Feminism for all or none at all

I wish the MRAs of the world would spontaneously combust so I could express myself without thinking of them as the only reason not to. In saying this I realise they cannot be the reason I censor myself and especially not on something so crucial. I am horrified at the ways in which the cisters are conducting themselves at the moment. I am reminded of Pastor Niemoller and his infamous words “then they came for me”. I cannot in good conscience sit by whilst my comrades are dehumanised and othered in such a casual manner. I will have to object to this establishment at every turn.

A few months back I was recruited to a group hoping to set in motion the first feminist party the UK has ever seen. My initial thoughts were this was a good thing, without putting too much thought into the detail; it would be a first and a step up in the hierarchy. This before I’d discovered the principles of Anarchy and why reform is unacceptable. I took objection to the fact that I’d been recruited and wasn’t drawn to it organically and a quick glance at the names of the mailing list recipients revealed a very white middle class bunch who were actively having to recruit members to fill equal opportunity quotas. It made me feel uneasy because of its resemblance to the patriarchy.  For example, this particular line jarred me; “people we need, previously raised: economists, women of colour, disabled women.” I am having trouble understanding why this line exists as it does and would appreciate some clarification. Of course I didn’t feel comfortable approaching this with my fellow party members, they were leading the conversation and as a minority I felt unable to object. I felt at this point that I would have to take a back seat and asked to be kept informed although I would not be actively contributing.

I have watched incredulously the ways in which they discuss anyone who is not white and cis gendered. They claim to be a party for all self-identifying women yet happily invite discussion like this:

“Self-identification does not a woman make. If this party is open to ‘self-identified ‘women’, I want nothing to do with it – in fact I will lobby and campaign hard against it. This is a travesty. Trans women are *men*. Fullstop. “

“I cannot support this as woman is not something one can self-identify as. Men can not be women.” Sic

“Whilst I do accept the spirit of this wholeheartedly, I believe expressing it in these terms is likely to bring problems up in the future. Because the power to deem a term ‘discriminatory’ or ‘offensive’  will rest on the person being addressed, there’s the potential for almost anything and everything to be found ‘discriminatory’ or ‘offensive’ on almost any ground. In other words, yes to not using offensive language, but we may have to determine for ourselves what ‘offensive’ means (within reason).

ANY OTHER EQUAL OPPS RULES YOU’D LIKE TO CHANGE TO FIT YOUR OWN AGENDA? ALSO, MUST NOT LET THE MINORITIES HAVE ANY POWER; IT’S BETTER IF IT SITS WITH US, THE POWERFUL ONES.

In fairness they were discussing the motion to invite trans women and it was passed by 16 votes to 3 but in any truly equal space, comments like the ones above would have been immediately challenged not “Please see a breakdown of the voting in the attached file as well as the comments people made, some of which it would be good to address.” Why aren’t they resulting in an automatic expulsion for hateful speech?

If the party wasn’t so intent on filling quotas of people they don’t actually care for, we might see their true colours. Recruiting WoC, disabled women and accountants (FFS) seems to be an afterthought and only because the law requires them to. Is there also a law stipulating a trans woman quota? It’d be about the only reason for involving them, based on how they seem to discuss their involvement. Or is it merely a reaction to the discourse around Intersectionality? Are they aware of its rapid growth and feigning compliance to secure votes? Whatever their reasons, I cannot say they have my support.

These are my privileges

Towards the end of last year I was hit with a couple of uncomfortable truths. My immediate reaction was to balk at the suggestions and defend myself with what I thought were righteous assertions. The first, that I as a British Asian woman had the right to feel suspicious of Muslim men as a result of the hounding I had been subjected to my entire life and secondly, there was no way my age could be considered a privilege because I had spent most of those years running away from my complete lack of said privilege. I also hadn’t completely got to grips with my cis privilege and didn’t know how to react to a trans woman of colour attacking me for alienating her. I didn’t know what I had done wrong and felt it was unnecessary. But I was willing to learn. And the reason for this is because I respected the people highlighting these issues with me and I wanted us to feel equal.

I did not want to rubbish the opinions of the people I respect even if my immediate reaction was one of disagreement. It was one of my new found intersectional friends who pointed it out to me. It was easy to reject his analysis because he was a university educated white male and it felt a little bit like control. His manner was unforgiving and he sounded like all the other men who have ever told me I was wrong. I was distrusting of this guy because he felt a university education was not a privilege. Lacking a formal education myself, I disagreed. But then another of my fledgling friends said the same thing. We were from similar backgrounds so when she said it, I had the realisation that I couldn’t ignore this, I would have to tackle my prejudices. I had to realise the world for the vast space that it is. Taking into account the meta narrative, the way in which ethnic minorities and in particular, Islam is portrayed was a good start. We are socialised into feeling a certain way about a group. Growing up, a community of a few hundred Muslim men made my life a misery. Add to this the monstering of Asian men and Islam, especially post 9/11 and it’s hardly surprising I would feel this way. I could not hold billions of people responsible for the community I belonged to. And I should reject the world as it is presented to me by the ruling classes. The predominantly white ruling classes.

The privilege of age was one it took a while to get my head around. I feel like I’ve only really been alive for a couple of years, savouring the little things that make life worth living is a relatively new thing for me. Up until the point of my breakdown I was merely surviving. I resisted the notion that I was privileged just because I’d a few more years on this earth. But then, watching my young friend and the ways in which she is ignored, undermined, caricaturised and only because she was 17, I began to understand what she meant. I made a promise to myself that I would make an extra effort to hear what she had to say, actively giving her a platform before others. It’s difficult because the hierarchical structures we have in place are entrenched in our way of thinking, because we have life experience we are ‘older and wiser’ but this isn’t necessarily true. We can always think and feel a bit better. We do not know everything.

When a trans woman of colour found me on Twitter and flew into a rage before we’d even been introduced, my immediate reaction was one of fear. I didn’t understand what was happening and I was really working on the whole privilege thing so couldn’t understand why she was so angry. I was afraid that I had done/said something but could not recall anything obvious and this worried me. Had I been abusive or dismissive and not noticed? I asked my trans* friends and they explained that as white trans women, life was difficult enough, being a trans woman of colour made you invisible. I was reassured that I had said nothing wrong. I worked at understanding her reaction. I’d been through life feeling as though I didn’t exist and I had been that angry too. To the outside world it might have seemed misplaced but not in my mind. Why couldn’t anyone see me and make it better?

It is your white friends that give you an idea of what it is to feel like a whole person. For a system to work you need compliance. If, from birth, you are treated as less, you will believe it your whole life through. I know I did. It’s why I remained in abusive relationships. It’s why I went out with white men who openly treated me like a brown trophy. It is my white (thoroughly human) friends who made me aware of this. The ways in which we are treated, the things that are said to us are simply intolerable to people have been brought up free (read: white). My friends show me when I am being subtly manipulated or treated in a substandard way. Of course when I am routinely stopped at airports I am instantly aware of how I am being treated differently.

I have always felt the power structure and even though it’s not been in my best interests, I have been somewhat resistant to it. The white saviour men have been washed out of my hair. The white friends who are proud to be British show themselves for the colonial masters that they are.  I was that special Asian, the one white people warmed to “you’re not like all the others”. I had a raging distrust of my own kind; I believed what they said in the papers. Y’see, in this country we get a wave of immigration and all the immigrants that came before are eager to show how they’re not like those work shy scroungers. Britain is at its best when it’s dividing and ruling. And I totally bought it for almost 30 years. I liked being a white pet and enjoyed the privileges it afforded; less overt racism than my peers. My Asian peers didn’t like this; I was accused of wanting to be white.  Luckily for me, I have a conscience and it was only a matter of time before it dawned on me that I was just like the rest and in denying this, was a question of my own integrity.

I also found that a lot of white people will never see you as anything but brown. They are actively encouraged to be proud of their empirical heritage. Like rape, war, genocide is easily forgiven when Britain is so ‘welcoming’ to the people of its former colonies. Mind you behave how they want you to though. You are not allowed a culture, an opinion without it being heavily scrutinised for terrorism. Someone called me a fool recently for saying the white man I had been engaged to was racist. He laughed at me once when I came down wearing a pair of mismatched pyjamas. He thought it was a ‘very Asian’ thing to do. HOW? The white brain thinks all of your quirks are attributed to the colour of your skin. Never mind the fact that he was in my bed, he pointed out every little thing that made me Asian. The hair on my body, the time I rubbed his feet, the bond that I had with my family; ALL ASIAN. When you are that obsessed by someone’s race, it is fair to say you might be racist. Especially when you think having an Asian fiancé is winning one back for the team. Well, those Asian boys love a bit of white meat, it’s only fair. If I hadn’t been seriously mentally unwell at the time, I wouldn’t have given him a second look. I don’t regret it though, he taught me a lot about this world.

I’ve had many a white person challenge the racism I have experienced in the past week. They’ve been looking for the P word or the N word and because they haven’t seen any evidence of it, I must be lying and using the race card. Racism and prejudice is not limited to language but rather the way in which we’re made to experience the world. It’s how they make us feel. There hasn’t been anything unusual about the manner in which I’ve been ridiculed or challenged. It is word for word the same as it has always been. Remember it is not your intention, but how you make somebody feel. If you have any respect or love for your critics, you are willing to change or at least think about it from their angle. My anger and my reactions have come as a result of feeling deeply disrespected and unwanted.

The onus is not on me, the oppressed, to make amends.

Deciphering the Anti Intersectional White Feminists and TERFS

What they say: We are intersectional

What they really mean: We’re not really. We just can’t handle confrontation or admit we are actual bigots because we know we will get into trouble for it.

—————–

What they say: Am against anyone being forced off Twitter.

What they mean: Not really. Just other white people like me.

—————–

What they say: I was bullied off by those nasty IFs

What they mean: It is much easier to shut everything down so they can’t storify/bug me. I’ll let my men deal with them.

——————

What they say: I’m not racist.

What they mean: Yes I am but how on earth are you gonna prove it Brownie?

——————

What they say: We must give a platform to TERFs

What they mean: I am a transphobe

——————

What they say: This is an example of how privilege checking is bullshit

What they mean: We’re going to ignore all the white people who have made much more radical and revolutionary points and make an example of the disabled WoC because it’s so damn easy in this kyriarchy

—————–

What they say: WoC are welcome in this wave of feminism

What they mean: Well, how else can we shut them up?

—————–

What they say: Stop subtweeting, it’s bullying!

What they mean: We can subtweet all we like but we don’t like seeing anything that might be challenging us. It hurts our feels. We prefer to go behind people’s backs than deal with a confrontation. We’re cowardly like that.

——————

What they say: I don’t know Helen other than as someone I follow on Twitter, and she didn’t ask me to do the Storify. I just didn’t like what I saw happening.

What they mean: Sick to the back teeth of these intersectional feminists and their threats to my privileged white seat in the patriarchy. White power!

——————–

What they say: She’s stalking me, she’s written x amount of blogs in which she mentions me! She is weird

What they mean: Only I, as a white woman with considerable privilege, am allowed to stalk people I don’t know. I’m justified; they’re challenging my white supremacy. Don’t retaliate by doing the same, have you no shame brownie?

———————

What they say: On hearing RadFem2013 has been cancelled “Women who object to women only spaces have likely a) never been in one or b) worry about including teh menz. Good allies would stay away”

What they mean: Those men pretending to be women should just stay the fuck out of ‘women only’ spaces. They aren’t our allies if this is what they’re doing

———————-

What they say: I’m truly on the fence here

What they mean: I’m not. I want to scream at all the IFs to leave my white TERF feminism alone but I want to hear what you all have to say before I agree.

———————-

What they say: I’m a WoC and I don’t see any of the privilege you speak of

What they mean: I’m alright Jack, stop speaking for me.

———————-

What they’ve bee saying to me: Have you twitter flounced. How brave!

What they mean: Revenge is sweet. Even if untruthful.

———————-

What they say: Bullied in to submission. Good girl. Know your place.

What they mean: Revenge is sweet. Even if untruthful.

———————–

What they say: When the going gets tough, the weak get going.

What they mean: Revenge is sweet. Even if untruthful.

———————–

*I quite like ‘IF‘. Let’s use it.

IF feminism had been intersectional from the start, we’d be a lot closer to equality

IF white people would acknowledge their extremely privileged position in this world, maybe we could all be equal.

IF we were all equal, we might put an end to Imperialism.

———————–

TERF: Anti Intersectional Trans Exlusionary Rad Fems

Note: We have many white allies and we work together towards the same goals.

This is how I experience the world around me. Instead of questioning my honesty, try seeing it this way for a bit.

How would you feel if this was your reality?

People keep asking me why only white transphobes. It’s because I don’t know any non white ones. Yet.

Twitter is the real world

I deleted Twitter last night after I found I couldn’t silence my own opinion. I deleted it because all the things I have been accused have been perpetrated by all of my critics but they have stifled any retaliation. They are bigger in numbers and their actions trigger a collage of white voices; manipulative and powerful.

When I first joined Twitter, I unfollowed anyone RT’ing the EDL into my timeline. I wasn’t being ignorant but trying to protect myself from mental harm. I don’t belong in this country and I found, after visiting the ‘homeland’, I didn’t belong there either. As a 31 year old woman, I am still affected by the subtle ways in which WoC are controlled. It is very easy to monster us and depict us as damaged and untrustworthy, heck, we’re so often used in this way, we start believing it.

Tell me how, any woman claiming to be intersectional can allow discourse that alienates another woman? Why is it EVER ok to allow TERF voices into an intersectional movement? Because they are women we must listen to their bigoted views and allow them that power? If trans* women are fair game, how long before they allow similar discussions for WoC? Cos that’s how they used to talk about us y’know? TERF allies can lie until they’re blue in the face that they are intersectional but when they haven’t grasped the very basic concept of TRUE EQUALITY for ALL WOMEN, which means zero tolerance of ‘other-ing’ any woman, they are the facilitators of oppression. I’ve been watching them for some months now. They gush and eat cake and use the word sister without the slightest hint of irony. Then they stab you in the back. Mendacity is not a feature of my feminism.

This behaviour affects me so because I have had a lifetime of it. ‘Sister’ doesn’t mean anything in my world. Unless you fall into line, pray to the same God, ask your oppressors for forgiveness for your clearly demented individual ways, nobody is interested. You are not allowed to challenge, or grow, or make amends. And that’s what’s happening right now. Growing up, I was the minority voice. I was bullied and beaten for acting like “a white girl”. Today, I am facing the same again; I am a minority WoC. I am a minority ally of trans/non gender binary comrades. I am the antithesis of the mainstream white rationale and reasoning. And I am glad.

The hypocrisy of the last few weeks is not lost on me. There is nothing honourable about these people. When you have the privilege of a position that allows you an opinion and then PAYS you for making it, it’s a given that criticism is part and parcel of the package. The commentariat get PAID to use an immense platform. They remind me of spoilt film actors, playing the camera when it suits them and then bemoaning their lack of privacy when they inevitably fuck up. I don’t get paid to do anything. I do it because it is my reality and I have no choice. But I also cannot handle the onslaught of abuse I have been subjected to. I managed a week of engaging, of methodically deleting every comment calling me a whore. Do you know how mentally exhausting it is to be abused on a daily basis? I didn’t ‘flounce’, that’s what white women do when they can’t be bothered to engage you anymore and want it to look like they’ve been bullied off (remember: manipulation). I chose to delete my account before I said something really hurtful. Hurtful because it is painfully true.

I started doing Twitter because I had a cause. I found some wonderful people who now exist in the real world. These are the allies I’m going to continue to work with. I will never forget the rest of you though, I will remember your faces and your thoughts and when you fuck up, as you inevitably will (just like we all do but some of us are more allowed to than others) I will be there. I will be watching.

I am disengaging for today but that doesn’t mean I am gone forever. I am waiting for the bullshit to subside and for intersectionality to rise up again. I’m sure it’s only a matter of time.

What I learnt this week

On the 23^rd January 2013 I made a terrible mistake. It was a duvet day because I was in a fair bit of pain due to a spinal injury. I knocked a cocktail of drugs back and settled under the covers so I could Twitter. After a skim read of the timeline, I posed a tweet to Mary Beard. I mistakenly accused her of racism. Out of nowhere I was met with a tweet from Helen Lewis who demanded I prove it. Still none the wiser to my mistake, Helen’s tweet got my back up. It’s what they say when they know your proof won’t matter. But Helen had prompted me to think about what I had just tweeted and so I thought I had better make sure.

On realising exactly how big a mistake I made, I immediately apologised. I wasn’t cajoled, I wasn’t defiant, I was honest. And I believed I deserved the fallout taking over my mentions. I bowed my head in shame but I was determined to turn it into a positive thing. I was grateful for the amicable respectful exchanges between me and Mary. I chose not to delve too deeply into what people were saying about me, I didn’t have the spoons. After many requests from fellow tweeters, Helen agreed to delete the storified set of events. I thought it was because she understood that I had meant no malice. I also thought she might have understood that even though she was fighting with my peers on all matters regarding intersectionality, this incident was separate. It wasn’t in any way connected with her other battles. But she saw an opportunity. If she could make an example of how terribly wrong it can sometimes go, it maintains the power structure and status quo. Rather we have 100000s of ethnics suffer real racism than let one white person be wrongly accused.

On the 15^th April 2013, I found that Helen’s storify piece was still online. I was stunned. Why would someone agree to delete something only to republish without ever informing you? What were her intentions? When I went to ask her, I discovered I was blocked. After a while I was made aware it was something to do with a blog and the storify had been up for a couple of weeks. My friends politely asked her to reconsider and instead, she left Twitter. It was only when she’d done this that I saw she’d written a piece that day. I still haven’t read it because people believe the ‘bullying’ she received in response to the piece was the reason she ‘flounced’. It wasn’t. It’s because she was challenged and she couldn’t justify what she’d done. I hadn’t blogged about her; I just tagged her on a criticism of a New Statesman piece.

She wants to silence intersectionality. That’s what the offending blog was about. A NS writer had pondered on the least privileged women of them all and I had nominated my mother. It was heartfelt and for that, Helen Lewis decided I’d take the bullet. How many of us have discussed intersectionality in recent months? Why is a 3 month old incident being dredged up to prove her point that privilege is being silenced? Am I the best argument you have against true equality? “Don’t listen to those stupid deranged idiots, they lie or they make things up.”  Except I didn’t lie, I made a mistake. One I publicly acknowledged and apologised for.

But she has her allies. Anya Palmer seems to want to stalk my every move on Twitter. She never speaks to me, just hangs over my shoulder, waiting for the money shot. She seems to revel in the fact that the incident caused me embarrassment. Of course it would, I don’t make a habit of hurting people unnecessarily.  There have been all manner of eggs tweeting racist, ableist, sexist shit at me, somehow strengthening my resolve against all who seek to undermine me. The course of events has quickly spiralled into the honest truth of it all. My feminism is not their feminism. Mine is intersectional. Theirs is bullshit. Their feminism is about: never changing, never thinking, denying privilege as if it’s a zero sum game. All positions are positions of privilege- like the way racing cars start on a sliding scale. You could have the fastest car in the world, but if you’re last you’re gonna have to pull a miracle out of the bag to make it work. I may have had an abusive childhood but I also fit the patriarchal ideal of a cis gendered woman. I may have not had a formal education but I can grasp new concepts without too much trouble. Some people can walk through life carrying their baggage, some people are crushed by it, just getting up in the morning brings back painful memories and triggers etc.  It’s also about justifying using hurtful words because they can’t be bothered to think about their power.

The Mean Girls piece spoke of scary wimminz who attack well known wimminz and we shouldn’t cos sisterhood and that. Well, when we attack the famous ones, we have a few hundred people at most fighting our corner. When the commentariat attack us little people, they have many more thousands poised to crush us. That, my friend, is privilege. All of the arguments the non-intersectional feminists have made in recent months regarding solidarity and the bigger picture, fuck that. This incident has proven that it is not so much we’re all in this together but they will actively stifle any dissent. Just like my mothers and grandmothers before me. “Pipe down now brownie”.

When Helen Lewis showed us words she’d been called, it transpired that she had been searching for her name (lurking, again) and discovered two feminist women using gendered slurs.  Two tweets she had to go looking for. Two WOMEN she was not afraid to make an example of. When I received tweets, they were from accounts set up to hound me, mainly men. I’ve had lot of white ‘opinions’ on this. All of them have also referred to me as some kind of cunt or whore. A few think it’s ok to mock me for my disabilities. And all of them simply do not get, why I, as a woman of colour would feel this in any way than every other time a white person has made me feel shit. I had 5000 views of my blog the other day. Imagine how many comments. People are also searching for information on my family and ex partners names.  It is telling that Helen’s most vocal advocate is a prolific misogynist hellbent on securing an apology from me. If at one time I would have considered approaching this is in a calm and reasonable manner to make amends with my cisters, that opportunity is long gone. The commentariat are quick to identify and expose dissenters, launching their mobs at us with full force but somehow, condemning abuse from a misogynist would be drawing unnecessary attention to us. They suggest they are ‘protecting us’ by not calling out abusive behaviour committed by the patriarchy against another woman.

Nice one Helen Lewis, solidarity from one feminist to another feminist on an entirely even keel in this fuck up a world.

Smash the Kyriarchy

Google ‘Sam Ambreen and Helen Lewis’ and you will see various blogs written by both of us but also two other names. One of them is a prolific misogynist whose life’s purpose seems to be undermining the feminist cause and the other, a woman. Apparently she’s a lawyer called Anya Palmer.

How am I supposed to feel about this? In terms of intersectionality, there is a very definite ‘us’ and ‘them’ and right now the ‘them’ is a coalition of those two. Each has an agenda to slander and vilify me as a lying, manipulative woman of colour. This is about the easiest representation of a kyriarchy I have come across.

Elevatorgate wants feminism to disappear so he spends his time trawling through the net seeking ways in which to damage the movement. Anya Palmer wants to discredit ME as an intersectional woman of colour and so she employs the same tactics as the former, loosely stringing together the worst bits of the whole incident, storifying and screencapping the shite out of anything I say. Challenge Anya and she blocks you.

These people don’t want discussion, they just don’t want us.

I see no difference in the two.

Smash the kyriarchy. Smash it all.

Whatever you do, don’t make a mistake, and NEVER trust a cister

Helen Lewis once storified a set of tweets but left out the connecting bits that made a bit more sense of my very senseless allegations of racsim against Mary Beard. She reassured me at the time it would be deleted because unfortunately I am a spoonie and take 3 different meds that can have an affect on the way I’m thinking some days. She acknowledged my health. She acknowledged my apology. She also left out some of the tweets which was part of the argument I had with her when she first published it. The published set of tweets look they’re from somebody deranged (any yes, I’ve totally been there) and because of who she is, she can now undermine ANYTHING I have to say about feminism. I made one mistake that didn’t even fucking concern her and she can now use it against me when she PREVIOUSLY SAID SHE WOULDN’T.

Don’t you think I felt humiliated and enough of an idiot on discovering my own mistake? I dunno about Helen but I try not to be a shithead about things. If I hurt someone, I apologise. If I need to learn a lesson, I damn well will. But Helen doesn’t believe in restitution. She’d rather hang me in the stocks and leave me there forever.

Just because you’re having a hard time accepting your immense fucking privileges, how can you then use them to shit on someone far less privileged like me? I wish I had your platform Helen, I fucking do.

Leave it up for all to see Helen, don’t be the bigger person even though society knows your name over mine. And you know the privileges that affords. If people want the truth they can read it here.

In my world, we make up for when we did wrong and resolve conflict with respect. I thought I had done so with the person I’d hurt but apparently it was Helen Lewis who deserved to be so pissed off about it. Not lovely kind Mary who accepted my apology and should never have had to deal with what I said to her. No Helen, this is all about you. Sigh. It’s really not though is it?

Don’t hijack this to cover your anti intersectional sins.

You can make an example of me all you like, you’re still a shit feminist.

There’s no point in online feminism if it’s not intersectional

Since we’re looking for the least privileged woman in the world I’d like to nominate my mother. True, she lives here in the West and has never gone hungry (well, at least for no more than a coupla days) but I think she’s somewhere near the bottom and a good a place as any to start.

My mother was born in a village in Kashmir. She was the fourth of 10 children and 1 of 8 girls. Her father was a community doctor and so earned a reasonable enough wage but with that many children they were never what we might think of as well off. So much so that Granddad worked hard to save enough money so that he could give his daughters a decent enough dowry. The plan was to marry them off as soon as they hit puberty thus lessening the burden on the family as a whole.

She was barely 16 when she was packed onto a plane ready to begin her new life in Great Britain. She had barely enough of an education so that she could read letters sent to her in Urdu by her mother, my nan. She was just a child. But one my grandparents couldn’t afford to feed. And so she was palmed off on the first willing man to take her on. My father was 10 years her senior and didn’t want to get married. Or at least he did, but not to her. He was in love with a woman of mixed heritage and his mother, my paternal gran was determined it wouldn’t happen, she hadn’t brought her boys to this new land only for them to mix it up. She and my grandfather had a way of ensuring their children did as they were told, mainly through violence and coercion. My great grandparents had been Muslim scholars, feared and revered by the community in Pakistan. They had a reputation to protect and this came at any cost. My grandparents were the product of an extremely insular and strict manifestation of Islamism. As a child I heard my paternal great grandmother was beaten to death barely a few months after the birth of my granddad’s younger brother. This, because she had sat on her brother’s bed, whilst he lay recovering from an illness. It was too much for great granddad’s male ego and honour. “That’s just the way they did things” was the reply I got when I protested my family legacy through tears. “I’ll show them,” is the mantra I’ve had my whole life. I will be a feminist for all my foremothers; I will take back what was stolen from the women who came before me. A life, namely. An education. Bodily autonomy. Sexual freedom.

But my mother, now divorced and estranged from me, still suffers. We don’t speak because I am alien to her. From a very young age, I believed my emancipation would come from allying myself with the white feminist. I wanted what they had. As a very small child this meant the freedom to dress as I wish and associate with boys. That’s as far as my struggle got through my teens. But as I got older, I continued to behave as my white peers did and this widened the gap between my mother’s hopes for me (she really wanted me to be an air hostess) and my desires for equal rights in a man’s world. She won’t speak to me because she is afraid of what I have become. She won’t give me the opportunity to explain I did this for her.

As soon as I was old enough to hit the men back (15), I dragged my mother away from the community she knew and set into motion the process to divorce her from my father. During this time, I gullibly confirmed to the white workers who were trying to house us in temporary accommodation that the men in my family were savages, bringing with them the patriarchal controls they had back home. When fleeing domestic violence the local authority has an ‘interim duty to accommodate’ and as I rolled out the reasons we were presenting as such, it suddenly dawned on me, I was lucky to be alive. Domestic abuse, child sexual abuse, poverty, homelessness, religious/cultural demons, immigration issues (read racism), disability, isolation, self-harm, eating disorders.. This was not an exhaustive list but my small family had been victim to them all. Sure, I had internet access at the time but I didn’t see it as a privilege, more of a necessary escape. That’s a very silly thing to say Sadie. And it is your privilege that allows you to think like that.

I wish my life had been a little easier. I wish my mother had the right to an education so that she was self-sufficient and might have kicked my dad to the kerb with her dignity intact. But she didn’t. After 20 years of unfaltering duty, irrespective of the abuse she suffered, my father granted her a divorce and gave her £6000 for the trouble. That’s how much she was worth in the end. Her body ravaged by pregnancies she did not consent to, her children traumatised and displaced. She put the miserly amount he’d afforded her towards my younger sister’s nuptials. Because, despite the living hell she’d endured, she was still afraid the community would judge her for her unmarried daughters. This is also where I fell short in my duties as a daughter.  I don’t believe in marriage and who could blame me? But my mother doesn’t see it like that. The patriarchy has controlled her life since forever and although she suffered as a result of it, it still governs her thoughts, she doesn’t know any better.

If I’m a bit mean, frankly, it’s because I’m fed up. Suzanne Moore blocked me on Twitter a little while ago. I can’t even remember what for but I was reminded of it when I tried to RT the fuck outta her tweet asking for James Delingpole to admit he’s a misogynist cock. I joked that it was a shame because even though I had my issues with her, united we would stand in the face of patriarchy. I’m assuming it got back to her because later on that evening I was able to RT with abandon. Why couldn’t Sadie Smith leave well alone? By writing her piece all she’s done is pander to patriarchy. Hell, she even admits to wanting to behave like a misogynist. How is that EVER ok Sandie?

Could it be that privilege allows you some control? The privilege of having a voice or a face that fits so that you can use a platform whichever way you want. “Feminism is not bullying and beating up other women.” Haven’t you done exactly that, Sadie?

As a result of my life, I take pills. There are the ones that keep me on an even keel and the ones that work directly on my spinal cord and brain. When I accused Mary Beard of racism, I was horrified and immediately apologised, but I was made an example of when privilege politics go wrong. I’d unwittingly caught the tail end of a Twitter storm and was held up as an example of ‘stupid’ intersectional feminists using the race card at will. I wish I had the privilege of a clear, sharp mind. I wish I could pick the days when the fog takes over; I could plan my life a bit easier.

If I’m mean or angry, couldn’t you at least try to understand why? That’s what we intersectional feminists do. We understand that some of the stuff that happens in life has profound and lasting effects on people. None of us ask to be born for if we did, I’m sure we’d all tick the white cis gendered box. Nobody would choose an existence where you are overlooked/beaten/murdered for the colour of your skin, or choose to be disabled or *trans.

It’s just how we were born and all we mean to ask is, why am I not as worthy as you?

What I learnt today

I made a mistake today. It was particularly bad because I made an allegation of racism against someone who was actually doing the opposite. I do not mean to excuse my behaviour, if anything I will mull over this for weeks to come; but I happened to be riding the Cocodamol wave of euphoria and, on seeing tweets of support and solidarity to a name I’d filed under Racist Question Time, I snapped and without thinking fired off a reaction.

I was met with a barrage of tweets that have now magically disappeared. I don’t want to name names and I’m not even that affected by them anymore but I was called stupid, blathering, an idiot and a lot of other stuff I glazed over. It then occurred to me that I should have checked my facts before rushing in guns a blazing. What did I really know about Mary Beard? Turns out I was wrong.

I promptly apologised and bowed my head down in shame. Because I did feel shame. I was catastrophically mistaken and I felt I had harmed another’s person. I don’t mind stomping on racists and I want them to hurt the way they hurt us but the thought that I’d wrongly accused and upset the wrong person, well, I wasn’t going to sleep very well. I apologised today and I will apologise if I ever do it again.

It could have been a whole lot uglier. If I wasn’t so slow today, I might have taken more offence at the storified version of events. I didn’t have the mental strength to read all the tweets about me.  Had I done so, there’d be a Twitter storm saying absolutely nothing new. Isn’t it time we moved on from all this?

We could all do with listening more and thinking about feelings. I know I will.

Violence against women is pandemic (TW)

Whilst Sunny Hundal points his finger at the whole of India for its burgeoning rape epidemic, Jim Davidson has been arrested for sexual offences. In what seems to be a never ending spectacle of horror, Britain’s ‘National Treasures’ are being outed one by one for their abuse of women and children. The lead singer of The Lost Prophets has been charged with conspiracy to rape a child under 13, conspiracy to engage in sexual activity with a child under 13 and making, possessing and distributing indecent images of children. Rape Crisis Scotland responded to 12000 calls in the space of 12 months. End Violence Against Women revealed 41% of women aged 18-34 have experienced unwanted sexual attention. Meanwhile a New York police officer is accused of plotting to kidnap, rape and EAT women.

On doing a Google news search for rape, I went as far back as the 20^th December only to discover that rape seems to have vanished from our streets. There were a couple of local reports of women being attacked by strangers in parks but the first 12 pages speak of India’s fall from grace. The whole world is rightfully appalled at the horrific way our sister met her end. But it seems to have had a magic effect on rapists the world over. Have they stopped raping?

I would love nothing more than for this to be true. But I feel it is unlikely when, on New Year’s Eve I stood waiting for a friend to collect me from Aldgate East station. It was 2am, I’d left one set of friends to meet another. As it drizzled, I stood under the canopy of the entrance, rolling myself a cigarette, hoping I wouldn’t be noticed. A group of lads exited the station and immediately gravitated towards me. I braced myself, angry that they would dare to do so. The leader of the pack stood in my personal space, less than a foot between us and stared at me square in the eyes. He had a sick cocksure smile planted on his face and leaned towards me. “Happy new year” he sneered. Of course all hell broke loose and I told him to fuck off in as many ways I could muster but he stood fast, my words barely making an impact. His friends were either side, all staring at me as they thought things and I felt sick. I remembered the woman from Delhi and I thought of whether she’d felt the same, did she think the approaching group of men were ‘just being a nuisance’? Did she know what they would do to her? Who could predict such a thing? It felt like they were there forever but then a male friend showed up. He saw me shouting at them and rushed over. I babbled at him, and he turned to them “if a girl tells you she doesn’t want to speak to you, you fuck off!” The whole party started shouting their excuses, denying their part, with no intention of backing down. A man passing by joined us and stood shoulder to shoulder with my friend. He threatened the other boys. So they skulked off.

I was shaken by this. I am no match for a group of men. My friend wasn’t much of a threat to them either. It was only as my situation drew attention they appeared to lose some of their power. Later that evening another group of strange men would surround my young friend and tell her she was a slut and should cover up with one of them stating Allah had granted him the right to put her in her place for being an apostate. This man was white with a ginger beard. Crowds of people stood around as they threatened us. Nobody spoke up.

Patriarchy is controlling each and every one of us right now. It’s telling us that the Indian rapist is a new breed of perpetrator, so horrific in his methods that we need to focus our attentions on sorting THAT country out. An epidemic suggests a rash of incidents, as if it’s a new problem or that somehow it has gotten much worse. That’s what patriarchy wants you to believe. India has always had a problem with rape. Just like the UK has always had a problem with rape. That’s how patriarchy works. And it keeps you battling the very same problems because it tells you it happened elsewhere. By pointing the finger at India and referring to the woman from Delhi as the Indian girl, it has become someone else’s problem. Instead of the global virus that it is. Rape is very widespread in India. But it’s widespread here too.

Damini’s rape will change India. It already has. Women are taking to the streets in solidarity. Global pressure and bad press will force Indian to review its penal code. If the mobs are successful, rapists will die. We hope. But when this happened to Mary Anne, what did we do?

It was 2006. Mary Anne was 16. She and a friend were abducted and then raped and tortured for several hours. The perpetrators had forced them to take drugs and they were repeatedly told they were going to die. Mary Anne eventually died from her numerous stab wounds. Her friend miraculously survived a bullet to the head. Where was the outrage for Mary Anne? Why are we not still angry?

Patriarchy minimises rape: “Do you honestly think a woman is treated the same in India as in the UK? REALLY?”. It defines it for you. When something like this happens to a woman, the menz trip over themselves to mansplain it to us. Instead of thinking, fuck those Indians need a telling off, why not think, fuck, rape is an evil thing and rapists need taking out? And then do something about it. Make it unacceptable to laugh or joke about rape lest the rapist thinks he’s got a friend in you. Raise your boys and girls with a clear understanding of consent. For a start, reason with your children why they must brush their teeth instead of forcing the brush into their mouth. Show them why it’s good to ask for permission.

Smash male privilege.

Smash the patriarchy.

Don’t feed the trolls.

This is not a race issue (which is one of patriarchy’s more evil inventions); this is about power and control of women by men. The only way to change things is to highlight them and keep the pressure on ALL governments. Let the rapist know we’re watching.

We’re watching the Indian ones right now.

Who’s watching ours?