Identity

A background story

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There is a town I grew up in, well spent some of my formative years in, that I never ever want to return to.  I am envious of those people who have school friends who they spend time with, share history with and have connections that span the years.  I just don’t have that and some of the reasons are valid, and some relate to me being a slack teenager.  Let me explain.

I spent a bit over half of my formative years (traditionally from birth to 18), in Alice Springs… this is not the town I never want to return to.  Alice Springs, to this day, remains my spiritual home for want of a better phrase.  Alice Springs was a fantastic place to grow up in the 1980s.  I made friends with indigenous school children, local school children, blow-in school children (those whose parents had taken a 12 month contract and then were going to move onto the next place) and children whose parents had migrated from other countries.  I had the privilege of going to kindergarten with a group of people who I then went to school with.  I went to ballet school and did well, I was allowed to take what was then known as an “extension” program for gifted children at school and I fit in.

The fitting in part was the biggest and most important part for me, because of what happened when we left Alice Springs.  The people I went to school with in Alice Springs and those I was friends with accepted me, my quirks, my interests and the fact that I enjoyed school.  It wasn’t an ideal paradise, I did fight with girls and boys about stuff, but that wasn’t about who I was deep in my core that was just school yard politics in a very mild form.

We moved to a large country town in Victoria because my parents were concerned about their parents and wanted to be halfway between them (Melbourne and Corowa respectively).  It was a former gold mining town full of history, beautiful buildings and things to do.  On a purely aesthetic level it was a lovely place to be.  On a personal level, for me, it was hell.

My parents thought, at the time, that the best school to send me to was the Catholic High School because a) they were Catholic and b) Catholic Schools provide good education (apparently).  This school, compared to my Catholic High School in Alice Springs was MASSIVE.  I went from a school of 250 students in total to a school where there were 300 people in my year level, and as the school was divided over two campuses, years 7 to 9 and years 10 to 12, my campus had 900 students.

Despite charging fees (I ended up on a music scholarship, which is good because my parents would not have been able to afford the fees for long), the facilities at this school were quite poor compared to new shiny Catholic High School I attended in Alice Springs.  The campus coordinator thought that education in the Northern Territory was at a lower standard that Victoria (HA!) and wanted to put me back a year, but my mother put her foot down (thank god) and I remained in year 8.

As a smart and inquisitive student, I was suddenly bored.  I was a long way ahead of my fellow students, in all the core subjects and due to the move and my mother’s inability to find work, there were no extra curricular activities for me except choir – which I took up the year after we moved.  No home work, or at least no homework at the level I was used to in Alice Springs (combined with all the extra stuff I used to do) and suddenly my knowledge was a liability instead of an asset.

For the first time in my life I was picked on by others for knowing things.  My good vocabulary was laughed at.  When I told someone I was sceptical that X liked me, the boys went around for the next couple of days going, “ooh, I feel very sceptical today”, because they had no idea what it really meant.  In Alice Springs, I was one of the ones my fellow students went to when they wanted help with something.  In this town, I was shunned.

And not just shunned, I was bullied.  I was kicked, had my hair pulled and my school uniform skirt lifted.  I was picked on by girls for being different and determined to remain different.  I liked books and science and learning and enjoyed school – with the exception of the bullying.  I argued with mum about returning to school, spent time flatly refusing to go to school due to the way I was treated and eventually just got on with it as much as I could.

In my first year in this town I had one friend, who was someone very few people liked (including some of the teachers), but I thought was sweet.  Her family moved away from the town a bit over half-way through the year and I was then friendless until the following year.  Then I started making friends – who were mostly all outcasts like me and oddly were all people who had moved to the town later, they weren’t born there.

The bullying by the other girls continued throughout my entire school years.  This has resulted in me having a lot of trouble trusting women who I suspect are likely to play any sort of “game” beyond certain limits.  As a bisexual woman, this has added an extra layer of complexity that it’d be nice to do without.

Later in my school life in this town I was sexually assaulted by a boy who lived down the road, and nothing was done by anyone I told.  My mother has since apologised, explaining that her own sexual abuse as a child (though not the details) taught her that children lie – because that is what she was regularly told during her childhood.

Later again I was raped by my boyfriend, and since no one was going to act as they didn’t the first time, I didn’t bother telling anyone – having learnt that I had to deal with stuff on my own.

The relationship with my then boyfriend was incredibly toxic.  I endured emotional abuse and it took me a long time to find a way out of the relationship.  Only when I was at uni, in the same town, did I discover that I was appreciated for who I was, that my curiosity, thirst to know things and difference were ok things to have and that suddenly there were multiple people interested in me, versus the incredibly tiny number at school – well one.

When I dropped out of uni because engineering was not for me and moved to Melbourne I lost all the friends that I had gained in the town.  My ex-boyfriend still lived there and our circle of friends found it easier to be friendly to him as he was there than to remain in contact and/or friendship with me.

Moving to Melbourne was a good thing for me.  I’ve made friends again and lost friends and made new friends.  I have built up a family of choice of wonderful people I am happy to have in my life.  I have left behind the mess that was that country town and avoid going there as much as possible, even though there are a still one or two people I would not mind getting in touch with again.  I have a home now (and I’m even paying it off) and have filled it with people I love dearly.  I have a great circle of friends and have sorted out most of my genetic family stuff.  I have learnt that I’m me, and that those who cannot deal with that have a problem, not me.

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Feminism, LGBTIQ

Who gets to decide these things anyway?

Most of the internet will be rightly outraged at Dr New of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine and Florida International University and her “treatment” of pregnant women using “safe” (read dangerous with terrible side-effects) hormones in order to cure teh gay…  PZ Myers and Dan Savage have blogged about the pure evil that this whole thing is in relation to lying about the drug’s safety, ethics approval, experimenting on humans, etc.  I don’t want to go over that other than to say that if my mother had been convinced to take this drug when she was pregnant with me, I wouldn’t exist as I do now.  No more bisexual woman out to herd geek cats with the best of them.

What I want to consider here is the fact that someone came up with the idea that to be a “proper female” you shouldn’t “display an “abnormal” disinterest in babies, [not] want to play with girls’ toys or become mothers, and [not choose a] “career preferences” [which is] deemed too “masculine.”” (Quote taken from Dan’s blog and then amended)

Who gets to say which career paths are too “masculine”?  I thought, now that we’re in 2010 and have attempted as much as possible to win the whole equal pay in relation to employment that all career choices were open to women and none could really be defined as “too masculine”.  I know that there are career paths which are dominated by one gender with rare incursions (for want of a better word) by the opposite gender, such as childcare and nursing for women and truck driving and construction work for men.  Though I wouldn’t say that those career paths are actually gendered other than by history and the current status quo.

I do wonder what Dr New and her researchers deemed to be a masculine career preferences and why, in the age of enlightenment that we’re supposed to be in (as far as women’s alleged ability to access any job she’s qualified for) choosing a non-traditional job for women is a bad thing.  My biggest concern is that Dr New and her team are attempting to impose patriarchal ideals of womanhood and what is means to be a proper/successful woman without looking at the benefits that women have gained over the past century.  Without sitting down and asking themselves if the meaning of “man” and “woman” have changed in a positive way that benefits everyone, including any children they may choose to have. How much do they want women to regress?

Erasing diversity and introducing conformity in our population to fit some weird hetero-normative ideal of what it is to be a proper woman or a proper man lessens us all.  As a diverse population of straight, gay, lesbian, trans*, bisexual, intersex, queer and questioning individuals we all have strengths that compliment each other’s weaknesses.  As a diverse population with interests in different career paths, we keep the economy moving and bring different strengths to the workplace.

I want to see Dr New, and anyone else who thinks that using this drug to treat non-CAH female fetuses, disbarred from practising medicine and forced to attend diversity education before they can re-register.   Oh and the ethics departments who have allowed this human experimentation… same deal.

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relationships

More events than just one

Hollywood has done us a great disservice, though this should come as no surprise.  This time, I’m thinking about relationships and how they are portrayed in movies, specifically when the relationship ends due to the death of one of the partners.  In the average movie, when someone’s husband or wife dies, they spend a disproportionate amount of time watching their wedding video and being sad.  The being sad bit I can understand, the wedding video I don’t.

I know its symbolic and is a quick and cheap way of showing how much this individual misses the other, but its also really wrong.  As well as fuelling the wedding video market, which is stupidly overpriced and terribly saccharine, its not even a good representation of what a relationship is.  A relationship isn’t one event, it is a series of events, both good and bad, over a period of time.

Although family videos were made of my wedding day, I never watch them and don’t think I actually have them anymore.  I had a photographer come and take photos, and I look at them once every year or so, because they’re pretty, but not because “it was the happiest day of my life™”.  I define my relationship with my (legal) husband by many different events, and I wouldn’t want just one to define my entire relationship.  To only let my wedding day define my relationship of over 16 years with him cheats both of us the life experience we’ve gained together and the good and bad times we’ve spent together.

I’m far more likely to remember out 10th wedding anniversary, countless weekends lying in bed and talking about everything, discoveries that we’ve made while being out and about together, songs we’ve made up, laughing until we cry and much awesome sex.  All of this is far more fun than that one day where I dressed up in a white dress and said, “I do” in front of family and friends.

To let a wedding day define an entire relationship is wrong and unfair.  It puts impossible expectations on people to make their wedding day be the best day of their life, and suggests that everything from there onwards will be downhill.  It fuels an industry that already gouges people, encourages conspicuous consumption and suggests to those who cannot afford the most outrageous wedding ever that they will be miserable for all eternity – when perhaps all they wanted (if they want to get married – that’s a whole different debate) was a simple ceremony in front of a few close friends and family.

I’d much prefer a montage of time spent together, as I have seen some movies do.  Picnics, birthdays, anniversaries, parties and just time spent together to sum up the essence of a lifetime spent together.  That is far more realistic than just one event being played over and over.

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Feminism, politics

Queen’s Birthday Honours List – Sausage-fest

I wasn’t going to blog this weekend or until after my exams are done, but then I read the Queen’s Birthday Honours List as printed in The Age (gotta love the sub-editor who failed to notice “brithday”) and was absolutely horrified by the lack of female representation in the awards.  On my visual count (and I counted a total of 653 awards approximately), only 28% of the awards went to women.  All categories had an appalling representation of women.  Just looking at the police force and armed services and you’d think that there were next to no women in those fields.  Women make up slightly over half of the population, why are women making up far less than half of the QUEEN’s birthday list?

My count is as follows:

Order of Australia
Companion (AC) in the general division
Total awardees – 5
No of women – 1

Officer (AO) in the General Division
Total awardees – 21
No of women – 5

Officer (AO) in the Military Division
Royal Australian Navy
Total awardees – 1
No of women – 0

Royal Australian Air Force
Total awardees – 1
No of women – 0

Member (AM) in the General Division
Total awardees – 136
No of women – 33 – 35 (two awardee’s gender could not be identified)

Member (AM) in the Military Division
Royal Australian Navy
Total awardees – 2
No of women – 0

Australian Army
Total awardees – 8
No of women – 0

Medal (OAM) in the general division
Total awardees – 303 (approx)
No of women – 118 (approx)

Medal (OAM) in the Military Division
Royal Australian Navy
Total awardees – 2
No of women – 0

Australian Army
Total awardees – 5
No of women – 0

Royal Australian Air Force
Total awardees – 4
No of women – 0

Australian Public Service Medal

Australian Public Service

Total awardees – 17
No of women – 5

NSW Public Service
Total awardees – 11
No of women – 1

Victoria Public Service
Total awardees – 6
No of women – 2

Queensland Public Service
Total awardees – 5
No of women – 2

Western Australia Public Service
Total awardees – 1
No of women – 1

South Australia Public Service
Total awardees – 3
No of women – 1

Australian Police Medal
Australian Federal Police
Total awardees – 2
No of women – 0

NSW Police
Total awardees – 8
No of women – 0

Victoria Police
Total awardees – 5
No of women – 1

Queensland Police
Total awardees – 6
No of women – 1

Western Australia Police
Total awardees – 4
No of women – 0

South Australia Police
Total awardees – 3
No of women – 0

Tasmania Police
Total awardees – 1
No of women – 0

Nothern Territory
Total awardees – 1
No of women – 0

Australian Fire Service Medal
NSW Fire Services
Total awardees – 11
No of women – 0

Victoria Fire Services
Total awardees – 9
No of women – 0

Queensland Fire Services
Total awardees – 3
No of women – 0

Western Australia Fire Services
Total awardees – 1
No of women – 0

South Australian Fire Services
Total awardees – 2
No of women – 1

ACT Fire Services
Total awardees – 1
No of women – 0

Ambulance Service Medal (ASM)
Queensland Ambulance Service
Total awardees – 2
No of women – 0

South Australian Ambulance Service
Total awardees – 1
No of women – 0

ACT Ambulance Service
Total awardees – 1
No of women – 1

Emergency Services Medal (ESM)
Queensland Emergency Services
Total awardees – 3
No of women – 0

Western Australia Emergency Services
Total awardees – 3
No of women – 0

South Australia Emergency Services
Total awardees – 1
No of women – 0

Commendation for Gallantry
Australian Army
Total awardees – 3
No of women – 0

Distinguished Service Medal (DSM)
Australian Army
Total awardees – 4
No of women – 0

Commendation for Distinguished Service
Australian Army
Total awardees – 8
No of women – 0

Bar to the Conspicuous Service Cross
Australian Army
Total awardees – 1
No of women – 0

Conspicuous Service Cross (CSC)
Royal Australian Navy
Total awardees – 6
No of women – 0

Australian Army
Total awardees – 9
No of women – 1

Royal Australian Air Force
Total awardees – 6
No of women – 1

Conspicuous Service Medal (CSM)
Royal Australian Navy
Total awardees – 3
No of women – 1

Australian Army
Total awardees – 13
No of women – 4

Royal Australian Air Force
Total awardees – 4
No of women – 1

Total awardees – 653 (approx)
Total No of women – 183 (approx)
Percentage representation – 28%

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Uncategorized

A hiatus

I’ve had to take a bit of a break from the blog because I’ve at the end of my last semester of my degree (if everything else goes to plan), so I’ve had assignments and exams to do.

I will be back blogging more in July when I will have time, and a life again (YAY!).  To keep you interested, here are some topics I intend to blog on:

  • Arrogance of religions claiming to be the “one true way”
  • Trigger warnings and why they’re important – learning the hard way
  • Forgiveness and why you don’t have to forgive

And anything else that takes my fancy.

So yes, I’ll be back blogging in July.

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disability

Public transport and disability in Melbourne

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Priority seat
A blue sign with white text which reads, "PRIORITY SEAT: Please ensure that this seat is available upon request for the elderly and people with special needs"

Posted as part of

Blogging Against Disablism Day 2010

Before I start, I will give a quick intro.  I am a temporarily abled, bisexual, cis-gendered, white, middle-class female living in Australia.  If I use any language in this post that is abled, please let me know and I will correct it.

I’ve been thinking recently about how much it must suck to travel on public transport in Melbourne when disabled.  This sign that I took a photo of on Friday is present on buses, trams and trains in Melbourne and nominally this means that the public transport in Melbourne is friendly to those with disabilities.  But on a deeper look that isn’t even remotely true.

Trains are wheel chair friendly, the drivers have ramps in their compartments and I’ve been on trains where the drivers have ordered off passengers so that the wheel chair user can board the train – more common at peak hour when trains on some of the train lines resemble sardine cans more than trains.  When this has happened, there hasn’t even been much audible grumbling, even though those passengers who have gotten off the train may not be able to re-board and may be stuck waiting up to 20 minutes for the next train (depending on the train line).

Trams have wheel chair ramps, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a wheel chair user on a tram.  This isn’t all that surprising as most tram stops are not even remotely wheel chair friendly.

Now I’ve dealt with what many abled people would consider people with disabilities.  This isn’t even remotely the tip of the iceberg though.  There are a whole range of other visible and invisible disabilities, and this is where the sign above comes into play.  Wheel chair users bring their own seat onto public transport and therefore won’t be the ones asking to use the seats as identified by the sign above.  This sign means that those who have disabilities, visible or invisible, often have to ask a complete stranger to give up their seat.  This puts that stranger in a powerful positions of judging whether or not the person asking is sufficiently disabled for them to give up their seat.  I have friends with disabilities who avoid travelling during peak hour because they don’t have the spoons to argue with someone about their need for that seat.  I have recently witnessed, now that we have a new contracted train operator, station staff boarding trains with people and ordering others out of the identified seats.  This of course only works in stations that are staffed, which sadly isn’t very many of them.  I have regularly witnessed people on trams giving up their seats to elderly and pregnant people, though no one asking for a seat due to their need to sit while travelling.

Most stations have tactiles for those with vision impairment to know where the edge of the platforms and lifts are and there are no issues regarding travelling with any form of assistance dog on the trains (all pets and assistance dogs travel free).  The underground stations (3 in Melbourne only) are the only stations with Hearing Loops, so those who are deaf or hearing impaired have to rely on visual displays for details of the next train – which do not exist at all stations and can be incredibly frustrating when the display says, “Listen for announcements” as it did recently for a friend of mine.  The Hearing Loops themselves are problematic as station staff are often unaware if they are working or not and do not know how to correct or fix any issues that arise.  Hearing Loops are not suitable for all deaf or hearing impaired people as the tone of the announcement may be outside the range audible to them or it may be too quiet to be understood.

Metro Trains has a lacklustre accessibility policy nested in their Customer Service Charter.  They state:

We recognise and respect the rights of all our customers and we consult with the Public Transport Access Committee to ensure that Metro’s rail service is accessible for everyone, everyday.

But focus mostly on wheel chair users and those who need assistance boarding the trains.  They do have a TTY service and their website is somewhat accessible.

The Public Transport Access Committee (which I only learnt about tonight) “is representative of disability organisations in Victoria and includes people with disabilities.  Representatives are appointed for a period of three years.”  There are ways to contact members of the committee to raise accessibility issues with them.  This, at least, is somewhat positive for people with disabilities who use public transport in Melbourne.

Yarra Trams have a plan to make their services even more accessible and actually appear to have a policy in place, including working with the Department of Infrastructure.

I haven’t touched on buses because I rarely travel on them myself (not convenient) and the buses I see are rarely so full that someone has to stand.  I am sure that there are bus routes in Melbourne which are that crowded and where people need to ask whether they spend spoons on asking for a seat over spending those spoons standing.

This whole blog post came about after hearing/reading somewhere someone else proudly stating that they refused a person the identified seat on a train because in that first person’s eyes, the other was not sufficiently disabled.  Then after thinking about writing this, friends who have disabilities discussed with me issues they had recently while travelling on public transport in Melbourne.  I don’t have a solution here, and I wish I did.

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Feminism, Religion

Christianity and women and sex

This is going to be a really short post, but I have to share it after finding this blog post on the internets.  I don’t know who Mark Gungor actually is, apart from someone who claims some authority on Christian marriage and relationships… but after reading the blog post linked to above, I think he needs to start all over again, perhaps with proper education about relationships and statutory laws.

Relevant annoying and icky bits from his blog are below:

I’ll dispel the myth regarding the requirement of a huge emotional connection. Women, more often than men, get hung up on this one and think they have to have all these warm and fuzzy emotions to feel like they can get physical with their husbands. I’m not saying that you always have sex with no emotion or connection–that would not be a healthy relationship. But what I am saying is that sometimes sex can just be sex.

…

As I said, sometimes sex is just sex; it’s what you do when you are married. Just like cleaning the toilet is what you do to keep your house clean…and I bet you don’t have this great desire or huge emotional connection to scrubbing the porcelain! You do it because it needs to be done and that’s the way it is with married sex… it does need to be done! It’s the glue that God gave us to bond us to one another. The bible is very clear that it is your responsibility as a spouse.

Understand that there is no need for all this desire and emotion nonsense. Don’t feel badly if you aren’t overwhelmed by all the over-the-moon feelings and passion ahead of time. There is nothing wrong with you. If you can enjoy sex once you start and have a good time, that’s all that matters. Just break the mindset that you won’t do it unless you feel like it. Let not your hearts be troubled. Just enjoy the deal without all the fuss and worry over the desire and emotion. It’s actually a trap, that if you aren’t careful, you can get caught in and you, your spouse and your relationship will suffer. (Emphasis in original)

Some of the comments on this thread are horrifying.  One woman says she was sexually abused before her marriage and after marriage her husband was not affectionate and was resentful of the healing she had to do from the assault.  She claims that often sex was unemotional and she relived the sexual abuse, and had she known that she could have just been unfeeling about the whole thing, then it would have been ok.  I really didn’t know what to do when I read this comment apart from bang my head against the desk.

A lone atheist who has found the blog through a friend takes on almost all the Christian commenters and the author herself.  She calls out the rape apology present by clearly arguing that such expectations of “having sex when you don’t want to” apply only to women and actually is rape, which is illegal.  She discusses the difference between subservience and equality, and quotes the bible back at those who quote it to her, in good productive ways.  The comments that she participates in are AWESOME.  I’d suggest reading them just for what she’s written.

But this whole post is a big concern – apart from the fact that a marriage counsellor of some description is telling people to just lie back and think of … well something – because it’s aim is at women.  You would never see a man being told to just have sex with someone, even if they don’t want to, because its far harder to fake an erection.

The Christian commentators and author keep returning to the bible, and to their understanding of how relationships should work based on the bible, which is a bad place to start methinks.  Their thinking is narrow minded and flawed and because Christianity is inherently misogynistic, their attitudes towards women are terrible (and sadly so are the attitudes of some of the female commentators towards themselves), and the idea of equality of women in a relationship isn’t really considered.

Some of the male commentators said they liked to do things for their wives because it made their wives happy, but there was very little discussion about how they have sex with their wives when they don’t want to – because that isn’t going to happen.

There is a lot wrong with Christianity and women in Christianity and I could blog at length about it, but for now, I’m just going to headdesk at this post some more and then go to bed.

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Feminism

Feminist Blogs to read

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Here is a list of feminist blogs that I read regularly, some international, some Australian, one from NZ, one from the UK and some who are more USA focused.

FWD/Forward

This is a blog written by disabled feminists (Feminists With Disabilities), and has writers based in the USA, Canada and Australia.  They do a fantastic job of looking at feminist theory and their application and intersection with disability theories, as well as posts on ablest words, treatment of disabled individuals, media coverage, and education.  From their blog:

FWD/Forward is a group blog written by feminists with disabilities. It is a place to discuss disability issues and the intersection between feminism and disability rights activism. The content here ranges from basic information which is designed to introduce people who are new to disability issues or feminism to some core concepts, to more advanced topics, with the goal of promoting discussion, conversation, fellowship, and education.

It is a fascinating blog with amazing writers.  I highly recommend it, particularly if you are interested in disability activism and theory as well as feminism.

Geek Feminism Blog

A friend of my sister writes and possibly founded this blog.  Its a blog for female geeks and looks at sexism in the Open Source community, gaming and more.  Since I am a geek, and move with people in the Open Source community, gaming and other geeky pursuits, I find this blog fascinating in relation to what is going on, how issues are being dealt with and the really great posts that are written by the regular and guest contributors.

Hoyden About Town

I first found this blog when I went looking for Australian feminist blogs.  Its a great blog that covers Australian issues, media reports on feminism, disability issues and has a great link list each week.  There are fantastic articles posted here regularly and I love the way the contributors both write.

In a Strange Land

A blog written by a Kiwi who is now living in Australia.  She writes about Australian and New Zealand feminism issues as well as other NZ political and racial issues as fit.  I love the semi-regular excerpts from feminism theory and the quote on her page:

If all men are born free, how is it that all Women are born slaves? as they must be if the being subject to the inconstant, uncertain, unknown, arbitrary Will of Men, be the perfect Condition of Slavery? and if the Essence of Freedom consists, as our Masters say it does, in having a standing Rule to live by?

Mary Astell, Some Reflections on Marriage, 1700

The Pursuit of Harpyness

The Harpys blog about feminism in the US context, which often has similar but not quite the same issues as found in Australia.  Their posts are often entertaining, amusing and are certainly well thought out and reasoned. They blog on feminism, race and Being A Bitch.

this ain’t livin’

The blog of meloukhia, aka s.e smith, who was recently described as a new wave feminist due to the way ou writes, deconstructs arguments and theories carefully and for ou’s general awesomeness.  She writes about media, disability, feminism, language use, queerdom and stories that take ou’s fancy.  I tend not to read ou’s deconstruction of TV shows since I don’t watch the same ones ou does.  And ou is apparently an old English gender neutral pronoun that s.e smith prefers, hence the use of it here.

Too Much To Say For Myself

A feminist, labour unionist and activist blogger from the UK.  Recently she’s been doing a great job at looking at the evident sexism in the media around the UK elections.  She posts about labour activism and feminism, sometimes how they intersect and sometimes just on each one.

Zero at the Bone

A blog that covers really interesting things about intersectionality, race issues, feminism and disability, and is Australian.  The author is an amazing writer and I love reading her stuff.  She has a good introductory post to her writing here.

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Feminism, Language

Problematic Words: Bitch

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This is the first in which may or may not turn out to be a series on words I have issues with.  I am aware of and support efforts in reclaiming language used against marginalised groups and bodies.  I support people’s identities and the words they use in describing themselves.  This is a post about words that others use and how they are used by others.

Ok, so bitch… lets break it down a little.  Initially the word was used to describe a female dog or female canine.  Dogs are lower life-forms (traditionally) than people and are belongings.  So to refer to a woman or another person as a bitch is a dehumanising exercise, they are now a lower life-form (not human) and are a belonging, whether yours (my bitch) or someone else’s (their bitch).

Its also used in a sex negative context as well, referring to women (and only women) as being like a “bitch in heat”, which suggests that women are uncontrollable when they want sex, much like female dogs.

Bitch is also used to describe certain types of behaviour, such as bitchiness and bitchy.  Typically this refers to back-stabbing, gossiping and other unpleasant behaviour.  Descriptions of this behaviour is also given to gay men, which suggests that gay men are acting like unpleasant women.

If you are “someone’s bitch” then typically this means that you are their belonging.  So if I refer to X as “my bitch” then they’re mine, dehumanised and property.  Not such a good way to describe someone.  However, I do understand, and do refer to my physical belongings, as bitch from time to time.  If something slips out of my hands and I’m frustrated, I’ll say, “Argh! You bitch”, but I’m actually referring to inanimate objects here. And because I don’t like to dehumanise people I’m not going to call someone a bitch.

The Harpies, refer to women sometimes just having to “Be A Bitch”, usually to men, when boundaries are overstepped and there is a need to be assertive or opinionated because the other is not paying attention to your subtext, body language or even polite words about going away.  They’ve written about such things here and here and elsewhere on their site.  I am all behind assertive behaviour and sometimes just having to be rude if that’s what it takes for you to be safe, happy or unharassed, but I still have issues with calling it “Being A Bitch” because I don’t think that that word should be used to describe a set of allegedly unpleasant behaviours which are clearly just being assertive or opinionated as you see fit.

But I’ve been thinking about men’s fear of women’s anger and power and the word “bitch.”

Bitch, bitching, etc.:  these are thrown at women all the time, for any minor “infraction,” from asking for parity in pay or pleasure to daring to stand up for yourself.  I have no doubt that those who use it mean to silence and intimidate women.  (From The Pursuit of Harpyness)

I’m all for telling people to “shut the fuck up” or to “fuck off” when they harass me on the street, on the internet or anywhere else.  If someone calls me a bitch for knowing my boundaries, knowing what makes me feel safe or for turning them down, then that’s their problem and not mine. I’m not going to go home and be upset about it overly, but I don’t think I’ll personally ever reclaim the word “bitch”.  I can be assertive, just like men are allowed to be, and that doesn’t make me a bitch.  I can be opinionated, just like men are allowed to be, and that doesn’t make me a bitch.

I think the word “bitch” is usually pulled out when women act in ways that we’re “not supposed to”.  We’re supposed to be submissive and easy to target.  We’re supposed to be soft, gentle and unassuming… and quite frankly all of that can fuck off.

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Identity

I am not like you

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Recently, and unfortunately I can’t find the page that I read it on, I found an article which discussed visual and verbal thinking.

Research by Child Development Theorist Linda Kreger Silverman suggests that less than 30% of the population strongly uses visual/spatial thinking, another 45% uses both visual/spatial thinking and thinking in the form of words, and 25% thinks exclusively in words.” (Source: Wikipedia)

This amazed me, because I’m part of the minority that thinks only in words.  Visualising something is really hard work for me, and has to have words with it, from which I can draw the picture.  Most of the time I walk around with a conversation in my head about things, it is rarely quiet up there.

I asked my parents, partners and friends how they thought, to test the hypothesis… most people thought in pictures and words, I was the only one I knew at the time who thought in words.  My mother thought solely in pictures and was most distressed that I didn’t have images in my brain like she did – though it adds to the reasons we don’t communicate well.

Until I read this article, I assumed that everyone else was like me, that they had only words in their heads, that they held conversations with themselves and others all the time.  Of course, I should have known better, I’ve been learning all my adult life that everyone is different and that our tastes, colour perceptions, enjoyment of sensation, and tolerances for things are different.

James likes to be touched firmly, a light touch or caress annoys him.  Scott loves to be caressed lightly for days at a time, his brain turns off and he relaxes into it, my girlfriend and a few other friends I know are the same.  I can tolerate a repetitive touch for a little bit before it has to stop or the caresser will lose their limb.  Every one of us likes different things, or subsets of the same things, but in different places or with different textures.

One of my sisters swears my car is more yellow than green, I tell her its more green than yellow.  Each of us see the same vehicle, but due to quirks of nature, we see colours slightly differently and texture differently and each of us goes around thinking that the world looks the same to everyone – because we all think we’re the same and why wouldn’t we?  Its not like we can see or feel through someone else’s body and in a big way we know we’re all part of the same species, we have the same bodies more or less… but we don’t really.  We’re mostly shaped the same, but our nervous system mapping is always slightly different – hence the different enjoyment in sensations.

I think I started to realise this a long time after reading Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams, specifically:

“[The horse] slowly surveyed the whole field, and then decided to plan out a nice relaxed day for itself.  A little trot later on, it thought, maybe around threeish.  After that a bit of a lie down over on the east side of the field where the grass was thicker.  It looked like a suitable spot to think about supper in.

Lunch, it rather fancied, could be taken at the south end of the field where a small stream ran.  Lunch by a stream, for heaven’s sake.  This was bliss.

It also quite liked the notion of spending half an hour walking alternative a little bit to the left and then a little bit to the right, for no apparent reason.  It didn’t know whether the time between two and three would be best spent wishing its tail or mulling things over.

Of course, it could always do both, if it so wished, and go for its trot a little later.  And it had just spotted what looked like a fine piece of hedge for watching things over, and that would easily while away a pleasant pre-prandial hour or two.

Good.

An excellent plan.

And the best thing about it was that having made it the horse could now completely and utterly ignore it.  It went instead for a leisurely stand under the only tree in the field.

I thought that Mr Adams might actually have an idea about happiness, and specifically how to be happy – in this instance by making plans for the sake of making them and then letting them go.  I’m a big organiser, I can’t help myself, but I thought maybe I’d be happy if I made plans – because that’d make me happy – and then ignored them.  It failed miserably.  I felt like I achieved nothing I set out to achieve and just got more miserable.  Then I realised what was wrong.  Douglas Adams knows what makes Douglas Adams happy, he doesn’t know what makes me happy.  He is not like me and I am not like him.  Despite our physical similarities, we’re very different inside, in the way we think, feel and act.

Everyone is different from everyone else and this is not a bad thing, but it is a very important thing to understand.  Just because someone does or doesn’t like something that you like, doesn’t mean that they are less of a person or more of a person as a result.

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A blog about feminism, religion and stuff… in no particular order