The End of An Era...

The capitalised title's back, people. D'you know what that means?! It means I have BIG NEWS (note the caps returning again there!).

Today (or should I say yesterday, Wednesday?) was a big day. It was officially the end of the last term of my final year. I have exams and a teaching placement coming up, as well as a research project and an essay - but I am mere months away from OBTAINING MY DEGREE. It seems incredible to think that this was my last day of teaching "ever" (apart from when I start my Master's, haha). Time is a wriggly caterpillar - sometimes it squiggles along, very speedy, and you follow with your eyes, conscious of the rapid movement; sometimes it basks wearily, slumping as if beaten down upon by the sun and at other times, it heaves the many compartments of itself efficiently over the leaf. Very often, we miss the latter because we bounce between extreme activity and then none at all. I think it's very handy when we do though, since it reminds that Time does not stop and start in blocks of 'routine' as we do, but is ever flowing.

Er... not too sure where that came from. Blame the fact that I'm delirious from a heady cocktail of sleeping late, waking early, reading a book on the Internet, and seeing TL. Seeing TL is a fine way to get drunk without the alcohol. I think that if I were with him in company and he held eye contact, my knees would bid me a speedy farewell. I'd like to remonstrate with them, but really, it just doesn't work. What chance does my brain have against someone who actually made my pulse race for a day and a half - yes, a day and a half! - after we first kissed?

It's not just the end of an era at university though. It's the end of a destructive era for me, I hope. I realised that I was running from dealing with family-based issues (which are probably the source of any depression I may have), because my previous relationship was very co-dependent and so if you like, my bad feelings about myself were inflicted upon me by a proxy - my ex. This time round though, I have a super-awesome libertarian, really great blog-readers and friends and I've realised that writing might help more than I've given it credit for previously. I made an appointment with the doctor for next week, and then jumped around shrieking happily. Ironic, much?

I also made an omelette yesterday. Yes. It wasn't bad at all, and next time, I'll remember to put the cheese into the beaten egg so that it's even better. :-D Resolutions have been taken - not promises made, because breaking promises brings on guilt, whereas you can't really break resolutions. I mean, you're resolving - you're essentially steeling yourself to try to do something, rather than committing. I think that's why they're called 'New Year's Resolutions,' so people don't have to feel bad if they fall off the wagon!

1) I will continue to write.
2) If I'm sinking, I will admit it - even if it's just to my blog. People ARE capable of love. The world is not a cartoon, and I will not be 'put down' for being stressed.
3) I'm going to the doctor, the lady doctor. I laughed when I realised that not even at the fucking doctor's was I safe from my family.

Anecdote time: my doctor is a Sikh man (so, like my family). A couple of years back, I was a bit chesty and over from abroad, so my dad took me to see him. On a previous occasion, I'd seen him with stomach trouble and just mentioned that I hadn't eaten much and hadn't been eating properly because of my stomach being weird. He said breezily, 'Well, you've gained weight.'

... So anyway, I asked him when it might clear up - politely as always - because it'd been around about 2 weeks, and I don't generally do illness. He essentially revealed in a hectoring way that he didn't know - that it could be up to a month or something. He and my dad were sort of sporadically making conversation at this point, I think. He said my nose had gotten sore (of which I was, unsurprisingly, aware), probably just from blowing it too hard. I asked if that was the only reason why it was so red, 'because,' I said, 'it does seem redder to me than previous times when I've had a cold.' I don't really get colds, and maybe I sound like an ignorant prat, but is that really such an awful thing to say?

He became exasperated. 'Well, you probably did before, but you just don't remember it. That's why you think it's worse now. We tend to remember significant events in our lives. Illness is hardly a significant event, is it?' Withering gaze. 'I mean, in conversation, we retain only 40% of what we're told.'

In the shallows of my mouth, the cry of Arrogant tosspot! died bitterly on my tongue. This was swiftly followed by the rejoinder 'Well, next time you want to show off to my father, you might as well just fellate him - and not in front of me either, PLEASE.' Still, my dad is slightly hard of hearing and rarely ever tuned in enough to other people's conversations to have realised what was going on. Even then, it's not like I can count on his - or any of my family's - support. I kept quiet, stunned. My suspicions about him wanting to show off were forthwith proven when he and my dad engaged in a sort of random and automated braggadicio-bout of what community work each had done. There was a strange sentiment to it, as though they were in reality striving for the same thing, but by nature falling into a wearied machismo routine of competing cockerels.

So yeah, that fucking charmer? Not testing me for depression! Although this may sound terrible, I really suspect that were I to see him and not absolutely insist on confidentiality, he might find a way to suggest something, if not bring it up, to my family upon encountering them.

4) I made an omelette yesterday. With mature Cheddar cheese and fresh parsley. I fried up some shredded ham, sliced fresh spring greens (originally misspelt as 'grins'! Oh dear), a plum tomato and one large-ish mushroom. This I piled on top of the omelette, with two pieces of wholemeal toast and a very fine dinner was had by all.
5) I will keep trying new things with The Libertarian. In the space of just two weeks, or so, he has gone from having no strong feelings about wholegrain strawberry Biopot yoghurt, to actively encouraging me to buy it at Tesco, because 'it's only 30 pence more.' This, here, is proof of the goodness of the world. My lover adores yoghurt as much as I do now. I was also absurdly proud of him when I made one of my makeshift desserts (rhubarb and vanilla Biopot poured over warm golden syrup cake - SWOON) and he rapidly cleared it. Were I not so busy thinking 'Crikey, this is moist,' I would've shed tears of joy, I tell you. TL is of a, er, limited palate to say the least, but his heart is large and so I have converted him to many a cuisine and the journey ain't stopping yet, ohhhhhhh no.

(I apologise to anyone who is suddenly repulsed and morally outraged by my food-based burblings. I LOVE food and always have. Some people like to look at porn, or celebrity gossip late at night. I floss to cake recipes. Yes, that's right. Cake recipes. I actually emitted animal noises of wounded envy and desire when discovering that people, out there, have combined brownie and cheesecake).

Something I meant to do ages ago, but had neither the time nor energy to do - I think it's really high time that somebody either a) assassinated the Pope (why is it confined just to political leaders?!) or b) committed him. I'm sorry to sound so violent, but my patience wears ever thinner with this dangerous loon, who practises inefficiency, corruption and hypocrisy at Olympic levels and continually endangers public health/human rights/world improvement in the process.

This is old news, from the 18th. I just couldnae resist though:

The Roman Catholic Church believes marital fidelity and sexual abstinence are the best way to prevent the spread of HIV.

... On his way to Cameroon, the Pope said HIV/Aids was "a tragedy that cannot be overcome by money alone, that cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which can even increase the problem".

The solution lay, he said, in a "spiritual and human awakening" and "friendship for those who suffer".

SPIRITUAL AND HUMAN AWAKENING? FRIENDSHIP FOR THOSE WHO SUFFER? Oh, don't worry, woman-who-has-no-rights-thanks-to-our-religion-upholding-cultural-misogyny! If your husband cheats on you and then infects you with the virus, it's OK, there's nothing you can do about it - because it's YOUR FAULT in the first place! You clearly didn't work hard enough at putting him off sex in the first place and erecting the correct psychical walls of guilt and shame in his consciousness! You should have put him off sex, apart from procreation, and then none of this would have happened!

I mean, you've failed in your basic wifely duties and he may accuse you of cheating - for a betrayal has occurred, hasn't it? You've betrayed him, just like Eve betrayed Adam. He may as well cast you out. Don't even THINK about getting an abortion, you've got a baby to bear - and if you die, then that's just divine retribution, really. Don't worry about that latex thingy that could've stopped the transfer of bodily fluid that gave you HIV! God made it, he'll deal with it! *looks desperately heavenwards, then develops carefree glint in eye* And if he doesn't, well then, tough shit anyway. As long as the white Western world's safe, you darkies can go on dying en masse for all I care. I mean, sure, I can hold you up as an example of outstanding devotion when it suits me, but you lot don't have the money or influence to lobby international governments and 'do God's work,' do you? You're the foot soldiers.

"In the context of globalisation with which we are all familiar, the Church takes a particular interest in those who are most deprived," he said.

A particular interest in making sure that 2/3rds of global Aids victims continue to die in sub-Saharan Africa, sure.

He said it was the duty of Christians to help to build "a more just world where everyone can live with dignity"

... Just not the duty of Roman Catholics.

From a separate analysis:

The Pope said the "cruel epidemic" should be tackled through fidelity and abstinence rather than condoms, and that "the traditional teaching of the Church has proven to be the only failsafe way to prevent the spread of HIV/Aids".

Bull-fucking-shit, Benny. Seriously, is your dress laced with psychotropics? Since when does 22 million infected Africans = 'the only failsafe way to prevent the spread of HIV/Aids?' EPIC fail.

OK, 3.05 a.m. Face melting. Will release my pincer-like grip now, and thank you all so much for your kindness, I LOVE Y'ALL.

P.S.: BBC Two is going to start showing The Wire! The fuckin' Wire! If you have not ventured forth into its glorious, glorious fictive terrain, then you MUST. Even The Times has counselled readers to get a piece of the action. Let's put it this way: it's routinely referred to by fans (including myself, I am guilty) as 'the best show on television ever' which is, granted, a little on the sweeping side. Just a little though. If The Wire by some freakish miracle, of the ever-hypothetical nature, were to transform into a person, then I would marry it and have its children. WITHOUT FAIL. Even if it involved polyamory. That's how good it is!

For those of you scared for my sanity - I'm going now. Really. Byeee!

Rihanna, Chris Brown & Gossip Folks

Let me just begin by saying that one thing I really hate in modern society is the continually schizophrenic attitude we have towards celebrities. Overtly, people will bitch about how they're not as glamorous as they used to be (cue misogyny - frequently in gossip magazines - which involves slagging off female celebrities for having the temerity to um, go to the gym in their gym-clothes and the like, while sanctimonious twats reminisce about Marilyn Monroe and 'old Hollywood' actresses, and how 'women were so much more glamorous then') while secretly feeding greedily on every make-up free picture, every wardrobe malfunction and every failure to conform to a pre-ordained fashion trend or rule.

It's not in the least logical. Anyone who thinks about it - just think of Marilyn Monroe, if nothing else comes - can see that women weren't necessarily more beautiful or glamorous 'back then.' It's just that there was more privacy for, and respect of, celebrities in general - and then there's the issue of technology. HOO BOY. I daresay that the only reason celebrities from 'back then' had the privacy they did is because there wasn't computer software sophisticated enough to be uploading pictures of them all day long. Nor were there the kind of super-advanced cameras we have now that mercilessly and minutely capture a person's flaws. When you think of movie posters, for example, a lot of the 'old Hollywood' movie posters were painted - a lot easier to prettify someone that way. Photos of them are also frequently in black and white, which as any fule kno, is one of the easiest ways to make a picture look more flattering. Not to mention that there wasn't a 'gossip industry' quite as unscrupulous as today's.

(It is ironic, actually, because MM was never completely OK with being a 'sex symbol' and wasn't a natural blonde either... I've also read that she cut the tip off one of her heels to emphasise the wiggle in her walk, but I don't remember where I read that... Still, at least she had, by today's standards, quite a hand in controlling her public image).

Aaanyway, the worst thing about all this - gossip magazines, gossip sites, celebrity gossip in papers, etc. - is that it only encourages and reinforces the worst of human tendencies - that of leaping to judge people as if it is some divine right of ours. Now, judging others is a tendency of ours which isn't going to go anytime soon, and to some extent it's of course necessary, but snap judgements - fuelled ably by our obsession with celebrity-gossip culture - are just another way for us to pander to that which is lowest in us.

You surely will have encountered somebody in your life who tried to pass these snap judgements off as having some sort of intrinsic, instinctive 'truth-value', because they are instantaneous. BOLLOCKS. I would say that they're actually much more of a Pavlovian thing, the result of elaborate social conditioning. For example, if I were not a follower of gossip at all, and happened to observe that a female celebrity had gained weight considerably, I might see her and think 'Oh, she's gained weight. I wonder why?' in a surprised/semi-curious way. That in itself, is not bad. What is bad is when an elaborate chain of associations make themselves instantly known in my head, leading to the triggering of a negative 'snap judgement.' Anyone who doubts the truth of this may want to experiment with the scenario I've just described, using a fairly young and 'unsocialised' child. Show them two pictures of a celebrity and see what happens. I doubt they'll associate shame and disdain with the celebrity in the way that gossipers - older, more socially-conditioned beings - would: 'Oh my God, that fat cow! She's obviously let herself go since so-and-so dumped her' or similar.

Note that - despite it being a 'snap judgement', it's anything but simple. That's because humans, despite what reactionaries and pseudoscientists of all stripes would like to have us believe, are NOT SIMPLE. In that negative response, which is posited as a 'natural' occurrence, we have: disgust/disdain at the person's lack of shame in refusing to conform to a particular expectation, dehumanisation, instantaneous removal of their agency (she's 'let herself go', that is, given up instead of controlling and policing herself like she should) and extrapolation on a situation on which the commenter knows fuck-all based on a hamfisted appropriation of biographical detail.

Sorry to get so long in trying to make my point, but I'm trying hard to convince here! The patriarchy (I hate saying that sometimes, because it makes it sound more big, powerful and shadowy than I'd like to accept) has socialised us to react in ways which are posited as 'plain-speaking', 'straight-up' or 'natural,' when they're anything but. This is why the case of Rihanna and Chris Brown is so distressing (if you're not following, please follow the link for a speedy update, I'm not going into any more detail!).

By chance I came upon this response to the whole affair, which I found extremely heartening. Pricks on the Internet just LOVE trying to shout down feminists when they comment on things like this. One of the most frequent and infuriating techniques - no matter WHAT the issue - is to indulge in whataboutery by crying 'What about TEH MENZ??!!1!!1' Hence - naive that I am - I always like to see feminist-friendly articles written by men. It's still all too rare, which I can't help thinking fuels these idiots further. So I read it, thinking: 'Hmm, a black man commenting incisively and eloquently on the issue. Hopefully this won't be besieged by trollery, seeing as how it's a man...'

Alas, I was hoping in vain. I had reckoned without the power of the modern-celebrity-gossip-strengthened snap judgement. A quick scroll through the comments, and - hello! The whataboutery begins with the very first fucking comment. I'm not going to try and chronicle just how many people indulged in this type of comment, because I want to sleep sometime this night, but there were many, and not just here but on other posts about this which criticised the 'Blame the Victim' culture. The classic tactic is to respond (imagine someone saying this as if thinking causes them great difficulty, while their knuckles rub lightly against the floor): 'Well he shouldn't have hit her, but a woman shouldn't hit a man either, innit, and if she does, then it's SELF-DEFENSE!!1!!1!'.

The worst thing about these snap judgements is that they breed, and perpetuate more of the same, keeping the hateful misogynistic rumours in steady circulation. The above type of comment, while missing the point of the post entirely, also manages to distort the seemingly simple message that 'Violence is not OK. Ever.' By doing so, it generates a whole noxious narrative from where there previously was none. It is immediately implied that Rihanna must have hit Chris Brown which was why he hit her back, of course - it was self-defense, right?!

Er... well, actually, no. Nobody but Rihanna and Chris Brown actually knows what happened between them. Furthermore, if scum like the above really believed the crap they spouted, then they wouldn't say what they said. If they really believed that violence is always unacceptable, they would've said something more like this:

'Now, I don't know about this matter, but Chris Brown seems to me like a good fellow. Maybe Rihanna struck him first. Even if she did, though, he should not have retaliated - he should have walked away, because that is the mark of a mature and sensible adult. Violence only begets violence.'

Still, that's not going to happen because many of these male-privilege flaunting desperadoes are hypocrites. They don't care about violence being wrong, they just want to disseminate the 'crazy bitch' meme at all costs. They're basically trying to encourage more attitudes like Chris Rock's, as cited at the start of the post. I do believe in innocent until proven guilty, but if we're going to play the gossip-extrapolation game, let's look at the facts: just by looking at Chris Brown, and knowing that he's had extensive martial arts training, one can comprehend that he's far more capable of doing damage to Rihanna than the other way round. Again, violence must be used responsibly and carefully - especially against a weaker opponent! Black mark. Also, as anyone with a shred of brain activity knows, people who are abused tend to become abusers themselves, and Brown has previously spoken out about his abusive stepfather. Again, this would imply that HE was in the wrong, HE behaved in a way unacceptable by the rules of martial arts and human respect in general - but let's not let that get in the way of a good round of misogynistic Blame-the-Victim.

Finally - if you were actually pushed to the point of 'self-defense' by someone smaller and weaker than you - as the morons are trying to suggest - that suggests that the situation would be so extreme that you would lash out simply to protect yourself. Either it would be a blind strike, or you'd try to knock out/immobilise your attacker, right? Especially if you'd had martial arts training. Rihanna had 'deep bruises on either side of her forehead, blackened areas around her eyes and what appears to be blood at the corners of her mouth' in the photo leaked online, which seems - gee, I dunno - more like domestic violence.

Especially now that Rihanna has apparently reunited with him and has declined to press charges, I can only see the victim-blame escalating. Cynical as it will sound, the way these male-privilege assholes are ('Of course he can bruise her whole face in self-defence, she obviously struck first and/or was a crazy high-maintenance bitch, while he's just a poor little R'n'B crooner, which obviously goes to show how much he loves ladies, yes, even though I know neither of them'), I suspect it's going to reach farcical levels. I tell you, the trolls are probably going to love the latest developments and say something like 'Well, he didn't kill her, did he? And she went back to him. So what's your problem, femonazis? Move along, there's no victim here, you're just trying to hate on men again and stop a brother from having a chance'. Sigh!

In Praise of The Inner Life

This is rather a random, off-the-peg post that has just been inspired by my ongoing 'discussion' with Derek, over 'moral relativism', 'universal truths', 'universal values' and other such fancy-schmancy terms of which I vaguely have the outlines of an understanding. (Apologies Derek, I have been attempting to link to your blog, but Blogger gets rather unhappy about it and repeatedly refuses to let me... aha... HA! TAKE THAT! TAKE THAT! *metaphorically bounces up and down in TRIUMPH*).

Ridiculous and out-of-touch though it is going to sound (which is pretty bloody impressive considering that I am 21!), I am going to proceed to rip the shit out of the sort of people who commit honour killings. Not just those people either, but the other people who embody the various degrees leading up to the committing of such atrocities on the scale of fuckwittery.

Now, we all care what people think of us to some extent. That's part of the whole fucking deal of being yuman. We measure ourselves against other beings, and this has led to a lot of grief and schadenfreude, but it is also useful because it helps us set a (ideally) universal standard of What Is Not Acceptable. Unfortunately, this standard isn't really universal, which is why ancient taboos like incest and paedophilia still persist and why fucking honour killings happen in the first place.

Now, I know this is no solution and I'm perfectly aware that this will make me sound like an ivory-tower intellectual, but I don't care. It has to be said. I am going to speak in praise of the inner life.

The 'inner life' as I understand it, is the kind of thing championed by the likes of E.M Forster and Marcel Proust. Might I just take this opportunity to state that I have slagged off Forster here before, for which I apologise, but y'know, Howards End is pretty dense. It is also absolutely amazing. Mummy, when I grow up, I want to be E.M Forster! Er... without the homosexual upper/middle-class white male thing, of course. I've neither the money nor the time for that kind of operation ;-D.

So yeah, anyway, the 'inner life' basically involves the individual taking time to reflect on themselves and the world, maybe even seeking to make sense of a post-God world through art, and generally refusing to see and depict the world in a simple way, even if they lean towards a simplistic view themselves. Howards End is full of certain conservative leanings and idealistic tendencies that make me scoff 'Bullshit,' but it also recognises the inherent complexity of life. That, for me, makes it more than worthy of forgiveness and gives it its rightly-deserved masterpiece status. Proust and HE both acknowledge the vital importance of art and culture to life.

People sneer at these kinds of attitudes, especially in a world where there is so much poverty and studying medicine is much more likely to earn you cash than studying English. However, I feel that we are increasingly obsessed with material things these days. I'm not making a conservative value-judgement, I'm just saying how it seems to me. I can't - and wouldn't - speak for the past. When I say material, I don't just mean that we are hugely consumerist (we are!) but also that we're increasingly obsessed with the tangible.

No doubt people who've chatted with me before might have heard this from me already - I think that our culture is very visually-oriented. To give you an idea of what I'm on about, the culture of Elizabethan England was more orally-centred, being as it was a time of Shakespeare, mass-theatre and no TVs. Again, I am not exercising any judgements here - I wouldn't dare. I am simply chronicling what appears to me to be a cultural development.

This movement towards the visual is good in the sense that it demands that information be made more concise, clear and direct than ever before, which is no bad thing. However - ironically enough - this is also in some ways a downside. I often feel that because this demand comes alongside an ever-apparent awareness that there is so much going on out there that we don't know and don't understand, we end up in a dangerous position.

Overwhelmed by the sheer volume of knowledge out there, crying out for understanding, people bury themselves further in what they already know. And what they already know, subconsciously, is that visual images are quicker and easier to process than words. So, they whip out their gossip magazines (to provide one example...!) and lose themselves in the blown-up photos of unfortunate, mostly-female celebrities accompanied by tiny, almost incidental captions. I really do not think that that is an accident, btw. They know what people want, and they're going to give it to them.

Hence people bury themselves in the obvious, in the visible, and in doing so, they ostracise themselves from the 'inner life.' The inquisitivity of youth gives way to the fear and cynicism of age, and a feeling that the world is both a) moving faster than it used to and b) moving too fast for you to keep up with. DON'T LOSE YOURSELF TO IT!

Culture is the only way we can be saved from this. People need to be made to think - and I'm aware that sounds dictatorial, but I don't care. When people stop questioning, they start digging in firmly to their 'hand-me-down' beliefs (I know I've used that phrase already, and FYI, it isn't even my coinage!). They begin to vaunt tradition, and then we have a problem.

This is the problem with the sort of people who commit honour killings. They have no inner life at all. They simply inhale the bigotry of tradition handed to them, trying to create a viable identity for themselves out of the processes of fear and denial. These people take huge pride in their 'communities', as well they would. They are parasites! Separate them from their communities and they would perish, because all they are is a lower order of being, mere chimps who have programmed themselves with the guiding fist of tradition, to replicate, replicate, replicate.

These people's entire sense of self depends on how they are seen by others. They are paper beings, no real substance existing beyond the crumbs of meaning that their pathetic, trembling paws have grabbed from the mouths of others and crammed into the huge hole where a personality and a sense of self should be. Such cogs are they that they perceive the individuality of others, even of their own children as a shaming. It IS a shaming, it is a shaming of you BECAUSE YOU ARE NOTHING. You have no individuality, and this realisation of the whole mechanism, of all the other identikit cogs is your life. When you see somebody else who is threatening to escape the mechanism, who doesn't need to be a cog, your pathetic, pathetic rage and jealousy spills out until it consumes them.

I could have anyone try and justify these people to me - but wait! How dare I call them 'people'? They are murderers who have no humanity; mere automatons for whom the merest TOUCH of humanity will derail their sense of self. Snuff the spark! their Cyberman-instincts cry. It threatens me, so it must die! How DARE they try and use the excuse of 'honour'? How DARE they try and pass selfishness off as mere self-consciousness?

Then, just to rub the salt in that little bit further, they fucking well try and use religion to justify their deeds. FUCKOFF, you arrogant fucking hypocritical self-deluded bastards. It is God's right, and God's right only, to pass judgement on an individual's actions like that. Certainly not yours, and CERTAINLY not yours to choose to take the life. How fucking arrogant can you get?

The absolute worst thing for me is that many of the men who commit these atrocities do so without the knowledge or approval of their wives - so despite half the genetic material rightfully belonging to the wife (if we're going to be disgustingly crude), that being which is a part of both parents gets snuffed out regardless.

Murder is never acceptable, whatever the motive behind it, but the way these people try to bring a moral sanction to what they do means that honour killings leave a particularly bad taste in the moral mouth. Psychopaths who kill complete strangers for money are bad enough, but to add in that colossal betrayal of trust... Vah, vah. Bohat changa kita. Or, for those of you who don't speak Punjabi, 'Wow. Very well done.'

To quote (and possibly paraphrase?) one of my favourite Hindi songs ever: 'Insaan bano / Duniya se chale jayo' - 'Behave like men / Leave this world and be gone.'

(On a lighter note, how the hell did I end up with four followers and 880 profile views?!).

Reclaiming Feminism.

I have had enough. I HAVE HAD ABOUT FUCKING ENOUGH. Why the fuck are people so fucking dumb? How did the misogynists come to win so easily? Feminism was somehow ascribed the signification 'of female supremacy' and now women everywhere are shirking it if possible, having to explain and/or mediate it (as I do: 'I'm a feminist-egalitarian... Well, I'm a feminist, but people generally get the wrong idea so I have to say I'm a feminist-egalitarian... I want everyone to be equal, but feel that we need to deal with the oppression of women first and foremost... do you get what I mean?!') or, worst yet, they proudly proclaim themselves as not feminist, as anti-feminist even.

The reason I'm so irritated is because of this interview with one of the Loose Women presenters, Carol McGiffin. Is it just me, or does she look decidedly Satanic in the picture? Maybe I'm ascribing Satanicity (my coinage!) to her based on what she said. I am going to quote it so that I can do my nut accordingly:

Are you a feminist?

Deep down, yes I am. But I have to really question what feminism is now. If being a feminist means I want to be totally equal and the same as men, I don't. I don't want to compete with men, I've got no problem with certain things that a lot of staunch feminists have problems with - the fact that men should share household chores and things like that. I don't buy that line. I don't mind if blokes want to help out, but if they don't and they can't, then I've got no problem with picking their laundry up off the floor. So if that makes me a non-feminist, then I'm a non-feminist.

Are there really any men who "can't" pick up laundry from the floor?

Yes, I know ... unless they're completely unable to move, or they've got no arms. But the damaging thing about feminism is that the man's role is completely confused - women want them to take on certain women's roles.

What is a woman's role?

Traditional women's roles: looking after a family, men and children. We argue at work about this: Denise and Andrea [Welch and McLean, McGiffin's co-stars] get blue in the face trying to make [their partners] Tim or Steve do things that they're never going to do, and I say to them, "Why don't you just do it, because your life would be so much easier?" Why can't they just accept that they are men? Yes, they're lazy and they're rubbish, but they married them, now stop trying to change them. So yes, my view on feminism is slightly flawed, but I would say deep down that I'm all for women's rights.

*weeps* You stupid, stupid, FUCKING STUPID BITCH. I'm sorry, I know it's terrible to swear so much, and probably none too indicative of a 'shared feminine spirit' or whatever, but... Christ. What really hurts me is that there are loads of ignorant women like Carol McGiffin, who don't really know jackshit. I must hand it to her for saying 'I have to really question what feminism is now.'

This woman could be my mother. This woman IS my mother - hence my classifying her, too, as Satan. What kind of passive bullshit is that, anyway? 'I have no problem with men helping, but actually I don't think they should, because then they'll be taking on women's roles and then we'll get confused OMG OH NOES HERE COMES THE SEXUAL APOCALYPSE.'

We live in an age where our understanding of transvestism and
transsexuality has developed to the point where enough outrage occurs at a lesbofeminazi (sorry, I really wanted to use that just once!) who attacks transfolk to spur 150 protesters at the Stonewall awards and where a transsexual gets on to America's Next Top Model. We have a long way to go, sure, but you'd think those little things would show people that gender roles are not sacred and set in concrete. Like pretty much everything else that makes up humanity, they are *gasp* able to be changed and destabilised!

So, Carol McGiffin, I'm sure people like yourself (and oh, I do fear that there are quite a few of them out there) find it hard to wrap their tiny minds around this, but: BULLSHIT to traditional women's roles. How about the traditional role of the bitch-goddess, huh, Kali Ma and her equivalents? The notion of the fertile-yet-destructive pagan matriarch? THAT'S a 'role' that's been around almost as long, and funnily enough you don't hear anyone trumpeting that to us. I also really hate the myth that she and many many others perpetuate, which is that feminism and compromise are somehow separate and/or incompatible: 'I've got no problem with picking their laundry up off the floor.' Well, neither have I, love, but I won't stand for being told that I 'should' do it because it's 'my role'. Especially not by you. And yes, there will be be days when he will bloody well do it himself - that's what I call compromise - being flexible and having each other's backs.

This bit was great too, and I feel, comprehensively disqualifies CM for 'feminist' status: 'Why can't they just accept that they are men?'

Well, honey, by turning around and making the mistake that a lot of women do - of saying 'Boys will be boys,' like my mother always did - you're not only insulting feminists and disempowering yourself, but doing the 'men' a disservice too. All men are not the 'lazy,' 'rubbish' figure perpetuated by Hollywood slacker movies, disenchanted mid-life divorcees and the likes of *ahem* Loose Women. I happen to think that by saying things like that, you are being as unfair as if you turned around and said that all women are hysterical and have a father-fixation (Oh wait, somebody did, and it was a man - Freud, that light of illumination who prescribed 'cocaine therapy' and advanced the ingenious theory that non-white cultures were a primitive, 'savage' form of Western culture - a view inherited from the 19th-C colonial romance and R.L. Stevenson...).

Men and women are supposed to be equal under feminism, and the only sense in which they are equal for McGiffin is in her dismissal of both by reducing them to one-tack performers of a gender role. Get a clue, people! The clue's in the word itself: role. A word tied up with theatre, loaded with performative connotations. If you really want to try and assert your views as if they're law, you could at least try and be a bit more scientific about it and say 'function' instead...!

Granted, her point about expecting people you've married to change (and that too, after years upon years of marriage) is fair. This bit, though: 'I don't want to compete with men.' Biatch, it's a bit late for that. See, if everyone thought like you, you wouldn't be on TV on a show like that right now. That's because people used to think that a woman's role precluded any entry whatsoever into the 'public sphere.' You wouldn't BE on ITV, somehow eking out your 15 minutes of fame (I had never heard of her before this, and I looked her up to find out she was a radio DJ or something...?) without feminism. Yet there you are.

'So yes, my view on feminism is slightly flawed, but I would say deep down that I'm all for women's rights.'

As Michael Kyle from My Wife and Kids would say: 'Ah... nah.' You're not, dear - you're just a product of the same mindset that spawns WAG-wannabes and tabloid kiss-and-tells. That would be the 'I'm a lazy-ass who doesn't want to work, so I'm going to exploit gender stereotypes to my advantage and find myself a rich man.' Then, when you break up, you think you're leaving with half? Bitch, you trippin'. Except that ol' Carole is of the much more common 'I'm a lazy-ass who doesn't want to think, so I'm going to claim the advantages won by a previous generation while simultaneously undermining said advantages by implying that everyone should just shut up and do as they're told' breed.

See, at this point, if I were a Mail/Express reader, I would start pulling out my hair and screaming that the end is nigh. Instead, I'll go right on and make it a Julie Bindel bumper special by drawing your attention to this interview with Sheila Jeffreys about prostitution. Such an interesting read that my faith in humanity was revived (by Julie Bindel an' all! Imagine!). I didn't know who this Sheila Jeffreys was, but I wanted to marry her! (pun intentional...).

Another bitch is necessary, however. In an interview with ballet dancer Natasha Oughtred, the interviewee says:

[Do you have any style icons?]

No one in particular jumps out. Audrey Hepburn looked beautiful - everyone says that about her. When you think of that era, the stars were all so flawless and they never had a bad day.

What utterly banal rubbish! It makes me burst out laughing when you see this kind of mindless 'soft' conservatism, a thought-free, easy idealising of the past. Of course they were fucking flawless - the gossip industry, if it could even be viably considered an 'industry' back then, wasn't able to insinuate itself into the minutest details of slebs' lives like it does now. Of course people had bad days, they just didn't get papped! Whereas now, it seems that if people want to maintain any measure of privacy, they have to disappear from public life for large chunks of time at a pop, like Reese Witherspoon and Ryan Philippe.

I'm not trying to say that we should rein in the paparazzi or anything (or maybe we should, who knows?), but people need to stop being so fucking facile. Don't go bewailing the lack of demigods when you're daily falling upon the pantheon of performers and associated hangers-on and ripping the shit out of them. People with brains know far better in this age of ever-penetrating inquiry. When the whole point of performance is to act a role, why would you want to risk placing your own person within the gladiatorial arena?

By all means, throw us the scraps - the Peaches Geldofs and the Cory Kennedys (hey, I'm British, I'm susceptible to the underdog and sceptical of people who don't seem to have any job! :P ;)) - but models, actresses etc... the whole point of these people is to be unreal. This bullshit about looking at them in Heat when they're having a bad day and feeling better in yourself is just that - bullshit. It's a temporary fix, not a long-term solution, and it only feeds the ludicrous comparison-culture which is (in my view anyway) what will probably bring about the end of the world. So women of the world, though I know you won't listen, I entreat you to STOP reading Closer and Heat, Star and OK! and so forth, and GET OUT of the gossip matrix.

Feck me, I'm tired! I leave you with this rather amusing selection of quotes from Sienna Miller, who seems like a fun sort if you ask me, and the simultaneously heartwarming ('Yay! Yay for the still-single guy! You're no freak AT ALL!') and depressing Private Lives section (next week's problem made me want to cry and give the lady in question a big hug and take all her pain away, but sadly I'm not God...). I think I was partial to the bloke because he sounds a lot like my man might have done, had he ever written to the Guardian and not been snapped up by me (or some other exceedingly lucky girl) before reaching his late twenties... Mwahaha.

Finally... sleeping around from Chaucer to Castro and a really interesting piece on sex and 'our culture of excess' (which I will read tomorrow because I am really tired). HAPPY WEEKEND, ALL!