"Don't let it get to you"

I know it's well-meant. I know people say it to help. But I hate hearing it.

People usually say this to me not when some little thing has happened. Little is when someone parks over the dropped kerb and I have to go a block out of my way to the next dropped kerb. Little is when someone wolf whistles in the street. Little is when there's a problem, but I can deal with it.

Big deals are the ones I can't get round, because it's not dependent on my effort, or because it would take so much effort it would cut short my working day. Big is when there are no toilets in the building I can use (eg, because none are accessible), and I have to just go home. Big is when I have nowhere accessible to work in my workplace. Big is when the pharmacist says "it'll only be a minute" and they have no chairs, and 20 "just one minute"s later you don't know whether you should keep standing with pain shooting up through your tired swollen feet, or should just leave, without your painkillers. Big is when people don't give priority to the wheelchair user, the person with the walking stick, the person carrying a toddler, in lifts and on the bus, and they can't get to where they need. Big is when stuff is scheduled in places without child licenses and wheelchair access and people then shrug and say "some people just never come to these things".

Big is when people talk to me like other people's bigotry is something I "let" happen, or allow to affect me, as if I enjoy these limitations on my life. As if I don't spend hours out of each day trying to find a way around the little things, trying to keep them from becoming big things. As if I don't spend hours out of each day trying to live my life. Also? Having to categorise the shitty behaviour I encounter into "big" and "little", so that other people won't be made uncomfortable hearing me talk about a problem I encountered and how I dealt with it? Is crap.

I know it's well meant, and I am grateful for the people who mean well, and the people who listen when I'm tired and worn. But sometimes, I just wish I didn't have to be grateful for the little cruelties that are packed into the well-meaning words.

--IP

Why I wasn't at the Fund Our Future march (but wanted to be)

If you're based in the UK, you've probably all heard about the protest for higher education funding that took place in London yesterday. I wasn't there, but some of my co-bloggers were, and I hope that they'll be able to write about what it was like to be there.

About 52,000 people, most of them students, but also a large contingent of academic and academic-related staff, marched through central London. The march was for the funding of public services, and higher education and research funding in particular; condemning tuition fees and graduate contributions, and the LibDem U-turn on student fees. There was also a large Free Education feeder march that unfortunately doesn't seem to have received much press coverage. Obviously it's the Millbank protest that's getting nearly all the coverage right now, and I'll let someone else comment on that, because I wasn't there, and my thoughts are still in a bit of a jumble. Maybe I'll do a round-up of interesting coverage later on.

So why wasn't I there? Ah. I'm glad you asked.

The "Look Ok...Feel Crap?" campaign from the Depression Alliance Scotland tweeted "Are you a student? Would you have liked to go on today's demo but didn't because of how you feel? Or did you go anyway?" Some of the replies they received on Twitter broke my heart -- students wrote back about issues with anxiety, depression, and other mental health conditions that kept them home.

In my case, it wasn't a mental health issue that kept me home, but it was a disability. I told friends who asked me that this ways because I couldn't get my mobility scooter to London (most types of public transport won't carry them). This is true, but not the whole story. It's also that when using a mobility scooter, I'm vulnerable in certain ways because I can't maneuver quickly in a crowd. This isn't a small march in Scotland -- it's a big march in London with the Metropolitan Police of kettling and head-beating fame. In a big group of people who are kettled and stressed, I could very easily get hurt. Also, my disability causes fatigue, and overnight trips on consecutive nights could cause a week or two of fatigue that would make me unable to do coursework or totally trivial things like cook food or wash clothes.

I'm not the only person who couldn't go. A great many of my friends couldn't go because their disabilities prevented them getting to London (the transport isn't accessible, and with central London packed with demo traffic, it's hard to make adjustments), or walk the whole march route even if the march had been held locally to them. Some couldn't go because they find marches too scary or anxiety-inducing or confrontational or upsetting because of mental health issues. Some couldn't go because they are scared of police officers, especially the Met, because their sociodemographic group has traditionally been targeted by the police for violence and prejudice. Some people couldn't attend because they have young children and no childcare, and were worried about their toddlers potentially being in a kettling situation (after the G20 protests, this is a reasonable worry). Some friends couldn't afford to go because they live on or below the breadline and couldn't afford the transport, or couldn't afford to miss a day of work.

(Note that many of these worries apply not only to protests, but also work. Those whose disability stops them from protesting, may also, for similar reasons, be legitimately unable to work. Those whose children's need for care means they have to stay home, might also mean that they can't work paid jobs. Those who are discriminated against by the police are likely to also be discriminated against by employers.)

When the government calls us lazy and work-shy, we have to work extra-hard to defend ourselves, and it costs energy and resources we don't have -- in my case, it might have cost me the ability to feed and clothe myself for several days. When public services are cut, we're affected in multiple ways -- not just by higher education, but also by cuts to nursery/childcare and schooling, medical services, child and family benefits, personal care, disability-specific support, housing, and the list goes on.

The people who face this kind of dual discrimination are the people who need to fight the hardest right now because they have the most to lose. They're also the people least able to fight the hardest. Often, the most effective kinds of protest are unavailable to us -- we can ask nicely, we can write to our MPs, we can sign petitions, but when asking nicely fails, we have no options left. It makes us easy targets for governments to take away our basic needs -- we can't fight back the way more privileged people can.

So to those of you who are protesting (there will be more big marches), please go and shout loud for me. If you haven't been protesting, but you think you could, please please please think about going, because those of us who really need to be there, can't.

--IP

New fave blog.

http://thedealwithdisability.blogspot.com

This is the blog of a highly intelligent and very physically disabled queer woman with cerebral palsy.
She mainly blogs the strange (and sometimes nice) ways in which people talk to and treat her - including a homeless man who tried to give her money, Jehovah's Witnesses trying to cure her and customer service assistants patting her on the head. ('My aide and I were looking at each other like, WTF.)

She writes in a fabulously sarcastic tone, but is also really non-judgmental about people who do treat her in a strange way. My new hero. Check it out.

dear katy perry...

I'm trying to write a dissertation, so please show some consideration and stop annoying me.

When you came up with this, I was mildly amused.

This was a bit worse, and I don't really understand why you're naked and rolling in candy either, but whatever.

But this? Really? 'You're so gay and you don't even like boys'? 'I hope you hang yourself with your H&M scarf while jacking off listening to Mozart'? 'You bitch and moan about LA wishing you were in the rain reading Hemingway'? 'I can't believe I fell in love with someone that wears more makeup than...'? So you use 'gay' as a derogatory term. You think anyone who would rather read a book than jump around naked on a beach (or a candy cloud) must have serious issues. You're offended if anyone finds classical music more inspiring than your video for 'I kissed a girl'. And men who would have been described as 'metrosexual' in the early noughties seem to make you uncomfortable. That cracks me up. You realise you're engaged to Russel Brand, yes?

Who AREN'T you bashing? You're silly and unnecessarily offensive. Please shut up.

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.