Sauntering Vaguely Downward

A casual acquaintance of mine made a post on Facebook that nettled me a bit, but I didn't want to reply to it there fore several reasons. First, I don't know this person well and have no idea how they'd take disagreement. Second, I make it a rule to check Facebook once a week or less. Third, I only use it to like pictures of other people's cats and babies and to make innocuous, supportive and inoffensive comments, because it is a piss-poor platform for nuanced, well-informed interaction. Thus, behold: a journal entry containing the reply I would have made if said comments hadn't been hosted on Facebook.

The post essentially said: Why do feminists think it's okay to be pro-breastfeeding-in-public and simultaneously oppose Page 3 of The Sun newspaper? Are they not contradicting themselves on the subject of bare breasts? (I'm phrasing this more coherently than the original poster did.)

Well. Let us examine the problem with this logic. It assumes that bare breasts are viewed in a manner that is completely context-free. Either they are simply fleshy bits stuck on the front of ladypersons and are totally inoffensive under all circumstances, which is an attitude I would gladly be on board with adopting, or they are totally offensive under all circumstances, which I would not. The social reality is a lot more nuanced than this. If the "feminist" attitude seems contradictory to you, it's because mainstream social attitudes towards these two particular presentations of bare breasts are most frequently contradictory, and often the reverse of what one might expect (e.g. the first is offensive and the second is not). Thus, the answer to the question is that there isn't a contradiction in adopting such attitudes, because the assumption that all mammary presentations are equal in the eyes of society is wrong.

Below lies my personal view on this glandular conundrum:
I identify as a feminist and I find neither of these boob presentations offensive. The first is a no-brainer for me, not least because I'm a breastfeeding mum. Despite what I'd like to believe in theory - that a breast being used to feed a baby is being presented in an entirely innocent way - I feel the immense social pressure to breastfeed in an innocuous manner, and thus I always try to find a discreet place in which to do it and ensure that I'm covered. It would be much easier if I could just whip out a nipple and let baby latch, of course, but I don't really want to be stared at whilst I'm feeding him, so I don't do that. I would be delighted if breastfeeding stopped being such a polarising subject, but until social attitudes change pretty drastically, I don't see it happening.

On the subject of Page 3: I don't think the breasts themselves are offensive. Taking it a step further, I think that the circumstances under which they are photographed and presented are far better than what was being proposed to replace them. The owners of the breasts are compensated (I can't comment upon whether or not the amount of the compensation should be deemed adequate), but most importantly, they have consented to be photographed. The idea that replacing these images with "candid" (i.e. non-consensual) photos of celebrities in states of undress would somehow be a step forward for feminism was baffling to me. Some of the opposition to Page 3 that I've encountered also strikes me as another way to devalue sex work and demean sex workers, which...do we really need more of that?

I know there are those who would ask me, "What if your daughter was on a train and saw a man looking at Page 3?" I can only say that I think it best that she learns that there are images of naked people in the world and that most of the people who view them are wankers.

I was going to make a personal post this morning, but I'm so irritated by this that I'm not.

The Guardian apparently decided that one way to honour International Women's Day this weekend would be to publish a headline erasing a woman from history. I'm not going to do the article any favours by linking it here, but the headline was "First Brit in space Tim Peake: 'We phone people because it's just so cool'".

Helen Sharman became the first British person in space in 1991, when she was 27. Yes, she flew as a private individual on a commercial flight rather than as a UK government representative of a space agency. That doesn't make her not British. So I'm afraid that however much certain people seem to want Timothy Peake to be the first British person in space, he isn't. END OF.

The first British person in space was a woman. Her name is Helen Sharman. (I make a point of working this fact into every outreach talk I ever give.) Remember that. Tell everyone. Because this kind of bullshit needs stamping on by many, many feet.

ETA: I note with interest that this morning, the headline has been changed to "First British man in space". I believe this is also wrong. The first British man who went into space was naturalised as an American beforehand. However, I do not think that anyone would enjoy quibbling with me about whether or not dual nationals still count as citizens of their birth countries. >:E

major_clanger requested: Moving to the West Midlands. What's it like becoming a (near) Brummie? How do you find Birmingham/Worcestershire?

We’ve been here (rural Worcestershire) for slightly over a year. Since I don’t commute to London every day like I did when we were living in Cambridge, I’ve actually had a chance to get to know the area and our neighbours. In fact, this is an especially timely post because we had supper at a neighbour’s last night.

We live in a hamlet. Our postcode encompasses half a dozen houses and a pub. Nothing else. Our nearest village is about a mile away and the nearest town about two miles away. The University of Birmingham, where the bloke works, is over ten miles away. London is a hundred miles away. It is the most rural place I’ve ever lived. If I didn’t go to London for two days a week, I think I’d feel a lot more lost and isolated than I do.

The area we live in is stunning for its natural beauty and bedded-in cultivated areas, which feel like they’ve been the same for centuries. We’re in a cottage next to the Worcester to Birmingham canal. Pastoral and picturesque are the words that spring to mind when I look out over the fields surrounding us - in fact, it can sometimes seem slightly unreal, as if someone had painted the scenery on the windows.

There’s a split between our neighbours, as far as I can tell. I don’t believe it’s a deliberate schism, but the three sets of people we’ve gotten to know are not originally from here. Even the couple that could be called the king and queen of the village (in whose house we ate a roast dinner last night) moved to the area forty years ago and don’t have Brummie accents. Our immediate neighbours are a fabulous elderly woman whom I adore, a Londoner by birth and by choice until she retired and came to settle in her husband’s cottage, and one of her sons. The young couple over the road are from southern England and Iran. They have two sweet children and we don’t see them often enough. Though all of us have good intentions, they too work full time.

We have met the neighbours who were born and bred here, but we don’t know them very well. They have their own community, in which the older non-locals participate to a certain extent because they’ve been here for decades. I don’t think we’d be unwelcome in it, although I’m sure we’d have to try hard to be accepted and neither of us can put the necessary effort into it since we both work full-time (and not locally).

Because the neighbours we know and the friends we made through NCT (National Childbirth Trust) class are not originally Brummies, I don’t feel like I’ve got a deep understanding of the local culture. I know it seems quite different from London. It’s friendlier, but also flashier. When we go to the pub, I don’t think I can get away with jeans/boots/jumper like I do in London, or at least if I am going to be dressed relatively casually, I need to fix my hair and put on make-up. They make a real effort to look their best when they’re out, even just to put out the bins or post a letter. The decor of public spaces and house interiors also tends to be loud and/or blingy. The bloke’s taste is even more conservative than mine, so both of us found this a bit of a shock. I like it though - because they’re so good-humoured in general, it feels welcoming rather than off-putting.

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redsixwing requested: feeling "other," handling the isolation of otherness?

I’ll tackle the issue of why I felt/feel “other” in a different post, as this was a popular topic. The biggest influence on my ability to handle that feeling was discovering the internet.

It started out with rec.music.industrial (which was closely linked to the beginning of attending weekly club nights in LA and getting really into industrial music - a community of self-identified "others"). I discovered talk on the Unix machines in the USC library and learned the wonders of instant messaging. I joined various mailing lists. Suddenly I had swathes of people with similar interests that I could chat to, not just the ones I occasionally happened to be lucky enough to share a classroom with. It expanded my world enormously.

But the most significant discovery was LiveJournal. I started my journal in 2001 and apart from a few weeks’ holiday here and there, I’ve kept it up continuously ever since. (The transition to Dreamwidth has kept my ever-shrinking non-fandom LJ community from collapsing entirely.) The DW/LJ community is the one I rely on not only to squee with me over cat pictures and SPACE and films, but to listen and advise when, say, I have a problem I can’t seem to resolve or am experiencing the white-hot rage induced by microaggressions. I’m not as keen on Twitter or Facebook as they don’t provide the same sense of continuity as the others. Because their format is so much briefer, I find it difficult to keep up the level of attention that would be necessary never to miss anything there. With my journal community, even if I go away for a week, I can still come back and catch up with everyone and not feel like a topic has “gone stale” the way it does on Twitter or FB (within 24 hours). I know that it's here, and that while the identities of some of the participants have morphed over the years, it’s something I rely on to keep the loneliness of otherness at bay.

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[Image: My feet in some very silly cat booties.]

This photo and the donation I made to the charity Mind today are linked, I promise you.

I bought these slippers a few weeks ago on a Wednesday. I was traveling down to London from Birmingham by train as I do every week for work. I'd walked to the station along my usual path next to the rail tracks. My sartorial choices on this day turned out to be misguided. I'd glanced out the window at 5:30 AM, observed sunshine and put on a dress and trainers. I'd failed to notice that it had rained during the night and that the ground and long grasses were drenched.

I arrived at the station with feet so wet that I had to remove my shoes and walk around in the spare socks I'd brought for the following day. As it was 7:30 AM, there were no shops in the vicinity of New Street or Moor Street stations selling shoes. Even the fashion magazines that come with freebies attached had opted for sunglasses instead of cheap plastic flip-flops. It seemed I was destined to make my journey shoeless until I got to London, so I bought a coffee and went to sit on the train.

On this particular Wednesday, I sat alone at a four-person table in the third carriage from the front with my legs stretched out, sipping my coffee and indulging in some Twitter chatter about my shoeless condition. I'd just managed to convince myself that I would be able to purchase shoes in Marylebone station when the train braked sharply.

And then I felt the bumps.

I squeezed my eyes shut and hoped that they were branches from a fallen tree. We sat motionless on the tracks. A minute passed. I exchanged glances with the woman on the opposite side of the aisle. "I really hope that wasn't what I thought it was," I said. She looked puzzled. "Didn't you feel the bumps?" I asked. "Oh," she said, "Yes."

We waited. The driver came on the tannoy. "I apologise for the delay. There's been a - technical fault."

"What, have the wheels fallen off?" quipped a man behind me. There were a few nervous giggles, but mostly people looked a little sick.

Several minutes passed. The driver returned to the tannoy. "I'm sorry to say that we may be here for some time. A person has fallen under the train and we can't move until the transport police and the ambulance crew have done their jobs. As soon as I know when we can move to the next station, I'll let you know. My apologies for the delay."

The next hour and a half passed mercifully quickly. We watched the stony-faced crews march back and forth past the windows with eyes that had seen too much of this sort of thing. We went to the buffet carriage to stand in a long queue and talk in subdued voices whilst waiting for complimentary cups of tea. We listened to a man who walked up and down the carriages to give us comforting updates, hoping it wasn't the driver. (It was.) Eventually, the train was permitted to continue to the next station, Princes Risborough, where we disembarked to await the arrival of another train to take us to Marylebone. All had been handled in as dignified a fashion as possible - right up until they pulled the train off the platform in reverse. (It hadn't been cleaned yet.)

I participated in a meeting that I was missing by telephone and pretended to be relatively unperturbed by anything other than the inconvenience.

When I arrived in Marylebone station, I discovered that what I'd thought was an Accessorize was, in fact, a card shop. The only shoes they sold were novelty slippers. I had a choice between frogs, monkeys holding bananas and kitties. I chose the kitties, put them on my feet and walked casually down the Tube escalator. No one batted an eyelash until I boarded a train, where a woman across from me with an amused light in her eyes raised an eyebrow as if to say, "Did you forget something before you left the house today?" I felt a lightness inside me, amusement that my biggest personal problem today would be explaining why I was turning up at the office in a pair of fluffy kitten booties. It pushed gently but firmly at the darkness of the day's events.

I don't know why that person jumped in front of that train. I wish that, for her, there had been someone or something who could have made facing that day a prospect that wasn't a step too far. For her sake and for the train driver's, I wore those stupid kitten booties all that day and the next. For her sake and her family's, I made that donation to Mind today. For her sake and for all of us who presently suffer or have suffered from depression, I make this journal entry.