ooh! i have a pretty navel – Page 3

I’m bored and I’m tired

Let me tell you something about me. I let you see the flashes of rage, incandescent anger which invigorates me. It comes, it builds, it explodes like an orgasm and I collapse into momentary catharsis. It’s not a good feeling but it’s better than the alternative.

Most of the time I’m bored. I’m bored and I’m tired. It is grindingly wearing simply existing in oh so many spaces. It’s exhausting and tedious having the same fucking arguments time and time again, not managing to chip away at the immovable force.

It happens a lot in anarchist and radical spaces. The men don’t like it when you challenge their supremacy. A few weeks ago, all of this happened, and it was dismissed as nothing. Now we’re being told we should listen to some sort of TV celebrity because he made some vaguely supportive noises on some issues. From microaggressions to outright misogyny, it goes and goes and goes and it repeats and it repeats and it’s just fucking tiresome.

Social justice circles are no better. Too many feminists think they can get away with kicking down, not up and we’re expected not to challenge this because they’re making some vaguely supportive noises on some issues.

It’s a sinkhole of solidarity, that’s what it is. Unidirectional. I will pour my solidarity behind their causes and yet, do they ever have my fucking back? No. I am a trouble-maker, I am a monster, I am a liar.

There are so many privilege metaphors I could think of. I am Ginger Rogers, backwards in high heels and I want to kick off my shoes and sit down. I am being told the game is easy by someone who is playing it on easy mode and I want to throw my controller at their fucking stupid smug head. I am being attacked by an evil invisible zombie horde who are all armed with chainsaws and also invisibility lasers and I am too tired to make up a metaphor which actually makes sense.

I have goals in common with a lot of awful human beings. Why should I be expected to dash myself against the rocks repeatedly to support them while they would never do a thing for me? Why is it that I am expected to undertake so much thankless emotional labour, and if I don’t then I am the unreasonable one? Why is it me who has to do the heavy lifting?

And I know I’m better off than some. At least I’m white. At least I’m cis. At least my disability isn’t too bad. At least I have a livable income. And I try to do what I can to help with the heavy lifting in the struggles of those who get more shit than me. And for some reason, I have more energy for this than I do with the banal struggles of my own. It’s easier to direct my own limited resources into people who need my solidarity rather than the solidarity-suckers with all of their privilege.

What I need is something that I cannot foresee happening. I need for what I am fighting for to be understood. I need to be able to move freely, not to be constantly hampered by the same petty squabbles over what should be a tiny amount of ground. I need those with the capacity to take up the heavy lifting, I need support and to know that others have my back when I challenge the terrible or even just the mundane.

We need a revolution, but before that happens, we need to clean out the shit in our own back garden, because if it’s a tiresome struggle to simply exist amid fellow revolutionaries then it’s not my revolution.

So please, please can we start with the banal, before we expand to the grand? I am aware that for a lot of people, this will be unpleasant, and will require taking on a higher degree of emotional labour than they have ever tried before. But this is how so many of us live day to day, simply to negotiate spaces. It is this dynamic that needs to change, needs a complete inversion.

I know this can happen, because those who I can trust do so. There are some who fight at my side who are supportive and make the fight feel winnable. These few who have my back are unquantifiably precious.

I have seen so many people fall from sheer exhaustion, from being hounded out of spaces. Voices silenced and bodies taken out of the fight because some would rather maintain and replicate hegemonic power structures within spaces rather than challenge them. I haven’t succumbed yet, mostly because I’m fucking stubborn and I don’t want to let the bastards win. But it hurts. It hurts my soul and it hurts my body, and I’m bored and I’m tired.

In honour of World Mental Health Day, I state the fucking obvious

Content note: I talk very frankly about my mental health problems in this post. Some of you might find it upsetting.

Today is World Mental Health today, so now is as good a time as any to be honest. I have alluded to this in previous posts, and Twitter, and so on, but let me say this outright: my mental health is not exactly tip-top.

I have depression. I’ve had it for so long that it’s just kind of become a part of me. I remember going through a brief period in the middle of it when I wasn’t depressed, and I felt so light that I might float up, up and away into the atmosphere. My usual state is kind of numb and apathetic, weighed down by a burden I barely notice any more. Sometimes I literally cannot be bothered to do anything, and will sit around and stink. I don’t usually feel miserable, instead I tend to feel nothing at all. And when the emotions do creep in, if I’m own they’re not usually the nicest ones. It’ll be misery, or anger, or frustration. I eat whatever is easiest to cram into my maw when I feel hunger; I smoke a lot so I feel slightly more sated by the crappy food I prepare.

I get anxiety from time to time, particularly as I emerge from the depths of numbness. Sometimes it’s a dull knot in the pit of my stomach which accompanies me throughout the day, and other times it’s like I’m drowning. It does not fuck off easily.

Sometimes the two bastard things team up, and I make some fucking dreadful decisions. I become reckless. Very, very reckless. Not in a “making-out-with-the-wrong-person” kind of way, but more like not crossing roads very safely because at that point half of me is not caring, and the other half of me seriously wants to be able to stop thinking. It’s not like I want to be dead, rather that I’d really like to be unconscious for a bit which will mean I don’t have to pretend to be a functional human the next day and it might hit the hard reset on the anxiety.

I’m not on medication. I have epilepsy on top of everything else, and most antidepressants don’t exactly mix well with that. I’d have to go back on daily epilepsy medication–a side effect of which is not being able to feel a fucking thing. I get prescribed a benzodiazepine for my epilepsy, to take when I need it. Sometimes I accidentally-on-purpose confuse the feeling of anxiety for the feeling of an oncoming seizure. I don’t do this very often at all, because I know benzos aren’t a good thing to have regularly. I probably don’t even take the stuff as often as I need.

I tried mindfulness therapy once, because this was what was on offer. I don’t think it helped. Before I had the therapy, I’d had a tendency to somatise my anxiety: rather than feeling shit, I’d kind of puke a lot and my body would hurt. The mindfulness took it out of my body and into my mind, and then it stopped because you can’t seem to get free therapy for very long at all.

I have a hell of a good support network, which I believe has been the key to me never sinking too far, and giving me a reason to get out of bed. I have friends and lovers who I adore, wonderful people who have handled me at my worst and also get to enjoy me at my best. I talk to a lot of amazing people online, who help me more than they’ll ever know. Twitter is truly a beautiful source of mutual support. Work is pretty understanding, too, and I have got time off when I’ve really needed it.

So that’s me. I felt like I should tell my story because I don’t doubt that it’s similar to others. I felt like I should tell my story in case there’s a magic wand that could make me not depressed that anyone knows about. I felt like I should tell my story because we don’t talk honestly about how we’re not OK anywhere near enough. I felt like I should tell my story in an attempt to smash down stigma surrounding mental health problems. I felt like I should tell my story because I haven’t been able to talk about it this fully until now. I felt like I should tell my story so you can know me better.

Bisexual adventures with stavvers

Today is Bi Visibility Day, the day of the year wherein we bisexuals stop pretending to be humans and reveal our true forms as soul-eating beings of shadow and vapour.

I’ll be honest. It irks me no end that awareness days have to exist on any issue. It pisses me off that a single day of the year is allocated to groups of humans to go “Hi, we exist, please don’t treat us like shit.” It bothers me that one day of the year is considered somehow adequate to cram in pointing out “hey, this is an enormous problem, let’s maybe do something to make this not a problem any more”. And yet this is a thing, and today is all about us bisexuals being visible.

From my first stirring of a weird little feeling in the pit of my tummy while watching The X-Files and wishing I could marry both Mulder and Scully right up to my first drunk snog with a girl at the first cool party I went to, I’d kind of assumed I was straight. Why wouldn’t I be? That was the thing most people were, right? I had not experienced some sort of weird magic lesbian transformation like Willow, ergo, I must have been straight.

Well, obviously I wasn’t, and I never had been, but the fact I fancied boys kind of complicated matters in a world where bisexuals–if they exist at all–are apparently all lascivious sex tanks, evil axe murderers, or a combination of both.

Yes. I had managed to grow up in a world where I was bombarded by media produced in a society which isn’t particularly keen on bisexuals.

I was the queerest person I knew very well, until I was quite far into my twenties. I’d met a few gay and lesbian people, maybe a bi person here or there, but for the most part I was the only one I really knew. I was presumed straight, of course. The times I mentioned I was actually bi, I saw eyebrows go up. I received demands for a complete inventory of all the sex I had had in my life, ever. I heard mutters that bi people were just doing it for the attention. I often stayed quiet about my sexual orientation unless I was drunk, because people were often dicks.

In an attempt to connect more with my lesbian side, I read The Well of Loneliness. As a bi femme, it did not make me feel particularly good about myself.

As I got more involved with feminism and the queer community, I discovered how worryingly prevalent biphobia is among gay and lesbian people. We’re in the closet, apparently. We’re ruining feminism forever by sometimes having sex with men. Basically, we’re all gross and icky and we should just make up our feeble little minds and become properly gay.

And because of this, once again, I wanted to shut the hell up about my sexual orientation; people were being dicks.

Sadly, the monosexuals still dominate discourse. Whether straight or gay, they’re there, yapping away. Most of the time, bi people are just ignored like a beige carpet. This is the best option in a society which operates under some rigidly oppressive power structures. And at worst, it’s utterly horrid. We get homophobic abuse from the straights. We get biphobic abuse from lesbians and gay people. It is a pincer manoeuvre, the discrimination we face.

I’ve internalised a lot of it, from both sides, and it’s been a long process unlearning all of it, believing that there’s nothing wrong with me or anyone else like me. I think I’m getting there.

And I’m fucking sick of it all.

Make up my mind? I’ve made up my mind, and I’m proud of who I am.

Pick a side? I’ve picked my side, and that side is a stand against biphobia.

Just come out? I am out against bigotry.

Doing it for the attention? You’re damn right that I’m going to keep screaming and shouting that I exist and maybe I pose a problem for your blinkered and tedious worldview.

I exist, and I will not be quiet.

Confessions of a former arsehole

If I could build a time machine, I would do several things. First of all, I’d hang out with Mary Wollstonecraft, possibly taking tea with her and her marvellously-named friend Fanny Blood. Then I’d have sex with Stalin back when he was young and sexy and come back and check to see if I’d rocked his world enough to prevent all the beastliness he perpetrated. Then I’d undertake the possibly paradox-inducing step of popping back in time to visit myself a few years back, and slap myself round the face for being, basically a bit of a shitbaguette.

Now don’t get me wrong. I know I’m not perfect right now, and I also know that I am a hell of a lot better than I used to be.

Yes, this is another post about me.

I write this not to solicit praise at my bravery for admitting to this. Frankly, it’s all pretty horrible things to admit to having thought, and none of it is OK. If anything, I expect people to be pissed at past-me, and I embrace that, because I am also very pissed at past-me.

I am, like many others, privileged in some respects and not privileged in others. Where I had privilege, I was very, very ignorant of how fucking blessed I was. Where I didn’t, I’d internalised a lot of bullshit. Being born and socialised into this society does that to you. I say this not to justify any of what follows, but, rather, to explain it.

And I find this section quite hard to write, knowing what I do now, because I find it hard to find an appropriate level of detail which explains how wrong I used to be while also avoiding being triggering to others. So, basically, feel free to skip this bit and go to the bit below the picture of a kitten if you want to, because I’m going to touch on a lot of oppressive things I thought and did.

I used to believe that everything was some sort of intellectual exercise, that it could all be rationalised and discussed, and that when people showed emotion they had somehow lost the argument. I was one of those obnoxious atheists. I even quite liked Richard Dawkins.

I thought that maybe I’d be safer from being raped if I didn’t wear high heels, because men found them sexy, and it was harder to run away. I thought that some rape allegations were definitely worthy of doubt, because it was so hard on the poor accused and some women probably did just want to ruin a man’s life. I’d tell rape jokes. I body-shamed other women a lot.

I used to be transphobic. I’d use slurs and jokes in conversations with my entirely cis social circle. I held a very strong belief in some sort of essentialist notion of gender. When I was trying to be all politically correct, everything I’d say was riddled with offensive stuff (e.g. “used to be a man”) even though I genuinely thought I was being progressive. I think I even respected the opinion of the trans-exclusionary radical feminists–even when I held some distinctly unfeminist beliefs, I still thought myself a feminist because that was a good thing for me to be.

I often used racist slurs and jokes. Again, never to the people directly affected, because my social circle was mostly white. However once, to my shame, I literally used the “my black friend doesn’t mind” excuse. And I was unthinking as hell, and that seeped out into my language. I thought and said some terrible things about travellers.

I used to be whorephobic. I thought some pretty fucking terrible things about sex work and sex workers. First judgment, then a patronising pity.

I used ableist slurs and jokes. Yep, once again, my social circle was quite abled. My language was very poor indeed.

I used words describing mental health and learning disabilities as slurs and figures of speech.

I once went to a “chav party”. That was a thing I did.

I used the humour defence for so much shit. Even beyond this. Just banter, just humour, it should be edgy. And any attempt to moderate my language, well, that was probably just political correctness gone mad.

I am cringing as I write this. I’m sure there’s more, loads more. I wanted to put it all out there, but I am burning from shame right now, and that has sort of fried my memory. Plus, for at least three years during the awful time, I was on medication that meant I can’t really remember anything from that time in any detail. At any rate, these are some things I did and I believed.

I got better.

I got better because I met a lot of wonderful people, people from all sorts of backgrounds. Before, my social circle had been fucking limited, and I’d just assumed all of this terrible shit was OK. The veil of ignorance was pierced. Twitter helped a lot. You tend to meet a lot of really cool people. And these really cool people took the time to challenge me, to explain why I was being a rampaging arsewipe. At first, I was defensive. That passed quickly. And then I learned. And I took the time to proactively learn, to proactively seek knowledge, to embark on a voyage of not needing to be challenged or called out–I am not there yet. Sometimes I slip up and need to be called out.

Every single thing I named up there, I made sure I learned why it was wrong. Why what I’d found funny was in fact incredibly oppressive to others. How much misogyny I’d internalised over the years. How I was wrong about a lot of things that too many people had led me to believe were right.

This is why I like to pay forward the favour that people did for me in the past. Being called out made me change my beliefs and my behaviour. It stopped me from inadvertently harming anyone. I do not remotely believe that any of these past things I took for granted are OK any more, but in a parallel world, there is a Stavvers who was never called out, who is probably sitting around watching Top Gear and laughing along with Jeremy Clarkson (yes, I did that. I know.)

It changed me fundamentally, being called out, and that’s why I feel it’s such an important thing to do.

I’ll still fuck up. I’m still not perfect, and I never will be. All I know is that I will try and try and try.

And I have a lot of people to thank for that. I am eternally grateful to you all.

Call-out week: a semi-coherent series of things on my mind

Self-doubt and receptivity to privilege-checking

Content note: this post discusses my personal experiences of mental ill-health, sexual violence and emotional abuse

I have a hypothesis. It is not necessarily a very good one, as it is built almost purely from personal experience and some conversations I have had with others.

But it’s a hypothesis, and in the spirit of Week Of Posts About Calling Out And Privilege And Stuff, I feel like it’s worth stating.

As confident as I may seem, I am riddled with self-doubt, a little voice at the back of my head perpetually squeaking “Stavvers, you’re probably wrong about this and chatting shit”. It’s been there almost as long as I remember, and I’m fairly sure it is the sound of the internalisation of all of the oppressive experiences I have had throughout my life.

I’ve been raped by a partner, I’ve been emotionally abused by another. My dyspraxia means people have treated me like I’m inept and stupid throughout most of my school years. My epilepsy led to being treated like a delicate little flower who might keel over at any point, as has the vast history of benevolent sexism I’ve experienced since I’ve sprouted tits. My school never taught me I even existed as a queer woman, thanks to Thatcher’s Section 28, and I’ve experienced all sorts of bollocks as a queer woman ever since I decided to be open about it. With all of this shit, it feels like an inevitable curse to find myself experiencing periodic spells of depression which come and suck my soul away.

Because of all of this, I find it very difficult to believe I could possibly be right about anything. I try to tell that little bit of me that actually, I’m nowhere near as crap as I feel that I am, but the nagging doubt remains. My conscious thoughts, and my network of wonderful people who for whatever reason seem to like me, are much kinder to me than my emotions.

This has a major effect in conversations about privilege, in particularly with privileged people. I’ve written before about how conversations about privilege can so often feel like gaslighting: within a system of dominance, there are two opposing perceptions of reality and the privileged cannot see the problem so denies its existence, denies a reality experienced by someone else.

Because of my self-doubt, and my experience of emotional abuse, I am pretty fucking sensitive to gaslighting. When I call someone out and they deny there is a problem, just for a fleeting second my self-doubt gets the better of me. For a fleeting second, that person is my rapist, my abuser, every man who has ever patronised me, every cop who has held me against my will, every homophobe, every creep, every bastard who has ever fucked with me and I’ve kicked myself for not fighting back. Often, this passes quickly. Sometimes, it does not, and I will get angry and try to avenge myself for everything that my self-doubt has told me was my fault; or I will get sad and simply listen to the self-doubt and self-blame.

But in its own way, the self-doubt is also a gift. It makes me more receptive to criticism, and more willing to change. It means that when someone calls me out, my first instinct is not that they are wrong, but rather, that I am probably wrong. And often, as it happens, I am wrong.

I have noticed a certain self-assuredness in those with more privilege than me which makes it very difficult to challenge them when they need challenging. They genuinely don’t appear to even entertain the possibility that they could be wrong, and that that’s not a big deal.

So this is my hypothesis, that the self-doubt which comes with being fucked over by society makes us more willing to be challenged and listen, and more receptive to being called out and asked to check our privilege.

It means that getting those who actually need to try harder not to oppress others will be a far, far harder struggle if I’m right about this. If there’s not even any room for doubt and self-reflection in their thoughts, how can we possibly persuade them to change? I suppose backing each other up might go some way to help, presenting a view that this isn’t some sort of minority opinion.

I don’t really have any answers, all I have is questions. I don’t even know if I’m onto something here. So I suppose I’ll start with a pertinent question: does anyone else feel this way, too?

Call-out week: a semi-coherent series of things on my mind

Solidarity is for life, not just for International Women’s Day

Two years ago today, I started blogging. I like to think I’ve come a long way and expanded my thinking since then–if I wasn’t growing, I’d merely be stagnant, after all.

The reason I started blogging, on International Women’s Day of all days, was because this was a day where the voices of women are actually listened to by those who claim to be on our side. It’s “our” day, is International Women’s Day. The mainstream media trots out a few white women to make some pithy statements, the news will report on some events, and maybe, just maybe, the police will try not to club in a few heads at any mass gatherings.

For that one day of the year, women’s voices at least appear to matter, and there is at least a pretence that they are listened to. A veneer of solidarity is painted over the fact that actually, society at large, still doesn’t really give a fuck.

Women’s issues are still someone else’s issues as far as those who set the agenda are concerned. Even within the examination of women’s issues, there is still precious little examination of how this intersects with other oppressions–this can be seen all too often among a certain sort of feminist outright rejecting intersectional thinking.

All oppression is not the same. All women’s oppression is not the same. When we ask for equality, it is simply not enough. What use is equality when the playing field is so grossly uneven that gender is but one set of bumps in the turf?

We don’t need equality; we need solidarity. Solidarity with all of these struggles for recognition, for rights, for freedom. And it’s not enough to make the right noises one day a year: it needs to be a perpetual attack on the whole broken system until we can all live in dignity.

One day a year won’t unfuck this mess.

Why did they try to lock us out of the Alfie Meadows trial?

Yesterday, I trudged to Woolwich Crown Court, in deepest darkest Plumstead, at stupid o’clock in the morning. It was for an important enough reason: it was the beginning of the third trial for Alfie Meadows and Zac King, two young people arrested for their participation in the 2010 student protests on a charge which was simply stuck there for the police to cover for the fact that they very nearly killed Alfie with their aggressive tactics. I was there to show support as were many others.

There was a small demonstration outside the gates of a complex which housed to the right the court, and to the left Belmarsh Prison, connected to the court by an underground tunnel in a clear illustration of the purpose of the buildings. We turned to enter the court to sit in the public gallery: as members of the public, this is something that we are allowed to do in an open court. The way was blocked by police. They told us we couldn’t pass: not even the families of Alfie and Zac.

It was still early, so we concerned members of the public went for breakfast. During this time, after some cajoling and an attempt to lock the doors of the court, the families and the defendants were finally allowed into court for their own fucking trial. When we returned, the doors were locked.

Woolwich Crown Court is a public building. It’s not the sort of building one would ever choose to go to, just an ugly functional factory for churning out a certain definition of justice. It is a public building, which members of the public can access: maybe they’re lawyers, maybe they’re on trial, maybe they’re witnesses or jurors or work in the canteen. Or maybe they’re journalists, there to report on the trial. Or maybe they’re just there to support someone in court. Literally everyone was locked out of the front of Woolwich Crown Court yesterday morning, because the court security did not want to allow access to those who had come to support Alfie and Zac.

None of the security seemed to understand quite why they couldn’t let us in, just that it was forbidden by the court manager. Direct attempts at communicating with this court manager resulted in a ringing telephone with no answer; apparently he just didn’t want to hear it. Trapped outside were friends of Alfie and Zac, supporters and a journalist. We were hardly a terrifying baying mob ready to make the storming of the Bastille look like a picnic; there were seven of us huddled like penguins. Eventually, a security guard informed us that six seats had been allocated in the public gallery (which held ~~twelve~~ 18*) for supporters. That meant two of us could go in. It was an easy decision to make, and those closest to Alfie went inside, promising to let us know of any developments. Soon after, the arbitrary proof that the journalist was, indeed, a journalist, was received by the court, and she, too, was allowed in, leaving four of us.

We spent our time shivering and pointing people who wanted to access the court to the door that security would allow them to pass through, since security weren’t exactly making their reasons for locking an entire public court to the public particularly clear. At one point, some police smugly asked us if we were cold. It made me glow briefly with irritation, at least.

It was freezing, and we came to realise that there was no way that we would be allowed to sit in the public gallery of an open trial, and after an hour in what had turned into hail, we decided it was time to head back and warm up. “State-1, us-nil,” I was muttering, just as we got a text from someone inside, who had left the courtroom to text us and tell us the judge had said that the public gallery should be open to the public. I heard later that he had been rather surprised to learn that the doors to a busy public building had been locked to bar our access.

As we walked back past the security a hundred metres from the court the guard asked “Are you protesters?” We didn’t even dignify that with an answer–we patently weren’t protesting anything apart from grumbling about how cold our hands were. Annoyed, and feeling as though he had to do something, the guard continued. “Is the lady of the group taking pictures?” he asked. It was a very silly question. I had my phone in my hand, and I was clearly typing on it. It was pointed at my feet; or, if it were the front camera, would be poised to be taking the least flattering selfie imaginable. He gave me an impotent lecture about how I was not allowed to take pictures. I decided not to tell him off for referring to me as “the lady of the group” as I had more important things to do.

When we returned to the court, the doors were still locked, and the same security guard still wouldn’t let us in despite our assertions that the judge had said so. He hadn’t heard anything about that, he said, and refused to check the information he could have easily accessed. It was only when a second security guard came down and let us in that he conceded. The second guard, apparently forewarned by the man in the hut, once again informed me I wasn’t allowed to take pictures. He delivered this in a wearied tone, unable to even pretend he thought that was the case.

Finally, after the first security guard had nicked my perfume out of my bag (presumably in case I scented the court), we were in and able to watch the–by my reckoning–half hour of court proceedings that happened in between all the hanging around that is commonplace in court.

I’ve supported people in court before and it was always farcical, but this was by far the most absurd of my experiences. Never before have I known of the doors to a public building to be locked like that, and based entirely on the say-so of security going against the judge’s wishes. From the looks of it, they were taking their lead from the police. And why?

Your guess is as good as mine, but it seems to me that this was the state once again exerting its power in any way it could. This has marked the entirety of the Alfie Meadows case: him and Zac are currently on their third trial, as the fact the police nearly killed Alfie kind of looks bad for them. They wanted to hide the level of support–from Alfie, and, perhaps, from the jury. They didn’t want witnesses to the injustice of the whole humourless farce of a trial.

If you’re outraged by this, remember that this is only the tip of the iceberg. Feel that outrage, and understand that things like this happen all the time. Talk about your outrage, the state of the justice system. Familiarise yourself with Alfie’s story, and others that are similar. Know that the state does not act fairly or justly, and share these tales because it’s absurd and it’s repulsive.

And remember that that’s just how power works.

Corrected the number of seats in the public gallery, thanks to Nina pointing it out below. Should also mention that when we got in there, there were plenty of empty seats as the court officials had done such a fine job of getting rid of supporters.

The shit I get and how I deal with it

I get a lot of shit. A lot of abuse, often misogynistic, sometimes heterosexist and once or twice, a smattering of ableist nonsense. It comes with the territory of being a woman with an opinion who is present on the internet.

Once upon a time, I kept a folder on my computer of screencaps, titled “Misogyny and abuse”. Almost daily, I’d have to update it. I gave up. It was sapping my time and resources, and I realised how uniform it was. There was nothing I could learn from the reboant chorus of cunts who couldn’t stop wishing they could cut my bitchdyke pussy out.

If you google my real name–which my haters seem to think is some sort of state-guarded secret and utter it with the delight of a schoolchild upon having discovered their teacher has a first name–you’ll find several hate-sites, at least two of which are specially created just for me. They feel like they’re so clever, having discovered the link between the Zoe Stavri who sometimes writes articles in the mainstream press, and the @stavvers who tweets “look at this article written by me”. They like to post unflattering pictures of me, and hurl abuse over every single thing I say, making sure to tweet at anyone I follow to let them know “the truth” about me. The truth being, that I’m a woman with an opinion, who sometimes doesn’t photograph particularly well.

The interesting thing is how followers of my dedicated hate-Twitter all seem to be misogynists who I’ve called out. Birds of a feather flock together, and the particular strobilating dingleberry who runs my hate-Twitter seems to be the standard around which they can rally.

Then there’s the time I had a death threat. It was qualitatively different from various haters saying “I wish she’d die” “I could kill her” “I could rape her” &c &c (all of which as happened countlessly tedious times). They’re not threats. Let me tell you what a death threat is. I once pissed off a particularly prolific misogynist and all-round scumbag. He decided to tweet what he thought was my address, followed by an announcement that he’d like to break my neck. The good news is, it wasn’t my address, or that of anybody I knew. As far as I know, none of those people had their necks broken. As I understand it, the shitbowl in question got into trouble with the cops for trying to pull similar shit with other people.

And that’s the common-or-garden misogynists, but let it be known that I also get a fair bit of trouble from another group of bigots: the TERFs. They don’t like me much, because I’m a vocal ally of trans people and speak out against transphobia. The only thing distinguishing them and their methods–attempted doxxings, timeline-stalkings, outright hate speech–from the misogynists I spoke about before is that this lot hate on a specific group of women. While Suzanne Moore may not be a TERF herself, her attempted scapegoating of trans people for “abuse” is a hair’s breadth away from the out-and-out hate speech the TERFs perpetrate.

Maybe it’s because I’ve had heaps of abuse levelled on me in the past that helps me see, clear as day, the difference between abuse and criticism. Yes, even rude criticism. Abuse comes from above, from a person with privilege, desperate to cling on to it. Criticism so often comes from below, rudeness returning fire from a war I had inadvertently declared. In these instances, I step back. I educate myself. I don’t make the same mistake twice, and I become better. If I did anything else, it would make me the bully, not the person I’d harmed.

As for the rest of it, that sort of shit, as I said, comes with the territory of being a woman with an opinion on the internet. At first I was afraid, I was petrified. Then I came to an epiphany: they are doing this because I, as a woman with an opinion on the internet, am a threat to them. They want me to shut the fuck up and stop making life as a misogynist harder for them. They feel their ability to dominate slipping away, and it scares the fuck out of them.

Oderint dum metuant, fuckers.

I feel a little frisson of glee from knowing they are scared of me, then I hit the block button, because I actually don’t want to hear any of their shit. I keep my comments moderated on my blog, because it’s my space, and I can do what the fuck I want with it. I don’t read below the line on things I’ve written that I have no control over.

They’re frightened because I’m right, and that’s all I need to know.

Fluffy pits: reflections on #Armpits4August

Today is the last day of Armpits4August, where women grow their armpit hair throughout the month to raise money for Verity, a charity for people with polycystic ovary syndrome.

Before I continue, let me provide the obligatory link so you can donate.

As the month draws to a close, I’ve decided not to bother shaving it off again. I rather like it.

I always found it strange how leaving one’s armpits in their natural state could possibly be a political act. Thanks to patriarchal beauty standards, though, it is. Patriarchy and capitalism got drunk together one night and found a really good way of oppressing women while forcing them to shell out money on thoroughly unnecessary products. After that, they hugged, expressed their glee at being on the same page, then ended up awkwardly snogging until capitalism passed out snoring. The next morning, avoiding eye contact, they decided to pretend that the tonsil-hockey hadn’t happened, but the getting women to remove hair from their armpits was Definitely A Good Idea and they should totally do it. Unlike most drunken plans, they totally did it.

Growing up under this system, I started shaving my armpits the second hair started growing there. Maybe even a bit before, just because I thought I should. When the light went on and I realised how preposterous this was, I didn’t stop shaving, even though I knew I didn’t have to. It would always get to That Awful In Between Stage, like growing out a fringe. It was stubbly and awful, and it itched like fuck. So I’d shave it off again.

Armpits4August gave me the opportunity to finally force myself through that barrier. After a month of growth, I now have about half an inch of lovely fluff. I’d never even been able to gauge what it would look like, given my history of shaving. It turns out it’s soft and dark, with a little patch left bare where the joint is. You can see a photo here, and while you’re on the page you might as well sponsor me.

It’s no more or less trouble than shaving it off. It doesn’t smell, and it’s kind of fun to wash because you can shampoo it. When I sit in front of a fan, the breeze gently tickles the hair. But perhaps best of all, it’s a really good filter to identify arseholes.

Most people have been fairly positive about the whole armpit-hair growth. The majority of those who are less than enthusiastic are, at least, completely neutral to the whole thing, because it really is no big deal what anyone else does with their body. Nobody I’ve had sex with has run away screaming; it’s been greeted largely with, at best, an “I like that” and at worse complete indifference. This is because I tend to have sex with cool people.

I’ve only received a tiny bit of negative feedback. Some of it comes from trolls, who would still find reason to attack me if I lived their dreams and got married to Julian Assange at an EDL rally. The rest comes from sexist men, who are probably rather menaced by women not existing solely for their entertainment and amusement. In short, the negativity comes from people I don’t care much to know anyway.

And so I’m keeping my fluffy pits and it will be exciting to see what happens next. I’ll finish by saying DONATE DONATE! IT’S ALL FOR CHARITY!

I’m not dead!

Hello blog-friends. Just a quick post to announce that I’m definitely not dead or anything, despite having taken the longest break from blogging since I started.

Rest assured, I haven’t lost interest, I’ve just been rather busy these past few weeks. I’ve been exchanging labour for capital, which is something I haven’t done in rather a while (and has rather strengthened my resolve to smash capitalism all the harder), and running around like a blue-arsed fly doing various activist shit.

Normal service will resume shortly, but for the time being, remember that Brendan O’Neill is a weeping syphilitic chode.