Well, I Feel Suitably Feminine

My blood donor records now have a special note on them, asking whichever nurse I see to make sure I lie down for 5 minutes after I’ve finished donating, lest I do what I did the first time and collapse twice.

I was very well behaved this time round, and didn’t feel faint once. That came later, when I was in a bookshop, having convinced myself that I was fine this time. I think perhaps I destroyed my feminine credentials by immediately dropping everything I was holding and sitting down on the floor. In the fantasy section. Which wasn’t decorated in pink.

Filed Under “Not Helpful”:

An actual email sent to me by the student officers of the my student union, which starts:

“Eat well. Christmas may be a time for overindulgence, but make room for your 5 fruit and veg a day and you’ll feel better for it in the new year.”

Seriously.

That’s just… really unhelpful. It’s also their “Happy Christmas” email. The exquisite irony is not lost on me. Unfortunately, it seems to have been lost on them.

The Moral Of This Story Is: Don’t Be A Pillock On The Train

I spent my formative years travelling around London. You’d think I’d be used to agressive men metaphorically (or indeed literally) dick-flailing in public. But.

1. I haven’t had to deal with this sort of nonsense on a regular basis since I left our wonderful capital over a year ago.
2. It’s fucking scary.

The train last night was basically Dick-Flailing Central. There was one drugged-up bloke screaming “we hate Rotherham” and yelling about football results and the miners’ strike (which, since it happened in ‘84, he probably wasn’t even born for) and another six guys (boys, really) being drunk and loud. And there was yelling, and homophobia, and racism, and sexism, and all of the usual things that makes me stabitty. And the guy sitting next to me was laughing. Not shit-I’m-a-bit-scared laughing, but outright isn’t-this-hillarious laughing. I nearly punched him. Except, you know, that I might have ended up a little bit dead.

Anyway. Eventually the boys goaded each other into a fight. Involving a glass bottle. Which luckily didn’t get used, or broken. And I wasn’t too sad to see them getting kicked. It was a bit like a fight between UKIP and the BNP – you wanted them both to lose.

But glass bottles and drunken angry boy-men are a danger to everyone, sadly, not just themselves. And it wouldn’t have taken much to set Bottle-Guy off again. Like, say, someone looking at him in a funny way.

So with the carriage totally silent, and – no shit – every single person in the carriage looking at me, I walked out. Out of the carriage, past Bottle-Guy, Miner-Guy and all of their little friends, past every other fucker who’d done nothing, and down to the other end of the train. Where I found the conductors, tried to tell them what was happening and – burst into tears. Shaking, crying, the works.

How humilliating. And how fucking terrifying.

The good news is that this persuaded them to get the police out.

The other good news is that at least one of them will be charged for fare evasion.

The bad news is that nothing’s likely to happen about the guy who was waving the bottle around.

But. They were trying to get to Sheffield. They got arrested a stop down the line. The last thing the conductor said to me was that he sincerely hoped the police would keep them nicked until the last train had gone. And at least one of them will be fined for it. So. The moral of the story is: don’t be a pillock on the train. Otherwise, I’ll do my best to get you arrested.

Words of Wisdom from my Mother

“Just because somebody belongs to a minority group, that doesn’t mean they’re capable of rational thought”

I’ll have to make this into a sampler, I think, and hang it on my wall, so that the next time I’m shocked to hear (for instance) that a group of lesbians have told a bisexual woman in a relationship with a man that “as soon as [she] finds a nice girlfriend, [she]‘ll become a real lesbian” I can look at it and keep calm. Instead of (for instance) telling the lesbians that, if that’s true, all they need is a good boyfriend each to make them into real straight women.

Blog note:

I’m tinkering. I’ve obviously got the tinkerbug since I started messing around with Teaspoon of Sugar last week!

Anyway, I realised that for someone who’s got used to captioning every photo they post, I’ve been pretty fucking shit about making the bingo cards readable. So I’m updating and revamping the collection. Be prepared for blips over the next few days, but I’ll try to keep the content up.

ETA: 27 bingo cards later, I’m done. Yay for work avoidance!

Spot The Difference:

Back in February, Carol Thatcher, a white woman, referred to a black man as a “golliwog”, backstage at the BBC’s The One Show, in a private conversation between her and a white man. She was subsequently sacked from the show, though she was still able to appear on the Andrew Marr Show afterwards and further display her racism.

Fast forward to this month, October, and Anton Du Beke calls his dancing partner on Strictly Come Dancing – a mixed-race woman, Laila Rouass, a “paki”, also backstage, also in a private conversation, but this time between him and Ms. Rouass. This time, the BBC is “standing by” their foul-mouthed liability.

The BBC justifies this on the grounds that Du Beke has apologised. To be fair to the man, he has indeed apologised. It’s a shame he had to spoil it by clarifying it by insisting that “I am not a racist and … I do not use racist language“. It makes one wonder what it is he’s apologising for. The rest of it boils down to him saying that he didn’t intend to be offensive; that he accepts it’s an offensive term; that he didn’t think about how others would react; and that he’s sorry if he’s offended anybody. So it’s a fairly standard industry non-apology, really – bar the part where he accepts that it’s offensive, which most non-apologies don’t do.

Frankly, in some ways I prefer to deal with people like Carol Thatcher, who at least own their racism. She didn’t give the BBC a choice – it would have been very difficult for them not to sack her. Somebody like Du Beke, though – well, as I see it, the BBC are acting like that parent in the playground, who, when they see their precious spawn kick the crap out of you, tells said spawn in a sing-song voice to “say sorry and play nicely“, and then takes the muttered “sorry… that you weren’t strong enough” as a sign that everybody is the best of bestest friends again.

And, being the nasty suspicious person I am, I have to wonder whether it’s really the apology that’s made the difference.

You know, since Carol Thatcher’s a woman in her fifties – practically retirement age for women at the BBC – who insulted a man, and Anton Du Beke is only 43, and, more importantly, a man who insulted a woman.

Just In Time To Make Me Feel Great About Going Back To Uni…

… Terence Kealey, vice-chancellor of the University of Buckingham, has been an utter douche.

Joy. Of. Joys.

You know what’s reasonable for me to need to be concerned about when I go back to uni?

My modules, my timetables, my exams, my finances, my notes… the list goes on. It’s not pleasant, granted, but it’s kind of expected that you might have to think about those things.

You know what’s not reasonable for me to need to be concerned about when I go back to uni?

Whether my male lecturers are trying to look down my top.

How a man clever enough to be a professor can be stupid enough to be such an entitled, arrogant, heteronormative, sexist shit-for-brains astounds me.

Or, you know, maybe he’s not that stupid. Maybe he was smart enough to know that he wouldn’t really get called out on it. After all, it’s only the NUS Womens’ Officer who’s objected. Not anybody important, like that spokesman from the University and Colleges Union. It’s not like anybody with any power to do anything cares.

I feel stabbity.

Behold… The INTERNET!

I am now reconnected to the feminist blogosphere – hurrah!

However, tomorrow I leave for France. Swings, roundabouts. Normal service, such as it is, will resume sometime in September. In the meantime, I see that the Carnival of Feminists has been reinstated (thanks for the tip, Kirsten) – hurrah again!

A First

Today, I walked past some builders (all male) in the street.

I didn’t worry, I didn’t flinch, I didn’t think about whether to make eye contact or not, I didn’t change anything.
I just walked.

This will sound daft to those who don’t experience street harassment, and probably pretty damned surprising to those who do.

I’ve never done that before. Not since I was a kid. Builders are usually the worst. At least, they’re percieved to be the worst.
After a ten months of living in Sheffield, where not one single builder has ever cat-called, whistled, stood in my way, leered or anything else, where I’ve only had three unwanted interactions with any men at all, I’ve started to not worry.

It feels fantastic.

In “Phrases Which Annoy Me, Possibly More Than They Should”:

“The mother of his children” – a phrase usually applied to situations in which the positive attributes of a woman in a heterosexual relationship are being considered.

Seriously, what?!

His children?

As though the mother – who has generally (though not always) carried the pregnancy to term and then given birth to the damned thing – has nothing to do with it!

Well. If ever I spawn, I will bloody well be refering to “the father of MY children”. So there.