Let them eat mahimahi fillets

Further to my last post on food and intersectionality, I did some googling for cookbooks, just to double check if I had to eat my words. Alas, no, although Kate's recipes will definitely go into my recipe notebook. Here's what I found in cookbook searches.

The overwhelming majority of cookbooks aimed at people with a specific named long-term condition (eg, arthritis, fatigue, fibromyalgia, autism) are not books that explain how to make cooking a simpler task, nor are they intended to expand your cooking repertoire in an easy no-fuss kind of way, but rather are intended to promote a particular kind of diet. They have titles with the word "cure" in them.

Look, I know that some elimination diets help some people manage their conditions. That's great, and I'm happy for you. What's much less cool is promoting the diet that helps you as a "cure" for everyone, unless you have a bunch of thorough double-blind studies to back you up. Plus, if we could actually cure autism, etc, with goji berries, I'm pretty sure there would be, you know, science about that.

So to the authors of these books let me say the following: thanks for playing, and I'm glad your diet helps you, but it's actually hard enough to feed myself already what with the whole frequently-feeling-too-shit-to-cook thing, without trying to cut whole food groups out of the equation.

Ok, I hear you cry, surely you could make some of these recipes even without sticking to the diet? Well maybe I could, but why should I help people who write these books to profit from promoting these diets? And anyway, the books seem to contain a number of recipes that are completely impractical in the context of my life. Here are some of the things I will not be cooking:

• Stuffed fennel. SpoonShortageFail. Life'sTooShortFail.


• Fresh salmon steaks. CostFail.


• Wild rice. CostFail.


• Escargot. CostFail.


• Fresh mahimahi fillets. CostFail. WhereDoPeopleEvenBuyThatFail.


• Shiitake mushrooms. CostFail.


• Flavoured oils. CostFail.


• Flounder. CostFail.


• Acai berries. IDon'tEvenKnowHowToPronounceItFail.


• Assorted SpoonsShortageFails caused by recipes that take ages and need multiple pots and lots of chopping.

Kaz and I spent an amused afternoon reading samples of these books out loud to each other. Kaz suggested that the SpoonFails may be caused by the assumption that everyone has someone to cook for them. If that's the case, it's a dramatic departure from the norms of cookbook-writing (which are general assumed to be helping you cook food yourself), but would be in keeping with the idea of disabled people as helpless and unable to do anything themselves. It would also be in keeping with the assumption that everyone is middle-class, and all middle-class people have A Woman to do stuff for them -- either in the form of a wife, or in the form of waged domestic help.

In other words, here's a memo someone didn't get: not everyone has personal servants, and some people might object to the keeping of women as personal servants. Disabled people are disproportionately poor and are disproportionately unable to do complicated cooking. Cooking is disproportionately allocated to women, who are also disproportionately poor.

Is the assumption that poor people with fatigue and mobility issues are going to be trailing round their local health food shops for mahimahi fillets and truffle oil? And since my local health food shop is not wheelchair accessible, am I supposed to believe that the truffle oil will cause me to throw my mobility scooter over one shoulder while I walk around the shop? Ahahahahahaha don't make me laugh so much, it hurts my costochondritic ribs.

Seriously though, why is eating food a luxury?

[Edited to add: Kaz has more on this topic.]

--IP

'Tis the season

Of food. If you're celebrating something this time of year, you're probably eating.

Chronic pain and fatigue mean that I struggle with energy for preparing square meal. Increasingly this means I make use of one-pot recipes, but sometimes the desire to eat/serve something a little bit different can mean that I spend dramatic amounts of energy and can be tired for days. So I need a new repertoire, and gradually I'm finding new dishes and combinations that work well.

I occasionally browse cookbook sections in bookshops, but generally find these are not as helpful as one might think. See, I know how to cook. The problem is not learning to cook, but thinking up dishes that meet the necessary restrictions. Moreover, most cookbooks seems to have a dramatically different idea from me of what constitutes an "easy" recipe. For example, Nigella Lawson's version of "easy" cooking, that often takes half an hour and uses several pots I'll then have to wash up, is the sort of dish I might consider on a day I was feeling particularly well, not on a day I was feeling tired and in lots of pain.

So what I need are recipes that meet the following restrictions:

• Low financial cost: No posh imported ingredients, no boneless skinless nonsense.


• Nutritional value: It's important to me that I eat a balanced range of vitamins and other nutrients because this helps in the management of my symptoms.


• Low on mental spoon-cost: This will vary from person to person, but for me it means working with foods I'm likely to have already in my kitchen (since I can't usually run out at the last minute to pick up a few ingredients). And while I do buy fresh foods regularly, recipes that rely on ingredients with a longer shelf-life are preferred (since I'm more likely to have those things on any given day). Brownie points if you can make a good meal entirely out of non-perishables. Also: if I can minimise the planning-ahead time, that's good too (so foods that have to be prepared a day in advance are right out).


• Low on physical spoon-cost: This will also vary from person to person, but for me it means minimal chopping, minimal washing up, minimal time I have to spend standing up.

So why is this a social justice issue? Well, as I've written before, the cheapest foods tend either to be low in the nutritional content I need or very high in spoon-cost. Foods that are really easy to prepare tend to be more expensive (because they include the cost of processing, chopping, skinning/boning, etc), and are often less healthy. If they are both easier to prepare and high in the nutritional content that I need, they are high in financial cost; we're talking nice cuts of lean meat and fish, whole grains, fresh fruit and vegetables -- all of these are dramatically more expensive than the less healthy options of tinned baked beans, tinned meat, etc.

And as a feminist, I also note that domestic work -- including the purchasing and preparation of food -- is disproportionately allocated to women. And when the women in question are disabled, these are the issues that arise. Oh, and did I mention? Disabled people and women are disproportionately poor.

Anyway I keep looking for new recipes that meet all of these, but the hope that I will find them in one of the cookbooks all the cool kids seem to be using is beginning to fade. As Kaz and I have often remarked, we may just need to write the book(s) ourselves.

Anyway, happy whatever-you-celebrate, or general happiness, if you do not celebrate anything this time of year. May your spoons be plentiful.

--IP

Just the beginning

Earlier this evening, Parliament voted to raise tuition fees to £6000-£9000 per year.

My generation has been hit with a set of really brutal cuts. The elimination of Child Trust Fund, cuts to Child Benefit, cuts to youth services and sports centers and public libraries and schools and now higher education.


I couldn't make the protests today, although I've attended many of the other protests in the last few weeks, so I was home listening to the Parliamentary debate. And what I heard was a room mostly full of non-disabled White men who themselves received world-class free educations, and they are now denying affordable accessible educations to the current generation of young people, and slashing support to women, disabled people, and poor people. I saw a group of people who have benefited hugely from the welfare state decide that children too young to vote but old enough to protest and be arrested, should not themselves receive the same support. And when one MP asked another MP whether he would be willing to pay £9,000 a year for each of his years at university, I saw him dismiss the question and mock it.

But I also heard a spirited defense of public services, or student protests and occupations, of protests against Vodafone, and criticisms of kettling from Jeremy Corbyn MP and others. We have a great deal of public support. Some of our elected representatives behaved shamefully today, and we will remember that. We will also remember that we have huge popular following, that we can win if we work together. As Adam Ramsayreminded me earlier this evening when I was struggling not to cry, Thatcher's poll tax was also approved by Parliamentary vote, and later dropped following civil unrest. We can do that again.

The campaign against cuts to public services is about more than just tuition fees and university. We've lost this round, but we'll be back. We'll keep marching, keep working, keep protesting. This is just the beginning.

--IP

And another thing about Remembrance Day

When I see photos of David Cameron wearing a poppy? David Cameron, whose government is cutting any last pretense we ever had at supporting veterans, and calling it "wasteful spending", and who is willing to drop some coins in a charity tin but not pay a fair slice of his income, because we all know that a few coins once a year is cheaper than tax and buys less for veterans, that David Cameron? The David Cameron who appears not to mind if veterans drop dead because they can't make the rent and bills or can't buy food because they've got no personal care and no mobility aids as a result of his public service cuts, but he's happy to take some PR credit for wearing a poppy in a not-at-all hypocritical manner?

I just want to puke.

--IP

What I'll be thinking about this Remembrance Day

For those unfamiliar with the custom: it is British tradition, in the run up to 11 November, to raise funds for the Royal British Legion's charity, the Poppy Appeal. The funds go to support wounded or disabled veterans and their families, for the rest of their lives. In 2009, the Poppy Appeal collected £35 million. Towards the end of October and first two weeks of November, most people can be seen wearing a red poppy pinned to their lapel, as a sign that they support the Poppy Appeal.

There are a number of things I find uncomfortable about the way we do Remembrance Day/Armistice Day in the UK, to do with displays of militaristic pride, at a time when we should most be thinking about how we have messed up, how we have failed to support our troops in any meaningful sense, how it is stunningly disrespectful to everyone who has died or lost someone or been injured or been sexually assaulted (let's not forget about the use of mass rape as a weapon of war) in war to turn our military past into something that patriotism requires us to be proud of. And all I can think about is the old slogan "Support our troops -- bring 'em home." I've written about some of this before.

But this year I'm also thinking about how the British public rally around wounded and disabled veterans in a way that we don't, and wouldn't, rally around others in need of similar funds and services, like, say, single mothers. It is important that we support people who need support in their daily lives, and it is undoubtedly true that society doesn't do enough for veterans. So none of this is out of any disrespect for veterans, or for the support that is provided to them.

But I can't help thinking that, if it weren't veterans, the community wouldn't respond so supportively. How do we respond to unemployed people on the dole? To single mothers? Even before this government, they were targeted by the tabloid press for scorn.

Traditionally, the justification for support for veterans is that they have served their country. And again, it's out of no disrespect for veterans, that I'm uncomfortable with that explanation. Or rather, it seems to that it shouldn't be necessary. We should support people because they need support.

Anyway, there's more than one way to serve your community. Where's the support for the now elderly or disabled people who did war service in factories? Where the support for pensioners who have spent their lives being nurses, teachers, police officers, postal workers, refuse collectors? Where's the support for disabled people who work in any number of jobs or volunteer with a number of causes, or would be able to with the right support?

There's a gendered dimension here too. It's easier to recognise some kinds of service of service than others. We disproportionately don't recognise, and don't provide support for the kinds of service that aren't paid employment. Who is disproportionately allocated unwaged community work, like, say caring for children, or elderly people, or disabled people? Women. Who not only won't receive a wage for much of the caregiving work they do for their families and communities, but are also disadvantaged when it comes to pensions and benefits if they have made fewer NI contributions (because of unwaged work), and are disproportionately judged negatively for their work. Caregiving most certainly is service to communities, but because their work isn't counted as "real" work.

I'm also thinking this year about the budget cuts. In cutting disability-related benefit spending and disability services, the ConDem government is literally taking wheelchairs from disabled people. In the case of veterans, the Poppy Appeal will go some way to making sure people still get at least some of the support that they need. But when it comes to other disabled people? Yes, there are other charities who do great work. None of them have the kind of pull on the British conscience that the Poppy Appeal has. And even the Poppy Appeal, although it does very good work, is no substitute for a strong public sector.

So when we talk about service to our country, I wish we talked more about what service means, and how much more we really have to do if we've any hope of providing properly for the people who have served this country.

--IP

Fair pay?

I've been meaning to write about men and patriarchy on here for a wee while, and then Kate and an anonymous commenter started an interesting dialogue on Kate's post, so it was a good push in the right direction.

This is not a post about the Telegraph. This is not a post "defending" feminism. This is also not a post about saying who has it "worse". This is a post about the often-heard cry of "What about the men? The patriarchy hurts men too!" that I shall refer to as PHMT.

Let's take the example of equal pay. Equal pay for equal work. It's been feminist orthodoxy for longer than I care to think about, with the rationale that work is (equally worthy) work, whoever is doing it.

It's certainly the case that there is a gender-based trend with regard to certain work being unpaid or underpaid. This is a feminist concern.

It's also the case that not all the work that is underpaid is work done traditionally by women. There are a whole bunch of hard, skilled, boring, or dangerous jobs out there that are done predominantly by blue-collar men. Often: non-White men. Often: immigrant men. Often: working-class men.

For sure, I don't want to be paid less than my male co-workers for doing the same job: it's just not fair.

I also don't want the same shitty National Minimum below-the-breadline wage as the bloke next to me on [some basically shitty job]. My work is work. His work is work. We should both be able to put roofs over our heads and food on our tables. If we can't, that's also not fair. I also happen to think it's not fair that some people have to work basically shitty jobs.

So fair pay, to my mind, means something more than just saying "I want same number of pounds sterling per hour as the men I work with". It means "we all get fair pay". It means we have to re-think how the money is distributed and how the work is distributed. It means we have to re-think what fair means. "The same for men and women" is part of it, but not all of it.

The patriarchy does hurt men too, in lots of ways. (Lack of) Fair pay is just one way, and we can say that and also, at the same time, say that there is a specific problem with discrimination against women in pay and employment.

But PHMT is a problem feminism needs to take seriously. If for no other reason than that the Fair Pay Problem shows that men's liberation (and antiracism, anti-xenophobia, and anti-classism) are part and parcel of women's liberation.

--IP

Foreign aid and human rights

I guess by now you've heard about Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga, who were convicted to 14 years of hard labour in Malawi for celebrating their engagement. Following international outcry, they were pardoned.

What struck me was the terms in which the outcry was phrased. In the UK, much of the outcry seemed to be associated with the fact that Malawi relies on foreign aid, much of it from the UK: that is, the UK sends foreign aid to a state that oppresses queer people.

What was done to Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga was appalling and inexcusable. The oppression of queer people, of any people, is always inexcusable. This post does not advocate non-intervention, nor do I propose to explore the ins and outs of intervention and circumstances in which it is/is not justified in this post.

Among those commenting on Malawi's status as a receiver of foreign aid, and suggesting or advocating that it could or should be withdrawn: nearly all the news coverage including the Guardian article linked above, The F-Word, the Huffington Post, and the columnist Dan Savage. UK-based gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell is also on the record as saying that the US should withdraw foreign aid from countries that oppress LGBT people, and he has been actively involved in campaigning on this case.

Here's my worry: foreign aid goes to pay for particular services like HIV/AIDS treatment and education, and other medical care. It goes to pay for sustainable development. And when I read Peter Tatchell saying this:

We must urge the US State Department to make foreign aid and trade conditional on the recipient countries agreeing to respect human rights, including the human rights of LGBT people. Tyrannies should not be rewarded: No US aid for anti-gay regimes

I wonder what he means by "human rights". Undoubtedly the human rights of Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga were violated. Undoubtedly, it is a human right not to be a prisoner of conscience.

Is it not also a human right to have, among other things, enough food to eat, drinking water, access to adequate healthcare, and education? If we remove foreign aid from countries who need them, are we making a bad situation any better? The persecution of queer people undoubtedly makes it harder to deliver HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention services. But so does not having money with which to do so.

Call me naive. Tell me there's no other way to persuade a government not to practice cruel punishments on people who are queer than to threaten the withdrawal of foreign aid. Because if there is, and we're jumping straight to "we'll take away the money that allows the purchase of life-saving medication and sandwiches", well, that's imperialist and it's racist. And if there isn't...well, that's still imperialist. It's not like we get to abdicate responsibility for a history of colonialism and economic exploitation.

And as Renee Martin of Womanist Musings points out, why aren't we asking queer rights advocates in Malawi what sort of international solidarity would be helpful? Why do high-profile (and for the most part, socially privileged) Westerners think they can decide what would be most helpful in a situation they have no experience of?

I know it seems like a novel idea, but how about asking the TLBG community in Malawi what form of support they would like? I am most certain that they would not support an action that would lead to further impoverishment and death. It is not the government of Malawi that will suffer, it is the people.

(NB, some blogs are reporting that Tiwonge Chimbalanga is trans, and the couple is correctly described as a straight couple. I have been unable to find any mention of this in the mainstream news, and I am reluctant to use Western gender or orientation frameworks like "gay" or "trans" or "LGBT" in any case. For that reason, I have not labeled the couple's orientation or gender, and used the term "queer", except where I am quoting other people. If you hear more on this point, please shout in the comments or by email, and I will happily correct my post. I certainly don't want to erase people's self-descriptions.)

--IP

[Crossposted at Modus Dopens]