GUEST POLITICAL BLOG from Rosa Rajendran: People Are Too Privileged To See Class and Money: Perspective of A Disadvantanged Woman of Colour.

Some very important words from a friend of mine, posted on her blog.  NEVER FORGET THE MONEY, would be my summary. Over to Rosa:
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Intersectionality is the theory that multiple social identities and related oppressions overlap, with these social identities and oppressions being categories such as race, gender, sexuality, age, and class. The fact that these overlap, means that feminism must take into account all of these different aspects and understand the oppression these groups face, and not just work for white, heterosexual, middle-class or upper-class women. It has been embraced by feminism across universities and in political groups such as the Young Greens. I think intersectionality has been embraced in this way because, essentially, it seems very easy to understand: someone who is Asian and identifies as non-binary, for example, has a very different experience and faces different oppression than someone who is Asian and identifies as a woman. But, I believe, after a certain stage, simple interpretations of intersectionality fails precisely because of these rigid categories that we try to put people into, and because some of the discussions that I have seen, fail to take into account the most important factor: economic circumstances and class.

Here’s the crux of it: my oppressions, much of what I have gone through, come from one huge, distinct part of my identity: I was poor. Not just the kind of poor that means you still are able to live in a house and go on a small holiday once a year and scrape together enough money to pay off a mortgage. No, it was the kind of poor which meant I ended up homeless and living in a women’s refuge for families fleeing from violence, when the rest of my sri-lankan family decided me and my mum were not worthy enough to help, because we were poor, unimportant and lacking social status.

Every year, my mum faced harrowing tribunals to be able to get benefits to have enough money to feed me. The debts mounted up, I was terrified every time I heard a knock on the door in case it was a bailiff again. I developed horrendous anxiety and recurring panic attacks because of our financial and housing situation. Once I went to university with a scholarship and got a job, I started paying off all of these debts and a cloud lifted. I was happy, and felt free, because for once, I was free from financial burden. 

Then slowly, I felt myself becoming ill. I tried to put it aside for a long time, decided to leave accountancy and work for a PhD studentship (with a stipend attached) hoping for more flexibility, and hoping that it would make me feel better and that the never-ending fatigue, unexplained pain, nausea and migraines which had been slowly invading my life would lift. But in the end, my illness got the better of me and I became bed-bound, and my stipend money will now stop until I am well enough to return to university.

I have not left my house for a month, because of course I do not have money to hire a private occupational therapist. Even if I were to leave the house, I cannot tolerate sitting in a wheelchair for long because I bought a cheap, manual assisted wheelchair that does not provide support and jerks so much that the pain in my joints and muscles being unbearable. I do not have a carer paid for by the state, because my local council has a waiting list that is 6 months long. In a second, many of my current oppressions and past oppressions could have been reduced or even taken away, if society was more caring and equal, or I had different economic circumstances. 

Yes, being a person of colour plays a part. It plays a part because I have a family who decided to throw me and my mum out when we were at our most vulnerable. Yes, I suffered oppression due to being a person of colour, because of my family. Yes, I do suffer from micro-aggressions, which are termed as behaviours that happen to women and other oppressed groups that can have a large impact over time. For example, I have had people treat me or talk to me as if I didn’t understand English, or something exotic or different, because I am a Sri-Lankan woman, I have had trouble with jobs and men in workplaces treat me as inferior, and I have been cat-called and sexually harassed and other things that women, and in some instances particularly women of colour, face.. But these micro-aggressions pale in comparison to the havoc that was wreaked on me by my economic circumstances and lack of support networks growing up. 

Someone who is Sri-Lankan, experiences very different cultures and oppressions from someone who is from a different Asian background. And two women who are Sri-Lankan, can have very different experiences depending on the village or town or city they were born to, their caste and family status, and even status (financial and otherwise) within their family. Family support and networks (or lack of it) is crucial. The interplay is so complex, and results in such vastly different experiences, that I am uneasy in saying that another woman of colour would face the same oppressions as me.  Many of the women and people of colour that I know, live in a world so highly privileged and so separate from me, that I would say we are worlds apart.

When it comes to having money to eat, having a home which I feel safe and comfortable in, being healthy and feeling free: I have far more in common, both in terms of my oppression and my identity and experiences, with anyone from poorer backgrounds (both women of colour and not), than with people who identify as women of colour or disabled and are from middle-class or richer backgrounds.

I believe that past and present economic circumstances, as well as class, is so important. It is the most important factor to take into consideration, when combined with other oppressions. Women from poorer backgrounds   and without support suffer horrifically: yes, if they are poor and white, they may not face the same micro-aggressions that people of colour face, and the oppressions that other disadvantaged groups face. Yes, they may find it easier to get an interview than a poor woman of colour or a poor woman who is not heterosexual. Yes, they may not receive islamophobic threats and abuse. But, money and class is a stepping stone. Even if it’s harder to get an interview, connections and work experience opens doors that disadvantaged people do not get: moving to a more desirable, liberal neighbourhood becomes easier, having a job becomes the norm rather than an anomaly. I have seen this time and time again, with privileged friends who are people of colour (both men and women) getting very high paying jobs very quickly, when those who are both people of colour and not people of colour, from very low economic circumstances, sinking even further into difficulty.

And those without such luck and due to an accident of birth or circumstances may have to rely on the state to feed and clothe them. The oppression and difficulties faced from this one thing alone, is unbelievably huge. They may live in constant fear: the fear that you will never know until you are in that situation, the fear of constant tribunals and court cases, of bailiffs, of debts, of declining health, of food, of mortality, of not finding work and having no one to rely on. Those from disadvantaged backgrounds, those in poverty, deal with things that most people from middle-class or upper class backgrounds have never even thought about. Having money, growing up having it, having your basic needs always provided for and not living hand to mouth, already affords such a huge privilege. 

And throughout all this, the reason why I suffered like this, is because of my economic circumstances. It is the elephant in the room, the issue that seems so hard to talk about, even within the Green Party and to fit into discussions about intersectionality. I see discussions about people of colour, about women and rape culture, about women with disabilities, about LGBTIQA issues; all of these valid and important. But all of these issues are compounded and intertwined with economic circumstances, by money, and cannot be separated.

We are all separate people, with vastly different experiences, and simply because someone is a woman, or is disabled, or is Sri-Lankan, it does not mean that my experiences or oppressions are even remotely the same as that person. In fact they probably are not, unless they come from a similar social and economic background and have the same family and social networks.

The Green Party and other liberal left-wing groups are often accused of being too liberal, too middle-class, too white. Ironically, by embracing this simple form of thinking of intersectionality, in which people are placed into neat boxes and have ready-made oppressions placed upon them, and failing to take into account class and economic issues, the green party and the young greens are showing their own privilege. Intersectionality is important, but it is not a simple answer. There are many nuances and every story and every oppression is different, because every single person is different and feels things differently.

The fact that many people cannot see or fail to discuss economic circumstances whenever other issues are discussed, shows that they are indeed privileged and have not had to deal with the huge, over-arching oppression of poverty that casts a shadow over every aspect of life.
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Here is a link to the original article on Rosa's blog, it's a newish blog and therewill be more to come:
https://rosaamongstthethorns.wordpress.com/2015/11/04/when-intersectionality-fails-and-people-are-too-privileged-to-see-it-perspectives-of-a-disadvantaged-woman-of-colour/

An Interview with Kate Orman: Dr Who Author, and SF writer

Kate Orman is an Australian feminist and science fiction writer. She has written a few of the more notable Virgin Doctor Who New Adventures  (and was the first and only woman to do so) and some of the BBC Doctor Who Eighth Doctor Adventures.  As well as loads of other things.  Here is her website, so you can see what else she’s been doing, and a list of the Who novels she’s written.  Also, it’s a brilliant commentary on her mind, her website – she is always posting fragments of thoughts, bits from books she’s reading and reactions to theories, news, sociology, anthropology etc.  I can get lost there a while – and I encourage you to, as well!  In the pic above, she is with her husband, Jonathan Blum, with whom she has co-written several books.

I’ve been reviewing, in my rambly way, lots of Dr Who books over the past year.  One day I reviewed one of Kate Orman’s, not for the first time – but she stunned me by replying in the comments section and starting a conversation.  What a nice woman!  I then got a bit ambitious and big headed, and asked her for an interview…she stunned me again by agreeing.  I had masses and masses of nosy questions for her, and she’s answered quite a lot of them here. Hope you enjoy reading the answers as much as I did.

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Did you always want to write, or did you have train driving or Prime
Minister ambitions etc first?

My vague plan, from the age of twelve onwards, was to become a geneticist and cure cancer. Looking back, it's obvious something else was bubbling up - I didn't just study science in high school, but English Literature as well. I coasted through university, and was hopeless in a laboratory. In high school I was attempting my own science fiction stories, and during university lectures I was often taking notes in one folder while writing fan fiction under the desk in another.

But it wasn't until Virgin Publishing announced the New Adventures that I made a concerted, organised attempt to get something published. Probably the first concerted, organised attempt I had ever made to
accomplish anything!

Was science fiction always the home for your writing, the best way to express what you wanted to say with your stories?

It was certainly always what I was interested in writing (and reading, and watching). Well before I started scribbling Doctor Who fanfic during lectures about DNA, I was writing stuff pinched from Larry Niven, and from anything set in a stringently ordered futuristic society.

Are there authors you find stay with you for decades, you can re-read their work and it always says something new?  Or do you find your taste constantly changing and adapting as you grow?

I've been very deliberately reading more widely in recent years. I never studied history or politics, or anything outside my own little window of interests - science, SF, some ancient civilisations. So now, when I read a novel set in, say, India or Nigeria, everything about it is new and exciting. I just have this immense gap in my understanding of the world to try and fill.

Were you a Dr Who fan from the start, or was it something that crept up on you?  What other science fiction TV do you like - then or now?

I didn't discover Doctor Who fandom until the late eighties, when I was in university. But I grew up in that blissful era when Doctor Who was on TV most of the time - that is, Australia in the seventies, when the ABC (our version of the BBC) could be relied upon to repeat its small store of Third and Fourth Doctor stories at least once in every year.

Childhood and teenage favourites included Blakes 7, The Tomorrow People, Star Trek (especially James' Blish's adaptations of the original and animated series, and Next Gen), Knight Rider, and The Real Ghostbusters - I can still watch and enjoy all of these. (But I can only take Battle of the Planets in its original form of Gatchaman.) Later, there were shows like Star Cops and the original Twilight Zone. I'm currently watching the anime of Gantz (I prefer the movie adaptation). If we widen the field to include the more fantastical, the list would include Sapphire and Steel, The Prisoner, and Death Note; and I've just finished watching Fullmetal Alchemist.

When you were writing for the Dr Who New Adventures and then Eighth Doctor Adventures, were you allowed much leeway, or was there very strict continuity to follow?  How free did you feel to explore themes you love?

Major events, such as the arrival or departure of a companion, were decided by the editors. Every so often we'd get a document outlining the upcoming run of books, typically giving us a rough idea of those big events, and perhaps asking us to pitch books which would contain those events, or which would fit into a broad theme. When new companions were introduced, we'd get a description of their characters, so that we could include them in our pitches. Other than those landmark events, though, the editors were relying on us to come up with ideas!

Do you find your feminism always plays into your stories, the Dr Who and your other work?

There is no better genre than science fiction (and its inseparable companion, fantasy) for exploring feminist ideas. Feminism, like any progressive movement, is about imagining the world as it could be, rather than just accepting the status quo.

The original science fiction I'm working on right now is this sort of book - the biotechnology involved lets me play around freely with sex and gender. (Although I've been able to do all the fun world-building sciency stuff I enjoyed so much as a youngster, such as in Niven's "Known Space" stories.)

Feminist ideas crop up even when the subject isn't a feminist one, of course. My most recent sale was ‘Skull Time’ (published as ‘Head Case’ in Cosmos Oct/Nov 2011), which was about neurobiology, but involved a woman trapped by both technology and by a violent husband trying to get a call for help to the outside world.

And what would you say to those young women (I've met quite a scary few) who feel the battles of feminism are all won, its over, and there's something ...ugly and strident and unattractive - and uptight, about still calling yourself a feminist? (Grrrr, is my articulate reaction.)

I suppose you could show them a collective photograph of the local House of Representatives, or college board, and ask them how they feel about all these old white men making decisions about their lives. Especially their sex lives. ;)

Do you feel your philosophical/religious notions inform your work too?  I read on your blog that you feel there was no beginning to everything and there will be no end (I totally agree).  Is there more room to play with and express these sorts of ideas in science fiction than other genres do
you think?

Mythology shares with science fiction that larger, freer canvas for telling stories about the way the world is, was, could be. I trawl through myth, religion, and anthropology looking for ideas about the universe and our relationship to it (also a major topic of SF) which I can use in my writing. For example, "Skull Time", the story I mentioned above, was inspired by a Hittite ritual.

My characterisation of the Doctor is partly drawn from the Wiccan male deity, the Horned God, who falls only to rise again - much as the Doctor "dies", only to regenerate. My understanding of the God is as an alternative masculinity: full of energy and passion, caring and protective; not domineering or tough; more likely to use a joke or a trick than to reach for a weapon. It's a set of characteristics that suit the Doctor well.
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Thankyou very much indeed, Kate Orman, and sorry this post took me a little while to get up!  And more Doctor Who books reviewed soon, and more of Kate’s work too.

In the meantime - back to the Guest Season next post.

The Dream of the 'Perfect Home': Stress Relief

So what about Cath Kidston, then?  What about Kirsty Allsop?  What about Anthea Turner and ‘Perfect Housewife’ series of yore (which I loved, and won’t even call it a guilty pleasure).  There is nothing more therapeutic, I have found, than learning to fold a towel so that none of its edges stick out and it looks like a towel folded at a shop – new, pristine, full of possibilities.

What the hell, you say.  What possibilities?  It’s a towel.  It will go beyond the possibility and definitely get wet.  And not be washed when it should, because your partner dropped it on the floor and left it there.  Or your son borrowed it for a pouring station floorcloth and spent all day getting it increasingly more and more soaked, pouring from one small plastic cup to another.  Missing a lot.  He will take off his small socks with the rabbits on them and determinedly dunk them in the cups, helpfully washing them for your delectation.  You will scrunch up your nose and not say anything when he pushes them deep to the bottom of the cup, and the water slops over the sides, again.  The towel is drenched.  The carpet is drenched.  You think about mould, and mildew – and critters!  You cringe.  And smile when he holds up the sopping dripping socks, and just leaves them on the carpet.   He’s a happy chappy.

There.  That’s the possibilities of your towel.  It will fulfil its towel destiny of getting very wet and smelly.  Later, it will no doubt get hair dye all over itself too, and change colour in streaks: either it will bleach out entirely or it’ll have dark brown all over it.  A strange dirty dark brown.

What’s the point of all this?

The point is…the other day, other week; I was feeling all unaccountably tense and uneasy and stressed out.  The usual, worrying about stuff I can’t do much about.  I get like this a lot.

Which makes me want to control such as I CAN control.  Like some aspects of my immediate environment.  My home.  This was way easier before I had Fluffhead of course.  Before Fluffhead, I Anthea Turner-ed the entire bathroom in our old house (because it was the smallest and easiest room to do).  I had hampers for the towels, which were folded PERFECTLY IN ORDER OF SIZE AND COLOUR.  I had a matching bath and toilet mat.  I had a matching loo roll holder and loo roll container/ dispenser thing (what are those called?) that sat beside the toilet, looking all tidy and pleased with its shiny self.  My loo rolls matched the other colours.  Everything was mint green, white or cream.  My eyes felt rested by this.

Looking at that one perfectly ordered room (all its shampoos etc tidily stacked in little baskets on the ledge and dusted for that weird sticky bathroom dust) – I felt my chances of combusting in a fit of apoplexy diminishing exponentially.  Before my eyes.  I used to stand in the doorway to the houses tiniest room and just…not have tense shoulders.  Breathing more slowly.  Relaxing.

Stanley found it most amusing that he always had to elbow me out of the way to get into the room to have a pee.  (After which I would sometimes supervise moppage in a very bossy and unnecessary way, because I am bonkers and men can be messy.)

Anyway.  So when I think of my immediate environment, I think of all those images I have absorbed since I was small.  The idea of a home, the idea of this cool, quiet, calm environment where you can rest (notice I didn’t say warm, noisy and full of children).  It’s full of pretty things.  Useful things.  It’s more or less tidy.  Not like a show house, it’s not pristine and scary; but it’s not a tip.  (There aren’t children’s toys EVERYWHERE…and wet small socks randomly on the carpet where you’d least expect them, going quietly mouldy.  There aren’t boxes in every room, on the floor, on the wardrobe, on every available surface, Amazon boxes, market fruiterer boxes; storing all your boyfriend’s models and computer bits.  There aren’t computer bits – wires, cables, chips, bits of motherboard – everywhere.  Next to the toaster, for gawds sake.)

When stressed I always get to a point where philosophical viewpoints cease to soothe me, ethics and magick seem like the background to someone else’s life…

First I notice I want to read magazines more.  I don’t do Elle, Marie Claire, Cosmo etc.  They seem from my looking, to be full of vacuous looking ultra thin fashion victim ads, and precious little content.  I read (when I do, which is thrice a year-ish now), Prima and Essentials.  I first bought those years ago because they came with free dressmaking patterns.  They aren’t home-making magazines, but they have doable, beautifully photographed craft, cookery and sewing sections.  They count as Aspirational Home Porn fodder.  I swim in the pastel sea of gentle crafts and improvements, and A line skirts cut on the bias you can sew in an evening: ‘little skill needed’.

Then I dive into fiction.  When I get to an even more precise stress point, only utter escapism will do.  The world of grown up chick lit.  Where Jane Green lives.  Where Lisa Jewell lives (though, if you’ve read her last, you may well agree with me that she has gone mainstream and shouldn’t be hindered or limited by the chick lit label anymore).  Where the Queen Marian Keyes lives.  They write about real life issues and dilemmas that women encounter, but with compassion (not treacle) and humour.  Through a veil of friendships, pretty landscapes. Homes.

I’ve given up watching rom-coms in this state.  They are usually U.S. made, and not only do I want something a bit more familiar and close to home to identify with, I also want the bad teeth of the UK people, our speech mannerisms, our diffidence, our national pessimism.  I want less gloss, groomed-ness and perfection from my fictional females.  Less husband hunting.

I never read chick lit where the women are super rich.  I like my women at or close to my own level – i.e. the escapism works best if I can imagine being you or I can imagine getting to where you are.  Its escapism, but only because of the story structure, the happy ending of one sort or other, guaranteed.  And the depictions of solid friendships among women, without competition or back biting.  That’s worth aspiring to.

And sometimes it’s lovely to read the descriptions of the homes.

Which brings me back to Cath Kidston, Kirsty Allsop, and Anthea Turner.

It’s a whole different post to talk about why baking, home-making and Being a HomeMaker, in a 1950s approved perfect hair smiley keep the house nice for your husband kind of way, has become a mini subculture among some women in the last 10-15 years.  Why some feminists are worried by it.  In that: it is a choice among many to choose to be an old style housewife; but some of its manifestations are sexist and retrograde…are some women that subscribe to this new HomeMaker culture simply abandoning their hard won lives outside the home with careers and later or no children; are they simply and deludedly hiding from 21^st century life with their floral housedresses and tiered trays of cupcakes?  There's more than one reason for doing this, too.  Do not bother to get mad with me or send me answers on a postcard.  I’m just describing the debate for you.  As I say – not going into the ramifications of that, here.  I’m not a paid up member of either side of that debate.  I see the feminist worry and I share it.  But…

Oh my lord, do I see the lure of the idea of a perfect home.  A ‘Perfect Home’.  A sanctuary.

So: Cath Kidston.  I won’t pretend to know a lot about her.  All I know, is that our shops have been increasingly invaded by overpriced (ok quality) lotions, handcreams, pots, canisters, storage thingies of multiple sizes and patterns, aprons, mini rucksacks – also of all types and patterns, but mostly very very floral.  You name it, it will have her name on it and it will be floral or dotty, very colourfully, yet delicately.  (Think old time Laura Ashley, of the1980s.)  I know there’s lots of craft products, and cooking products.  She seems to be the highly floral backdrop to the crafty/makey things at home element of the homemaker movement.  I don’t own any of her stuff: too pricey.  And it’s become so ubiquitous I rebel.  (Even though there’s a strong part of me that will always be floral, and want to store things in pretty matching tins.)

And Kirsty Allsop.  All those programmes she does about relocating, and making things: another proponent of the perfect, tidy, handcrafted home: smelling always of baking things with cinnamon.  I mention her as she is also something of a phenomenon in the HomeMaker movement.  I don’t go for her at all.  I like the fact she’s a properly decent sized female – no size 0, 8, 10 or even 12 there.  I have no idea what size she is, but she eats that food she makes.  I do like that.  But I dislike the crafty side of things.  All the bits and pieces and ingredients: its all too fiddly, too enormously expensive.  I don’t have the spare money to go and get all these supplies.  I don’t have a car to get me to the craft shop out of town on the motorway.  I don’t have time to go to papier mache and pottery classes.  And that’s a little tiny bit of the point about Kath Kidston and Kirsty Allsop: its all a bit overly upper middle class role playing.  Passionately devotedly real to them…but when I try it, it doesn’t feel real, it feels like role playing.

It’s nothing to do with the real world where I live, where I count the pennies with increasing worry and recently learned to darn socks properly.  My craftyness is mixed with much more of a Wartime Farm feel, its very make do and mend.

I think Anthea Turner will have to be my favourite.  I loved her military control freakery as she tidied other people’s houses, and forced them to store their bits of RANDOM COMPUTER CABLE, STANLEY! in pretty matching storage boxes.  (Some of which were painted shoeboxes.  Easily done.)  I love the way she decluttered.  I love the way in the Christmas episode, she used old crappy jewellery for Christmas Tree ornaments, the way she iced biscuits with a child.  Not expensive biscuits.  Regular biscuits.  Her crafts were doable, quite simple.

She restored order.  She made melba toasts from old bread.  She showed me how to make cheap cocktails.  I can hear reassuring Northern in that voice, much as she seems to have tried to lose it.

Through Anthea and her shiny eyed perky haired obsession, I saw how at some point, an orderly pretty home, with children in it, was a real possibility.  (When they’re a bit older than Fluffhead.)

Seeing through her eyes, I can pare down my space (er, I have books floor to ceiling on 2 walls of my room) and make it more breathable and liveable.  A place I can dream and work towards a dream.  I can be Perky Chicklit Juniper there.

I could sit under the cherry tree, currently still exploding with (wet soggy) blossoms, with my Cornish friend aka Daisy Ginn, and sip at our ice cold cheap Bellinis, as I promised her.  It’s a lot about a sort of simplicity.  About things not being as complicated or hard on the head as they are in real life.

I could have a life I enjoy being in as well as observing for its colour and light, its taste and tactility. 

In this world, I am soothed by the thought that for 15 minutes straight my towel will remain perfectly folded – all will be well with my small corner of the world.  Mmmmm.

I finish reading Rachel Hore’s The Dream House (2012).  I pick up the recently started A Girl’s Guide to Home-making (2011) by Amy Bratley, and sip my camomile tea.  Both these heroines also got caught in the Lure of the Perfect Home.  Different results…it’s a fictional subject that keeps being returned to.  We keep worrying away at it, wondering how achieving it would change things for us; make us feel safer, or more in control, ready to face the world.  It’s a powerful dream.

Back to the real world then…but maybe a bit later.  I can’t have my perfectly folded towels right now; but I can read about other people trying to have them, or whatever it is that signals peace and order to them.  It fascinates me, just as it fascinates so many other women.