing for your confidence. It contributes to this culture which demonsises anyone above a size 10/12. My concern is with what people are proposing to do about it - which is essentially just full disclosure. People at the moment are pushing for laws that require magazines to put a stamp, or a little notice on the bottom of the picture saying "this photo has been airbrushed".

How is that going to help?

Women (for the most part) are not stupid and/or blind to the world around them (and I wish people would stop trying to pretend that we are). We know that the pictures we are seeing have been airbrushed - we're told often enough at the moment. There are even magazines that have deliberately unairbrushed paparazzi photos of celebs not looking their best held up for women to mock (which is a fairly disgusting practice in it's own right), so we know our idols don't look picture perfect all the time in real life. Women are not stupid, so telling us something that we already know, or could probably guess, is not going to help one iota.

The problem is not that airbrushing is undisclosed - the problem is that people feel the need to airbrush at all. What magazines are doing is promoting an ideal. It may not be a real one, it may not even be a possible one (though women do tend to kid themselves that it is; whether or not they have proof) but it is held as an ideal. I don't care if they're telling me (or showing me) that such body types are achievable, they are telling me that such body types are admirable, possibly even the only ones which are even acceptable. They are saying 'look at these celebrities and models. They were gorgeous to start with, but even then they are not gorgeous enough. We must make them "better", we must, in fact make them conform to our standards of what is beautiful, what women should look like. We must bring them up to scratch, and hold them up before you as the standard to which you must aspire.'

Who cares if that standard is achievable or not? It is still being touted as the standard. In effect, by acnowledging that all their pictures are airbrushed, all these magazines would be saying is that no woman will ever be good enough. No women's bodies can ever be beautiful in their natural state - that all women, in fact, are ugly and sub-par. So we have to air brush them to make them better. Only when airbrushing stops, when real women are lauded for their real beauty (whatever size that comes in) will women start being able to accept themselves for who they are.

Another Reason To Love Margaret Atwood

I got pointed at two Good links for writers this morning by Neil Gaiman, and found this list by Margaret Atwood. I've read quite a lot of "advice to young authors" bits and bobs over the years, but this is the first one that's really struck a chord and made me laugh at the same time.

1 Take a pencil to write with on aeroplanes. Pens leak. But if the pencil breaks, you can't sharpen it on the plane, because you can't take knives with you. Therefore: take two pencils.

2 If both pencils break, you can do a rough sharpening job with a nail file of the metal or glass type.

3 Take something to write on. Paper is good. In a pinch, pieces of wood or your arm will do.

4 If you're using a computer, always safeguard new text with a ­memory stick.

5 Do back exercises. Pain is distracting.

6 Hold the reader's attention. (This is likely to work better if you can hold your own.) But you don't know who the reader is, so it's like shooting fish with a slingshot in the dark. What ­fascinates A will bore the pants off B.

7 You most likely need a thesaurus, a rudimentary grammar book, and a grip on reality. This latter means: there's no free lunch. Writing is work. It's also gambling. You don't get a pension plan. Other people can help you a bit, but ­essentially you're on your own. ­Nobody is making you do this: you chose it, so don't whine.

8 You can never read your own book with the innocent anticipation that comes with that first delicious page of a new book, because you wrote the thing. You've been backstage. You've seen how the rabbits were smuggled into the hat. Therefore ask a reading friend or two to look at it before you give it to anyone in the publishing business. This friend should not be someone with whom you have a ­romantic relationship, unless you want to break up.

9 Don't sit down in the middle of the woods. If you're lost in the plot or blocked, retrace your steps to where you went wrong. Then take the other road. And/or change the person. Change the tense. Change the opening page.

10 Prayer might work. Or reading ­something else. Or a constant visual­isation of the holy grail that is the finished, published version of your resplendent book.

There is some good advice there from other authors, so the rest of the link is also well worth a read. I just wanted to share this little gem.

In Defence of Reading Into Things

Something that I seem to be hearing a lot in comments threads, arguments and discussions of all sorts of things is the accusation that someone is "reading too much into" something, that the original something was "just a joke" or was somehow too frivolous to warrant anything more than a surface analysis.

So when a group of feminists complain about a facebook group called "GTA taught me if you kill a hooker, you get your money back." the response from a lot of people (as well as the usual hate speech from a couple of users who I hope get banned sometime soon) was that the feminists were overreacting, because the group's category was "just for fun - in-jokes", and this was about a game not real life. (Never mind that the title itself uses the wording "taught me"- thus suggesting that this is learned behaviour, and that people take what they have learned in the game into the rest of their life. The title is suggesting there is a link.) But because it's not explicitly saying "go out and kill hookers because you'll get your money back" people feel they can say "you're reading too much into this" - which, reading into that statement itself, essentially means either "there is no context to this, no meaning beyond the explicit, so stop looking for it. This should be taken in absolute isolation." or "I wrote it, so the only meaning in it is what I say there is," or just "there is no ill intent here, so you can't blame us when you get offended when you look at this."

Now, I'm an English Literature graduate. I have done (and am still doing) several degrees, the entire point of which is "reading into things". I have been taught that there is no way you can take anything in isolation from its context, literary, historical or social. I have been taught that one should look beyond the surface meaning - always. I have even been taught to look at a text divorced from what it's original author intended, and my reader response is as valid as that author's intent (if not more so). Anyone who doubts that last statement should look up a guy named Roland Barthes, and an essay he wrote in 1967 called "The Death of the Author". So naturally, I feel I have to step up here, and defend... well, let's face it, the principle which my entire university education is based on.

I think it's fairly obvious to anyone who visits the aforementioned facebook group that it is full of vile little hatemongering misogynists, who have proved the aformentioned feminists' point for them quite ineloquently, but I'm not arguing the toss over freedom of speech here (I'll save that for a later post) I'm arguing why things that are ostensibly jokes, or otherwise frivolous comments (or called so by their creators) are actually no less meaningful than something meant seriously.

What it comes down to is this: no-one owns the English language. You do not, and cannot claim ownership of words, even words that you yourself say or write, to the extent that you can dictate what they mean. Words are very egalitarian in that respect. They mean what we all agree them to mean, and while that can change, the process takes years of continual usage and gradual change, not one isolated post, or one person suddenly deciding otherwise. You can choose what you want to say, you can choose what words you use, but you cannot choose what everyone understands those words to mean. You cannot possibly divorce words from context, because context is the only thing that gives language meaning in the first place.

What this means is that all the stuff that anyone chooses to read into a text (be that oral or written) is there. The author may not have realised, may not have intended that to be the message they wanted to convey, but that message has been conveyed, whether they intended it or not. The reader cannot help it if they are a better reader than the author is a writer. Essentially, if I get offended by something you say, then I'm bloody well offended whether you meant to offend me or not. You may have meant me to laugh at what you said, but it's not my fault if I don't find it funny.

And if someone does get offended by something you have said, then you have two options; stand by what you say and not care if you offend, or appologise. You can say that what you said wasn't what you meant to say, but what you cannot do is pretend that what you just said doesn't mean what I took it to mean. Because that's not up to you to say. You, the author, are deader than a GTA Hooker. (only joking!)