Why I Write (Pt. I)

Oh. Oh, I know, you've seen that little 'I' right there and you're thinking 'Oh Godddddd. Is this going to be the first in a series of long and unbearably pompous self-obsessed rants?'

Short answer: yes! In indie shoe-gazing-fashion, I will attempt (as always) to reflect on myself. Although I will not do so whilst wearing dark colours (not intentionally anyway), tight denim (fuck that) or 'exciting hair.' Guitars and abstract maudlin wailing will be absent for the time being.

The reason I'm writing this is because a) I haven't posted in a while and I think it's making me crazy - I NEED TO WRITE and b) I need to clarify posts like the previous one. I had to explain this to the Libertarian once, after I posted something without speaking to him first, and he was (understandably) somewhat hurt. No major revelations had been concealed, but he wanted to be my rock. I then attempted to say what I'll say now, but more succinctly and clearly this time.

As was meant to be evident by the tag, posts like that serve a paradoxical purpose relating to my depression. That particular one was written (as was quite flaming obvious!) after having issues with TL. It wasn't a fight, but a series of compounded and painful misunderstandings. The fight itself, involving plenty of meaningless snark and inflating-of-self-for-anger purposes, came after.

Before I go any further, I must just comment on how much that strikes me. Fights in themselves are not bad; we might think that they are. They're actually a relief, coming after the egotism that misunderstandings generate. You are open about your feelings, clear in your aim to lash out and destroy. Often when misunderstandings occur, however, there's no-one to blame. Instinct demands that we blame someone though, that there be no grey areas. As a result, there can be a whole disgusting grey area of feelings. Despair, at the preventability of the whole thing, at missed opportunities for maturity. Irritability at the other partner, maybe partially founded, partially unfounded, for just not understanding, for being as human as you. Frustration at yourself for being human (read: 'failure'); guilt at yourself for blaming them.

I spent much of that day feeling like a raw wound. It wasn't helped by the fact that I was crying constantly. The post was the height of my fucked, depressed self-indulgence. I fashioned betrayal from a misunderstanding. Why? I knew TL loves me, I knew that he didn't really think I expect him to plan my life around him - but I was in the zone. The depressed, pre-menstrual zone. I have worked out now that I may be a bit miserable for the rest of the month, but being pre-menstrual triggers depression proper in me. I become incredibly irrational, lose all sense of perspective and balance, have suicidal and self-denigrating thoughts...

Let's not forget that I'm also pre-menstrual, so I have a lower pain threshold, general increased sensitivity (physical and emotional, as a result of hormones). The more severely pre-menstrual I feel, the worse I am overall. I often don't sleep as a result of being so uncomfortable and unable to relax at night. So, I'm pretty much a little time-bomb, waiting to blow. Blow I do, at the same time every month. ALWAYS before I'm due, and ALWAYS once I start, the suicidal tendencies and despair lift considerably.

However, normal rules do not apply when I'm 'in the zone.' I am a solitary person generally (although I have realised I need to work on this!). PMD finds me in an awkward position, reduced to calling up people and begging them to save me from myself. Since I am not accurately able to conceive of how others view me, I cannot do this. I imagine concealed irritation, better things to do, frustration. The worst part is that lived experience informs these fears. I loved a depressed man. Depressed people are hellishly trying. If they retreat into a self-destructive downward spiral - that is, if you get to them just a bit too late to head them off at the start - you may well find them simultaneously 'boring' and 'infuriating'.

Again, however, there's little logic to that fear. You'd only feel that way if you were in the position I was, of being a person's go-to rock. Being on the receiving end of that kind of thing for hours a day. Plus, (and this will sound really awful, apologies!) I don't last very long in the self-indulgent phase, unlike my ex. I move quickly into heavy self-loathing. Not 'I can't make people like me,' or 'I'm not cool anymore' self-loathing. 'I shouldn't exist/ My mother was right, I AM a psychopath' self-loathing. It explains why I could handle my ex's depressed spells, but mine destroyed him. He became like that when he felt wrong-footed. Paradoxically, I was the opposite. I became like that when I was fully, bleakly sure; I become like that when I feel that my internalised bullies have been validated. 'They' are right after all; right about everything; right and they always will be. I think I really will have to get therapy at some point, because having my family's shadow over me for the rest of my life will destroy me otherwise. However, living away from them for a sustained period of time (like, longer than 2 years) may do the trick... here's hopin'!

So. I'm in the zone. I need help, like URGENT HELP. Platitudes and attempts to deploy logic have, and will always, fail. My mindset crystallises back into the world of binaries. There is a black and a white. The dichotomy that interests me at that point, though I obviously don't realise it then, is that of action and words. Telling me I am loved and that people would miss me if I died MEANS NOTHING. That is my breaking point; I risk everything, I trust nothing. I test belief. Love must be demonstrated, not promised. I need to be held, in a touch which is firm yet yielding. Not stiffly, not as if I'm being restrained. TL excels in this department, and hence I felt the first terrifying butterfly-brush of awareness that I could fall in love with him on only our sixth meeting.

A university counsellor observed this too; that I have moments when I really test my partner(s). I have gotten a lot better at not doing this, with TL; that might have a lot to do with us actually being emotionally suited. I don't quite know how to break that pattern, although I know what formed it. Years of being ignored and mocked have made me terribly insecure about whether my voice matters or not. Whether I am sane or not. Whether anyone is really listening or not, and do they care? Can they care, when the people who were always meant to didn't? Especially when those same people told me they wouldn't care?

This quote sums up the situation rather well, I think:

second generation Punjabi women – being the product of patriarchal culture – are either depressingly servile or terrifyingly aggressive… Sikh girls don’t have personalities, they have post-traumatic disorder. They have to fight so hard and so persistently for their independence that they become brutalized by the experience, and even when they have their freedom, they can’t stop fighting.

This has a grain of truth, rather than being 100% applicable. Not least because it fails to appreciate that many girls can - and do - flit between those two states. I find myself doing so... The thing about not being able to stop fighting seems very apt here though. Paranoia and fear of betrayal - two states of mind which are, interestingly, embedded into Punjabi Sikhs, especially many who are now British Asians - make me challenge everything that I should believe in.

In such a state of mind, not quite on the verge of total despair, I am on the brink of escaping. Thankfully, the part of me that wants to live seizes it and runs like hell. If I can trust no-one, I can tell no-one. I can, however, suck out the poison and spit it onto my blog, which is after all intended as a literary mirror of the inside of my head.

So I do, and then paradox frees me. By writing down my feelings, I can almost 'seal' them on an imaginary page (a Web-page?). They leave me to course, like insignificant minnows, into the cyber-stream. I don't have to worry about them any more because I have 'set them free' - and myself in the process. Yet simultaneously, blogging my depressive states also does the opposite. It sets them as if in concrete, to remain there for all to see. They cannot get away into the safe darkness of forgetting. Not just an exercise in humility and maturity, they are also evidence. Proof, to be exact. When I blog a foul mood like that, I let it go AND I own it. Afterwards I have the proof of my own survival. Evidence that I made it, and can thus do it again. To quote the glorious Gaynor: 'Did I crumble? Did I lay down and die? Oh no, not I! I will survive!' From that point, I can face my own part in generating a misunderstanding more honestly. I can call and apologise and tell him that I love him. I can save myself - not a psychopath, but a survivor.

(Speaking of which, one of my best friends recently told me in her usual calm and direct manner that my mother is a sociopath, as she lacks some basic human ability to relate to others. I agreed, noting that it is her ability to empathise which appears to be, ahem, seriously fucked. It was all v.heartening!).

Time to go sleep now, though, almost 2 a.m... Whoops. This is what happens when you artificially prolong wakefulness by Jeff Buckley's sexiness and being determined to be organised and efficient and all that other shit you aren't in daylight. Don't look at me like that, I know Jeff Buckley is dead, but he's still sexy, goddamit! His voice AND his physical form *chuckles idiotically.*

Sick of being second best.

Today, I realised something. I am sick of being second best. Once I realised that, I sought out a relationship where I wouldn't have to be second best for once.

You know what? I found it, and not even where I was expecting.

I (stupidly) thought that my partner would be the one to provide it, but that is total bull. My family are right - nobody has to put you first, other than your family, because everyone else has automatically got that all-important Number 1 position filled already. Who's filling it? Themselves, of course.

That's where I have gone horribly, horribly wrong. The importance of value and self-sacrifice are deeply imprinted in me. That doesn't mean I'm some charity hero or anything, but it means that I am somebody who can - and WILL - be flexible and adaptable for my partner. Unless there's something absolutely, incontrovertibly unchangeable (like, I have to work or be at university), I will try to be there. I'm so fucking idealistic I will drop it all to 'be there.' Hence the terrible guilt I went through when my young cousin died, and I wasn't there to help my cousin with her grief, even slightly.

Other than friends, though, who will give up their time to you to some extent (and even then you need to have more than one good friend, because no one person can always be there), THERE. IS. NOBODY.

The folly of society's fetishising of monogamy is suddenly even clearer than it was before. My new motto is 'Put it on the backburner.' No more dreaming about marriage and children. I have emotional problems, and quite frankly, ain't nobody having that much power over me.

My cousin has never made a point of saying she loves me, but then again she has also never effectively told me to go fuck myself. Never made out that I was wasting her precious time. Never has she LIED to me and made me feel like I was more important than I really was.

That is love. Being totally honest with someone else. In relationships, hormones cloud our judgement and we say things we don't necessarily mean. Like 'I will always try to be there for you.'

So, to complete the circle, the only people I can really rely on are my family. But wait... oh dear, I'm pretty fucked, aren't I? While having a thoroughly painful cry on the sofa, I imagined myself before my parents. I imagined begging them to love me the most for once, just once, please. I would beg forgiveness for being 'wrong.' I would grasp my mother's hand and tell her that I didn't want life to feel like a burden any more. I didn't want to have any more days where I wondered if I could get the courage to hurt myself.

I could imagine her recoiling. I could imagine their shock, their incredulity. Their inability to comprehend my pain when they had 'given me everything.' I would tell them that I have depression and they would tell me I was sick. That I was mental. As they did of an Indian cousin's wife, who also has depression. As my dad did of some other unknown woman at the gurdwara.

The thought of it made me cry harder still and feel very, acutely, alone. Just typing it now made me cry some more. They are right, I am sick. I don't know how I should treat it. I don't feel like I can put faith in romantic relationships like I used to. That's not to say that I'm perfect and no-one's my equal - far from it. I am so emotionally messed up that dreams of marriage and so forth are just that - dreams. Delusions. Better that I realised it sooner rather than later.

'There ain't no way...'

... is the title of a song by a group that I quite like, called Cunninlynguists (yes, that IS the play on words that you're guessing at).

I met with Laurie today in a somewhat soporific afternoon encounter that was hopefully helpful to her (apologies if I came across as an automaton at times - having my hair out AND hot weather and sunlight to contend with, make me akin to drunk).

Now, she is a very patient and intelligent lady who tends to attract to her blog many of the sort of people who I'd frankly just like to sock one in the face. I find it amusing - I think many of 'em have followed her there from Liberal Conspiracy and wait around for her to metaphorically pat them on the head, and then she posts about REAL feminist stuff, and you get 'permanently bewildered' and victim-blaming (see her post, Perfect Slaves?, for example) among other things.

Bizarre, really, since in the main, the comments on other pieces have been largely supportive and encouraging.

Maybe it is 'radfem' of me to say so, but I confessed something to her today. I believe that things are really not going to get any better until the middle classes get their act together and start rocking the boat.

If you read this blog, I am presuming that you live in a Western country. I will say this to you now: live your principles.

LIVE YOUR PRINCIPLES. Granted, there are limits to what we can do, but I am sick of hearing, reading and seeing women and men staying with each other out of pity. Out of fear. Out of sentimentality.

It is VERY RARE to find a dysfunctional coupling where nostalgia and sentimentality don't play a substantial role. I am struck by how many women say that they are feminists, and yet in their home life they end up doing most of the work, and generally giving in...

While I know it's not easy to up and leave, or to dig your heels in - is it impossible? Is it really impossible?

Might you, after all, have the privilege of being able to live your principles?

A while back, Feministing had a post on this, but in a more straightforward sense of 'being privileged enough to educate oneself in a feminist-friendly way.' They also had a very good recent community post, where the notion of 'using privilege for good' surfaced in the comments. That came back to my thoughts today, along with a very interesting F-word post from late March this year. In America, it was apparently found that:

Wealthy families, she said, have tended, with their work-around-the-clock husbands and at-home wives, to have adopted a rather old-fashioned model of marriage, with fixed sex roles. They’ve set the tone, but the rest of the population hasn’t necessarily followed.

Something makes me think that such a scenario may not be entirely inconceivable in this country.

I'm not going to rosily claim that all middle-class people really love the Daily Fail and that working-class people are like exaggerated versions of the characters in Saturday Night, Sunday Morning (which by the way, you should totally read because it is a British CLASSIC, and also because that's how I want to write when I grow up).

The fact remains, however, that the Daily Mail - and the Telegraph, I would say, as well as the Guardian and Independent - exist as sources of information written by middle-class people, for middle-class people. We middle-class people are the source of normativity. Boo-hoo, we have it so hard, etc. Seriously though, I for one do not feel OK with the idea that I am part of that normativity (even though I am) because of my family's economic status, though that may have a little summat summat to do with my race and gender.

To recap though: WE ARE THE SOURCE OF NORMATIVITY. Even little ole privileged I. People want to write about US, the lives we lead, the foods we cook and eat, the money we spend and what we spend it on. That last factor is possibly the most important (ADVERTISING!). Basically, WE MATTER. WE MATTER in a way that working-class people don't; because our 'class' is growing all the time and because of our spending power.

You just can't reduce people to evil or pitiable caricatures when you're trying to coax their wallets from them now, can you?

So, all I'm asking is a very small thing. Though it's a good rallying cry in some ways, I'm not going to say 'People! Vote with your wallets when it comes to shit you don't like.' That involves effort and thinking and nobody likes that nowadays.

Instead I'll say: 'People! Live your principles.' We are economically and socially privileged. Let me contextualise to remind you, gentle reader, of the power you (unknowingly) wield.

In some communities in India, when a man divorces a woman, she is thrown out onto the street. Just like that. Sometimes, as is believed to have happened to a cousin of mine, the woman is married. Then, her husband and mother-in-law (almost ALWAYS that particular team, but not always) murder her and flee with the money/gifts/property rights. My cousin was praying in the house when she somehow got locked in and the building burnt down. Let's not even start on 'honour'-based violence...

Obviously, if you're in an abusive/domestic violence situation, it's going to be different and a lot more difficult. To those of you who aren't, I ask you this. Are you pressured into getting married before sex and living together can even grace your wildest dreams? Will you be ejected from your territory if you break up with someone? Is a lack of companionship and a bit of judgement from Smug-Married friends and hapless-but-well-meaning family (or friends) comparable to being burnt alive?

No. No, it's not. Your incentives for 'staying' come much more from YOU than from outside. Though there is bourgeois influence as well, no doubt. The decision is much more 'yours' than it would be in other countries and cultures. I'm currently in the process of trying to get my eldest sister (now living back with us at home, in case you forgot!) to just hurry up and tell the mofo she's divorcing him already. 'Tis a frustrating task, one that led to me writing an essay on the day it was due and then handing it in with another, which turned out to be LATE by two days (!), earlier this year. I wrote the bibliography by hand, having forgotten it entirely, 15 minutes before it was due. I subsequently found myself having a crying breakdown in my tutor's office while she was out retrieving the late essay...

My sister will be gossiped about by some in our community. Some will be pleased that her marriage failed, and many will now doom her to eternal celibacy as a result of her being divorced at the ripe 'old' age of 32. Benign-intentioned inepts will continue to suggest that she should have 'tried to make it work.' Yeahhhhh. Try to make it work with a man who spouted these gems:

He: I've lost respect for your dad now. He should have asked me before he came to pick you up.
(Translation: I own you).
She: ?! You're lucky he didn't beat the crap out of you.
(And how!).
He: (smirkingly proud) He's just an old man. I would have battered him.

When that particular exchange was conveyed to me (by phone, by my sister herself - a sign of all the progress I've made with her!), I neared tears trying to summon swearwords appropriate to my strength of feeling. Thankfully, because I was cooking, I settled for taking it out on my ingredients. Nothing like a spot of stabby-stabby for Mr. Motherfucker-you-are-my-property-and-you-will-stay-till-I-hit-and/or-kill-you, safely exorcised via chicken.

(Just to clarify: he didn't hit her and there's not very much evidence at all to suggest that he would. While undoubtedly abusive and uncouth, he does not fit the profile of the charming and cunning abuser that I have seen described on feminist websites. He just really is incredibly pathetic, compulsive, childish and deluded. Still not a reason to forgive him and 'settle,' now, is it?!).

People! Just stop and think. You are adults now - if your partner don't split the housework/other duties with you - they don't got your back. Yes, it really IS that fucking simple. You may not have the guts to leave just yet, but think twice if nothing else. Reconsider how much of your life you want to give to something that cuts right at the core of you NOW, and isn't likely to go away.

As the villains of Indian soaps so hilariously proclaim, 'just wait and watch.' You have a brain, you are not just a bag of hormones. The lulls in conversation are a chance to reflect. DON'T SETTLE WHEN YOU HAVE THE PRIVILEGE TO LIVE YOUR PRINCIPLES. That's all I ask of you.

Ladies, in particular: ROCK THAT FUCKING BOAT. Shake it like maracas. Cleanliness and neatness is not its own reward. That shit come and that shit go! There is a time for being adult (it's called PARENTHOOD!), and there is a time to fight fire with fire. If you haven't got kids with a bloke yet, you do not have to give in and do the housework. Talk to him - make him aware of what needs to be done. Give him a little 'guided tour' of the house, i.e.: 'Washing starts here, then is transferred either here if underwear, or here if in need of ironing...' Make a list of the tasks that need to be done, and split it so that it's equal or close enough.

Once you have children, it is GAME OVER on that front. Fighting for yourself will, unfortunately, become secondary. Do it while you can. If you don't, you WILL regret it (unless you get a lobotomy) and then your children will suffer. Hmmm, inconvenience yourself, or give your kids a chance to be equipped to fight the patriarchy? Even if you don't want kids, you still have YOU - ageing, society-and-culture-blasted, frail mortal YOU to consider.

I have, I freely admit, been uber-lucky. The Libertarian was raised in a household where his father did the cooking and the bulk of the washing-up. However, that didn't mean that he shirked on his parenting or housework duties - it was equally split. Once TL was old enough to help out, he got involved with everything from icing cookies to painting walls.

Again, privilege played a part in that arrangement being possible. I accept that not everyone can have it 100% equal. If nothing else though, we can avoid becoming servile. Men going out to work keeps the economy running, but women doing housework and raising children keeps society functioning. House + work = it's work too, even if it's not publicly visible. Be houseproud by all means but don't be a workaholic. Make your partner do what he can. Privileged feminists - LIVE YOUR PRINCIPLES!


Recommended Reading: Who needs two parents?

(P.S.: This is HILARIOUS). I think I am in love with an unopened jar of peanut butter. Gulp.

Totally random aside relating to this post on Cath's glorious blog: I think feminists should perhaps strike back at the men who try to portray their purchasing of sex as perfectly normal. Y'know, like you pop into Boots for a magazine, and then you go down a side street to buy a woman's vagina... They refer to themselves using the relatively innocent term 'punters.' That's what I mean, when I hear 'punters', I think of normal consumers. Not men who buy sex. So let us not let 'em off (even inadvertently). 'Punters,' my ass. I personally favour 'ratfaces' myself, but I know this is both a) unfair to rats b) somewhat unworkable. So let's be having your suggestions, please?

Putting Things Right

A while back, I had a go at Laurie of Penny Red. I feel pretty bad about that now, to be honest. Not that there wasn't some truth to what I said - but really, what was I expecting? That she should be able to represent the likes of me? Of course she can't; and it's totally unreasonable to expect such a thing of her. Furthermore, although I hope she ends up as an investigative journalist (I imagine she'd be super-duper at that!), she can do what she likes in the meantime. The whole thing did perhaps come off harsher than intended; essentially what I was saying is 'you can do better than this' when it comes to some of her writing...

But who made me an arbiter of what is good? Who am I to tell someone else (especially someone who ain't listening, haha) to 'do better'? This - this post right here - is about me trying to put things right. There's a lot that needs to be put right. This v. good and simple post on PR has inspired me to try and begin to do so, if nothing else.

What I was expecting of her is the same thing I expect of myself. To do better. To strive for perfection. To achieve consistency all the time, blah blah blah. As her post so ably describes, we are all prone to this tendency. It is worse in some ways for women, than it is for men. They're not free of it either, though.

I appear to have indulged in classic projection and lashed out at a fellow struggler rather than stopping and thinking about why I did that. Having said that, I do still want her to go on and become a Socialist Superwoman, and I sincerely hope that she won't lose sight of herself in striving to achieve success. That is a genuine warning, because in trying to sell an unpopular cause to people, one can find oneself unexpectedly compromised. Everyone knows that... I am also developing some rad-fem tendencies, thanks in large part to this blog (and the assholes on Cif but also seemingly EVERYWHERE ELSE on t'Interwebz!), and so I got a bit unfair on someone who I felt didn't have to be quite as 'feminist' as me.

How stupid is that, eh? You live and you learn, though, I guess. I think that is true of many Asian feminists though - there is quite a gulf between what they, and their white (middle-class...) counterparts are concerned with. That is nobody's fault. We have to deal much more with really barbaric things like honour-killings, and the pressure of being sandwiched between liberal society (not free of misogyny and sexism for all that...) and conservative families.

For example, Laurie mentions in her post how:

I've just been watching Meera Syal's documentary about self-harm, in which she asks, amongst other things, why Asian women in particular are so very high-acheiving and yet so desperately unhappy - being the group statistically most likely both to graduate with high honours and to deliberately hurt their bodies.

There you go. We have more freedom to work than is still permitted in India, Bangladesh, China et al (though those countries ARE, in some cases, getting better for women...) yet in many cases, our cultures don't sensitively adjust to this. Instead, it is expected that women will work full-time - AND be perfect slave housewives. It's not just the job market, but also the marriage market, we have to grey our pretty little heads over. British middle-class society also still has this mindset in many cases, but not in the same way as the Asian community.

Paradoxically, no-one wants to touch with a bargepole any woman who doesn't have a high-powered degree (that means I'm out of the running, eh?) - think Biomedical Sciences, Accounting, Medicine, Law... teaching as well. Yet in most cases, she also has to be a housewife. Getting 'lucky' involves all or any of the following:

a) Your husband doesn't hassle you about housework (for the most part) and/or sometimes even HELPS (aka my father).
b) You don't live with your mother-in-law.
c) Your mother-in-law doesn't expect you to become her.


Quite simply, you're not allowed to be thick, dark, rebellious or lazy. Given that I am both rebellious and lazy, my mum actually used to mutter: 'Thank God you have fair skin.' My mother has also tried repeatedly to break my spirit, claiming that she's just preparing me for my mother-in-law. Alongside this, she harangued both my sisters to learn Indian cooking (including how to make a full dinner in one go, even though NOBODY I know, us included, ever eats that). Despite both successfully doing so, she subsequently tried to blame all marital problems, especially my eldest sister's, on cooking.

So, my second-eldest sister and I have a lengthy discussion with my mum about how our brother-in-law is a psychopathic abuser, who enjoys publicly humiliating my sister and refuses to either let her come see us, or come to see us with her. This may last 20 minutes or longer. Mother nods agreeingly and even participates. Two minutes later, she is ranting about how it is all my sister's fault, and talking about cooking. (Although she dropped cooking-as-cause after about a year-and-a-half of ongoing strife...)

The thing is: my mum means well. 'Nine times out of ten,' she informed me with a faded bitterness, 'the woman must bend.' It didn't matter that I actually had a boyfriend at the time who cooked for me and shared the housework (at one stage when he briefly lived with me, just before finishing his degree, he was actually preparing every meal and doing all the washing-up while I worked on a project). She had seen what it is like for us Punjabi women, the sham of Sikh equality, and she wanted there to be no hope to so cruelly give way, treacherously feather-light, to betrayal and disappointment.

Despite having a decent boyfriend at the time, I could see myself falling into the patriarchy's tentacles. I sincerely believed that I would never make it to 21, and that if I did, I would find myself in a marriage that would eventually drive me to suicide. How could I continue my mother's cycle, and raise children that I resented? Why would I want to raise another child like myself, plagued by self-doubt and devoured by the family pack?

I was so hellishly afraid of this happening to me that I clung to my now-ex, despite not being happy. The fact that he largely didn't mean to upset me became a handy guilt-trigger, for when I wondered how the hell I could ever love him. I went through my degree, picking up Firsts and even winning a prize. The initial hostility of my family to my education choices gave way to a less-antagonistic but not-much-more-satisfying complacency. They told me 'Well done,' and then would add that I SHOULD be getting marks like that. Their congratulations were always severely compromised by the fact that they neither understood, nor particularly cared, WHAT I was good at. There was also an underlying assumption that what I was doing was not really that difficult or worthwhile.

This last attitude infected me deeply. It birthed in me a painful and schizophrenic feeling. I regarded my mute and detached contemporaries in seminar rooms with a kind of superior hatred. How many of them had been told that they would study English 'over my dead body' by their sisters? How many of them had earned the right to be there, like I had, and were capitalising on it feverishly, like I was?

Even as I felt like this, I kept myself 'humble' by reminding myself always, in a back corner of my brain, that I wasn't doing anything useful or important. But I was also doing French! But I wasn't going into business with it. Even though I hated the French part of my degree at times, it gave me a further edge over the other losers. Were they struggling like I was struggling? Did they have to dilute their favourite subject, just to be taken remotely seriously?

The evidently gigantic chip on my shoulder was carved into deeper by this 'humility' I enforced on myself. One of my best friends inadvertently contributed to it when she joined in with my mocking of other students saying that to those kinds of people, she would say: 'I'm doing SCIENCE, bitches.' I must never get above myself because literature was not essential to the world the way science was. Yet this attitude allowed me to mock those who were fanatically devoted when I didn't understand things - they were out of touch. They didn't see, like I saw, that science mattered more!

Ironic, really. I had tried to take science at A-level, had found it a nightmare (though definitely interesting) and then made a defiant show of taking arts at uni, because other people got to, so why shouldn't I? Deep down, though, I had internalised my family's beliefs and knew that I had failed at perfection. It was bad enough that I was lazy and rebellious, aware of the sexual inequality around me. Now, I had to mess up the career thing too. I was not ambitious enough to reply 'journalist' quick-fire when well-meaning people Qed me about what I would do afterwards.

The one thing that galvanised me above all else, was injustice. Especially the treatment of women by our community. I knew this wasn't exactly a 'career choice' though, and I resented that it was so deeply embedded in my being. I resented others, as just described, because they were normal. I superficially belonged to their world, but behind the facade of shared interests and economic/educational status or political views, lurked That Bloody Awareness. My aunt abandoned. My cousin, believed to be murdered. My other cousin, forced into marriage then deceived and abandoned. My sister, pushed into marriage when she was not, and might never be, ready.

These women were in me and with me, and I couldn't relax and make small talk like normal people. I'm still very socially inept.

[Interlude: My mother just came down because I am STILL up, and when I told her I was writing and that I had to do it, called me 'weird' and said 'You'd better come down to Earth, you're flying around in the clouds.' Thank you, mother...]

I was, and still am, wrong wrong wrong. Odd, and wrong. I'm the lightest in the family. I'm the only one who didn't pursue a science degree. I'm the first child (and until my brother, the only one) to have lived away from home. I'm also the only agnostic, and the only one to date two very 'wrong' men. One, a non-6-foot, non-Punjabi atheist. The second, a 6ft, fair-skinned, believes-in-God dreamboat... only he's a) white b) a historian, with a penchant for reasoned debate on just about everything. Given that my parents like to subscribe to Daily Mail worldviews and a, er, 'Sikh-centric' view of history, it's going to be interesting (i.e., the other day, they were watching a man talking about how Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale was a saint, and totally right to agitate for a separate Sikh state...). If they ever meet.

So ja, I am a spectacular failure. I plan on raking myself over the coals some more in later posts (ooh, what fun!). Even my body is all wrong for a supposed 'Indian' woman. I'm slightly taller than a lot of the Indian girls I see (despite being about average for a British woman), and I don't really look Indian at all. I'm most frequently mistaken for Iranian and Greek, but also Spanish. I'm not tiny and petite and delicate-looking. To quote Laurie again:

I weigh almost nine stone; I have fat on my upper arms... I have d-cup breasts, which I despise, and a tummy which no amount of sit-ups will flatten.

Sorry, Punjabi Sikh community of Britain! Sorry British society! I don't fit either of your notions of 'conventionally attractive.' Believe me, the shops have drummed it home by now that an apple-shaped body is NOT GOOD. I'm not Kelly Brook, and I'm not Freida Pinto either. I didn't trade in my plait and glasses for feathered/layers and contacts as soon as I hit 16. I want to aim for more than a car, a house near my parents and a husband that doesn't hit me. I won't pretend stoically that the guilt and shame that keep us locked into deceiving our parents and beating ourselves up are to be respected or tolerated.

Call me pathetically feminine if you will, call me 'coconut' and 'posh' and whatever else. I will cry in your faces about the fact that I have been, and still am, hurting. No 'put up or shut up.' How about 'fess 'up, or fuck off'?

This post will get ugly. And uncomfortable.

I'm writing this because I'm sort of a little bit worried about myself.

Just admitting that has made me feel slightly better, already.

Something is wrong with me, and particularly in the way that I approach my problems. I have always been somebody who tries not to attract attention, who tries to be 'stoic' about things (I put that in inverted commas, because I think no truly sane person can really be stoic about things). A certain amount of pragmatism is obviously necessary for continued survival.

People so often slip blithely into the Oppression Olympics, because they are trying to balance the good, old-fashioned need to vent with an enlightened awareness of the greater suffering of others. I think this is stupid, on reflection. Provided that you don't just moan on about how hard you have it all the time, without any acknowledgement of those facing bigger problems elsewhere, you're not betraying anyone. It's one of the things I find the most silly amongst feminists and left-wingers. A sense of injustice is (provided it's not obsessive) healthy. 'Liberal guilt' is not, because guilt isn't really healthy. Small doses of it enable us to become better human beings, but the complex that so often constitutes 'liberal guilt' can't really be called small.

I'm sure I've said that before...

Anyway, because I find myself falling prey to this same stupid mindset that I've just condemned, I try not to moan. I've had things easier than my parents' generation when it comes to race, and it's not like I was around in the nineteenth century - or even the 1950s - when things were a lot worse for women, and particularly Asian women. The stories about marriage that I've heard - even within our apparently fairly 'modern' family - are pretty appalling, and thankfully I can say confidently that that sort of thing WOULDN'T happen today to the best of my knowledge. Not in our family.

Still, I am lying. In the desire to not be another fucking cliché - another urban liberal Asian female talking about how she was so oppressed and suffered so much OMG - I have become another fucking cliché. God, irony is so neat.

I did not want, and could not see, myself alongside Jasvinder Sanghera, or any of the other women who have written about their experiences within their families. I was never locked up by my parents, or forced into a marriage. My person had received no notable harm. What right did I have to complain?

Repeating this like a mantra, I would keep spurring myself onwards to Be A Success! Act Like A Success! Think Like A Success! An evil little voice mocked my endeavours. It never occurred to me until very recently that the voice that told me to just KEEP GOING and the voice that told me to FUCKING QUIT could be related. Strange that I never spotted the relation, because every now and again, the compartments fused, dividing walls crumbling. Then, the voice that told me to fucking quit was on form. It rambled like an alcoholic, horrifyingly unstoppable, about how I was trying to run from my fundamental emptiness. How everything I did was a pathetic search for validation and meaning of the most primitive kind.

I effectively watched lies evaporate, whenever this happened when I was talking to somebody dear to me. Be it my ex-boyfriend, The Libertarian or someone else, it was like I could hear the stimulus withering in my voice. Feel the sudden absence of balance and optimism, as if against my own ears. Note the sudden loss of language and expression. Those who've ever had to deal with it have said that it is not what I say, but my silence, that scares them. I crack apart into jaws, and the tongue of beast reaches out through them.

I will NOT be taken, though. I am not going to be pulled underwater until I drown. I have tried to suffocate the grief. It simply imploded, resulting in me putting myself in danger, or wanting to. Telling loved ones about the way my family behaved was, I thought, a way of fighting their order to (essentially) not tell the truth. I tend to hate psychobabble, but one word is OH SO USEFUL. Internalised. I had internalised my parents' values to some extent, and seen them heavily reinforced by British society. Keep your feelings private. Mind your own business. Don't air your dirty laundry.

I knew I was never going to be on Jeremy Kyle, and I probably wasn't going to write and publish a book, even though I like writing and it's one thing I seem to do fairly well. So I cursed myself. I was the (sort-of) middle child, the eldest of the two younger children. I was the one who tried on the whole to be responsible, whilst my brother could be bad. Yet I also demanded equal treatment. I could never brook the fact that he was somehow better than me by virtue of his sex, and that paradoxically I was expected to behave better because of MY sex.

I took crap from my sisters when they needed to take out their feelings on somebody, and was tossed into the ring to control my brother 'because you're his age-group.' This despite the fact that he was very aware of his superior male status and only afraid of one person - my second-eldest sister. She barely controlled him, whilst my mother continually undermined both my elder sisters' authority. In a household full of competing personalities with similar interests, I shut my mouth. And I died.

When I was little, I was confident, friendly and assertive. Everyone thought I was cute. My aunt once mistook me for a doll. When I got a fair bit older, I realised that there was a time and a place for unconditional love. It was certainly over by the age of about 11. By that point, I was most definitely different. It had begun around age 7, when I became a bookworm and stopped being good at maths.

My family fell neatly into little units: my sisters, my parents, my mum and brother, my second-eldest sister and brother... The two 'units' I was supposed to be part of, were myself and my eldest sister and myself and my brother. Both were deeply flawed by the lack of equal status: she was a second father, 10 years my senior. My brother, increasingly aware of his privilege as both the youngest and the only male, was supposed to be below me in the hierarchy but knew the reality.

I read, greedily. I was inquisitive and sensitive. I wanted to be good at maths and science, but I was better at English. I had originally wanted to be an artist. Aged about 6, I revealed this to my mother; she laughed and said I would be penniless. That dream crashed to pieces pretty much there and then.

As I grew more and more different from my family, it became more visible to them. The thing that could always unite them, was me. My sisters worked hard to make sure that I would not have any more freedom than they did. Being not particularly aggressive in nature, I went along with most things. I always protested to some extent, but what was the point? My parents, perhaps feeling guilty at their lack of presence in our lives, always bowed to pressure from my sisters. Not that their own conservative values helped much. My mother was very reluctant to let me pierce my ears at 11, and had to be persuaded by my sister.

My brother, as spoilt children do, tested the boundaries as much as I did, and emerged victorious far more frequently. Something I like to tell those close to me occasionally, sums up the difference in our power and importance within the family. For my 18th birthday, I received £20. For his, he received a Nintendo Wii. His laziness, arrogance and obstinacy often allowed him to endure my sisters' attempts to treat him as they did me. Resultantly, he escaped having housework/money-based guilt rained upon him all the time. My mother also kept him somewhat separate from us because boys were a separate and sacred species. He never had to share a room with either of my sisters; nor did he, on the whole, have to put up with their PMT.

My sisters weren't fairer than my parents though. They spoiled him at times too - my eldest sister being worse - and every time I was thrown into the ring with him, they did not want to know. Even if he started fights, it didn't matter. They didn't want to know. I hated him - really hated him. It wasn't a stereotypical, murderous hatred - more a corrosive and grudging loathing. I relished hurting him. I have no shame about that, even now.

And that is because my mother, like my sisters, refused to see my brother's unbelievably spiteful side. When I was being told off, he was allowed to join in with completely superfluous bitchy comments, only being told to butt out when I protested repeatedly. If I was criticised - as I was repeatedly - he somehow had full license to join in, despite my apparently being older. He delighted in calling me 'fat' and 'stupid,' and when I was with my ex, Internet-stalked me, looking for proof to reveal to my parents. He also loved stirring, making completely false allegations about me for no discernible reason other than he enjoyed it. When I came back late from a friend's party, my coat smelling of smoke thanks to her parents in the conservatory, he kept trying to accuse me of smoking.

I'm not done with my anger. For a long time now, I have tried to forgive and leave all this in the past. However, until I document what happened - the major incidents, if not everything - I will not find any peace at all. Now that everyone's older and my sisters married and moved out, everything has been magically forgotten. Swept under the carpet. I disclosed slices of my grimy little history to a number of people. Many of them, I fear, found it slightly ludicrous and unbelievable. Just as many, if not more, made the common mistake of trying to provide solutions rather than just LISTEN.

Part of the reason that there have only been about 2 or 3 people in my life who I can really trust with this, is because it sounds so preposterous at times, like a Goodness Gracious Me sketch. My best friend, who actually heard for herself the transition between my sister's 'outside world' and 'home' personalities. My cousins, who are also 'in the family.' However, it is a history that needs rescuing and confiding not to one at a time, but to this. My patch, my home, my blog.

Partially revenge, but much more closure - I will save my soul. I spoke earlier of the curse, which I transferred to myself. The curse, in effect, of my mother. The woman who would condemn me to a life like hers - or worse - through a lack of faith. She doesn't know it, of course, but I internalised the curse. Like Rosemary's baby, it became something else altogether inside of me. I told you guilt was unhealthy, didn't I? How can I be so bloody sure about it, eh? you ask. I'm not a psychologist, or a psychiatrist.

I know that guilt is unhealthy, because like all noted hypocrites, I suffer it myself. However, I absolve myself somewhat in telling you that it is not liberal guilt - but existence-based guilt that I feel. It is just unacceptable. I do not deserve it, and I'm not going to take it.

Continued, when I have the time/will/inclination...

Sex and slavery in the M.E

Or: A Bit More on Cultural/Moral Relativism... and why it sucks.

There is an extensive exposé of the awful abuse suffered by women leaving their countries to work abroad in places like the Middle East on the Grauniad website today. It is very sad (unsurprisingly), but it puts a lot into perspective and shows how urgently the world needs to take a more feminist/egalitarian approach to how we view each other.

For example, why is it that women are expected by default to go out and earn and support families which, in the case of eldest daughters, they're not even directly responsible for?

Why are mothers expected to abandon their kids and go abroad just to make money to survive? I am fully aware that this happens with men too, but I'm asking this Q specifically in response to the article.

It's almost like there's a penalty for motherhood. As if the women should pay - yes, you, you women, for carrying the children to term. This is, of course, present still in 'enlightened' Western culture, because women who may be 'child-bearing' are seen as less desirable, and are paid less than their male counterparts. Just the bloody NAME of a recent BBC doc on this issue sums it up neatly: 'The Trouble With Working Mothers.'

Note the subtle blame there. Why is the trouble 'with' working mothers? Why should they be stigmatised for struggling to balance kids and work? I thought that conception happened when a sperm FROM A MAN fertilised an egg in a woman. As in, y'know, the man and the woman made the child. TOGETHER.

Society condemns absent fathers, while encouraging conditions which prevent even those men who would like to spend more time with their children from doing so, in many cases.

Meanwhile, it emerges that women are very much complicit, and often even directly responsible, for much of the abuse suffered by Filipinas and other migrant workers in the Middle East. This doesn't surprise me at all. What it DOES do is show the need for a more feminist approach in society.

Morons tend to argue that feminism, by its very name, discriminates against men. I have neither the time nor the patience to comprehensively engage with the falsity of this assertion. For many women, it is feminism because it tends to have women at its heart. It begins with women in its quest to balance out the world. Naturally, the sort of privilege-greedy types who argue this will either want attention, or simply want to divert attention away from themselves, by claiming victim status.

Fuck the Oppression Olympics. Shriek all you want, your privilege is showing. Only someone in a higher societal position could respond like that, essentially saying 'Oh my God, it is so unfair that a movement exists, which challenges the existing social structures! Being a white male is so hard, I have to erm, like, drive my own car to work.' Er, riiiiiiiight. I get it. Being asked to listen to, and engage respectfully with, people who are not you is SO OMG HARD. It's so hard, in fact, that it's comparable to being pushed off a tall building for being in possession of a mobile phone while working far, far from home. Riiiiiiiiiiiight.

To now return to the idea of cultural relativism; in my last post, I mentioned the wonderful sonia. At the last PP meet-up, she spoke to me a great deal about some of the dark moments within Islamic history, most notably sex slavery in the Caliphate. I am just going to quote this:

The British Empire and all the rest are rightly not allowed to forget their slavery days, and so it should be with the Islamic empire’s history. We need to be open with our past, basically, otherwise, all this ‘oh poor us, we don’t like your foreign policy’ doesn’t really hold any water. Because - the question is why? why are you objecting to imperialist foreign policy - on what basis? universal Human rights? Especially if you can’t condemn your own imperial past which made the same mistakes, its just as hypocritical as the politicians.

What a woman.

I mention sonia's point about sex slavery in particular, because the thing that crops up repeatedly in the article is that many migrant women were employed by other women - whose husbands then saw them as their property.

Rephrase. My wife employs you. However, I am a man, in a society where men are best, and not only are you female, you're not even Arab. You're worthless. Fuck you. In fact, that's EXACTLY what I'll do:

"Many women who come to the centre talk about how they are treated as sex objects by the Arab men... It starts off with simple groping, but in most cases ends up in full rape."

Gee. So, you used to have your kept wife at home, all delicate and veiled to show her superior social status, as someone who didn't have to work, whilst you had your slaves who were your property and thus at the mercy of your desires, sexual or otherwise. Now, you have your wife at home, who employs migrant workers to do the work for her, who are your property and thus at the mercy of your desires! Spot the difference...

These women are viewed not as workers, but as slaves. Slaves, to which the owner's husband has a right. The truth of what sonia says about needing to confront history is apparent here. The behaviour of the Arab world in the past has not only not been criticised, but is no doubt still lionised by many. Most noxiously, it has been able to continue, unchallenged. Men and women within the Middle East who mistreat these women obviously have no conception of feminism or human rights. Waiting for them to condemn such behaviour is obviously tantamount to waiting for hell to freeze over. Their ancestors did it! Ergo it must be right!

And there's nothing like the all-too-common nostalgia to obscure the truth. I fully agree with sonia, and am going to repeat what I said last post. The truth now, please. History laid bare.

The article also deals with women present here, in London, of course, and it's equally important that we remember how far from perfect this society is, too. I want to do SOMETHING with my life to help people like this. I'm not quite sure how, yet, but I will.

MAKE A DONATION, FOLKS!

http://www.kalayaan.org.uk/

Cultural Relativism: Fuck It.

As Raphael Saadiq once falsettoed urgently: People! Somebody's gotta tell the truth (ooh-ooh-ooh).

(Except it was more like 'Pih-pul!').

The lady-goddess that is sonia left some absolutely awesome comments on a Pickled Politics thread that radiated so much emotion to me, I almost developed a headache. Hoo boy, it was ugly.

Seriously, she was so sterling, I wanted to print off what she said and stick it up somewhere, to fill my brain full of good thinky-juice whenever I feel tired and slightly insane, like right now at almost 03.22 a.m. as I type, high off of menstruation and wearing a pyjama top over a dress.

Er... anyway. There is a hell of a lot of cultural relativism around these days, y'know. I have noticed it before, but I thought it was starting to become less fashionable, especially given the increasing awareness and condemnation of things like 'honour'-based violence, forced marriage et al. If nothing else, the work of the Forced Marriage Unit has brought about important and very useful changes in the law. It's REAL empowerment - now, if a person is perceived to be in danger, almost anyone can request a FMPO (Forced Marriage Protection Order). That means friends, teachers, lovers - some sort of involvement has to be demonstrated so that it's not just for busybodies to intervene, but it is a life-saving change.

Hence y'see, I was getting some bona fide hope. Thankfully, sonia reminded me that there is work to be done in combatting cultural relativism. She also reminded me, unintentionally, of something I've been vaguely aware of for some time now, yet unable to express.

Cultural relativism, as we generally understand it, 'is the principle that an individual human's beliefs and activities should be understood in terms of his or her own culture.' Thanks, Wikipedia! From what I can see, scrolling down a little, 'many anthropologists began to criticize the way moral relativism, in the guise of cultural relativism, is used to mask the effects of Western colonialism and imperialism.'

Stop press. STOP PRESS - we have the winning phrase: 'moral relativism, in the guise of cultural relativism.'

It is good to have an awareness of the place of a person within wider society, yes? Undoubtedly. As social animals, we live this way by default. A good alternative way to think of it is as context. It's the anthropologists' way of saying: 'Hold up, context. Everything happens for reasons.' This is both commendable and necessary.

What is dangerous, is when this attitude is grossly misunderstood and misappropriated by non-anthropologists. Then, as remarked, we have the wolf of moral relativism that lurks within, all too often. It is lazy, illogical and downright fucking dishonest.

I mean, come on. Let's square the logic of that: 'It is good to understand the importance of context... ergo, I am not going to judge something because it's not 'of my culture.'

What the fuck??!!

I am Asian. I am also British. Indian culture interests me greatly. Let me make a distinction here, which is a necessary one: I like Indian CULTURE. CULTURE, as in music, books, films. SOCIAL TRADITIONS are a different thing altogether. I feel that those can, and should change.

The lazy shorthand that is often used for 'social tradition,' is what...? That's right, you guessed it - 'culture.'

It's probably OK for anthropologists to use the word 'culture' more generally, because they understand it fully. They're aware of all its meanings and applications. We lazy modern plebs, however, are not. By describing a social tradition as 'culture' in this day and age, you are doing something very dangerous indeed. You are saying that it is a product of a society. That people of a particular society produce it, as they would literature, cinema or music.

Does anyone see the flaw in that logic? Timid people, afraid of putting a foot wrong, don't want to pass judgement on 'other cultures' out of fear of racism, accusations of neo-colonialism/imperialism/etc. Yet ironically enough, when you employ moral relativism, you are doing exactly that. You are playing God, you are effectively saying 'I have the power to make a difference here, but this appears to be a product of the people, this social tradition. They obviously want it, because it goes over there. Why should I intervene?'

I am very much aware of the need for collective individual responsibility in challenging modes of thought. However, that doesn't change the fact that we grow up, and enter into a world that is almost always made for us. The traditions of the society I inhabit are hardly a product of my beliefs; they pre-date me, and I choose whether or not I fit with them. So, my choice is already slightly restrained - I cannot make the world as I wish through wishing alone. Do you see the disingenuousness of 'culture-as-product-of-society'-constrained thinking?

This also betrays a deep ignorance and, you might even say, a sense of superiority. If you assume that culture reflects society, you are thinking democratically. You are thinking in terms of your world, where life for the most part reflects art. Where, for the most part, you can behave as you like. Whereas obviously other places aren't democracies. Saudi Arabia, to give a great example. When I say 'superiority,' I doubt that it applies to all people who have indulged in moral/cultural relativism. However, for some this is true... maybe, just maybe somewhere in them, they believe that things are 'like that' 'over there' because secretly, they deserve it. Being inferior.

You may pause to scoff, blowing your tea or whatever out through your nose with derision. I will only say that the depths to which irrational prejudice can submerge itself, would surprise anyone. After seeing 'religious' people frequently damn victims of natural disaster to their fate with the rejoinder that 'they must have done something in a previous life,' I am not discounting the superiority. Remember, if fear is present, superiority is very likely present too. You don't know what 'they' are like. What if 'they' are like you? What would that say about you? Why should you know about them anyway? It's about being the better person... but maybe you are the better person. That'll teach them to scare you with their weird differences!

The worst thing is when you see moral relativism employed towards ethnic groups who are of the same nationality. When people react uneasily to events occurring within their own country, and decide that they won't pass judgement because 'it's not my culture.'

I'm sorry? Since when did we start living in giant, fenced-off glass domes? If we share this country, we share this country. We're all responsible. It would be far more honest to take the apathetic angle, than the relativist angle: 'Frankly, I don't know about it/them enough to understand it/them, so I don't really care.' Relativism is often little more than a blend of cynicism and laziness. Yet it tries to claim some sort of moral high ground for itself, by wearing the clothes of cultural relativism? RUBBISH. Call time on it, now!

Personally, I think moral relativism is generally the defence of those who don't quite have the courage to admit their ignorance out loud. It is a ploy to make oneself look tolerant and liberal; what I really think lies behind it, in many cases, is fear of the mirror.

Because, as any fule kno, we do not live in a perfect, equal society. There is just as much suffering and injustice in 'enlightened' Western societies as there is elsewhere, and things like championing of 'human rights', tolerance and education often happen in spite of, not because of, the majority. If you're Jenny or Johnny Conformist, the sort who blithely laughs at a sexist joke here and there, or occasionally agrees with something 'un-PC' without thinking about it - you are compromised already. Your moral compass is reeling, and you know it. Though we are all, of course, compromised to some extent. You can criticise Saudi Arabia, or Iran, or whatever, but somebody will strike back at you before long. Then, you won't be able to win the argument. No more point-scoring. No more winning, because from then on you live on the knife-edge of sensitivity, always reflecting, always on jealous guard of your newly-discovered integrity.

Unless, of course, you're Paris Hilton.

This, I think, is why Daily Mail readers (and the BNP) hate Islam (and Muslims) so much. They're like kin under the skin in quite a few instances. Both disapprove of homosexuality, both are dubious about feminism (to say the least), both are uncomfortable about the visibility of sex and nostalgic for times past, both believe in the values of violence as a punishment as well as a deterrent... Naturally, this doesn't apply to all interpretations of Islam, or all Muslims. However, the enthusiastic Failite will view all Muslims as though they are derangedly conservative reactionaries, whilst fundie Muslims will view all Westerners as loose infidels. The Fail (and other outlets of the MSM) choose the ad-hominem line of attack for the most part, taking on Muslims rather than engaging critically with Islam itself. Fundies, equally, will disseminate angry rhetoric about over-sexualised society, baby-killers (the Luton protest, remember?) and the like. At the most extreme end, they blow themselves and others up. Attacking, yet again, the person (although in a direct physical sense) rather than the system or the institutions to which they ascribe so much of their anger.

Clearly, a very honest discussion of race, religion and history is long overdue in this country. In the meantime though, I will say this now: things like basic respect for women are not 'moral relativism.' A pox on anyone who tries to make out that they are. The rage over MPs' expenses has resurrected a notion of which I am dearly fond, and which had suddenly slipped peoples' minds previously. Public service.

Public service. What we want from our politicians. What we want the BBC to do. What our libel laws so often work against. There have always been lies on sale, but since Thatcher made it OK to be greedy, things are reaching a serious point. I don't hold Thatcher personally responsible for all that came after her; that would be ridiculous. It must be said though, that by legitimising the idea that everyone can - and should - pull themselves up by their bootstraps, she effectively endorsed a particularly ruthless and isolationist view of others.

Living and working in an area filled with people who originate from other countries - like me myself - I see how stupid and destructive that idea was. No-one's advocating a socialist utopia, but at the very least in a democracy, there must be engagement. Public service, right? The public broadcaster and the public servants should work to reflect the interests of the people?

It hasn't happened. Getting more black/brown faces on, what has it done, apart from give Fail readers more reason to complain? It is 2009 and we are facing an actual threat of increased BNP support here in Britain - in London - even though the National Front was supposed to have died in the '80s.

The truth must be told. History must be laid bare. The BBC can just bloody well dumb down some of it and/or work it into an episode of Eastenders. Put it in as a series of subliminal messages. Put it in the news. Suspend secondary school 'Citizenship' lessons - for at least once a week - and make the truth known. Drive down the fucking streets with a loudhailer and blare it into people's plate-glassed office cubicles.

A party that wants to deport me is looking to gain power. Its London Assembly member has been invited to the Queen's party. ON MY BIRTHDAY. You want me not to take this personally? Too late. I'm sick of the Oppression Olympics. I'm sick of the lies. I'm sick of hearing how other people actually have it worse because they're more thick-fucking-ignorant than me.

PUBLIC SERVICE. THOSE WHO CAN - TEACH.

Thanks to The Libertarian, I am now obsessed with a song about a dove. God, even the short clip of Sonam Kapoor with aforementioned dove is cute enough to make me want to cry.

Putting Sex In Its Rightful Place

Sound the klaxons! I am about to go on to write a non-watertight post which will include some assertions and much musing. WHAT IT WILL BE: a reflection and an invitation to debate, discuss and ponder (I know, I know, call the ponce police NOW!). WHAT IT WON'T BE: sociological treatise supported by pages upon pages of peer-reviewed science.

Sex is overrated.

Yeah, I said it. That's right. You read me right. SEX IS OVERRATED!

Now that I've grabbed your attention with my controversial soundbite, sit still and bear with me. I don't think ALL sexual activity is overrated...

but when I said 'sex,' you thought of penetrative intercourse, didn't you? Go on, it's the right answer! It's the answer I want you to give!

I've always been a bit dubious about penetration. When I was younger, it was the idea that something being inserted up you could be fun. If you think about it, that brings to mind injections. Injections are not very fun, now, are they?

(Incidentally, I've only just now made that link, so don't go crediting my teenage self with scope I didn't actually have...).

As an Asian woman though, the prospect of it absolutely fucking terrified me. Ideally, I would be imagined - and expected - to be a virgin, a sexual ingénue, whilst my husband could have had numerous sexual encounters, and we would not discuss it because you Do Not Go There. Why would you want to broach a topic that would only lead to strife? Wondering how many previous lovers he might have had, if he's being honest about that number, how you compare, why it's OK for him and not for you...

Not all Asian men are hypocrites. Some of the genuinely devout ones aren't. However, depressingly enough, it is the religion-following (rather than any sort of internal reflection and self-awareness) that makes them so, for a lot of the men I know of. Sikh men. Let it be said though, that the power structures are partly responsible. Even though men benefit much more than women in Asian culture, they're by NO MEANS free of baggage.

So yeah, I would wonder why the hell the whole world was so goddamn obsessed with sex anyway. From the age of eleven, I made a resolution, and this was my only life's resolution. Now it may sound sad to some, and maybe some sort of betrayal to others (OMG, WHY DIDN'T YOU LIKE, AIM TO BE AN ASTRONAUT OR SOMETHING?!), it was important to me. It still is - important and necessary, and I feel that I was very lucky to find it.

I vowed that I wanted to love and be loved. Note: I didn't say 'wanted to be married,' or that I 'wanted to be in love.' No, I wanted to be loved. Not drama and not tears. Not the sort of relationship where his basic acknowledging of me as a fellow human was a source of happiness. Not the sort of marriage where his leaving me to get on with the housework, rather than criticising me for not doing it the way his mum did, was considered desirable. A partner who could understand that, was THE benchmark by which I would set my standards, thank you very much.

Sex has always been important, but many would argue that it has become more recent in modern times. I would be inclined to agree, especially when you think of changing attitudes to pornography, the arrival of the Internet and a general liberalising of society. That's not to say we're all fine with talking about sex now, but you know, you have things like Anne Summers shops and mainstream papers such as The Independent running lists of 'The Ten Best Sex Toys.' Hard to imagine in the 1950s, eh?

However, the way we think about sex has often been problematic. For a long time, you had a love/sex dichotomy, and it still persists. The idea that love and sex could be separate (especially for women) began to develop towards the end of the nineteenth century. I'm thinking specifically of Kate Chopin's The Awakening (1899), which tentatively broaches a subject all too familiar to modern readers: the notion that you can love somebody - while simultaneously being attracted to someone else. No doubt it was there before, but it was very likely taboo, especially for women. Fancy someone other than your husband? You strumpet!

For some people, I don't doubt that love and sex is often - maybe even always - separate. That may even work for them. Unfortunately, it doesn't work for a lot of people. Read any number of letters to any number of agony aunts, and you see the same ol' time-weathered issues recurring: I love a married man, but he won't leave his wife for me, blah blah blah. Or I'm unsatisfied and I'm having an affair, blah blah blah. Alongside this kind of thing, you get celebratory articles about women finding sexual satisfaction in their 40s by having affairs, and stuff like that.

What I'm trying to say, I guess, is that - perhaps because of an increase in sexual freedoms for women - it became more acceptable for women to 'do as men do' sexually. Unfortunately, however, that increase in freedom didn't necessarily coincide with a weakening of certain ideas about sex and gender. Hence, many women had more sex, but the old idea that women wanted love and men wanted sex still held firm in the minds of many. So, you got this stupid and painful situation where women could have sex with whoever, but for many, love and sex were intrinsically bound in their subconscious.

There's also the fact that sex leads to the release of oxytocin, which:

has various functions in the body, such as inducing labor contractions and milk ejection, but from evolutionary biology’s perspective, its main evolutionary function is to bond us to our children for life. It also serves to bond us to our mate…at least long enough to produce a child and (if we're lucky) get it on its feet.

We are not programmed for monogamy, nor our own sexual satisfaction, it would seem. I DO NOT mean by this to say that women should stop exercising sexual freedom like men. Evolutionary science has been conveniently used in the past to enforce gender stereotypes and permit men to 'sow their wild oats' while denying women the same freedom. That's what you'd call 'bad science,' though. Proper science shows itself to be egalitarian in showing that actually, we're all set up for the same goal: to further the species. If males will 'sow their wild oats,' then females will replace flagging partners.

This is where I come back in. Yuman beans are, of course, brain-equipped creatures and not just bags of hormones, correct? We realised the dangers of blindly following our instincts since very, very long ago (see: Greek tragedy), in the form of overpopulation, if nothing else. We can't have our cake and eat it too. Either we have long-term stable relationships, or we have incredible sexual peaks and troughs. The time-honoured way to have both is to fake replacing your partner, by means of sexual exploration. You may notice how people always use terms like 'reinvent' or 'rediscover.' It's change, but you're tricking your brain - instead of a new partner, you're simply using new techniques to keep dopamine levels consistent.

Another possibility, to be used alongside, is to reassess the importance of sex. To put sex back in its rightful place (AT LAST! I hear you cry). No sex vs love. No more of this 'I love my husband, but I have great sex with the plumber.' No more of this 'I love my wife, but my secretary is so naughty and dirty.' Actions have repercussions. That's the shittest and most important bit of being an adult. Especially when there's children or friends involved, and Lord knows, there so often are. It's almost embarrassing.

Be slow. Be messy. Be fumbling. Learn, gradually and carefully, how to turn each other on. Think of your sex life as a book, which you chop into bits and put back together again. Does the end HAVE to be the end? How final was the end, anyway? In so many cases, you probably read to the end and then thoughts lingered in your head. You thought 'I wonder what happened next to so-and-so?' Even if there was a sequel, the likelihood of it carrying on right where the last left off was unlikely. In cases where that DOES happen, the first media I can think of are soap operas and comic-book series - and what are they? Long-running.

Penetration is not the end, nor should it be. It's been established that many women don't come through penetration alone; evidently it's not the key to orgasm in itself. Yet we persist in elevating it to such ridiculous levels of importance. Teens are all so interested in 'going all the way' and 'doing it.' Very few people's first time is about learning how to enjoy sex; it seems more to be about 'getting it out of the way.' How depressing! That's life, though. Social conformity exerts such horrible, crushing pressure on us that people have sex - or pretend to have - before they're even really ready for it.

I think the common attitude of 'lose virginity drunkenly, so as to ease fear, then have sex whenever I feel like' is fair enough, but watch out, people. If that's how you want to do, then you have to do it right. Go all the way. Don't think about love. Where sex leads, love does not necessarily follow - and you know what? That's not because men want sex and women want love. It's not because love and sex are opposed. It's because reproduction and monogamy are opposed. Yeah, that's right! How hilarious it feels to read that, when religion has been advocating socially/religiously/legally-enforced monogamy as the prerequisite for reproduction for years.

Sex needs to be rethought, and not just by feminists. Enough of the turgid meatstick in the quivering lower-lips. Enough of tits, asses and cock. Have you ever found somebody's eyelashes sexy? No? I sure as hell have (The Libertarian's thick, charcoal-dusting caught my eye even before his green-and-gold eyes). I like lips, in a man. The Libertarian has very rosy cheeks and lips, a freckled nose and unexpectedly dark, thick upper lashes. Half the time, I don't know whether to frame-and-display him, or kiss as usual.

I think I'm lucky, because I grew up with an awareness of classic Bollywood cinema, where filmi courtesans redefined the markers of sexuality. Between the sashaying of hips and the thrusting of abdominal muscles that we know so well, alongside wet saris, there was something new. I'm thinking of Madhuri Dixit as the courtesan Chandramukhi in Devdas, of the song 'Kaahe Chhed Chhed Mohe.' One of her most fervent admirers sings (roughly translated from memory):

'Jasmine makes fragrant her lovely dark tresses... Radha's face is aglow, electric... Her gait, seductive.'

In Sanskrit poetry, as well as old Bollywood, eyes, eyelashes, hair and faces are most often described as alluring. The face and hands are most often employed by filmi courtesans to seduce. It's still objectification, you might argue - but at least it's not quite as violent a form of objectification. It's not the same as when: 'you talk about getting laid, you never say a woman, you say a broad, a lay, a baby, a doll, a bird, you talk about butts and boobs, every time you mention a woman I see her either as a sort of window-dresser’s dummy or as a heap of dismembered parts, breasts, or legs or buttocks.’

There is some sense that a woman has some power, something concealed which is hers and which she can choose to give. Granted, this is somewhat illusory with a courtesan (a bought woman) - but I'm not telling anyone to be a courtesan! Nor am I saying 'cover up' or 'behave like a man/lady.' Sexual problems in a relationship are so often merely the most visible element of a larger underlying problem. Fluffy handcuffs, toys and dressing up are all very well. Just make sure it's not all one-way - and just make sure you're realistic about the relationship of sex to love for you. Does sex really = love? For a lot of us middle-class kudia, raised as respectably as we are, I don't really think so. Intercourse - especially penetrative - is not the apogee of desire. Standing close to someone, denying yourself, a loaded glance, a telling kiss - give it a try sometime if you haven't already, o no-doubt-horrified readers...

On Abuse

It's quite long, but please, please, read this post about abuse.

It's very well-written and thought-provoking, and it considers abuse in a number of ways which are both illuminating and surprising.

Feminism Wept...

Oh my God.

Let me announce this, here and now. I meant to earlier, but it just kept getting lost in the tiny cracks of exhaustion emerging between exams and school, travel and revision.

Whilst preparing an oral presentation in French ('How to reconcile feminism and Islam in France?' Only, in French, naturellement.), it hit me that feminists, like Muslims, have to keep putting up with vicious and untrue attacks on our public image. Like Muslims, we face constant attack by unimaginative and self-serving opponents who would like to blame us for everything-they-possibly-can that is wrong with society today. EXAMPLE. All the different strands of feminism are handily grouped and dismissed, which allows for a very effective form of 'divide and conquer,' whereby feminists such as myself have to say that we're not in agreement with those who really do seem to hate men, and assumptions are made about our sexuality.

A lot of modern feminists find themselves in the position of having to distance themselves from second-wave feminism, because of the prominence and influence of lesbian feminism within it. Feminist-haters continually highlight the misandry that SOME (SOME, not ALL) lesbian and/or radical feminists have shown, using it as a way to shout down the many valid criticisms they make. In fact, they use that as a way to shout down almost any form of feminist critique that doesn't bend over backwards to please them (see most articles even vaguely pertaining to feminism on Cif...). Divide and conquer. It is divide and conquer. They turn on individuals en masse, conveniently displaying the very mob mentality that they ascribe to those same individuals. Those individuals find themselves stuck, or should I say: WE are stuck. We can't acknowledge the huge ideological debt that we owe to second-wave feminism. Like Muslims constantly being harassed as terrorists, we must distance ourselves and say 'Not in our name,' as if it is completely removed from us.

Yet as any fule kno, radical voices are useful and important (as long as they're not generating immediate danger, of course). They stand to inform us both of what we could have, and in the case of more conservative voices, what we could lose, if we remain idle. Let me just say that I am not trying to establish some sort of suffering equivalence with Muslims here. I am so NOT A FAN of the Oppression Olympics. All I am doing is drawing a parallel, one which is in some ways heavily ironic.

It must be said that the public image of feminism certainly isn't done any favours when people who claim to strongly identify with it promote exactly the kind of cartoonish stereotypes that fem-haters love and lap up. Here I must cease, and present you with this. Julie Bindel and Julie Burchill interviewing each other.

It is ghastly. It is so, utterly, ghastly. Yet it's also very clever, because ultimately neither of them gives away anything new in the least about themselves. Burchill's reputation as a giggling, bandwagon-jumping delusionary is confirmed, and Bindel once again comes across as the stereotypical lesbo-misandrist automaton.

Feminism wept. Feminism wept. There is a certain hollowly-humorous irony in Bindel saying:

I much prefer women to men. A lot of them are emotional cripples. Have you not found that? Are we such different feminists do you think?

after Burchill saying:

But part of what makes a man a man is that he never takes offence! When you see sad-sacks like, what was his name, Neil something [Lyndon, author of No More Sex War: the Failures of Feminism]. "Men's Lib" - that's the opposite of a man, to me. Just shut up and take your lumps. And then we can all have a laugh.

It's so lovely that even in prison, men who aren't touchy-feely have to be stopped from beating up rapists - not just child molesters, but rapists of grown women.

This too after Burchill cheerfully hypocritises (neologism alert!) her self-ascribed epithet of 'militant feminist' by saying:

I like men and get on much better with them one to one than I do women, who can be a bit emotional.

and

I don't want to hear about every last thing someone is feeling. I think most men have it about right. All men should be like my dad!

I'm sorry. What the FUUUUUUUCK are you talking about, you stupid bitch? She basically DID just confirm what Bindel said - that men are 'emotional cripples,' because they don't overshare like those annoying women - and then implied that that is how men should be.

Great, Burchill, you stupid fucking bitch. So, a kid who is being bullied should just 'take his lumps,' should he? The likes of you should be spared 'every last thing someone is feeling,' until they walk into a school and massacre a load of people in one go?

As for the men beating up rapists comment - I must reiterate my expletive-garnished question above. The justice system is supposed to deal with individuals, Burch. It's not the job of mobs, or single persons to decide what happens to criminals. Jesus wept, this time.

It is ironic though, this woman is a shamelessly Freudian stereotype herself. 'All men should be like my dad'? Bet you wish you could've married him!

I have revised my opinion on the Grauniad's decision here. I now think it was absolute genius. You have *ahem* an intelligent and dedicated campaigner who generally poses as 'professional lesbian' (I hope she's not really as virulently anti-men as she makes out...) alongside a showy and inexplicably well-paid professional contrarian (not a very good one, either). The latter indulges in a frankly breathtaking display of female misogyny, showing the very real need for conventional assumptions of gender ('masculinity' and 'femininity') to be challenged. The former, perhaps because of her own transphobia and misandry, smiles and lets it pass. Oh, the female friendship! Oh, the uniting nature of the sisterhood!

Truly, feminism wept. I leave you with this thread I found, discussing Bindel's transphobia, which is really interesting. Look out for the post by 'Forced Buy' - in fact, if you ignore all the rest, at the very least read that. It's really insightful, and Burchill enters the equation once again!
This interview with Susie Orbach, feminist author and Dolly Draper's mentor, is also good reading. Also: a thread about whether make-up is acceptable or not. P.S.: My heart bleeds for Kater Andron. It really does, but... I just can't force those tears out. It's sort of like when you want to take a shit, but you can't.

(Given that the 'article' is called 'Julie Bindel talks to fellow feminist Julie Burchill,' I'm starting to wonder if the Guardian, a paper that SHOULD be feminists' friend, doesn't have it in for us too...)

Dear homophobic (and/or religiously bigoted) fuckturds of the world...

'Gayness' cannot be taught. It is not a disease that you 'catch' just by hearing about it. Nor is it a choice, unlike the way that your RELIGION and fucking INTOLERANCE is. Quite simply: you chose to be odious, they didn't.

People struggle to leave religions fully after they have grown up within a particular religious culture. The 'culture' bit of the religion - not the indoctrination, not the abstract theorising (though it may to some extent stick) - but the culture bit sticks. These slices of ritual offer people familiarity and comfort. Rip them out, and you are left with a tottering, hollow shell. It is a part of identity that they struggle with for peace.

Now, think about gay people. Gay people struggle to accept their sexuality fully, having grown up (in most cases) within a particularly heterosexual culture (do you see what I'm doing here? Yeah? You better). The 'majority' bit of the culture - not the lack of attraction to women, not the society-assigned 'effeminacy' (though it may to some extent stick) - but the 'majority' bit sticks. This awareness of being suddenly and inadvertently 'outside the norm' offers people self-loathing and misery. Rip them out, and you are left with a possibility for self-development. It is a part of identity that they struggle with for peace. Graham Greene (a Catholic at that!) got it: suffering is identity.

Now many, many people in this country are somewhat unshowy by nature. They personify this verse, from Coventry ska legends The Specials' classic and angry hit, Concrete Jungle:

I won't fight for a cause
don't want to change the law
Leave me alone, just leave me alone
I want to get out on my own

Many of the gay folks I know, even if they might be out on a Gay Pride march, are hardly Peter Tatchell. Stop trying to turn them into your radical, minority 'Other.' You must feel so fucking pleased with yourself that your harassment ends up producing enemies that weren't even there to begin with. They're not paedophiles. They're not interested in your sex life (so why are you so obsessed with theirs?!) and they sure as HELL aren't interested in you.

Johann Hari's article is apparently about the Daily Heil's (formerly Hitler-supporting paper and online messageboard home-away-from-home for BNP knobs) 'vile campign against teaching kids about homosexuality.'

Oh, let me see. The Heil considers itself a 'Middle-England' paper, and by the look of the lobster-hued, jowl-and-froth 'I love herd mentality' types I've seen reading it (though, let's be fair here, there are plenty of moronic Asians and Blacks who read it too. My own fucking SISTER brings it home from the gym, sssssssssss), it unfortunately is. I have been holding my Listerine-laced breath with anticipation of the day when hackers set their sights on its website (goodbye Femail! Goodbye faux-concerned pictures of women naked/gaining/losing weight, with subtle bitching from fellow females! GOODFUCKINGBYEHAHA). In the absence of that, I'll settle for some mild hypocrisy-debunking.

If some of the Heil's target audience's precious little darlings wanted to study Performing Arts, they would probably prematurely expire at the chance of having even momentary contact with Sir Ian McKellen. Sir Ian McKellen, aka Richard III. Aka GANDALF. GANDALF is the God of wise-old-man dramatic roles, thanks to Sir Ian McKellen. He kicks Dumbledore's ass (both of them - although one of them died, so I am sorry if that is horribly offensive).

BUT - BUT - what will Jean "How about LESS sex education" from Blackburn,Lancs (no, I will not correct the fuckturd spacing error there, much as it kills me to refrain) do when she finds out...

*tremble*

... when she finds out he is A POOF!

That's right! Like so many other successful and admirable individuals on this Earth, Ian McKellen does the naughty with other men!

When you watched him, in Richard III, or Lord of the Rings, did you sit there, thinking 'Wow, sir Ian McKellen acts so well, despite his GAYNESS' or 'Wow, I would've expected Richard to start commenting on how well-coordinated the army's uniforms were, because the actor that plays him is GAY, but he didn't, he just efficiently dramatised Shakespeare's Richard in a whole new context!'

No. No, you did not. (Or maybe you did, in which case, you need help. Seriously. Urgently. Preferable in prescription-pill, or therapy, form...)

And I bet if he was running a drama workshop which your brat(s) benefited from, you might even be MALFUNCTIONING right now.

Now we know you 'Christian' (or whatever else) Mailites claim to be obsessed with what you can't see (God), and take literally that which is now past (the happenings in the Bible).

Here's a little suggestion for you. Less obsession with what you can't see (homosexuality) and more taking literally of that which is now past... but not irrelevant (Jesus's - and whoever else's - teachings). Alternatively, do as the Pope has done, and try to make it all go away by indulging in a prayathon. At the very least, that'll get you indoors and out from under our feet, while we aim for the more inclusive future, eh?

P.S: My brain has had it with the term 'PC gone mad,' and has replaced it with 'P. C gone mad.' So, when idiots start - gingerly, or frothingly - trying to rave about 'the PC brigade,' I will have a vision of a charging group of bleating IT technicians. When I hear 'PC gone mad,' I will have a delightful mental image of a personal computer going all Marvin on its owner, before growing to Godzilla size, hopping round the city, and then leaping - splat - onto the Daily Mail offices. Byu-da-full.