Independent Women, Part III

I was 11 years old when the soundtrack from the 2000 film Charlie’s Angels was released. Independent Women by Destiny’s Child was arguably the film’s only saving grace, pleasing critics and audiences where Charlie’s Angels could not; it paid tribute to women making it on their own and called for their independence from men, portraying the female gender as strong, determined and just as capable of making it in a man’s world as Man himself. For an 11-year-old girl, this was a wonderful message. For a girl not even halfway through her education, with aspirations of someday being a famous author, and discouraged from the institution of marriage by the poisonous relationships between men and women that existed around her, this song was inspiring, uplifting... and really quite catchy.

As a 24-year-old woman, I am no longer all that inspired by the song’s message. My formal education is complete, I am not yet a famous author and I could happily live with or without marriage. The line “All the honeys who makin’ money throw your hands up at me” doesn’t fill me with quite the same sense of empowerment that it used to. I don’t make a lot of money (a lot of the time I don’t make any money), and while I may not be dependent on any man to provide for me, I can hardly claim that “The house I live in (I bought it), the car I’m driving (I bought it)”, because I am simply not in the financial position to buy a house or a car, and I am certainly not in the position to say “The rocks I’m rockin’ (I bought it)”. Kudos to those women who are able to say such things, and I do not doubt their fantastic work ethic and refusal to give up or give in, but I still consider them to be part of a lucky minority, and suggesting that a woman is empowered only if she is financially stable on her own is isolating and damaging to women not privileged or fortunate enough to be able to say the same of themselves.

This culture of associating female empowerment with financial or material worth has only accelerated over the last 13 years, and is reflected heavily in the music industry today. Nicki Minaj, whose fanbase consists largely of teenage girls and young women, infuriatingly assigns her own worth to the money lining her pocket. On Check It Out, her collaboration with will.i.am, she boasts, “Mad cause I’m getting money in abundance, man I can’t even count all of these hundreds. Duffle bag every time I go to SunTrust, I leave the rest just to collect interest”, while on Muny (Material Girls), a kind of tribute to Madonna’s 1984 hit Material Girl, she says, “Top five tax bracket in the population, hatin’ and I know they got a reason why, I ain’t got to wonder if I want to lease or buy.”

Of course, a love of money and materialism in the music industry is not reserved exclusively for women, and this is something that plagues male artists’ music as well, consequently influencing the young listeners who buy and download their records. Often these male artists (though I’m sure sometimes with the best of intentions) reinforce these attitudes, commending the “independent women” whose independence is quantified by the money she earns: women who are presented as sexy, beautiful and desirable only if they “bought it”. Perhaps this interest in money comes from the relative poverty these musicians came from, and bragging about climbing out of the depths of deprivation inspires those still living in the midst of it to work harder and try harder, as the capitalist ethos would urge you to do. However, it is simply impossible for every person in the world to achieve the same levels of success as the members of Destiny’s Child, Nicki Minaj and Madonna, as well as anyone else who brags along to a nice little tune about how big their swimming pool is.

I find it sad that we have been taught that validation comes from earning a six-figure salary, and it is detrimental to the aims of an all-inclusive feminism to preach to young women – especially in a society already heavily saturated with a kind of submissive sexuality that caters to patriarchal fantasies – that the only way to be truly successful or happy or have any worth as a woman is to have money. Yes, with money comes power, and as long as that money rests in the bank accounts of mostly white men from privileged backgrounds, women and other oppressed groups should certainly be pressing for and celebrating an equal spread of the world’s economic wealth. However, to suggest that this is the only way to be a strong and empowered woman is a damaging argument to make to those who will probably never be “independent” by these standards.

Can we please have less focus on the money, and less judgement passed upon the majority who don’t drive a Benz or have every finger wrapped in diamonds. Can we please instead have more focus on a strong and united sisterhood.

My Beef With Jeremy Kyle

Watching The Jeremy Kyle Show makes me feel ill.

There's probably some completely unoriginal joke about the show's guests' teeth to be found in that statement somewhere, but I'm afraid I have a far more socially damning point to make than the possible ramifications a person's economical state has on their dental hygiene. No, the show makes me feel ill because whenever I catch a glimpse of it, I feel as though I'm watching a freak show. I feel as though I have been carted back to some primitive state in Victorian England, where vulnerable people, different people, were exploited for somebody else's financial gain, and an audience raised on ignorance and insecurity decides to alternate trips to the theatre with these public humiliations.

Most of the guests on The Jeremy Kyle Show, let's face it, are pretty vulnerable. I can't speak for them, but I would imagine that some of the motivations for wanting to appear in that ITV weekday morning slot might include:

• money;
• access to free DNA testing;
• wanting to prove that they're right, and someone else is wrong;
• a little bit of fame or prestige.

Chances are, you don't know anyone who's been on The Jeremy Kyle Show, or know anyone who knows anyone who's been on The Jeremy Kyle Show. This is because most of us don't put ourselves on par with these "freaks" or "chavs". They are not like us, we think, and this makes us feel better about ourselves and the positions we hold in society, because at least we are not like them. "We don't have unprotected sex with seven different men in one month and question which one might be the father to our baby; we don't bicker about text messages found on our sister's boyfriend's phone which allude to said boyfriend's best mate's sister's vagina. We cannot imagine ourselves choosing to go on television in an Adidas tracksuit. These are entirely base, uncivilised individuals who should not be considered our equals. Let's laugh at them, the disgusting toothless sods."

But wait. These guests are people. They were born naked and crying, just like us. The only difference is, to be fair, a massive one: they weren't handed the same opportunities we were given, they're probably not as educated or as ambitious and consequently their lives have fewer avenues open to exploration. Thus, their income is low, their self-esteem is shot, and having a well-respected man like Jeremy Kyle and an audience of seemingly "sorted" individuals validate their life decisions and line their pockets with some money seems like a wise choice. But what I think few of these guests realise (at least until they get on the stage) is the humiliation cast upon them by "regular" folk like us who consider ourselves above and beyond such petty problems. "Poke them with a stick, Jeremy," we urge. "If only that man would go mad and hit someone. That would be even funnier." But the sickening reality is that we are watching a well-off, powerful man (who's probably cocked up along the way in his own life, as we all have) yell at groups of people unequipped to defend themselves, either due to lack of eloquence or, by the very nature of them wearing a fake gold chain, not capable of having anything they say be taken seriously. 

I am sure that ITV and Jeremy Kyle would fiercely defend the show by saying that they are giving a group of people a platform to be seen and heard, offering their guests post-show support and access to counselling services and such - but the sad reality is that "helping some people" is neither the broadcaster's nor the show's motivation; rather, "making money" is the motivation, and if this feeds into a political agenda of painting the working classes as feckless, stupid and irresponsible, then all the better.

The Jeremy Kyle Show needs to start representing all groups of people, or else stop attempting to represent anyone at all.

Who Pays For The Deficit?

It's really quite simple.

The UK has a lot of debt, yes? We know this. We know the banks made a massive cock-up and lost loads of our (our) money, and we know that they've all been talking about how we should rectify this, how we need to stop borrowing, start saving, cut the deficit. Let's be a prosperous nation once again.

David Cameron and George Osborne had a little light-bulb moment some years ago and came up with this idea about how we might achieve this. David said, "Hey George, let's keep all the money for ourselves", and George said, "What a jolly good idea, David." And so that is what they did.

They took money out of services. Apparently, we shouldn't be spending money on services - pssh, what a waste, people don't need to be looked after! Lewisham Hospital is one thoroughly-documented example for us living in South London, but there are many other examples throughout the UK, too. Services for sick people, old people, young people, people with children, disabled people... Everyone knows someone who's been affected, unless the only people you know opt to always go private because, as they well know, "The NHS is shit!" Maybe it's shit because there's not enough money put into it, or because the money's being put into the wrong places. You can usually find the money in the blazer pocket of the dude wearing a suit. Just a guess.

When you cut money from services, people lose their jobs. Cutting back on stationery supplies isn't really going to save you money like cutting the job of someone on £25k a year, is it? That person who's just lost their job doesn't then evaporate along with their tax contribution; they still exist, they still have to feed and clothe themself (and maybe their family, too) and heat their home. And so, they go on "jobseeker's allowance", aptly titled as such because yes, they want a job. Being on jobseeker's allowance isn't fun. You have to work your way through two sets of security guards to get into the building to sign on (hey! I think I just invented a new video game!), and it's not lottery figures you're getting paid every week. It's a pittance, and you're made to feel by all the rest of the society that you are a worthless, lazy bum. Which simply is not true.

If you're on jobseeker's allowance, you might be entitled to other benefits, too: housing benefit, for one. Only, because Margaret Thatcher decided to sell off shit-loads of council property back in '80s and not build any new ones, most people live in privately rented accomodation these days, which as we all know is pretty damn expensive. Landlords can charge whatever they like, and if you're on benefits, guess who pays for that rent! Yep: the state does. The taxpayer. You, most likely.

So currently we have:

• a decline in services and quality of services,
• someone who was once paying tax now no longer paying tax,
• yet another person on benefits, and
• a chunk of those benefits going into the pocket of someone who already makes a decent sum.

They might tell you that unemployment figures are going down, but they choose not to include people out of work but not on benefits, or people put on "work schemes" or apprenticeships which pay next-to-nothing, or people forced to register as self-employed because they might find some work (not a lot, but some), or people only working part-time because something is better than nothing. And oh, this list is not exhaustive. There's more.

There's the impact cutting these services has on the people of the UK. There's the old person who sits in their own excrement for hours because no one's being paid to come and clean them. There's the graduate who sits, at the age of 21, with thousands of pounds worth of debt and no hope of a job, only of "work experience", if they're lucky. There's the parent of that student, who grew up in the '80s and has been there, done that and now has to support their adult child to get by. There's the parent who can't afford childcare and so only works part-time, or not at all. There's the child who grows up in poverty, being made to feel as though this is somehow the fault of their people; don't bother with an education, it doesn't get you anywhere.

And then there's David Cameron and George Osborne, and a few of the other lucky elite. Tax breaks for millionaires, and rich politicians charging the cost of their family holiday to France to their expenses, sending their children off to Eton and then Cambridge, hiring a personal carer for their parent when they become too old to take themself off to the toilet alone, telling us, "We're all in this together." And then they turn around and point the finger at you. Or maybe not at you, but at your immigrant neighbour who bought a new lawnmower last week (holy shit! Not a new lawnmower!), or the single mother down the road who just got pregnant again (because vaginas seem to make a habit of causing massive economic crises). Maybe it's their fault, maybe you should blame them. Blame anyone, but do not blame the twats who got us into the mess in the first place.

That's the last thing they would want you to do. 

Capitalism & Insecurity

Sometimes I think about insecurity. I think about it because of my own, about the things that I don’t like about myself, physically, mentally and emotionally. I think about how I allow it to hold me back, about all the instances where I have been offered an opportunity that I have turned down because I didn’t think I was ready, or that I could do it, or that I could do it as well as someone else could do it and the people I might let down if I did it wrong. And then, just for the briefest moment (because the briefest moment is all it takes), I stop looking inward and I see the same misery, disappointment and insecurity painted all over somebody else’s face, and very often that person is someone I consider intelligent, likeable, attractive, worthy. And I ask them, “What do you have to be insecure about?”

And that is the real question, isn’t it? What do we really have to be insecure about? None of us are perfect, we tell our friends this every single day, and yet we still expect perfection from ourselves, without really knowing what perfection is. Who decides what perfection is? I can’t keep up with whether size zero or curves are in at any given time, and I used to think that if you wore a suit to work then you meant business, but now bankers are wankers. Whatever we do, we’re not doing the right thing, and if by some miracle we are doing the right thing, we’re not doing it in the right way. Do it faster. Do it more cheaply. Do it while looking fabulous. Do it while doing 101 other fast, cheap, fabulous things.

Here’s another question for you, an equally important one: Where the hell does all this insecurity come from?

I have a theory.

In this theory, there are men; very, very rich men. Men with white skin, a receding hairline and a belly hanging just slightly over the waistline of their tailored trousers, because they can afford to eat well. I think about their wives, these faceless Stepford women who at some point in their lives made a choice to live one of comfort and safe, secure predictability rather than any real fulfilment. I think about their children, privately educated and spoonfed the complete works of Shakespeare, but never taught any real skills to use in the real world, because with a father like these men, who needs to live in the real world?

And then I think about ordinary men and women and boys and girls who do live in the real world, and who do need real skills in order to get by in this real, difficult, emotionally and physically draining, real-world. I think about them slaving over textbooks at school, being fed knowledge they will never use and so soon forget, while their parents slave away in an office full of cogs being turned relentlessly, their raw hands gripping at the levers as the sweat pours down their faces. And they keep turning these cogs, these cogs which form part of a much bigger, fiercer machine – and no one is exactly sure what this machine does – because every turn will put a pound in their pocket, a pound in the state’s pocket, and a million pounds in the pocket of one of these men: these very, very rich men.

And these very, very rich men are happy, or at least they think they are happy, because their stomachs are well fed, their wives have no faces and their children have never been taught the skills or the desire to answer back. And so they keep going: they want more of this brand of happiness, and we, the civilians in this War on the Human Race they have invested in, must pay for it. They tell us how we should pay for it. One very, very rich man decides what we should wear, while another hand-selects what music we should listen to. Down the corridor in another room, another very, very rich man decides what our hair should look like this season, as another strengthens ties with (or around the neck of) one very desperate, poverty-stricken sweatshop that we will never get to see because their label will be torn out of our consciousness and replaced with your favourite high street’s “affordable” brand.

These very, very rich men’s very, very rich friends choose which phones we should be communicating on, how we should be communicating and what we should be communicating about, and how they might sell us other useless shit we do not need on these “social net-worth-ing” platforms, and bank on the fact that we will become so immersed in the apps, the games, the reflections of ourselves that they have painted for us that we will stop seeing who we really are, or how our neighbours too hate their lives without any real explanation as to why. And these very, very rich men choose our cars, dictate our misogynistic and unlikely pornography, turning women into plastic our daughters will someday soon aspire to set into the mould of, and infiltrate our media, our right to a “free press”, and all the while we grab hold of the levers for dear life and keep turning these cogs in motion, the sweat dripping from our starved dehydrated skin, because this is the only way to exist in this world they have created for us. And they package these commodities in colours we have been raised to think reflect us, and it’s all very shiny and new and exciting, and everyone else has one and they look so happy wearing bland smiles pulled up at the corners by invisible strings, mere puppets in this game of Monopoly, where the Ordinary People keep rolling 1s and the very, very rich men have infinite get-out-of-jail-free cards, and if only I could have what they have, live the life they lead – maybe, just maybe, I might be happy...

Because this world has become so ingrained in us that if we are not properly a part of it, if we do not blend in against the wallpaper they have chosen for us then we have not “made it”; we are not successful, we are not attractive, we are not happy and we are not worthy because we do not have what they have, or what they have told us we must have. And this is somehow our faults, because obviously we are not doing it right. We are not working hard enough, or we are simply not good enough. There must be something wrong with us.

But I have a theory.

In this theory, there is nothing wrong with us at all.

Dear Nadine Dorries

Dear Nadine Dorries,

I don't make a habit of listening to you usually (because you associate yourself with the Conservative Party, which in turn associates itself with arseholeness - and arseholeness generally angers me, and anger sorta interferes with the whole incense-stick-burning/ peaceful meditation thing I have going on at the moment), but just lately some of your comments and opinions about other women's uteri have been trickling through onto my Twitter feed. I can't help but feel that you are alluding to my uterus, Nadine, what with me having one and everything. And so I thought to myself: Hey! Maybe Nadine would care for a formal introduction!

This is my uterus:

Cute, isn't it?

When my gynaecologist told me that I have "a heart-shaped uterus", my initial reaction was, "Aww, that's sweet." But apparently, having a "heart-shaped" (or "bicornuate") uterus isn't all that sweet, as Mr Gynaecologist eventually explained to me, after I spent a solid two minutes sitting on (well, squatting over) the hospital toilet emptying my raging bladder. "No, no," he said to me. "You iz fucked." Well, those weren't his exact words, but his expression was pretty grave as he told me that my chances of carrying any future bambinos to full-term were very slim and likely to be littered with complications, and my risk of miscarriage significantly higher than most women's.

I wasn't too fussed at the time. Y'see Nadine, I was 15, my biggest worry was if I would survive my GCSEs and whether my new set of hair straighteners were any good, and the only reason I was there having my uterus scanned in the first place was to ascertain why it always hurt so sodding much, and why it insisted on bleeding profusely for four months straight without any kind of interval, eventually resulting in a kitchen floor covered in blood, me almost passing out from the pain and my mama having to call for an ambulance. My uterus hasn't given me an easy time of it over the years, and I don't expect it to let up any time soon! As I near the grand old age of 24, with my uterus persisting in being a pain in the arse (sometimes literally - do you ever get period cramps in your backside, Nadine? Hurts like a bitch!), and with kindly doctors urging me to consider "starting a family" earlier than I may have otherwise planned (y'know, in case the first few handfuls of pregnancies don't work out so well), the reality of my possible predicament becomes ever-increasingly frightening. I don't know if I want children, truth be told. Yes, I want them, but I don't know if I want to endure a whole bunch of miscarriages in the later stages of pregnancy before I might, just might, finally get one. I've never coped so well with disappointment. I mean yeah, sure I'll think about it and see if I can get my vagina on any decent sperm before I make my decision, but at this moment in time, I'm pretty protective of what goes in my uterus. It's bad enough not having any say in the presence of big juicy clots.

And so, Nadine, I ask you kindly to please reconsider your views on my uterus. Y'know the uterus you just met, like two minutes ago, and will probably forget all about in about half as much time? My uterus and I would be very grateful.

Laterz!

Martha

The Role of Men in Feminism

I have a hard time finding a man happy to identify himself as "feminist" or "pro-feminist", or even a man happy to admit that he sympathises with the feminist plight. When the floor opens up to feminist discussion and I raise my hand and proudly declare, "Yo, feminist right here", here's what I usually get: I get eyes rolling; I get genuine surprise that I, a woman though I am, identify as feminist, followed by eventual "Oh, that's cool... I guess"; I get banterous "But everyone knows men are better than women" or "Oh, so you hate men", and sometimes I get legitimate disgust. So when it's this much of a struggle to get men aboard the whole idea of feminism, why should we, as women, subjugate, isolate or reject the voices of those men who do actually sympathise with us? Well, I'll tell you why:

I want men to be interested in feminism. I don't really care about semantics, and whether a man chooses to identify as "feminist" or "pro-feminist" is really beside the point, so long as he is supporting the cause - but most importantly, supporting the cause in a practical way. The whole point of feminism is to fight against the fact that the gender "female" is viewed and very often treated as inferior to the gender "male", and acknowledging that this, frustratingly, manifests itself in various ways. It manifests itself economically: women overall still earn less than men. It manifests itself in crime: women are still overwhelmingly victims of street harassment, sexual assault and domestic abuse. It manifests itself in the media: the sexualisation of girls who have barely hit puberty, and the objectification of women who are only viewed as "tits" and "arse", and not as "human being"... But you've heard this all before, guys, I know you have. So how about this:

It manifests itself in language: the worst thing you call a person, a "cunt", is just another word for the female genitalia, after all. It manifests itself in the assumption that men should be the breadwinner and women should look after the children, and it manifests itself in the judgement that is passed of a man when he answers the question "What do you do for a living?" with "I'm a dad". It manifests itself in the pressure a man feels to be "macho" or strong. It manifests itself in the very idea that to be female, to have female traits, to be in any way associated with anything female, unless you're either a) protecting her, or b) shagging her, is a negative thing.

It is not a negative thing to be female.

Nor is it a negative thing to be male. But the sad thing is that we as a society have come to associate supposedly "female" traits with weakness. "Stop being such a girl" as opposed to "Man up"; "You throw like a girl" as opposed to "Grow some balls". We live in a world where women and men are disempowered by the disempowerment of women. If we want equality - yes, equality; I'm not talking about a world governed by misandry - we need to start promoting the female gender as the amazing, strong and beautiful entity that it is. This doesn't mean that we need to slam and shame all men at every given opportunity, but it does mean that we need to be honest about our experiences without worrying about offending or upsetting those men who have never hit or sexually assaulted a woman, or shouted "SLAG!" after the woman who refused to give him her phone number. Men, we are aware that you are not all rapists, that you don't all wolf-whistle or cat-call, or truly believe that a woman's place is in the kitchen making you a sandwich. Men, we like some of you. A lot. Maybe we even love some of you. But please, we need to love ourselves, as well.

We have to free half of the human race, the women, so that they can help to free the other half.

- Emmeline Pankhurst

 

We cannot empower humanity without empowering the female gender. We cannot let people, all people, be who they truly are - complicated, dynamic, strong and emotional, aggressive and sensitive - without saying to the world, "It is OK to be a woman." And men, you have to let us say it.

 

We are afraid of walking home late at night on our own; when it comes to Reclaim The Night marches, let us reclaim the night. Your voices are overwhelmingly dominant over ours in the media; let us speak about issues which affect us. A couple of years ago, when I was commissioned to write a piece about sexism in football for a feminist website, my piece was dropped because it was felt that a male author's take on the issue was, apparently, "more relevant". This is not to say that I believe a man should be silenced or discouraged from engaging in the feminist movement, but rather that he needs to know when, where and how. Do not tell us that we are wrong, because until you have lived in our shoes and had the experiences that we have had, how could you possibly know?

 

Men, if you are truly supportive of the feminist cause, you have to support it by giving the oppressed voice room to speak.

 

Loneliness Is...

You can live with loneliness, if you live for long enough. But first you have to break through that spell where loneliness is the pair of tights you ladder first thing in the morning when you’re still half-asleep, the coat you shrug on before you step out into the world’s familiar chill, or the blanket you pull tight around you when it’s been two hours and you’re still not asleep. Because that is not loneliness: that is fear of loneliness.

Loneliness becomes you. You wear it like skin, so accustomed to it that when you look in the mirror each day, you are not surprised to see it. You know it, every square inch of it: its temperature, the way it stretches across your bones as you reach out an arm, or folds in on itself as you pull an arm away. You protect it, and panic at the sight of blood, that some alien vessel has dared to infiltrate you. True loneliness is easily accepted, as I had accepted mine.

Love, Church and Homosexuality

As MPs prepare to vote on The Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill later on today, I look around me with increasing bewilderment at the very fact that we are still debating this.

Yes, I understand religious folk who quote bits from the Bible about man not lying with man (is it OK if man bends man over, or if they do it standing up?), and who think that by allowing same-sex couples to marry in the name of the Lord, they are somehow devaluing the institution of their own religion. I understand them, but I don't agree with them. Is it not more devaluing to the institution of your own religion to condemn love? Are these not the same people who preach "love your neighbour as yourself"?

I was raised in the Catholic Church, but thankfully under the guidance of an open-minded mother and one godparent who was gay. As a child, I never saw my religion as being exclusive. I went to church and saw male, female, black, white, Asian, straight, gay, old, young, fat, thin, able-bodied, disabled - people of all walks of life. I sat, I listened; I knelt, I prayed; I stood, I sang. And the whole time I did, I did it with a kind of childlike innocence and naivety: There is a God, and He loves us, all of us.

But I stopped going to church at around the age of 12, when the naivety began to slip away, when what I heard stopped being the interpretations my mother gave me, but rather the interpretations I heard at school in the classroom and in the playground, on the streets and out of the mouths of people who didn't seem to understand God as I did. What I heard stopped being stories of love, but stories of judgement. God only loves those who follow these rules.

Well, why? Does God not love those who work on Sundays because if they don't, they won't be able to afford rent? Does God not love the mother who steals £20 from the rich man to feed her hungry child? Does God reserve His love solely for those who follow a book written by Man, originally written in Ancient Hebrew and Greek, most of it based on stories told by ordinary regular men, and then translated repeatedly from Latin to English? Does God only love those who tick boxes, walk out of church on Sunday and spend the rest of their week casting judgement upon others?

I have since made my peace with religion. It is not for me, at least not at this moment in time, but I respect those who use it to feel a closer connection to God, and not a closer connection to a set of rules which they seem to think will entitle them to a place in heaven. But the sad thing is that I feel I have been shoved out of the Church. It is no longer the inclusive, unconditional love I once thought it was - and until it learns how to be just that, it will continue to push out other people exactly like me.
 

Final Message

Final Message

When I’m still, you occupy my mind like a tumour, pressing on my brain and making me grow weak. I drop my lids and see your face floating within the depths of my watery blue eyes. These dark pools are a backdrop to the memory of your face, reminiscent of that night when the stars seemed to shine like a halo around you, and you cupped my face in your hands and kissed me gently on the lips.
“I love you,” you said to me.
But you didn’t.
My eyes spring open in one fluent, startled motion, as if suddenly scorched by the heat from your face. A thousand images of you swirl in circles in front of my eyes, your smile taunting me still. The blur of colours from my ostensibly empty life fuse together to make you, and I blink furiously between the images, trying to distinguish the lesser of two evils, until I feel the memory of you running in tracks down my cheeks.

When I’m running I feel I’m running away from you. Sometimes when it’s late and the road is clear I listen closely to the soft padding of my feet grazing the ground, and I can convince myself that that’s you keeping in step just behind me. If I were to slow down, soon your body would emerge beside mine - then I could turn and look at you and you’d be smiling.
“I love you,” you’d mouth to me.
But you don’t.
Your sweet lies make me mad; my pace quickens and the rush of my feet disguises the absence of a second pair of legs straining to keep up. I can ignore the burning in my chest this flight creates, for I know I made it and it’s within my control to soothe it, to pour water on the flame. I push harder and listen to the furious, determined pounding of my heart, and I tell myself that that’s me beating away your memory.

When I collapse on the ground my heart is still hammering with vigour inside my chest, and I close my eyes and assure myself that it’s the sound of your feet carrying you away. Your footsteps grow fainter, and for one fleeting moment I believe that you’re gone. But then the wind whips past me, scooping hair away from my ears and collecting in my open mouth, silencing me for the moment you’ll whisper some deceiving final message. I can almost feel the weight of you as you lean over my broken body, as your lips graze my wet cheek.
“I love you,” you breathe.
So why did you go?

By Martha Everitt
2006

My Sexuality Is Mine

If you'd asked me not so long ago how I felt about women who use their sexuality to get ahead in life, I would have probably told you that it was counterproductive to the aims of feminism, would have been fully aware of the danger of contradicting some of my "we need to stop sexualising everything" rants, and would have told you that I choose not to enter into any of that stuff, personally.

But things change. Experiences change.

Without going into any sordid details about my personal life, I've come to understand that regardless of how I view myself and my sexuality, the world will always have its own separate perception. I was barely a teenager when I first started receiving attention from adult men in the street who would comment on my apparent "growth"; I was intimidated by teenage boys who attempted to physically assault me when I refused to go out with one of them; I reported sexual harassment to the police when I was 14; I had a middle-aged man come onto me at a deserted train station at midnight when I was 18 (barely relevant, but I've always looked about two or three years younger than my actual age). I wore jeans and jumpers, flat shoes and long coats. I didn't start wearing makeup until I was 18, and through all of this, regardless of how I looked to these strange leering men, I still felt like a child.

These experiences alone made me aware of the desperate need for the continuation of feminism long after the days of bra-burning, but for a long time, my experiences of having my "sexuality" infringed upon were carried out on the streets, by men I did not know and reasonably assumed I would never see ever again. They weren't men I worked with, or men I assumed to be friends; they weren't men I was in a relationship with, and their impact on my world didn't extend beyond my freedom to walk down the street without being harassed (still not acceptable, but you know what I mean). I felt reasonably safe thinking that so long as the door was closed and bolted and I knew everyone standing behind it, I was safe. Sexism and the exploitation of my sexuality lay on the outside world, not on the inside.

But then it crept in, slowly, with small gestures at first, but from men I saw every day: innuendo they didn't think I got, or hands accidentally slipping... And then I got a stalker, someone who would not leave me the fuck alone, and who seemed to thrive on the fact that I saw him every day and yet felt too afraid to tell him to leave me the hell alone or, more suitably, punch him in his fucking face. Men who claimed to love me saw me as putty in their hands: soft, fleshy putty. And gradually, over time, you begin to realise that the exploitation of a woman's sexuality is not just carried out in the media on young, thin celebrities; it's not just carried out in the street, and it doesn't matter if you're wearing a PVC playsuit or the attire of an Eskimo. As far as the world is concerned, by the very nature of being a woman, I am a sexual object.

And you can do a number of things with that piece of information:

1. You can ignore it, as I was before. But ignoring it won't make it go away.
2. You can fight it, and kick the shit out of anyone who crosses the line between acceptable and being an arsehole. But eventually you might get arrested, or they might fight back, and in a world populated by an estimated 3 million men, assuming that at least 10% of those men are arseholes (and that's being generous to blokes, as my experience dictates), you can only really conceivably kick about 100 out of a possible 300,000 dickfaces. That's a poor ratio.
3. You can take advantage of it.

I argue all the time that feminism is about gender equality, not about promoting female as superior to male. I argue that feminism benefits men, and that there are men in my life whom I love. I stand by these arguments, but one thing I cannot stand by anymore is being idle and passive in my own sexuality. I cannot stand by and allow my own body to be used against me, to be made to look in the mirror and hate or blame myself for the violation I have endured. I know what my boundaries are and I respect the boundaries of other women who either wholeheartedly agree or relentlessly disagree with me. I refuse to be intimidated, mocked or exploited. My sexuality is on my terms, and if Man wants a sexual creature, he can have one - but he sure as hell won't be the one to benefit from it.

Poetry: Self-Portrait

Self-Portrait

I was sketched lightly in an instant,
rough charcoal fingertips deciding where to put my eyes,
the optimism of a smile
and skin white, without impression or fade.
I lay in the wake of life and let the elements wash over me
like watercolour, gentle at first,
but soon sodden in frustration,
a gaping hole torn through my centre.
But I keep going, mount my portrait on black card,
and the hole in my centre is now gapingly obvious.
I let the page absorb the cloudy water,
harden,
and paint the blurred face in thick oil, building layers upon my skin –
Steady, vibrant lines that climb out of the page.
I shade, staining my hands, wiping my brow,
a smear of dirt on my face the same as on hers.
Charcoal drops fingerprints on my art, and I
mutate –
fuller,
louder,
more me than ever before.
I bend over the easel, and keep drawing.

By Martha Everitt
January 2013

We're all a little bit slutty

A woman walks into a bar (this is not a bad joke, I promise) wearing a short skirt, fishnet tights, a low-cut top and stilettos. She is coated in fake tan, has spent the last two hours doing her makeup, and it looks likely that she has had a boob job. She flirts casually. Her friends might tell you that she has had more than a few sexual partners in her time, and she appears loud, gregarious and looking for attention.

She is no more a slut, a bimbo, a slag, a tart or a whore than you and I.

She is a product of our world, of images like these, and "news" articles like these. She has seen Katie Price being lauded as a "businesswoman", has established the link between glamour and success, and perceived "unattractiveness" and mockery and shame. Men find tits and arse sexy, and this appreciation feels like validation. She likes sex (God gave women the clitoris for a reason, no?), and when the whole world is talking about it, showing it and selling all conceivable consumerable goods with it, why are we surprised that she does?

Why do we affix derogatory and degrading labels to women who satisfy the culture we have created? Why do we worship women like Madonna and Rihanna on the one hand, hold them up as icons for women all over the world, and then pass off the women who attempt to emulate them as "sluts", "bimbos", "slags", "tarts" and "whores"? The woman in our bar is not surrounded by an army of security who will rugby-tackle the man who gropes her without invitation, and the chances are she can't afford weekly salon trips for professional spray-tanning, or an on-call makeup artist with 20 years' experience. Maybe she hasn't had more than a few sexual partners; maybe that's just what she lets people assume. But then again, maybe she has, and if she has, why are the men who regard her as something dirty and classless also the very men who don't mind dipping themselves into more than their fair share of honey jars?

We have been raised in a world where sex is always on the menu, where women are not regarded for their intelligence, wit or talent unless you might want to f**k her too. We buy into this culture, and then we criticise those who fall victim to it.

If she is a slut, we must be too.

Pink!

I probably seem like a massive cliché: angry man-hating* woman who listens excessively to angry man-hating music. I don't mind people thinking that's what I am. If that's all they're prepared to see, then they can think what they like, and if that's all you're prepared to see, you can skip this post.

Though most of the music in my iTunes falls under the genre of R&B (a great deal of this being from the 90s), my most consistently listened-to artist is P!nk. Most people roll their eyes at me when I hark on about her, but I like to believe that this is because they've only heard the radio-friendly breakup anthems. In the same way that so many people roll their eyes at hip-hop lovers because they think all rap music is full of swearing, the promotion of gang culture and objectification of women (and a lot of it is; a lot of the mainstream stuff, anyway), sometimes you have to look beyond what you hear on the radio to find something worth listening to. And so, I present to you below some of my favourite P!nk lyrics. (I was going to diarrhoea them all over my Twitter feed, but didn't think that my followers would appreciate it.)

Warning: Some lyrics may be triggering.

Don't assume coz I'm a woman that I'll fall in love, don't expect I'm young and need to be took care of. - Stop Falling

Hey hey man, what's your problem? I see you're tryna hurt me bad, don't know what you're up against... Coz you know I'm not that kind of girl that'll lay there and let you cum first... Don't let him pull you by the skirt. - 18 Wheeler

I'm an opportunity, and I knock so softly...So many players, you'd think I was a board game... I drank your poison coz you told me it's wine. Shame on you if you fool me once, shame on me if you fool me twice... So what good am I to you if I can't be broken? - Eventually

And oh I've been down this road before, where the passion, it turns into pain. And each time I saw love walk out the door, I swore I'd never get caught up again. - Misery

Lying awake, watching the sunlight, how the birds will sing as I count the rings around my eyes. - Lonely Girl

But what's the point of this armour if it keeps the love away too? I'd rather bleed with cuts of love than live without any scars. - Love Song

Why can't I just love myself enough? Instead of looking outside for what I should have inside. I wanna live in a world with no mirrors, no sizes, no consequence and no prizes. No past, no future, no ages, no losers, no hate, no desire, no fate... I wish I didn't depend on your love, I wish I loved myself enough. - Free

What happened to the dream of the girl President? She's dancing in the video next to 50 Cent... Disasters all around, the world in despair. Your only concern? Will it fuck up my hair? - Stupid Girls

It's gonna take a long time to love, it's gonna take a lot to hold on, it's gonna be a long way to happy... Tryna cover up the damage and pad out all the bruises, too young to know I had it so it didn't hurt to lose it... Now I'm numb as hell and I can't feel a thing, but don't worry 'bout regret or guilt coz I never knew your name. - Long Way To Happy

How can you say no child is left behind? We're not dumb and we're not blind, they're all sitting in your cells while you pave the road to hell. What kind of father would take his own daughter's rights away? And what kind of father might hate his own daughter if she were gay? - Dear Mr President

There's always cracks, a crack of sunlight, a crack on the mirror, on your lips... We only spun a web to catch ourselves so we weren't left for dead. And I was never looking for approval from anyone but you... Right behind the cigarette and the devilish smile, you're my crack of sunlight... I'm a winter flower underground, always thirsty for summer rain. And just like the changing seasons, I know you'll be back again. - I'm Not Dead

I don't believe Adam and Eve spent every goddamn day together... I don't wanna wake up with another, but I don't wanna always wake up with you either. No you can't hop into my shower, all I ask for is one f**king hour. - Leave Me Alone (I'm Lonely)

It's just you and your hand tonight. - U + Ur Hand

I'm too young to be taken seriously, but I'm too old to believe all this hypocrisy. And I wonder how long it'll take them to see my bed is made, and I wonder if I was a mistake... Chase the rainbows in my mind and I will try to stay alive. - Runaway

I don't believe in soulmates, happy endings or "the one". Oh and I met you and all that changed, I had a taste and you're still sitting on the tip of my tongue. - The One That Got Away

Just one foot wrong, you'll have to love me when I'm gone. - One Foot Wrong

You used to hold the door for me, now you can't wait to leave. You used to send me flowers if you f**ked up in my dreams... Always sentimental when I think of how it was, when love was sweet and new and we just couldn't get enough. The shower it reminds me you'd undress me with your eyes, and now you never touch me and you tell me that you're tired. You know it gets so sad when it all goes bad, and all you think about is all the fun you've had... We opened up the wine and we just let it breathe, but we should've drank it down while it was still sweet. It all goes bad eventually. - Mean

I conjure up the thought of being gone, but I'd probably even do that wrong. - It's All Your Fault

Where does everybody go when they go? They go so fast I don't think they know. We hate so fast and we love too slow... Broken hearts all around the spot, I can't help thinking that we lost the plot, suicide bomber and a student shot... But for that they've got a pill, if that don't kill you then the side-effects will, if we don't kill each other then the side-effects will. - Ave Mary A

Have you ever hated yourself for staring at the phone? Your whole life waiting on the ring to prove you're not alone... Have you ever wished for an endless night? Lassoed the moon and the stars and pulled that rope tight? - Glitter In The Air

Life is just a little part of what this world will do, to get its point across it beats you till you're black and blue... And all my friends have asked the question "Baby, will you be OK?" I wanna tell them yes coz I know that's what I should say. But I've got no crystal ball and I can't bring myself to lie and why should I?... Life is just a little part of what this world will do, it brings you to the brink, it beats the shit right out of you. - When You're Through You're Through

You're so mean when you talk about yourself, you are wrong. Change the voices in your head, make them like you instead. - F**kin' Perfect

Four: that's how many years it took me to get through the lesson that I had to do it all on my own. Three: that's how many Hail Marys they would pray for me, thinking I was gonna end up all alone. Two for second chances that you've given me, can it be lucky me... One: is what we are. - Are We All We Are?

At the same time I wanna hug you, I wanna wrap my hands around your neck. - True Love

And they think we fall in love, but that's not it. Just wanna get some... You don't win a prize with your googly eyes, I'm not a crackerjack, you can't go inside, unless I let you jack- haha Sam, oh f**k what's your name again? - Slut Like You

The truth about love comes at 3a.m., you wake up f**ked up and you grab a pen... The truth about love is it comes and it goes, a strange fascination, it is lips on toes. Morning breath, bedroom eyes on a smiling face, sheet marks, rug burn and a sugar glaze. A shock and the awe that can eat you raw. Is this the truth about love?... The truth about love is it's nasty and salty, it's the regret in the morning, it's the smelling of armpits. It's wings and songs, and trees and birds, it's all the poetry that you ever heard. Terror coup d'etat lifeline forget-me-nots, it's the hunt and the kill, the schemes and the plots. The truth about love is it's blood and it's guts, pure breds and mutts, sandwiches without the crust. It takes your breath and it leaves a scar, but those untouched never got... very far. It's rage and it's hate, and a sick twist of fate... Oh and you can lose your breath and oh you can shoot a gun, convinced you're the only one who's ever felt this way before. It hurts inside the hurt within and it folds together packet thin and it's whispered by the angels' lips and it can turn you into a son of a bitch. - The Truth About Love

The passion and the pain is gonna keep you alive someday. - The Great Escape

How do I keep you into me... without faking it too? - Is This Thing On?

Your anger's like a razorblade, it's just too bloody real... I don't feel like calming down, no I don't. I don't feel like hiding out, so I won't. I can't turn the volume down, so I sit here in this chaos and piss, watching the storm passing... I'm a willow tree and you can't blow me over, and my roots go deep in anger and I wanna feel the wind as it whips me like a prisoner. - Chaos & Piss

It's only love, give it away. You'll probably get it back again... Oh fuck it, have everything. - Timebomb

Unlike your anatomy, I'm glad I had it in me. - The King Is Dead But The Queen Is Alive


* I'm not always angry, and I don't hate men. Not all of them, anyway.

Poetry: Standing Domino

Standing Domino

We are a mass of perceived worthlessness, of inadequacy and fear.
We hurt one another daily with our own hurt,
two bruises merging together to form one swollen heart.
We knock on like dominoes;
all it takes is a look,
a snort,
a flick of the hair or sometimes even
an absence.
Silence bruises more than words can say.

My sharpest weapon was made 12 years ago,
when my heart shattered under the weight of another’s pain.
I was a girl being squashed into a dark corner,
weeping and afraid,
eyes open so wide that I saw it all, and remember it all.
I was like the homeless soul in the coldest winter, catching every infection thrown at me.
I took rest and waited to recover,
but we never do.

Every scar we bear serves to remind us that we once bled,
that some alien object tore us open and poured out a part of our softness.
We become oxidised, dirtied by the elements, and seal ourselves shut,
feeling the faded lines only at night under the covers,
when we finally allow our breath to touch the space around us.
We pray that someday the light will fall upon our scars,
and we will trust ourselves enough to let alien eyes strip us human.

Three years ago, I drew a blade out from under my ribs and tore a hole in another’s eyes.
I blew on his tears until they turned to ice, and
smiled down the dark tunnel where I later exiled myself.
I found blind courage, my fingers gripping at the walls –
rough and open at first, but soon slipping out of the cracks –
losing my footing,
stumbling through the darkness towards an end which had no new beginning.
We never know where we’re going until we get there.

We collide like bumper cars –
deliberate and teasing, testing for a response,
expectant of the jolt but not of the weak limbs as we clamber from our rides and
silently dissipate to opposite ends of the world.
We laugh loudly, paint on smiles
and force ourselves to feel for strangers what we only wish we could feel for ourselves.
Our biggest crime is not the mask we wear, but the tongue we lash from it
and the perilous eyes which stare out, seeing but unseen –
the face which haunts the dreams of every child.
We have grown into adults who long to be children:
hopeful, unafraid,
with the faith that magic presents itself when we believe it should.
We want the world to tuck us in at night, tell us stories of happy ever afters
and love us because we have done no wrong...
But we have lived through lonely nights,
felt our breath cling to the closed-in walls around us and torn
the final page from the book before we’ve reached the end.
We have hurt, spread our poison like plague and turned
our burdened backs on who we swore we would become.

I am a woman who knows she cannot be a child,
and that hope may fade and fear may haunt, but that faith is of my own devising.
I devise a game of dominoes where one falls and the rest stay standing,
where pain is not contagious
and where we might someday tear our terrifying masks from our faces and smile
with a warmth we forgot we ever had.

We are a mass of perceived worthlessness, of inadequacy and fear.
I devise a world where we are not.

By Martha Everitt
August 2012

Reevaluating my views: Feminism

Looking back over old blog posts, one thing I've realised is that my views on feminism have changed somewhat in the last year. While I feel that the "glass ceiling" debate is no less important than it once was, and that women should certainly be able and encouraged to achieve the same high-ranking professions as men, it is far from being at the crux of my passion for feminism. Perhaps this is because the world in which I now exist is different from the world I existed in a year ago: I can scarcely call myself a "recent graduate", and when you consider that most "recent graduates" in these desolate times find themselves exploiting their newly-acquired wealth of knowledge behind the counter of their local McDonald's, a career in the boardroom is hardly on the cards for me. Male or female (but still largely male), a career in the boardroom now tends to be reserved solely for former private school students and Oxbridge graduates... But that's a different argument entirely.

I recall, seven-and-a-half years ago, uttering that sentence opening that now causes me to (metaphorically) bang my head against the wall in frustration: "I'm not a feminist, but..."

I grew up on the Spice Girls, with a mother who had a kind of montage of feminist postcards framed and pinned up in the hallway, and who left her diary (pictured above) lying around the flat for impressionable girls' eyes to fall upon. I threw out peace signs like it was Christmas and challenged the boys in the school playground to races (I was a freakishly fast runner... y'know, for a girl). I pulled people up on their casually sexist remarks from the age of seven, and I knew that I was just as smart and just as capable as any boy. And yet, feminism was a bad word. To be a feminist was to be angry, hairy and wear dungarees.

It took going out into the world and seeing the injustices women face (and that I would now invariably face) with my own eyes to change my mind. It took being pushed and shoved on buses and tubes because I am smaller than 50% of the population and therefore less likely to start a fight; it took, not just being sexually harassed more times than I can count, but becoming so accustomed to sexual harassment that I began to expect it, and then barely think twice about it when it happened again; it took being criticised for taking an interest in football instead of fashion; it took finding myself growing up awkward and imperfect whilst being held up against impossibly perfect images of women and being told that I am not good enough if I am not like them; it took being 15-years-old, haemorrhaging my way through the worst period I have ever known, and being told by a (male) doctor that I must be having a miscarriage, there was no other explanation for it, in spite of the fact that I had told him repeatedly that I was a virgin; it took being used and exploited by men, or being treated as something fragile instead of something strong. It took expanding my mind and allowing myself to be unafraid of stigma to accept that, yes, my thoughts and my views and my attitudes make me a feminist, whether I choose to shave my legs or not. I am happy now to admit that I was wrong, just as I am happy now to admit that I was misguided a year ago. Feminism is much bigger than I thought it was.

Every woman (and man) will have their own individual relationship with feminism, whether they recognise it or not, but we have to see past our own relationships if we are going to get anywhere. For some, for the more privileged, that relationship will be "Can I make it to the top?" Will society ever stop assuming that "doctor" is male unless "female doctor" is specified, or that "nurse" is female unless "male nurse... I wonder if he's gay??" is specified. I might be one of the more privileged, because for me, I often find myself wondering if I will be one of the illustrious 17% of playwrights who happen to be female this year, and I get arsey when people address me by the title "Miss" instead of "Ms". Lucky me to have such a concern, I guess.

For others, the corcerns will be "How can I afford to have a child when I can barely afford to live myself?" and "I am being assaulted every day in my own home." For the majority of us, rape is something we fear when we are walking home late at night on our own, and the messed-up world in which we live tries to tell us that we are somehow more vulnerable, or somehow more at fault, if we are dressed in a certain way, and that perhaps if we hadn't gone down that alleyway, we might have been able to prevent it. For others, rape is something to be feared when we wake up in the morning or go home in the evening. It is not just a fear; it is a guarantee, and an unbreakable cycle. Conviction rates are still pathetically low.

Feminism for some is the right we in Western society have come to accept as our most basic: the right to healthcare, the right to our own bodies. If we want an abortion and if the pregnancy is early enough, we can have one; we have access to contraception, and whether practice is the same as principle, we can refuse sex if we do not want it; we do not lose "value" at the loss of our virginity and we are not told to marry against our own will. This is a reality for some that we are guilty of turning a blind eye to in favour of the "glass ceiling", and just as the more privileged feminists try to convince men that feminism benefits them too, we must also remind ourselves that feminism is working to free more than just the white, more than just the middle and upper classes, more than just your mother or your daughter or sister or niece.

Feminists, if we want to free ourselves, we must also free our sisters.

Poetry: Man

Man

Man, you do not make me.
You may spread your seed like a dandelion weed,
but you do not hold me, grip me by my roots and
pine for me to grow.
I am the wild flower in your eye,
the white lily crushed between my thighs,
and I wonder if I would have been so frail for you
had he not failed for me.

Man, you do not fool me.
I do not buy the fresh succulent pink of timid flesh,
nor will I be the lonely princess in your tower,
waiting to be saved.
I have outgrown the sinister tales
devised by cowardly males
who want us to regress from meek girls
to tragically weak women.

Man, you do not own me.
My body cannot be made a commodity,
a blank canvas upon which you can stain yourself
a man’s mannequin.
My breasts cannot be made tits;
my arse, like yours, farts and shits.
I will not be weighed in gold as you wish,
nor will growing old diminish me.

Man, you do not know me.
I am not the pleasant smile to your beguile,
and being fucked around does not make me crazy –
it makes me mad.
I am not the column in your magazine
which believes that you, man, could be the man of my dreams.
I will not believe your desperate plea which does not see that
man, you cannot stop me loving me.

By Martha Everitt
December 2012