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.
Thursday, 24 January 2013
Thursday, 17 January 2013
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
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
Tuesday, 8 January 2013
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.
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.
Saturday, 5 January 2013
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
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
Monday, 31 December 2012
2012, I leave you...
2012, I leave you as I left the years that preceded you.
I have not ticked every item on the list I drew up so optimistically 365 days earlier; my life is not full and vibrant, and the things that didn't make sense in 2011 still don't make a lot of sense now. I am not as successful as I had hoped, or as happy as I had promised I would be. 2012, like every other year, ends like this: Mission Unaccomplished.
But I have endured lessons I did not expect to encounter, and I have moved from one place in time to another. I am not the person I was a year ago. I am stronger, wiser and better equipped for the lessons that 2013 has to offer. I am more determined than ever.
So for that, I guess I haven't failed 2012 after all... (Oh, and I survived the Apocalypse.)
I have not ticked every item on the list I drew up so optimistically 365 days earlier; my life is not full and vibrant, and the things that didn't make sense in 2011 still don't make a lot of sense now. I am not as successful as I had hoped, or as happy as I had promised I would be. 2012, like every other year, ends like this: Mission Unaccomplished.
But I have endured lessons I did not expect to encounter, and I have moved from one place in time to another. I am not the person I was a year ago. I am stronger, wiser and better equipped for the lessons that 2013 has to offer. I am more determined than ever.
So for that, I guess I haven't failed 2012 after all... (Oh, and I survived the Apocalypse.)
Friday, 14 December 2012
Defending Feminism... Why??
A few days ago, I wrote a poem with an anti-patriarchy theme. It would probably help for me to share the poem to demonstrate just how, exactly, it argues against patriarchy, but when you want to get your work published, sometimes, you have to hold off giving it away for free. Just sometimes. But take my word for it.
I shared the poem with a few of my friends (some male), and only a handful of (female) readers seemed to get where I was coming from. Perhaps the poem didn't make its point as strongly as I had hoped it did, but what did become evident as I was talking to people was how much men, usually, struggle to distinguish between an attack on men and an attack on patriarchy, and when arguing my point, I felt as though I was having to defend feminism.
I am not anti-men. You will probably find that most women who proudly identify themselves as "feminist" have fathers, sons, husbands, boyfriends, brothers, uncles and nephews whom they love and want to see looked after by the world; they see how feminism benefits men.
Yes, feminism benefits men.
If we lived in a truly post-feminist world, men could stay at home to raise the children. It would not be expected that it is their duty or role to win the bread, or that they must be the "protector". They could cry when they feel sad without being called a pansy or told that they are gay, as if being gay were somehow a bad thing. They would be entitled to longer paternity leave, and would not be expected to pay for meals when they go out with their girlfriends or wives, or always be the one to hold open doors. They'd probably have better sex, as numerous studies have shown that men with "feminist" partners report that they find sex more enjoyable than men whose partners aren't. They would be able to go into careers usually looked down upon or seen as "women's work", such as nursing or midwifery, and if their wives were earning more money, there would be a greater household income overall. Feminism benefits the world.
This is as close as I will come to defending feminism. Yes, sometimes I will have to make my point rudely and aggressively, and if someone says or does something fucking idiotic, I have no problem telling them that they are fucking idiotic. When our society is being dictated by powerful rich white men, I will challenge the views that are being filtered down, if those views are detrimental to every single person's right to freedom and equality.
I will not apologise for being a feminist.
I shared the poem with a few of my friends (some male), and only a handful of (female) readers seemed to get where I was coming from. Perhaps the poem didn't make its point as strongly as I had hoped it did, but what did become evident as I was talking to people was how much men, usually, struggle to distinguish between an attack on men and an attack on patriarchy, and when arguing my point, I felt as though I was having to defend feminism.
I am not anti-men. You will probably find that most women who proudly identify themselves as "feminist" have fathers, sons, husbands, boyfriends, brothers, uncles and nephews whom they love and want to see looked after by the world; they see how feminism benefits men.
Yes, feminism benefits men.
If we lived in a truly post-feminist world, men could stay at home to raise the children. It would not be expected that it is their duty or role to win the bread, or that they must be the "protector". They could cry when they feel sad without being called a pansy or told that they are gay, as if being gay were somehow a bad thing. They would be entitled to longer paternity leave, and would not be expected to pay for meals when they go out with their girlfriends or wives, or always be the one to hold open doors. They'd probably have better sex, as numerous studies have shown that men with "feminist" partners report that they find sex more enjoyable than men whose partners aren't. They would be able to go into careers usually looked down upon or seen as "women's work", such as nursing or midwifery, and if their wives were earning more money, there would be a greater household income overall. Feminism benefits the world.
This is as close as I will come to defending feminism. Yes, sometimes I will have to make my point rudely and aggressively, and if someone says or does something fucking idiotic, I have no problem telling them that they are fucking idiotic. When our society is being dictated by powerful rich white men, I will challenge the views that are being filtered down, if those views are detrimental to every single person's right to freedom and equality.
I will not apologise for being a feminist.
Sunday, 9 December 2012
My Feminism, Your Feminism
One thing that anyone with an opinion (which is pretty much everyone) is guilty of doing, is trying to force that opinion onto other people. It's natural. We think we are right; we want to be recognised as right; we want to operate in a world where things happen our way, and the only way to achieve that (besides running a dictatorship) is in getting people to agree with us. And so we state our argument as best as we can and hope people's minds are changed.
I have been trying to force my political opinions upon the wider world since I was a child (been telling people they're sexist since 1996), but I know that there will always be a group of people who will never hear me. Our views tend to come from our own experiences, hence why the majority of people who classify themselves as "feminist" are women; these are people who experience on a daily basis gender-based discrimination. Until a man is regularly wolf-whistled at in the street, physically violated by strangers (and non-strangers), feels that his access to healthcare is under threat or that he is, for some unfathomable reason, not being given the same pay, respect and opportunities as his female counterpart, he will never really know, just like I can never really know some of the struggles other women face.
Earlier on this year, I was approached by a theatre company who wanted me to write a short play on the theme of "international protest", and I had only a couple of short weeks to write it, in-between working full-time and working on a BBC project. Due to time constraints, I went with what type of protest I thought I knew best: women's protest; feminism; exploring the discrimination and fight women face internationally. So I did some research on female genital cutting, and it was only then that it really occurred to me just how little I know and understand.
In the years that I have been reading feminist literature, writing feminist columns and engaging in feminist protest, it has always covered the same topics: female objectification, largely in the media; UK-based crime where women are usually victims; lack of positive female role models; "the glass ceiling"... And while these are all very valid issues and we should certainly be fighting our corner against them, I do wonder if we, as feminists, are isolating our sisters; I wonder if we are only presenting one "type" of feminism, a feminism which occupies the thoughts of your white middle-class, educated feminist. Yes, we should care about the numbers of women in the boardroom, but we should care equally as much about women who cannot afford childcare, women whose health and freedom is threatened every day in other countries.
Feminism is not just for me and women like me. It's for every woman and girl alive; it's for every man and boy who doesn't yet realise that freeing women means freeing all of humanity.
The trouble is, I can't tell people this. I have not been subjected to genital cutting, have not been told I am not allowed to vote, or that I have no right to an education. I have not been denied access to contraception or healthcare, have not had my body sold, or used for profit. I have not had to choose between family and career, or been criticised for that choice. The women who have need to be given as great a platform to speak as we have taken for ourselves.
I have been trying to force my political opinions upon the wider world since I was a child (been telling people they're sexist since 1996), but I know that there will always be a group of people who will never hear me. Our views tend to come from our own experiences, hence why the majority of people who classify themselves as "feminist" are women; these are people who experience on a daily basis gender-based discrimination. Until a man is regularly wolf-whistled at in the street, physically violated by strangers (and non-strangers), feels that his access to healthcare is under threat or that he is, for some unfathomable reason, not being given the same pay, respect and opportunities as his female counterpart, he will never really know, just like I can never really know some of the struggles other women face.
Earlier on this year, I was approached by a theatre company who wanted me to write a short play on the theme of "international protest", and I had only a couple of short weeks to write it, in-between working full-time and working on a BBC project. Due to time constraints, I went with what type of protest I thought I knew best: women's protest; feminism; exploring the discrimination and fight women face internationally. So I did some research on female genital cutting, and it was only then that it really occurred to me just how little I know and understand.
In the years that I have been reading feminist literature, writing feminist columns and engaging in feminist protest, it has always covered the same topics: female objectification, largely in the media; UK-based crime where women are usually victims; lack of positive female role models; "the glass ceiling"... And while these are all very valid issues and we should certainly be fighting our corner against them, I do wonder if we, as feminists, are isolating our sisters; I wonder if we are only presenting one "type" of feminism, a feminism which occupies the thoughts of your white middle-class, educated feminist. Yes, we should care about the numbers of women in the boardroom, but we should care equally as much about women who cannot afford childcare, women whose health and freedom is threatened every day in other countries.
Feminism is not just for me and women like me. It's for every woman and girl alive; it's for every man and boy who doesn't yet realise that freeing women means freeing all of humanity.
The trouble is, I can't tell people this. I have not been subjected to genital cutting, have not been told I am not allowed to vote, or that I have no right to an education. I have not been denied access to contraception or healthcare, have not had my body sold, or used for profit. I have not had to choose between family and career, or been criticised for that choice. The women who have need to be given as great a platform to speak as we have taken for ourselves.
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