Guys, I found a thing!
Yeah, I know, OMG, a real thing.
Basically, you know how I'm always going on about how just because different people experience inequality differently around the world, it doesn't make that inequality any better?*
*No.
Yeah, I know I don't always phrase it like that but that's essentially what I was getting at. Anyway, I found a thing that describes that thing!
It's called....dun dun DUNNNNN.....
Intersectional feminism!!!!
Okay, yeah I know it doesn't sound quite as exciting as I made it out to be, but it is, trust me.*
*Or don't, considering the only stuff most of you know about me is from this blog, which I edit and edit and edit and edit.
This term isn't in the dictionary (yet) so I had to trawl for ages online (3 minutes tops) to find this definition.
intersectionality: the view that women experience oppression in varying configurations and in varying degrees of intensity. cultural patterns of oppression are not only interrelated, but are bound together and influenced by the intersectional systems of society. examples of this include race, gender, class, ability, and ethnicity.
*Click the link 'cause it's a really good article and explains this WAY better than I can.*
I guess the first thing we need to clarify is privilege.*
*Scary sounding parent-word.
If you are male, you have privilege.
If you are white, you have privilege.
If you are cis-gender, you have privilege.
If you are heterosexual, you have privilege.
There are a million more but I think you get it, right?
This doesn't mean that it's better, or that all the people who don't fit into those categories spend their entire lives wishing they were different (hey, I like being female!) but just that you happen to not be in that particular social group of people who have been historically oppressed.
Okay, so I have strayed pretty far from the original topic of this post which was -intersect intersexual intra interact section feminine feminism- intersectional feminism!
I am a woman, which is a historically oppressed group of people. However, I am also white, cis-gender and heterosexual.*
*Not that any of that stuff should matter but I needed to relay it all, to make this clearer.
Because of this, I will never be the victim of racism, transphobia or homophobia. And also because of this, I will never truly understand what it is like to be a victim of racism, transphobia or homophobia.
However, what I can understand is that different people have different issues, and different scary sounding '-isms' they have to deal with. What I can understand is that while I will never be a victim of racism (unless I pull a reverse Michael Jackson), a victim of homophobia or a victim of transphobia, I am allowed, and invited, to fight against those injustices.
Yes, some of the injustices I experience personally may be different to the injustices a Woman Of Colour experiences, but we will both be fighting for feminism.
The best analogy I can think of is that there are loads of flavours, and colours, of feminism (like fizzy drinks) that we all need to embrace. For example, cream soda.*
*THE DRINK OF GODDESSES.
I like cream soda for the flavour. Someone else might like it for the flavour and the fizziness. Someone else might like it not for the flavour or the fizziness, but just for the can. If the main manufacturer of cream soda decided to just stop making it for some reason (this is starting to sound like an Economics lesson), those two other people and I would all be angry. Let's say we decide to start a campaign to get this drink back on sale (with pink glittery placards and all). We would all be fighting the same cause, but from slightly different perspectives, and maybe some with slightly more to fight for.*
*I mean, a girl can get pretty attached to the aesthetic of a can.
I feel like I just demonstrated how not to explain intersectional feminism.
If you guys are now just really confused, you have two options.
a) Read the article I linked above!!!
b) Read this all over again, slowly.
c) Close my blog, listen to a yoga class playlist on Spotify and drink some cream soda.
Wednesday 27 May 2015
Friday 8 May 2015
Really uninspirational inspirational speech.
If you don't live in the UK, you probably will have no idea what I'm talking about but if you do live in the UK, you will know that this day will forever be known as the day all hope died.
So, I wrote that intro a couple of hours ago. And now I'm kinda going to contradict it. I'm not going to congratulate the new government, I'm not going to pretend it's all fine but I'm also not going to let it ruin the next five years.*
*I'm also not going to try and write this impartially, funnily enough.
For the entirety of the Labour-Tory fight, the Conservative Party have stood for making the rich richer and the poor poorer. They want to concentrate wealth, and ensure anyone who needs help for whatever reason, doesn't get it. They seem perfectly content with keeping bedroom tax, a tax that unfairly negatively affects people with disabilities, and not considering mansion tax, a tax that would only affect people with houses worth £2m+ (poor them) and would mean more money for the NHS.
Even writing that made me want to just go to bed and sleep for the next five years.
But, on the plus side, because this election result has angered so many young people, hopefully this result will make people realise that to change politics, you actually have to be involved in it.
Voter turnout for 18-24 year olds increased this year, and I can almost guarantee it will increase further at the next General Election. If my Twitter and Facebook are anything to go by (not that it is really, considering I'm a 16 year old female living in Bristol aka. prime Labour/Green supporting suspect), the next bunch of 18-24 year olds voting in the election in 2020 will hopefully swing the vote the other way.*
*Ie. away from the Tories.
If we let this election result define our lives, we are essentially bowing down to the Tories. Instead, why don't we show them just how hard the 'non-voters' can fight when they believe in something.
They didn't care about us this election because we couldn't vote, but next time we can and we will.
So, I wrote that intro a couple of hours ago. And now I'm kinda going to contradict it. I'm not going to congratulate the new government, I'm not going to pretend it's all fine but I'm also not going to let it ruin the next five years.*
*I'm also not going to try and write this impartially, funnily enough.
For the entirety of the Labour-Tory fight, the Conservative Party have stood for making the rich richer and the poor poorer. They want to concentrate wealth, and ensure anyone who needs help for whatever reason, doesn't get it. They seem perfectly content with keeping bedroom tax, a tax that unfairly negatively affects people with disabilities, and not considering mansion tax, a tax that would only affect people with houses worth £2m+ (poor them) and would mean more money for the NHS.
Even writing that made me want to just go to bed and sleep for the next five years.
But, on the plus side, because this election result has angered so many young people, hopefully this result will make people realise that to change politics, you actually have to be involved in it.
Voter turnout for 18-24 year olds increased this year, and I can almost guarantee it will increase further at the next General Election. If my Twitter and Facebook are anything to go by (not that it is really, considering I'm a 16 year old female living in Bristol aka. prime Labour/Green supporting suspect), the next bunch of 18-24 year olds voting in the election in 2020 will hopefully swing the vote the other way.*
*Ie. away from the Tories.
If we let this election result define our lives, we are essentially bowing down to the Tories. Instead, why don't we show them just how hard the 'non-voters' can fight when they believe in something.
They didn't care about us this election because we couldn't vote, but next time we can and we will.
Friday 1 May 2015
Feminism Is Like Sex.
I tried writing this while listening to the BBC Woman's Hour election debate episode but couldn't quite concentrate while UKIP's Diane James talked about her party's 'fair' policies.
Today's one is going to be both political and feminist because I believe those things are completely intertwined and should be seen as being completely intertwined.
My mum asked me whether I'd listened to the Women's Hour episode (see above) and I said I hadn't but would. However, in true Lily fashion, I also went on a bit of a tangent about the separation of women and men's politics. Because I felt like I didn't quite articulate myself well enough (hard to believe, considering how beautifully written this blog is) I'm going to try again, with the aid of Women's Hour, Google, and the backspace button on my computer.
We hear loads of stuff about how women are unrepresented in the House of Commons (currently only 22%, compared to 51% in the UK), and how the current government have a complete disregard to maintaining gender equality (eg. classing sanitary products as 'luxurious' and 'non-essential') and how even Labour got trying to encourage women to vote so wrong (pink vans ring a bell?). What we don't hear much about is how these problems can be resolved. The resolution I'm going to discuss today is positive discrimination.
positive discrimination /noun/: the act of giving advantage to those groups in society that are often treated unfairly because of their race, sex, etc.
The way in which this can be done is by setting a quota for the number of MPS in the House of Commons (or Lords) that are female and male. This means you can guarantee a fair number of women MPs (51%, I guess, would be the ideal amount).
This would almost guarantee 'women's issues' would be debated (eg. sanitary product tax) and the women of the country's views would be much more fairly represented.
The first problem with this is with the method of allocating MPs. Positive discrimination means that women wouldn't be chosen for their skills, or qualifications, but for their gender. Isn't this the very issue we should be trying to fight? I can't help but think of the gender pay gap. The gender pay gap, 19.7% in 2013, is based on the fact that women are paid less on account of their gender. Shouldn't we be concentrating on trying to remove this bias, not instilling the reciprocal of it into our political system?
However, positive discrimination would provide a ground for which representation of women can be fair, which is essential if we ever want gender equality to be achieved. It's stupid that the need for positive discrimination is so high, but it is.
I, personally, have a bit of an issue with the separation of gender-orientated policies. Yes, it may be hard to see how the tax on sanitary products negatively affects men (no judgments here) but things like free childcare hours and maternity/paternity leave are not gender exclusive. This relates to the issue of men's rights activist groups. The things these groups fight against (eg. unequal maternity and paternity leave) are a result of gender inequality. The reason women have longer leave is because, traditionally, women were (and still are) expected to stay at home and be the sole childcarer, while the man goes out and works. Not only is this hetero-normative, but it also reinforces gender roles and stereotypes.
Gender equality benefits both sexes, and all genders.
In conclusion, positive discrimination is not really a good thing in itself (why have we got to this point of needing it?) but would ensure women, and their views, are fairly represented. The fight for gender equality (aka. feminism) is for both sexes, and needs both sexes to succeed. A bit like sexual reproduction.
Today's one is going to be both political and feminist because I believe those things are completely intertwined and should be seen as being completely intertwined.
My mum asked me whether I'd listened to the Women's Hour episode (see above) and I said I hadn't but would. However, in true Lily fashion, I also went on a bit of a tangent about the separation of women and men's politics. Because I felt like I didn't quite articulate myself well enough (hard to believe, considering how beautifully written this blog is) I'm going to try again, with the aid of Women's Hour, Google, and the backspace button on my computer.
We hear loads of stuff about how women are unrepresented in the House of Commons (currently only 22%, compared to 51% in the UK), and how the current government have a complete disregard to maintaining gender equality (eg. classing sanitary products as 'luxurious' and 'non-essential') and how even Labour got trying to encourage women to vote so wrong (pink vans ring a bell?). What we don't hear much about is how these problems can be resolved. The resolution I'm going to discuss today is positive discrimination.
positive discrimination /noun/: the act of giving advantage to those groups in society that are often treated unfairly because of their race, sex, etc.
The way in which this can be done is by setting a quota for the number of MPS in the House of Commons (or Lords) that are female and male. This means you can guarantee a fair number of women MPs (51%, I guess, would be the ideal amount).
This would almost guarantee 'women's issues' would be debated (eg. sanitary product tax) and the women of the country's views would be much more fairly represented.
The first problem with this is with the method of allocating MPs. Positive discrimination means that women wouldn't be chosen for their skills, or qualifications, but for their gender. Isn't this the very issue we should be trying to fight? I can't help but think of the gender pay gap. The gender pay gap, 19.7% in 2013, is based on the fact that women are paid less on account of their gender. Shouldn't we be concentrating on trying to remove this bias, not instilling the reciprocal of it into our political system?
However, positive discrimination would provide a ground for which representation of women can be fair, which is essential if we ever want gender equality to be achieved. It's stupid that the need for positive discrimination is so high, but it is.
I, personally, have a bit of an issue with the separation of gender-orientated policies. Yes, it may be hard to see how the tax on sanitary products negatively affects men (no judgments here) but things like free childcare hours and maternity/paternity leave are not gender exclusive. This relates to the issue of men's rights activist groups. The things these groups fight against (eg. unequal maternity and paternity leave) are a result of gender inequality. The reason women have longer leave is because, traditionally, women were (and still are) expected to stay at home and be the sole childcarer, while the man goes out and works. Not only is this hetero-normative, but it also reinforces gender roles and stereotypes.
Gender equality benefits both sexes, and all genders.
In conclusion, positive discrimination is not really a good thing in itself (why have we got to this point of needing it?) but would ensure women, and their views, are fairly represented. The fight for gender equality (aka. feminism) is for both sexes, and needs both sexes to succeed. A bit like sexual reproduction.
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