Saturday 21 April 2007

Reporting rape

Thispost on Taking Steps about rape from a survivors view point entirely sums up why I didn't report, or indeed tell anyone for a long time, about being raped, or even identify it in my head as rape for a long time.

I was just 17, naive and felt completly responsible for putting myself in a situation where a guy could do that to me. I wasn't drunk or on drugs, I'd just gone to meet him in a quiet out of the way place for what I thought would be making out. Yet still, even though I was bruised and bloodied and beaten I thought no-one would believe me, that it was my fault for wanting to make out with a guy that I liked, for having desire. I had virtually no experience to measure this against. At the time I was at a fancy private school and I was terrified about the scandal bringing the school, which I loved, down, and of the shame of everyone talking about me.

6 months later a different girl was assualted by a different guy. The school blackmailed her into not pressing charges, the guy was not punished and eventually she quit. The rumor mill had a field day and was always on the guys side, who was pretty popular.

I was so glad I had said nothing. Now nearly 5 years later I don't know how I feel about it; as a feminist I feel like I should have reported, I feel guilt for letting my fear let a man get away with this, and I feel terrible for not being more supportive of that other girl, of not forcing this school, which was so proud of how progressive it was, to change its ways.

But as me, the woman who was the frightened teenage girl I can't fault my choice; I would not have been able to withstand the pressure of a trial or investigation or the public shame. Not on top of dealing with the rape.

It would have been easier to report if I hadn't known the guy, if I hadn't been brainwashed into thinking that rape was always the victims fault, or that rape was always perpatrated by strangers. It would also have been easier to report if I hadn't known that rape cases in the UK hardly ever went to trial and when they did were hardly ever successful.

If I was ever raped again would I report? I don't know. I like to hope that I would be brave enough, that I would have the courage of my convictions. But I really don't know.

I do know that this has to change. Attitudes towards rape have to change, thoughout society. Laws have to change, all over the world. And feminists are the only people who can make that change happen.

Thursday 19 April 2007

Crystals

i've got a big review of an amazing gig that I went to on tuesday night to give you. But I've been busy so I haven't finished it. So instead we're going to talk about crystals. I'm going around the world, as you, my faithful non-existent readership know, and as a pagan I've been thinking about what supplies of the magical* type I should bring along. I'm toying with the idea of brining my tarot cards, because well, I'm travelling round the world alone and there's nothing like telling peoples fortunes to make friends, right? But I want to bring along some protection. And that, to me, means crystals.

I've used crystals since before I ever considered myself pagan. Gemstones and plain old stone stones, for various purposes. Aged 11 I brought my first two crystals on a family holiday in Lyme Regis; a tigers eye and an obsidian. I needed grounding and induitivly picked some of the best stones for grounding. The moral of that sotry; buy what ever stone you want to buy on the day. Don't question it.

This weekend I went to this local healing fair and knew that I wanted to buy some yellow jasper. Unfortunatly there wasn't any there. So on Tuesday, after getting my Hep A, B, Typhoid and Rabies jabs (I still feel nauseous :( ) I headed here, a local restuarant and crystal shop (crazy combination I know, they also sell clothes!). They didn't have any yellow jasper either. However I did buy a load of other tiny stones, with the intent of making my self a sort of medicine bag type thing.

I picked up some Pyrite, Amethyst, Aventurine, Bloodstone and Lapis Lazuli. Last night I popped down to my spitual home and picked up some tiny little pebbles to go in it as well.
So far so good. Now I just have to cleanse them all, make something small and unobtrusive to put them in and find a small enough piece of obsidian to add to the haul.
Oh and some Yellow jasper, because I still want some! And a load of tiny quatrz shards as offerings for the various places I come across that deserve them. Why does everything end up being more work than you think?

I am sooooo busy organising stuff for my round the world, and my lovely jaunt to Norway next week, and my two days in an infant school as part of ongoing post-grad plans, and driving to Cardiff to purchase essentials for my round the world. Oh and working. And of course writting. I'm getting worried I won't be ready for June the 4th.


*yes that's write I don't go all 17th century and write it iwth a k. ha

Monday 16 April 2007

Small steps

Today I went and did a ritual at my spiritual home. Fairly normal stuff for a pagan you might think. Well yes. But also no.
You see my spiritual home is a beautiful beach and not somewhere that I'd usually go to at night. I was attacked once, long ago, and even though I'm perfectly comfortable holding my own walking through any sort of major city (I lived in central London and some of its less salubrious edges for 3 years) I get nervous sometimes on my own in the wilds. Especially near the sea. I'm not complaining; everyone has their demons and mine are quieter than most. But I'm going around the world in just a few weeks. I shall be alone. I can't afford to be nervous there. So I knew I had to get over this one.
What better way than going to the place where I feel safest and most grounded? So I went, and did the ritual and in the gloaming my time on that beach was moving and fulfilling and I felt peaceful and calm. I even discovered a ready made stone circle in the sand right where I wanted to work. This was the right decision.
Of course I did get nervous getting back to the car on my way home and practically ran across the car park and nigh on dived in the car. But small steps right? And as small steps go, this is a pretty big one.

Sunday 15 April 2007

Someone to hate.

Mostly I don't hate people. There's any number of people who I don't hate who have done me wrong in my life. But it would be dishonest of me to say that I don't hate. Like I hate my evil grandparents, my dad's folks, because it's the'r fault that my dad is so fucked up. Of course this desn't mean I'm a saint; if it wasn't for my evil granparents fucking up my dad then he wouldn't have such a fucked up relationship with me. There is one person who I hate though who it is mostly for me that I hate them. Me, the person who doesn't even manage to hate my abuser. My sister's boyfriend. Now admittedly the guy is a jerk, but that doesn't convey the depth of hatred I feel for this guy (he really honestly is a jerk as well, whenever I mention to people that know him that he's dating my sister they're like "that jerk! he's such a horrible nasty dick etc etc," so far nobody I've met (without passing judgement or commenting on him or anything) has had one nice thing to say about him. Apart from my sister. And my parents. Whom he has obviously brainwashed.
He smokes in the house. Which is so selfish. Even my seventy yo aunty was never allowed to smoke in the house. And he treats my sister like shit. Maybe she likes being belittled and demeaned in public, but personally I think its outrageous. She used to be so feisty and confident. Now she waits on him hand and foot. Literally. She gets up every morning to cook him breakfast.
But the real thing I can't stand; the way he treats me like crap. He's the same age as me, but acts like he has some sort of right to pass judgement over every aspect of my life, from the way I look to how I talk to my parents. Seriously I hate him so much that it hurts.
In general I'm a good person. In general I'm actually way more forgiving and easy going than most in fact. I just hate this one person with a passion. Everyone should hate someone, right?

Saturday 14 April 2007

Well it seems I shall have to wait to find out if Newport is worth a visit; family stuff (ie. ill sister) prevented my depature. On the positive this means I have time to sort my round the world ticket. I'm about to pay to go round the world. Oh my god!

Newport Gwent, worth 6 hours on a train?

I am heading to Newport later today, a city that has absolutely nothing to recommend it, save for the fact that my nice ex-boyfriend who I am going to visit lives there. I only have time to go for the day (which is pretty stupid as it's a 3 hr train journey each way, but I am so stupidly busy, with loads of forms to fill out for my post-graduate plans next year (I'm already a graduate but what I was planning to do with my life, ie emigrate to Norway, didn't entirely work out so now I'm pursuing other more conventional post-grad options to fund my years as a struggling novelist (I wish there were still patrons. I currently live in a garret anyhow, albeit a garret amazingly decorated by my dad into looking like Dagobah.... (It was my brothers bedroom), I'm currently living with my rentals, which is a barrel of decaying fish that I would love to share with you another time, but to swing wildly back on point, a garret would be more creatively satisfying if I was being sponsored by some lecherous rich person.... ah well I shall have to settle for earning my own crust, to which end I am making plans for next year)
Anywho I'm so busy with all that and translation work and planning my epic journey around the world in 87 days (not quite the same ring as 80, but still around the world is the important thing...) that I can only take one day out for this trip to Newport. But, sweet journo ex boyfriend (who traveled to the Arctic by train to visit me; I inspire devotion obviously ;) ) aside, I think one day in Newport will be more than enough.

Friday 13 April 2007

reason that my job is cool

today I am mostly learning about open heart surgery.... not because I'm a doctor but because I'm translating the notes from someones operation. How cool is that?
This has been a medical day all round really. Mostly because my younger sister has double pneumonia, a word I couldn't even spell yesterday, which has necessitated hospital trips and worrying. The hospital thing I'm not so good at, but the worrying? Sometimes I think worrying is my calling in life. I worry about the most ridiculous things. How many people do you know who plan what they would do in an emergency. Probably loads. But how many people's definition of emergency includes having no less than 5 different plans for alien invasion. It's the sort of thing I think about when lying in bed at night unable to sleep, which happens alot because I am an insomniac.
Yep. Definitely alot of crazy here. But come the invasion I know which of s is going to look stupid and it isn't going to be. Well it probably will be because I'll have overlooked something essential. But at least I'll have tried!

Wednesday 11 April 2007

fuck the patriarchy

I got a book out from the library. The way we are now. Go have a look at it. I'll wait. There are no bisexuals in that book. There are no bisexuals, we don't exist. And when someone lives a lifestyle that's bi we assign them a gender role. On occasion I read the lesbian press. But I don't much because I'm a bisexual woman, not a butch or a femme; I don't fit into that world. I'm trying to exist in a world where there is no box for me.
I used to think it was easier to be a bi woman than a bi man. I think I've changed my mind. The only reason that it's easier is that supposedly you can pass as straight. Well its not that you pass as straight, you are straight. No-one takes you seriously; friends of all gender identities dismiss it as experimentation. And yes I know that bi guys get this treatment too, but the difference? They can continue experimenting for years, decades even indefinitely. Men have no duties other than to themselves. A woman has a duty to everyone but herself.
Today I brought the may issue of Cosmo (yes I know I read cosmo magazine and I'm a feminist. I promise to discuss the why's and wherefore's of this some other time.). In it there was an article on the "LUG" phenomenon; Lesbians until graduation. The entire premise of this phenomenon is that sure it's fine to experiment with your sexuality, but once you graduate you have to settle down, have babies, the whole caboodle of the patriarchies expectations for women. So you stop being a "lesbian" and become a "heterosexual."
NO! You don't. Whether you're living a lesbian or a heterosexual lifestyle that person is "bisexual" but as a bisexual female if you want all the things that the patriarchy has spent years telling us all that all women want, like stable relationships, children, acceptance in society, then you have to choose one way or the other. It doesn't really matter which.
To continue "experimenting" past the point where society sees you as a grown-up is to invite pariah status. Except they're not experimenting. Not really. They're living their life how they choose to in an ideal world where gender identity doesn't matter. But that can't be a valid lifestyle choice right? Because in the real world gender does matter right? Wrong.
And yes, I know this is not "news" as such. But people my age have been let down by the third wave of feminism. I grew up thinking that feminism was a dirty word. I was a politically active teenager who was afraid of how people would think of me if I called myself a feminist. And the patriarchy fights on. It restricts the choices of men and women the world over in order to perpetuate a stagnation that it sees as wholly natural, over looking the vast scientific and cultural evidence that tells us that actually this whole charade is just that- a charade.
Humanity has so much invested in its need for an "other" that we create one even where none exists. We put ourselves in boxes. Sometimes I think that categorisation is most basic function of society.
But it doesn't have to be. No more I've had enough. The patriarchy ends. In my life time anyway. Who's with me?