Category: rage at the system

I still think Julian Assange is a rapist.

Trigger warning: this post discusses rape and links to some nasty examples of rape apologism

The latest in the saga of rat-faced probable rapist Julian Assange: having lost countless extradition appeals, he has skipped bail and is trying to skip the country to go to Ecuador.

I have written before about how Julian Assange and Wikileaks are two mutually exclusive concepts, and that Wikileaks has never raped anyone, but Assange probably did based on what his own defence lawyers have said. It’s also a remarkably silly decision for a self-proclaimed hero of free speech to decide to go to Ecuador.

The thing about Ecuador is that they’ve got a pretty bad record on letting journalists speak their minds, unless they’re thinking about how thoroughly brilliant government is. Assange is, I suppose, fairly chummy with the Ecuadorean president, so maybe this relationship can work, and our self-proclaimed hero of free speech can live out the rest of his days as a state propagandist. If his plea for asylum goes through, I suspect Wikileaks will never publish anything remotely critical of Ecuador again. So much for free speech.

Usually for the excuses Assange is using–that he might face the death penalty in the US for his work with Wikileaks–the place you would probably want to seek asylum is Sweden. Sweden is pretty fucking good on not extraditing people: their law means they cannot send someone to a country with the death penalty or for political offences. And they take CIA rendition flights very seriously. Simply put, Sweden would not extradite someone like Assange for his work with Wikileaks.

So why won’t Assange go back to Sweden, where he is still phenomenally unlikely to find his arse extradited? All that is left, once the smoke and mirrors of the inflated threat of extradition from Sweden clears, is the fact that Assange raped two of Sweden’s citizens. And of course, Assange’s fans are still banging the rape apologism drum.

They fundamentally (probably wilfully) misunderstand consent, one site thinking that a sleeping woman should have probably expressed non-consent if she didn’t want to be raped while asleep. Another, an incoherent mess suggesting that the site was put together by run-of-the-mill rape apologists rather than the hackers, laments Sweden’s “gender politics”, considering the whole thing to be some sort of big feminist conspiracy to get men to wear condoms. And of course, the survivors are dragged through the mud again and again, and my heart goes out to them. Not only do they suffer the utterly vile abuse of the fans, but they are instrumentalised in a both real and perceived international power struggle by a reboant chorus of cunts who can’t tell the difference between a rapist and a website.

The rape apologism shows the last resort of people with no other form of argument. The US extradition threat from Sweden is flimsy, but Assange wants to evade any form of accountability for his actions.

Which makes things difficult. In my ideal anarcho-utopia, there would be no courts and no extraditions (for there would be no borders). Sexual violence would be addressed through transformative justice and community accountability, with the needs of the survivor put first. But here’s the pinch: it requires engagement from everyone. It requires the Assanges of the world to stop running and start to accept that they have crossed boundaries. It requires the rape apologists of the world to shut the fuck up and stop spinning conspiracies, expressing deep misogyny and outright lying about survivors.

It is due to people like this that we are stuck with the current system we have, deeply flawed and often harmful. They are doing themselves no favours.

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Big thanks to @gwenhwyfaer, who pointed out to me how Sweden’s usually going to be the place you want to flee to if you’re in trouble politically.

This is how seriously the police take rape

I will confess to having a very low opinion of the police’s ability to handle rape cases, having written several times before on the matter. Even I was surprised, though, by this story. It shows things are even worse than I thought.

A second detective working in the Met Police’s Sapphire unit–a specialist unit for rape cases–has been arrested for falsifying documents in order to get rape investigations shelved. The recently-arrested officer was involved in over sixty cases, and in almost two thirds of them, he claimed the investigation was over. The other officer falsified statements and reports, and wrote to survivors telling them their investigations had stopped, even though this had not happened.

It’s a disgusting business. The people who sought help through official channels–who are already in a minority of rape survivors–have been thoroughly let down by some men covering the backs of rapists and working hard to preserve rape culture through any means possible.

This goes beyond not taking rape allegations seriously, which is enough of a problem in and of itself: the Sapphire unit also managed to miss at least two serial rapists through sheer negligence and not investigating properly.

Even the police have realised they might have a bit of a problem. They have said they have had their “Macpherson moment”–a reference to the Macpherson investigation into police racism following the Stephen Lawrence case. They promise to tighten up supervision and sack any officers who aren’t up to scratch. We all know the impact of Macpherson: police racism totally stopped overnight and they got better and certainly never racially abused anyone ever again. I have very little faith in the police’s ability to mend this and make it right.

So what can be done? Ultimately, the system needs to transform. Rape culture is why allegations are not taken seriously, and some turn to actively foiling rape investigations. It is rape culture–every tiny aspect of it, not just the ones we can see–that needs to go, not a few “bad apple” policemen so the Met can pretend they have done something.

Update: Gherkingirl has written a very powerful (though triggering) post about her experience of negligence and forgery from Sapphire. Her bravery and persistence has led to positive change and this story going public, though it’s sad that this ever had to happen to her in the first place.

Support CeCe McDonald

CeCe McDonald is a young African American trans woman. Last year, she and some friends walked past a bar, and two cis white women and one cis white man began to hurl abuse at her. They used racist language. They told CeCe she was “dressed as a woman” to “rape”. One of the aggressors smashed a glass into CeCe’s face, causing serious facial injuries. A fight broke out, involving more people than just CeCe. What happened is not clear, but the white male aggressor was fatally stabbed.

CeCe was arrested, spending much of the last year in solitary confinement in a men’s prison “for her safety”. She was repeatedly misgendered by the media.

Two days ago, CeCe was sentenced. Under pressure, she pleaded guilty to a lesser charge. She has been sentenced to 41 months, which she will have to serve in a men’s prison.

CeCe’s case lays bare some of the pervasive prejudices which permeate USian society. This bright young woman’s gender is accepted by neither the legal system nor by her aggressors. The abuse she received on basis of her gender is the same old tired shit that needs to die: the myth that trans people are disguising themselves as women to rape is perpetuated by right-wing zealots and radical feminists alike. It’s all just unacceptable bigotry. Likewise, the legal system have given CeCe two options: to serve out her sentence alone in solitary confinement, or to live at risk as a woman in a men’s prison. These are not choices.

The colour of CeCe’s skin plays a role. In the USian prison system, people of colour are disproportionately represented. The abuse CeCe received at the hands of her attackers and the legal system alike is related to her race. That she ended up pleaing guilty to a lesser offence for a shorter sentence is hardly surprising: this is all part of a coercive “justice” system.

In all this, though, we must remember that CeCe McDonald is not a political symbol, a synecdoche of a corrupt system. CeCe McDonald is a person who is suffering, and there are things that we can do to help her. Forty Shades of Grey is organising two letter writing campaigns: one to write to CeCe to let her know that she is not alone in the world, and one to the bastards who put her in prison. Please read her post and follow the links. Please support CeCe McDonald.

The solution to millennia of patriarchy? Confidence building, apparently

Beloved readers, I have some news for you. The BBC is dead. It was not a good death, nor a dignified one. In its last breath, it rasped “Are women their own worst enemy when it comes to top jobs?”

Yes. According to some talking heads, the only thing stopping women from getting top jobs in politics, business and even the sodding army is women. Not other women, mind. When we don’t succeed it’s entirely our own fault.

Chief talking head Emer Timmons, who has been promoted eleventy bazillion times and is CEO of the Entirety of Space and Time reckons there are few lifestyle obstacles and it has to be down to the individual. Cherie Blair, whose career includes picking the wrong side in a land dispute involving dispossessed people, concurs and spouts the dreaded “30%” statistic, the proportion of female board members which would supposedly magically transmute capitalism into a functional economic system.

But what of the very real issues facing women, such as the fact that they are still expected to care for children? Not to worry, Timmons reckons there’s oodles of free childcare, presumably going on in the same alternate dimension where the only problem facing women is their lack of confidence and there are actually fucking jobs happening.

I wish I were misrepresenting this article, but sadly this is what the BBC have actually seen fit to publish on their website. It is so far from the reality of most women’s experiences, and thoroughly insulting to boot.

It represents the same line of thinking that pervades Tory feminism, right libertarianism and many other unpleasant ideologies: the shifting of responsibility on to the shoulders of the individual. It is a means by which the privileged can entirely absolve themselves of playing any part in an oppressive system, and as an added bonus can feel good about themselves for earning the position they were probably always going to get anyway.

The fact is–as the closest thing to voice of reason Averil Leimon points out in the article–the world isn’t a meritocracy. Unfortunately, Leimon’s solution to this is the same as the rest of the article: confidence and a go-getting, can-do attitude. This is woefully insufficient when we consider the convergence of factors which can hamper a person: class, race, disability, gender and so on. Were millennia of discrimination simply overcome with a bit of a swagger, kyriarchy would have never happened in the first place.

The pervasive stereotype of a confident professional woman still remains–in the year fucking 2012–a ballbreaker, a bitch, a devil in Prada. While we’re up against this, all the confidence in the world cannot shatter the glass ceiling.

Of course, discrimination is only part of the story, and the lack of confidence is a real problem, although it is not the only factor keeping women down. The root cause of this lack of confidence is not due to the individual, but, rather, an effect of living in a system wherein the odds are already stacked phenomenally against us. It creates a negative feedback loop. This is not our fault: we are not our own worst enemy. Patriarchy and kyriarchy are.

The thing is, this article also betrays a staggering lack of imagination when it comes to aspiration: to the people quoted, it all boils down to just getting a job and earning a lot of money. What of, instead, working somewhere less well-paid but offering a greater degree of satisfaction? What of happiness and personal fulfilment and self-actualisation? What of abolishing the entire sorry concept of wage labour entirely?

The BBC’s death throes represent just about everything that is wrong with kyriarchy, neatly packaged in an uncritical bundle. I shall not weep at its funeral.

The anatomy of rape apologism

Trigger warning: This post discusses rape, rape apologism and quotes some utterly hideous examples of rape apologism.

A footballer named Ched Evans has been convicted of raping a young woman who was too drunk to give consent. What has followed is, of course, the foul chorus of rape apologism which ignites in an ugly crescendo every single fucking time. Each time this happens, the same set of tropes are trotted out as a means for somehow excusing the crime.

Victim-blaming

This is the first port of call for the rape apologist, and the prop on which all rape apologism ultimately rests. Here, rape apologists will do whatever they can to imply that the survivor somehow deserved what happened to them. Maybe they were too drunk, or wearing the wrong length of skirt. Whatever it is, apparently their actions somehow imply consent, as tweeter and repulsive shitstain @JosephWestley suggests:

In a Premier Inn with 2 footballers after a night out. Expecting tiddlywinks? And ruin a poor blokes life?!

Here, it is implied that being in a hotel room with some men is exactly the same as consent. Which it definitely isn’t.

“It wasn’t really rape”

With the survivor sufficiently blamed, it is time to move into suggesting that whatever happened, it definitely wasn’t rape. Sometimes, this can come from a risibly faux-naif pretence of not understanding the difference between non-consensual sex and rape, such as this from @jonnypotter:

Curious to find out more about the #chedevans rape conviction. Not premeditated but locked away for 5 years for lack of consent

Now, I’m sure most of us can explain to Jonny that lack of consent is rape, and that’s how he got convicted of rape for raping someone.

As the Ched Evans case involved a woman who had drunk too much alcohol (and, is, therefore, entirely responsible for everything that happens to her), this is also seen as “definitely not rape” in the eyes of rape apologists. They consider it ludicrous to suggest that alcohol could possibly impede consent, as  @IchWillNichts, who probably thinks he’s very funny, tweets:

Cops are busy tomorrow: hungover women who can’t remember how they got home will claim kidnapping against their taxi drivers.

Yes, Anthony. When drunk, the worst thing that can ever happen to you is a bit of confusion and regret.

Finally, there’s the distinction between “rape-rape” and not-actually-rape-due-to-lack-of-stranger-in-a-balaclava-leaping-out-of-a-bush. This can come in many guises, always with a hearty dash of misogyny. Sometimes, it can run concurrently with threats of violence against women, as evidenced by this thoroughly charming tweet from @BenWhitehorne:

 I hope that silly tamp gets properly raped one day

I literally have no words for someone who thinks that one rape is not enough, and wants to see the job done in a way which better fits his construction of rape.

Victim-smearing

Perhaps simply blaming the survivor isn’t enough, as those awful politically correct bra-burners are making some headway in pointing out that victim blaming simply doesn’t fly in 2012. The rape apologists therefore scramble all over themselves to make out that the survivor is an evil person with evil, evil ulterior motives. The most egregious example of this comes from a team-mate of the convicted rapist, who declared that the whole thing must be due to the survivor being a “money-grabbing little tramp“. In a two-for-one special, he also offers us a hefty dose of victim-blaming and a truckload of overt misogyny:

“If ur a slag ur a slag don’t try get money from being a slag (sic) … Stupid girls… I feel sick.”

The rape apologists have ran with this rather peculiar suggestion that somehow the woman got raped for money, despite none being able to offer any sort of coherent explanation as to how rape could possibly be lucrative.

Without a leg to stand on in this respect, the rape apologists decided nonetheless to name the survivor and set up a fake twitter account where “the survivor” boasted of getting lots of money and going on a lovely holiday.

Naming the survivor is a disgusting tactic. They may claim that it’s because it’s somehow unfair that rapists get named publicly while the survivors do not, but ultimately it is down to one thing: revenge. Because they believe it is all the survivor’s fault, they believe that somehow their football-playing hero is completely innocent and it’s time for some vigilante justice. They cast themselves as heroes, crusaders for truth, rather than the nasty little abject turds that they are.

The conspiracy theory

For some rape apologists, the outright misogyny is somewhat unpalatable, and so they take a different tack by theorising about some sort of stitch-up. In the Ched Evans case, they have fixated upon the fact that only one of the two accused footballers was convicted. Somehow, believing themselves to know more than the jury who heard all the evidence, they believe that some sort of miscarriage of justice has occurred, as suggested by Stuart Marshall:

Well,it’s a right hornets nest this one….I’ve been careful not to stigmatise the young lady in question but merely ask the question about how one guy walks,the other gets 5 ???? As for fb etc etc comments…well,I give up.THE JUDGE SAID SHE WASN’T “FIT” TO GRANT SEXUAL CONSENT.So,she’s sober one minute and it’s ok…..but then for his mate it’s not ok ? Get a life.

Often, they use the “I’m just asking these very reasonable questions” approach, though sometimes they will throw in a bit of victim blaming on top of it, like @Thomaskingsley:

To drunk to consent to #ChedEvans yet perfectly able to let Clayton McDonald smash you? Id like to see how the courts came to that decision?

Apparently, possible consent with one man is definite consent with all men.

These tropes of rape apologism happen every time. In the Roman Polanski case, the biggest focus was on how it definitely wasn’t rape, while with the Julian Assange case, all of the above applies in sickening great dollops.

And it’s not all right. None of it is. Looking at these comments, we see rape culture laid bare, all of its feeble excuses and nasty tricks converging simply because a woman had the gall to be raped by someone popular.

London, Cairo, Wisconsin: tears in rain

“All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.”

A little over a year ago, there was a feeling of momentum within what can loosely be termed as “the protest movement”. It was global, it seemed. The winds were blowing in our favour, and perhaps the underdog would finally have its day.

As we marched through London, we expressed this sentiment with a chant:

London, Cairo, Wisconsin! We will fight them, we will win!

At the time, we looked gladly towards our friends in far-flung countries. We allowed hope to rise in our hearts over the seeming revolution in Egypt, having watched the people struggle to overthrow a tyrannical government and succeed. We felt joy as we watched protesters occupy the Wisconsin State Capitol, thousands of people in a mass mobilisation against right-wing economic policy.

We felt solidarity. If we channelled Cairo and Wisconsin, perhaps we, too, could win.

A year later, how the tides have turned.

Egypt is a military dictatorship, with elections on the way which are unsatisfactory to many. Things are getting worse for many, particularly women who are subjected to “virginity tests”; regressive attitudes towards gender are on the rise. There’s still some fight in the women, thankfully, but these are battles they should no longer need to fight.

Meanwhile, the occupation we so admired in Wisconsin has now become a brand. We do not occupy space, we Occupy™ a tucked-away corner in a tent. As this happens, politicians pass laws signing away protections for vulnerable workers: Wisconsin’s Equal Pay Enforcement Act was quietly repealed with barely a peep.

And what of London? A lot has changed in a year. The summer riots were capitalised upon to expand the state’s ability to use violence. London is being carved up and plunged into an authoritarian nightmare in the name of a sporting event. Not a day goes past without news of another callous act by the government, so many that sometimes they will cover up one callous act with another, slightly lesser callous act.

London, Cairo, Wisconsin… all is lost.

We seem to have reached the Despair Event Horizon, and will continue to fall forever.

If we were a work of fiction, it would be at this point that a ragtag band of misfits would gang together and make a valiant last stand, and, against the odds, succeed. The music would swell, and the credits would roll as we all hugged each other, ecstatic tears streaming down our faces in slow motion.

In the stark reality of things, everything is as likely to end in tears, but probably not the slow-mo huggy kind. If we’re lucky, we’ll just be crying in frustration. We are confronted by the utter futility of our actions, dashing ourselves against the sheer walls of the cruel system. If history remembers us at all, it will be as a mote of dust causing a mildly irritating squeak in an otherwise slick machine.

Last year is currently remembered in a talismanic fashion: all of these magical things happening all over the world, and if only we could regain some of that vigour. The more savoury aspects are performed in a bid to cargo-cult a revolution that will never come. One by one, these little bubbles will burst until it’s all gone.

Despite all this, I have been conditioned by fiction. My heart still holds out hope for that rag tag band of misfits in our glorious final battle. Surely there must be some way to defeat the beast once and for all?

And perhaps there is. What it isn’t is a tired repetition of parts of the near or distant past. It will be something new entirely, this intangible soaring hope.

London, Cairo, Wisconsin. We are all the same.


The NHS demo and the failure to report

Yesterday there was a demonstration in Central London against the NHS bill. You may not have heard about this, because the media completely failed to report it.

It started as several hundred people attending a rally outside the Department of Health. Statically they stood there, listening to speeches with an air of Waiting For Something To Happen. The rally had not been well-publicised, but those who attended were the ones who felt like something–anything–had to happen, that we could not let this bill pass without event.

Finally, something did happen. A man cycled into the middle of the road, with a colourful trailer attached to his bicycle. He shouted something into a megaphone. Maybe he called for the demonstrators to join him in the middle of Whitehall, or maybe he said something else. I don’t know. Nonetheless, they joined hands and formed a chain across Whitehall then sat down on the ground. We chanted vigorously against privatisation and of our love for the NHS.

Fittingly, we were sat in the shadow of the Cenotaph. Recall that the NHS was set up following the Second World War: it is itself a war memorial. Unlike the Cenotaph, it serves a function, helping us up when we are harmed, when we are sick, when we are dying. In blocking the road, we had moved from a static commemoration like the Cenotaph, to an active action like the NHS.

At this point, the media was there. I know this because I sat on the ground cross-legged with a news camera pointed up my skirt, painfully aware that in my rush to leave the house that morning I had forgotten to wear knickers. Photographers swarmed and flashbulbs clicked. I’d thought that perhaps this would mean we would get reported.

It started to rain, and the mood changed again. Someone on a megaphone proposed that we pay a visit to Virgin Healthcare, a private company who had been instrumental in drafting the bill with a clear conflict of interest. People sprung up and proceeded to march down the now-empty Whitehall. Suddenly, on the horizon, the powder-blue hats of an advancing TSG line became visible. Adrenaline kicked in, the urge to run at a particular shade of blue following so many bad experiences with that lot of thugs. I ran like crazy. So did many others. Behind us, the line closed in, kettling the rest of the demo. Those at the front waited, unsure of what to do next: to continue or wait for the rest.

It turned out that decision was unnecessary. The kettled crowd–most of them first-time protesters, young and old, all out for the NHS–surged through the line, having successfully broken the kettle. I was pleased; that first broken kettle is one of the most empowering things possible. Down Whitehall they ran, trying to outfox the police.

When the group reached Trafalgar Square, there was some initial confusion. I’d had no idea where we were going, and neither did most others. In the confusion, many milled around in the road or by the square.

It was then that police with machine guns tried to break us up. A red police car drove at the crowd, trying to clear the protesters from the road. A young woman sat down in front of the car, and the officers got out. With their guns. Armed police on the streets of London, all because a woman had sat down and some people were outraged by the corrupt government and businesses who were gutting our welfare state. Protesters scarpered, but did not disperse. Instead they ran down the Strand.

There, more TSG turned up and again tried to kettle. It seemed that nobody knew exactly where Virgin Healthcare was. We found out because the TSG swarmed in front of some gates, effectively shutting it down. Kettle broken, we marched on.

We ran through London, to cheers from the public. Everyone loves the NHS. We chanted, we made noise, we were visible.

I left the demonstration as they turned up Chancery Lane with yet more TSG dogging them. It looked like an unavoidable kettle and the numbers were too small. I understand they got kettled again, threatened with mass arrest and were only allowed to leave following a humiliating data-gathering exercise where they were coerced into giving names and being searched.

The day was pretty eventful, all things considered, and the media were there. So why was it completely unreported?

Several reasons spring to mind. Most cynically, there are a lot of groups with a vested interest in this bill passing without much resistance. It is entirely possible, given the labyrinthine complexity of corporations, that much of the media wins something from the creeping privatisation of the NHS.

This demo also failed to fit with current narratives of dissent. At the moment, everything is all about Occupy: large numbers of people statically camping and waiting for something to happen, asking as nicely as possible. Yesterday was the opposite: yesterday was a small number of people moving and disrupting. We also didn’t break anything. The demo was completely non-violent, and there was no property damage. There was no “MINDLESS THUGS” aspect to hang a story off. It didn’t fit at all with how the stories surrounding protest go.

It is a crying shame that this last stand will go unreported, and I tell this story as I feel it needs to be told. These actions will likely be futile, as there is so much at stake for the state and the corporations. We just refused to go out with a whimper.

 

Gaslighting, power and differences of opinion

Trigger warning: this post discusses “gaslighting”, a form of emotional abuse

Gaslighting is a form of emotional abuse wherein the perpetrator causes the victim to doubt their perception of reality. It is a powerful tool for tormenting an individual, and may facilitate other abuse by causing even the victim to doubt whether the abuse has occurred. Its name comes from the play and 1944 film Gaslight, wherein the villain disorientates his wife in order to cover his plot. It is a brilliant film, with Ingrid Bergman powerfully portraying a woman who believes herself to be losing her mind as she sees the gaslights in the house dim and reignite and possessions vanishing as her husband convinces her that none of this is happening. I would strongly recommend watching, as it demonstrates the phenomenon so well, that it is little wonder it became its namesake.

After watching Gaslight, a discussion of gaslighting arose, and @a_y_alex posed a rather interesting question which is worth exploring:

Is gaslighting inherent to any difference of opinion within a system of dominance?

Many of us have encountered that frustrating situation wherein we are discussing privilege with a privileged person, and they refuse to believe that such a thing is possible: the pervasive notion that things cannot be anywhere near that bad for the oppressed. They fight their position tooth and nail, that any experience of oppression must be imaginary. Perhaps the derogatory terms will come out. The loony left. The hysterical feminists. The uppity black people. “You’re crazy,” they say, when confronted with a reality which differs from their own.

The effect of this can be quite powerful. When it piles on, it can fundamentally shake up a person’s perception of reality. When this has happened to me, I sometimes find myself seriously wondering if perhaps I have just imagined everything, put greater weight on little things I have experienced, things really aren’t so bad, and somehow twisted something perfectly normal into a victim complex. Having experienced gaslighting before, the effect can be much the same.

What complicates matters, though, is the intention. Gaslighting requires an attempt to cause the victim to doubt reality, by deliberately misleading and misinforming, by tampering with the physical space. In these scenarios, in the disagreements within a system of dominance, this is often not the case. What we get instead is two opposing perceptions of reality: for the less powerful, there is an experience of oppression; for the more powerful, how could such a thing exist when everything is so shiny and fine and the world is good and right? It is not a constructed, malicious attempt to disorientate a person into doubting reality, but rather, a difference of beliefs.

This is not to adopt the fence-sitting liberal position and say that both sides are right and have valid points: indeed, the privileged person is wrong in this instant. They just haven’t noticed because they cannot see the problem. It is something which is inherent to holding these kinds of conversation in an uneven power structure, but it is not gaslighting.

Well, not usually. Once in a while, you will encounter the utterly repulsive specimen who does intentionally, disingenuously mislead, who does attempt to resolve a difference of opinion by making the other person doubt themselves, to discredit and, ultimately, to win. Arguably, the system itself gaslights us: flagrantly denying and misdirecting us, pathologising dissent and painting those who criticise it as somehow mad.

So we often find ourselves in the situation where we feel the doubt, and that our perception of reality and our beliefs are shaken. There are ways of dealing with this. Most importantly, we must remember that we are right, feel stronger in our own beliefs. Upon feeling mislead, we should turn to those who share our critique and remind ourselves of why we are right. We must not be afraid of asking for help, for back up: just as gaslighting alienates and isolates its victims from support, so, too can this form of argument. Together, we can mitigate this impact. Together, we might just finally win.

“The way things are”: smash patriarchy, smash kyriarchy, smash EVERYTHING

One year ago, I started blogging to celebrate International Women’s Day by pointing out that we’re miles off of declaring a victory for feminism and we should fight the status quo.

And we still are. I wish I could say that in this year a switch was magically flicked and everything got better for women all over the world. But of course it didn’t.

Perhaps it got worse. Or perhaps my eyes opened wider, drinking in seemingly every hideous facet of the mesh of lies we inhabit. The way things are, the excuse they trot out every single time, that this is somehow normal: it’s all a big myth. Nothing is all right, and it doesn’t have to be this way.

On International Women’s Day, we must remember that we are all connected. To some extent or another, we are all crushed beneath a complex set of power structures. We vary immensely in how much weight is upon us. To some, the burden is reasonably light; for others, intolerably heavy, an existence perpetually on the verge of buckling completely.

Too many people consider shedding their own load and tossing it down onto those below. This is not the solution at all, for we can never truly be free of the power structure. Our own load just feels lighter. The answer is, of course, to destroy the whole thing.

We must transcend borders, transcend class, transcend race and biological essentialism, sickness or health, age and size and sexual orientation. Each of these struggles is intimately connected, and we must fight on all fronts. We must maintain consciousness that our loads may be lighter than others, and act as allies to one another.

To make a ripple, we must rise together, and the ruinous way things are will be no more.

The things we hope we never need

Trigger warning: This post discusses intimate partner violence

Sometimes it’s hard to keep up with the sheer number of cuts made by this sociopathic coalition of vampires. These butchers are chipping away at everything that keeps us safe. Over the years, they have trained us into individualism, and are now removing every single last bastion of support. They target smartly in surgical strikes. They attack the things we hope we never need, the things we don’t like to think about, the things that are so hard to imagine that we fail to adequately fight. Those immediately impacted are too vulnerable to resist. Those able to resist do not want to think about what they should resist, to entertain the possibility that these services may one day be necessary.

We do not like to think how fragile we are. It is a terrifying notion that we are all but one sickness or accident away from disability, that our lives could suddenly change. The privilege of being able-bodied is a difficult one to confront, so we barely notice when the people we don’t like to think about are forced into humiliating tests and then put out to work anyway. So many people do not receive the support that they need and go hungry, become sicker, lose the things that makes life worth living.

We hate to think of our own mortality, of the fact that one day it might turn out that that what seemed like a cough is the beginning of a slow slide into sickness and death. That’s bad enough. So when they decide that terminally ill people are living too long and cut their benefits, demanding they live out their last days being worked to death, it barely makes a ripple.

We do not like to entertain the possibility that we may encounter domestic abuse, despite this happening to thousands of people each year. We do not like to think that one day we may find ourselves in a situation where we must leave our homes if we wish to stay alive, and we will be unable to go to our friends or families, lest we are found or handed back to our abusers. We do not like to think that we may be so bullied and victimised we may find ourselves isolated from our support network. We do not like to think that we may need professional support, that we cannot simply sort it out on our own. And so they cut funding for the services that can provide this last resort.

We find it difficult to imagine that one day we may find ourselves without a home, that renting or mortgage payments can easily suddenly become too much and we can lose the roof over our heads. Yet many of us survive on the goodwill of landlords and the assumption that our bank won’t suddenly go under. They know we don’t like to think about this, and so they cut the benefits that would allow us to stay in our homes, they criminalise attempts to find shelter through squatting, and they even try to ban feeding the homeless on the streets. We do not like to think how easily we could be those people who are prohibited from receiving food.

We are all teetering on a tightrope. We daren’t look down, lest we see the rocks below and feel the immediate threat of being dashed to death. We must look down, and see that we have a safety net beneath us, and demand that it stays there.