Speaking out

As feminists and queers and queer feminists, the writers of this blog come up against a lot of societal resistance to our views - and the ways in which we live our lives.

But today at work I was lost for words at lunch time when someone started complaining about call centres and the 'Paki fucks you have to talk to.' 'I tell them to put someone Scottish on the phone so as I can understand them.'

What on earth can (or should) a person (with strong feelings against racism and discrimination of all kinds) say to this?

I want to hear your thoughts.

dear jls...

... when you sing 'You could be the DJ, I could be the dancefloor, come and get up on me' * - you're asking me to walk all over you, right? Excellent.

* brought to you by the radio, constant source of inspiration and delight.

Same-sex marriage in Argentina

Following legal controversy involving the annulling of a number of same-sex marriages, Argentina has become the first country in Latin America to legalise same-sex marriage. The law now extends a number of legal protections to same-sex spouses (including adoption rights and benefits entitlement), and now phrases the definition of marriage as being "between partners".

This is a huge deal. Latin American homophobia just isn't the same as European homophobia. It's a very different kind of beast.

Transcript of the BBC video follows below:

A woman's voice voiceover: [Image of a board displaying a tally of votes] After hours of debate the Argentine senate finally voted in favour of same-sex marriage. [Cut to people standing outdoors at night, wearing coats and many in brightly coloured clothing, with banners and Pride flags] Outside in the cold celebrated, waving banners and cheering [some of the people jump up and down and cheer and some hug each other]. The issue had divided Argentina between left and right, conservative and liberal. It triggered strong opposition from many religious leaders, including the head of the capital church in Argentina, who said the bill would destroy the family unit. [Cut to a close-up to two of people, both women, holding each other and kissing. Cut to close-ups of several other couples hugging.] On the eave of the debate, tens of thousands of their supporters had gathered in front of Congress to protest against the bill [Back to the image of all the same-sex marriage supporters cheering, with banners and Pride flags]. It also pitted the president, Cristina Fernadez who supports the the bill, against the capital church. The new law changes the description of marriage in the Civil Code from "between a man and a woman" to "between partners". It also gives homosexuals the same rights as heterosexuals to inheritance, social benefits, and adoption.

--IP

Consent in childhood

There's a little girl, about nine years old. She's playing with two male cousins, both of them grown-up. They tease her, affectionately, but constantly. They're all part of a culture that puts heavy emphasis lighthearted teasing as part of bonding and social interaction, so it's a routine part of their socialising. They've all grown up with it, and it's not mean-spirited. But she wasn't in the mood, or maybe she didn't like one of the jokes.

She says "stop it," laughing. They keep teasing.

Again, she says "stop it," this time a little more seriously. They keep teasing.

Then she teases back. They keep teasing.

She teases back, but now it's clearly less fun on her part. They tell her not to be bad tempered.

She says "stop fucking around." They tell her off for swearing.

She gets really annoyed, raises her voice, swears again, she's clearly fighting back now, not just teasing. They tell her not to be bad tempered, not to take everything so seriously. The joking around has gone sour, and everyone backs off, and one of the grown-ups says to the little kid "What wrong with you?"

***

Here's what I saw: she can't say "stop". That is, she explicitly said "stop" on three separate occasions, first in the same lighthearted tone they were using, then seriously, then angrily, but they didn't stop. So she can say "stop", but it isn't listened to. She also used the kinds of things that grown-ups use to show they are Really Pissed Off (swearing, raising voice, etc), but wasn't taken seriously using them either. Instead, she got told off. The fact that they can tell her off and she can't tell them off signals the unequal footing their on: she has to listen to what they say and stop when they stop and play by their rules; they don't have to listen to what she says.

Here's what they saw: it was fun! It was cute! We were playing! And then she got annoyed. She couldn't take a joke.

***

This sort of situation happens every day, for hundreds of thousands of children in loving and supportive families (as this one is). Children are not seen as Serious People who can decide what the game is, when it starts and stops, what the rules are.

Later, we expect those same children to grow up into adults who understand autonomy. But no one has taught them that "stop" means STOP. They do grow up to be adults who understand that rape is bad. But what does it mean if you don't have the underlying basics to believe that "stop" means STOP? As Clarisse wrote, sometimes our cultural assumptions override what we know about consent.

This is the way most kids are raised. Most kids won't grow up abusive. Most of them are nice. But once in a while, without meaning to, they make their younger cousins cry.

Thomas, over at Yes Means Yes writes:

Dad gets his attention, and says, “If she’s not having fun, you have to stop.”

He is two. He needs to hear this now, and so does she. And again, and again, and again, so that like wearing a helmet on the bike it is ingrained. [...]

At one level it’s an anti-rape lesson. This is “Yes Means Yes” in practice. The mere absence of “no” does not a partnership make; and a real partner wants to participate. [...]

But it’s not just an anti-rape lesson. It’s a life lesson. So I start teaching it now. He doesn’t need to know what sex is or what rape is to know what a partner is. If your partner isn’t having fun, you stop.

Part of the problem we face with how we teach consent is that we ground it in teaching about sex. We don't ground it in teaching about play, and routing interaction, and assumptions we make, on a routine basis, about how we treat the people around us. Like Thomas said: it's a life lesson, not just an anti-rape lesson.

--IP

First Pride, take 2: safe spaces

So I'm still thinking about the Pride thing, and the feeling safe thing, and how that relates to activism more generally.

For many activist groups, safe space is a crucial concept. In my last post I highlighted one function of safe space, and that's safety from violence, but I was also thinking about the space in which we get to be whole people (sorry, I don't know how else to put that -- other suggestions for phrasing and clarification are welcome). Not just queers who are "flaunting it". Not just queers who are talking about or celebrating sex/sexuality. But also people who have kids, who don't have kids who have partners, who don't have partners, who have friends and political allies, who frequent club or who don't, who like sex or don't like sex, or who like different kinds of sex. Not just political queers. Not just angry (although being able to be angry is important too, see below). Not weird, not marginal, not Other People.

Safe spaces may be particularly important queer groups, where not everyone is out in their home/work/other significant setting; or who might be out but for being out means spending a lot of time and energy defending your own existence.

For some groups, being able to be angry is an important function. Many of us get a lot of flak for being angry about certain kinds of injustices. You know..."you're so shrill" or "good girls don't get angry", or "maybe if you weren't so bitter people would care what you're saying". Those sorts of comments work to silence legitimate anger, and worse, to silence the legitimate points that people are angry about. There are times I am angry about homophobia, and pretending I'm not isn't as constructive as some might believe.

For me, a safe space also means being able to respectfully challenge certain biases, and respond to those challenges constructively. I'm less sure of what I mean by this, or what makes a space conducive to this, so I'll just leave it at that, but contributions on this point are particularly welcome.

So what does safe space mean to you? I don't have answers to this, and these have been just a few initial thoughts off the top of my head about (some of) the sorts of things that help make a space safe for me. I hope you'll chime in with your own thoughts.

--IP

First Pride

So I went to my first Pride march.

I went with some friends, and my wee sister, and the significant other. And, of course, my trusty steed (we're here, we're queer, and we have wheels!).

It's hard to put into words what it was like, exactly. The first word that comes to mind is...safe. In all the right ways. Usually, when I walk past gay bars down that side of town on Friday and Saturday nights, I am acutely aware of the high police-car-to-bar ratio. I've not yet seen An Incident, but there they are, parked police cars, and I guess they wouldn't be there if there was never An Incident.

So when hundreds of people walk down the middle of the city wearing rainbow flags and peace signs, surrounded by their friends, holding hands with their partners, carrying their kids, and nobody gets any trouble -- it was amazing. Tenuously privileged, in a similar way to what I wrote about the Gay Icons exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery. Safe.

And fun. Fabulously so.

Also, I think some mental clicking happened. It's not that I'm not out at uni or among my friends and other people I know. It's just that, sometimes I catch myself using the vocabulary of other disciplines instead of the vocabulary of, say, queer theory. I'm not exactly sure why I do this, especially when speaking to people I have already explicitly outed myself to. Maybe it's the perpetual threat of being seen as "flaunting".

So the next day, I thought "well, I could take the Pride decorations off my mobility scooter." But I didn't. Because, well, the whole point is pride every day.

(On an accessibility note, I find chanting much better than whistles. A note for future organisers, perhaps?)

--IP