International Women's Day 2018

Thursday, 8 March 2018

International Women's Day 2018

So I’ve embarked on a little social experiment.

Accessed via www.tesor.com/mt

In honour of International Women’s Day, and feeling empowered in unity and united in empowerment and all that, I’ve tried something a bit different. I’ve decided to respond to every catcall I've 'received' (for want of a better word) over the course of the day (SIDENOTE: THESE ARE UNWANTED; I AM BY NO MEANS BRAGGING.) Because, I’m not going to lie, I have some burning questions and I know a lot of other girls do too!

Immediately, I would just like to point out that I’m not here to take a stand on the “compliment vs harassment” debate. That’s another topic entirely (but I think you can take a good guess as to where I stand.) I’m writing about the questions I have surrounding the issues of catcalling – Why? What are you setting out to achieve? How will you react when I stop and respond?

Let’s get some disclaimers out there too: no-one can accuse me of being a girl who can't take a compliment. Tell me you like my top, my hair, my shoes, and I'll not just thank you kindly but tell you where you can get it for yourself. I also did this in what I would consider very safe scenarios. Like, broad-daylight-main-road-people-everywhere kinda safe – don’t worry Mum, I’m fine.

CC #1 – 10:04 am.

I’m walking to the gym and I am a mess. My flatmates can vouch for it; when I wake up, I’m not pretty, nor am I any more attractive with three-day-old, unwashed hair slicked into a low bun in mismatched socks and gym shorts *sidenote, I have yesterday’s mascara clumped on my lashes. Fit.* My headphones are in and I’m blasting Red Hot Chilli Peppers; I’m not to be disturbed this morning.

As I pass the construction site, I hear a wolf-whistle clear as day and a shout and cackles of laughter. I can’t be too certain, but I know I heard the word “legs.” And as I’m about to shrug it off and ignore it, as per, I take out my ear phones and stop to ask: “Pardon?”

The guys are taken aback. I repeat my question. The silence is deliciously awkward and I’m inwardly jumping around in delight. But I keep my cool; I raise my eyebrows, roll my eyes and continue past the site into the gym. Behind me, the silence is booming louder than any drill or machine. I smile (until I remember that I’m going into a gym and then inwardly scream.)

CC #2 – 13:02 pm

I’m embarking on the strenuous 100 steps to the tube station from my flat, and…yep…more builders (Stepney Green’s gentrification at its finest!) I already know what’s coming.

I saunter past and immediately feel eyes burning, etching onto my skin, my clothes, my hair. It’s all quiet until Mr. Observant shouts out to me, claiming that I look “so sad” and that he knows “what would make pretty-girl happy.”

Well, first of all, I’m not miserable (I’m actually in a pretty good mood) – that’s literally just my face. Lol. Ok. Charming. (RBF problems amirite???)

I was going to let this one slide so I could continue on with my day, until Mr. Observant’s pal Mr. Bright Ideas shouted at me to “smile more.” And that did it for me. I turn round on my heel and, keeping my cool, say: “You do realise that’s so inappropriate, right?”

Mr. Bright Ideas piped up with the old “I’m just trying to brighten up your day.” Oh yeah. That one. Good Samaritan.

It would have been so easy to blow up and, oh my days, I nearly did: “Yeah, well, I don’t need you to. I’m fine.”

"I was...just sayin'..." The man looked chastened.

“Yeah, well don’t.”

And I walked off.

CC #3 – approx. 15:45pm

Walking by Kings Cross after a trip to the library and I bypass a Teenage Dirtbag (well, probably a little older but I like the nickname).

“Mmm, beautiful," he said.

With my previous encounters, I note I lacked conversation. I asked my questions and received no genuine response. This time was slightly different.

I stopped and faced him, looked him levelly in the eyes and told him: "You know, no one likes it when you do that?"

And this guy was genuinely stumped and surprised by my response. "What…huh…really?" he asked.

"Yes," I explained. "No one. It's rude; it makes us feel uncomfortable. I don’t need to hear it right now."

"Well, I wasn't meaning to be rude. I’m sorry" I turned to walk away, and as I walked he said, with what seemed to be genuine kindness: "You are lovely. God bless you."

Retraining myself to stop, listen, and — hardest of all — be brave enough to strike up a conversation with the men we’ve all ignored for so long was no easy task. I wish I could say that I had more concrete answers to the questions I set out to ask these strangers and the information I wanted to find. I learned that for the most part, these men are not looking for a response or expecting you to actually stop and talk to them. I can kind of gage, simply from today’s experiences, that perhaps they don’t really know why they do it.

But I don't regret the fact that I didn't try to make them understand why they shouldn't catcall.

How can you explain to a stranger that a compliment makes us weary? That words like sexy and beautiful sound like threats when we hear them whispered to us on an empty street late at night? That we feel objectified, uncomfortable, kind of scared when you say this to us while we're going about our normal routine in bustling daytime, not outwardly asking for judgement? That this thing you might do for fun is at the expense of our peace of mind?

It’s definitely not a quick word you can have with a stranger on a street corner. It needs to be part of a bigger conversation, earlier on, by the people who are in charge of shaping you into a respectable human. We're being taught as young women not to respond to this kind of attention; why aren’t we teaching young men to avoid this behaviour in the first place. If not, the so-called ‘Cats’ of the world will continue intimidating women for whatever reason, while we keep finding ways to tolerate it.

And we shouldn't have to. No means No.

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Kill 'em With Kindness - or Something Like That.

Friday, 2 March 2018

Kill 'em With Kindness - or Something Like That.

"Nice" is a word with an image problem. It's the forbidden adjective of school English lessons. Say the word out loud and you can’t help saying it with a pathetically sarcastic grimace: Oh yeah, the food was nice. The bar was nice. It was all very nice.

But I'm desperate to reverse the stigma of the word. Really, what's wrong with being "nice?" When did it become so uncool to be kind?

Doing something kind can take as little as seconds, and yet somehow, in fast-paced, do-it-now digitally demanding cultures, our days are so busy busy busy that they require our undivided attention just to remain operational. The exhaustive pace of life means we have to be reminded to leave our desks every hour so our legs don't seize up. We have to be reminded to take a lunch break (or be surgically removed from our monitors.) We have to be reminded to keep our phones away from our beds to promote healthy sleeping habits. Sleeping? Eating? Once-wonted parts of our daily lives get shaved away in competition to work longer, work harder, work better.

I'm not saying that everyone should treat kindness and niceness like the latest fad; it's not like Avocado Toast or a wannabe-hipster-beard. However, I do think that being "nice" needs to have a kind of resurgence.

The need to exercise a kinder mentality has been on my mind for a while now. But, like many others, sometimes I'm just a plain old grump. I'm tired and I'm busy and I don't want to give up my seat on the tube, nor do I want to wait in the freezing cold just to hold the door open for someone dawdling behind.

I think what gets to me is that we actually needed to be reminded of this very human, very normal quality. All you need to do is type into Google: "How to be kind?" and millions of self-help websites and blogs will pop up. Or, you know, walk into an embarrassingly-hipster coffee shop and check out the pink-chalked blackboards.

I recall recently witnessing a heavily pregnant lady, laden with shopping bags, being raced to a seat on the tube on a busy Saturday afternoon. I looked around me to see if anyone was going to get up, whilst said-mentioned pregnant lady grasped the handrail above her head. Everyone studied their phones, newspapers, the tube-line map on the wall, avoiding eye contact. So, of course, I offered her my seat.

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"Thank you so much!" she beamed, "you're so kind."

The compliment made my insides fizz for a few seconds. I'm not saying I deserve a 'Pride of Britain' award for it, but it did make me feel good. And that small thrill is not to be underestimated. I wasn't concertedly choosing to be kind, but the unforced spontaneity - and positive reinforcement - of it all made the difference. I remembered, there and then, that I did have the capacity to be kind. And so if I do (on the moist Central line where it's so easy to be a grump), then shouldn't we all?

I'm all about creating a culture of kindness, especially in a city where people squint at me as if I need shock therapy when I smile at them in the supermarket. Being nice is hardly a task like getting your five-a-day; it ain't that hard. Make it a habit and your own levels of happiness will exponentially increase. And if that's the fulcrum of a harmonious community, then I'm all for giving it a go.

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Feminism Today: 100 Years Later

Wednesday, 7 February 2018

Feminism Today: 100 Years Later

I'm back! And yes, I will be quoting Beyoncé.

Yesterday marked 100 years since the passing of the Representation of the People Act which allowed (some) women to vote. And of course, I celebrated. It's momentous; a huge historical moment. It was a step in the right direction.

What it doesn't call for, though, is what I like to call "Aww" Effect. I mean, I'm all for nostalgia but I'm certainly not for people treating it as some wistfully endearing anniversary. Rather, I feel as though the occasion highlights the work that still needs to be done. There should be no sense of distancing such monumental political history from the struggles we still face today.

It's not so much a "look how far we've come" but more of a "look how far we've yet to go."

Not to undermine the achievements of our previous successors; I mean, the passing of this law was revolutionary. The Suffragist/Suffragette movement was an undoubtedly necessary milestone and the trigger of the many waves of feminism we've had since. But it's hardly a day to treasure the plain, flat-out equality we still don't have.

So I'm suggesting we wipe the rosy tint off our lenses and reflect on the disenfranchisement that still exists today.

When I ask myself what feminism really means to me, I immediately think of that particular word: 'equality'...you know - equality for women, equality for all humans, equality in the workplace .e.t.c. But then when I probe the definition of 'equality', and ask myself what it truly looks like, I don't really know where to go.

To me, the word has become an empty signifier, underlying a larger definitional problem in regards to the women's movement. At its core, feminism and the fight for gender equality remains an unwon cause. Whilst celebrating the barriers we have broken so far, we also need to remember that we still aren't there yet.

We're a stalled movement, in my opinion, because whilst we all may want equality, we all have different ideas of how to get there.

In order to succeed, feminism has to fundamentally work within the very systems we want to change; this includes our relation to power and power structures. Whilst it's easy to completely reject and abandon our white, male, snotty leadership (I feel like I always call out Trump *soz not soz*) , then we've already lost the battle. You need to be in it to win it, for want of a better phrase. Feminism's relation to power is tricky in the sense that I always find myself questioning whether power is inherently patriarchal? I constantly need to remind myself that I need to stop thinking of 'power' as inherently sexist. As a force, it is that: simply a force. It's been manipulated to perpetuate women's oppression, for sure, but power knows no gender. Therefore, we need to remind ourselves that women can be powerful, thereby inversing the traditional narratives of "Women as Weak."

In short, we need to rethink what power means.

And with 'rethinking' comes the idea of freedom of thought, which to me is the most important factor of all. It's freedom of thought which is the ultimate form of liberation, and arguably this is underpinned in our voting rights. The movement demands freedom in every sense - intellectually, physically .e.t.c. And having the right to democratically choose (even if you had to be aged 30) critically encompasses such freedom. With freedom there is always hope, and with thought comes change.

So we need to reimagine definitions of power and freely think. Ok. That's crossed off the list. So what's the missing piece of the feminism puzzle? What is stopping us from achieving full equality (whatever it may look like)?

Like I said: we all have different ways of getting there. Our activism is divided. Our movement is not completely allied. Any activism pitting women against each other is not successful activism; it's not feminism. Sisterhood is our strongest tool. The problem is that the men in the charge know this too, and keeping us divided is their means of keeping us oppressed (you want proof? Theresa May and Brexit - 'nuf said.) As long as women are fighting each other, they are not fighting the larger power structures that enforce our oppression.

We also need to embrace feminism as both a political and social movement: activism within and without institution, both open resistance and working within the system. Marches are a great tactic of resisting oppression; policy changes addressing unconscious bias is another. My point is that we need both. Neither one is better than the other. Resistance and operational tactics in unity will create change.

And, perhaps most importantly of all, feminism must be considered as an ethical vision. The formation of an independent free-thinking mind and a fully individualized, actualized body underpins female freedom. We need to be educated to be liberated; we need to understand that the history of oppression is localised within our very bodies and awaken ourselves from this oblivion. The process of learning begins here. Our intellectual inferiority prescribed by 'the powers at be' as a means of oppression has taught us to just assume our social conditioning..."we teach girls to shrink themselves...otherwise you might threaten the man" (YES, THAT'S RIGHT, I QUOTED A BEYONCE SONG, @ me!!!!!!!!!!!!) Through the oppression of the mind and intellect, gender seems to prescribe how we should be, not actualizing how we are.

How we are, both as a group, and as a self. I think the self is so key here. Social conditioning and intellectual inferiority are not associated with independence and free-thinking. It just takes one individual to realise that they are not to be grouped or subjected to mass oppression. Feminism must begin as a movement within the self; we need to ask ourselves what it means to us centrally.

To conclude, then, I guess what I'm trying to say is that whilst I'm all for praising a century's worth of democratic equality, we can't celebrate and not interrogate. Instead of taking feminism and definitions of equality as simple truths, we need to question and corrode them. We need to build new ideas and conventions in this century because, whilst there's no denying we have progressed, we're also facing some serious cultural decline and narcissistic leadership. We need to reimagine what feminism looks like, acts like, sounds like in this age because, until we do, we'll remain a stalled movement.

Wow...this post turned into a full-on essay! I'm not really sorry though!

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