Permission

This is for the women who don’t ask permission
To be themselves.
This is for the women who are done with working on their contentment
And started working on their lot.

This is for the women whose posture says
“Fuck you, punk. I got this covered.
Maybe I’ll call you. Maybe.”
This is for the women who’ve come too damn far
To waste their time worrying whether you approve.
This is for the women who wear what they want, swear how they want,
Drink and fuck and love and fight and wring every ounce like it’s only their business.
Because it is.
And they’ve realised.

This is for the girl in class who’s done with playing dumb-
Yes, she knows the answer-
Yes no one else has put their hand up for the last ten minutes-
Yes the teacher is looking past her raised hand asking-
“Does anyone know the answer? Anyone… else?”
But she’ll be damned if she’s gonna hide her own light.

This is for the gaybar barmaids who know their regulars inside and out
And wear those memories proud, like diamonds.
This is for the sweet little old lady
With the dirtiest laugh in the nursing home.
This is for my Godmother Sara – terminal, regal,
And educating her doctors about the munchies.

This is for the liberated women who worked past violence and ridicule
To ensure their daughters never needed to be liberated-
Their daughters were never enslaved.

This is for the tough old birds and the earnest youngsters
Who know that life is too personal, too precious, too Goddamn important
To let the magazines take a slice.

This is for the women who’ve stopped counting calories
And started counting stars.

This is for Dorothy Parker’s forked tongue
Patti Smith’s horses
Boudicca’s chariots
And Rosa Parks’ tired feet.
This is for the women we could be, can be, will be
Just as soon as we stop asking permission
To be.

© Hannah Eiseman-Renyard 2013

I Liked this Better Than the Original

A literary re-write is a difficult thing to do well, but Will Self does it. I think Self works better within the restraints of this form, (versus his bloated books The Butt or The Book of Dave) and the new twists Self adds to the tale work wonders.

There is no one picture – there is a modern art installation of multiple videos of Dorian – and he has to track down and hide each and every one – adding to the drama which was missing in the original. The debauched, druggy Lords and Ladies work brilliantly in a mid-80s setting, as does the masterstroke of using the HIV epidemic to hasten the aging process for all other characters. This also adds to the suspicion around Dorian’s miraculous escape from such a fate.

In retrospect – I realise a little more about what was implied in the original The Picture of Dorian Gray – why Dorian’s implied sleeping about was just so dangerous and evil (syphilis epidemic, anyone?) but, through no fault of Wilde’s, he couldn’t state those things emphatically, and I think the original is weaker for not being able to really get down and nitty gritty with those themes.

This modern retelling is slightly lighter on the quotable quips, but I think the novel is stronger for it. Quips are great fun, but with Wilde’s original they can completely dominate scenes, whereas in this they merely give an impression of the characters. Henry is funny, acidic and mean, yes – but he doesn’t set the tone for every single scene. He remains a character who narrator Self pulls the strings on – not vice versa.

Beautiful descriptions, beautiful quips, next to no editing going on here. Two whole pages dedicated to lists of the pretty things Dorian buys himself is definitely self-indulgent – but then what else could we expect of the great Oscar Wilde?

I loved this novel for its concept and for its myriad witticisms, though I didn’t find it had much going for it in suspense or horror. I haven’t read enough else from around this era to know if it’s just of its time, or if it’s just not Wilde’s strong point. Either way, it is a shame. Also, I think Wilde missed a trick in neither making Gray that scary a character (amoral, of course, but never really that menacing to the audience), nor showing more of the world from Gray’s point of view – which could have been fun.

The character of the theatre owner is where Wilde really lets himself down as a narrator. All Wilde can do to convey how unpleasant this man is, is talk about how revolting and Jewish he is. Reading this as a Jewish person (with what I hope will evolve to be a Wildean wit) – I found this more than a bit crap. Sure, anti-Semitism was of its time – suppose I can’t hold that one against His Oscar of Wildeness, but dude, seriously, find another adjective: The theatre owner was horrible because of his horrible Jew-like eyes, and his horrible Jew-like fingers, and his horrible Jewish smirk and…. I started thinking of Randy Newman’s Short People “They got little hands, little eyes/They walk around tellin’ great big lies.” Not your finest hour, Oscar. As a writer or otherwise.

Generally, this novel is a badly-paced combination of luscious, adjective-laden prose like you won’t get anywhere outside of romance fiction these days (believe it or not I mean that in a good way) and some brilliant one-liners. A fair few of them you’ve probably seen printed in collections of terribly clever quotes, and therefore they will have lost their sheen a bit, but there’s also plenty that you probably haven’t heard, and they’re damn good too.

I’m not quite sure what Wilde was aiming for in his overarching theme which appears to be beauty = evil, but at the same time, he hardly makes a case for unattractive = good (I refer you to our Jewish theatre owner). The more I’ve learnt of Wilde’s life the more all the characters fall into place as real people, which is an interesting twist. Wooton is definitely Wilde himself – firecracker-quick with the quips, and all about the decadence and enjoying ‘corrupting’ others (in ways which will have to be inferred), while the ambiguous, unknowable Dorian was (I’d venture to guess) Lord Alfred Douglas (or “Bosie”) – the beautiful aristocratic kiddo who’s father started all the trials which landed Wilde in ignominy and prison. Bosie never once wrote to Wilde when he was in prison – despite receiving many letters from him, the young shit. Not to mention Wilde’s keeping company with so many rent-boys which he described as like “dining with panthers” – dangerous, but thrilling. I’d say it’s safe to venture that this novel is Wilde himself wrestling with the contradictions of what one who appears so angelic is yet capable of – but it doesn’t make for the tightest plot. The portrait in the attic is a strong and enduring image, but don’t dig too deep on the whys and hows. The plot’s not got much more depth than the canvas.

Good canvas, though.

A Forgotten Classic

I am forever grateful to my university’s drama society for putting on An Adult Evening of Shel Silverstein, and opening my eyes to the wonder of Uncle Shelby’s adult stuff.

Quick word of warning: this is a lot closer to Freakin’ at the Freakers’ Ball than The Giving Tree.

It’s a series of dramatic shorts, each one riffing around two or three characters interacting in a dark, twisted, well observed, and often hilarious situation. Yes, it’s a script, and I don’t normally read scripts in my spare time, but this is what writing should be, and you’d be a fool to pass it up.

As is often the way with a collection – the quality does vary a little from skit to skit – but when Shel Silverstein is not at his best it’s only ‘not superlative’, and when he’s good: it’s so good you’ll be stopping friends, family and passers-by to read it out to them – because you want to see that look on someone else’s face as these beauties hit them for the first time.

This book has no production values whatsoever, no Amazon reviews and very little in the way of Google-hits, but I beg you – for your sake and for the greater good of humanity: give this book a go and spread the word.

Cliff Notes to Anecdotes

I’m about halfway through and I’m reconsidering how much I like the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Their front man is such a douche.

Anthony Kiedis did a lot of wild/asshole things, but as he re-tells them he runs through each anecdote at a bored, breakneck speed – only sketching the barest of facts: “I did this substance and I did that substance, I caused X bit of destruction in Y place and then I cheated on my girlfriend with this sweet, dark-haired girl. I like dark haired girls. Then my girlfriend was mad at me…” all with no emotional engagement with the facts.

I’m not saying I want him to be wearing sackcloth and ashes, it’s just that he really never gets outside his own actions, or – indeed - inside his own head. As a reader you’re never there with him, you’re being taken on a guided tour of his past and Kiedis has run through all these anecdotes so many times that he’s on autopilot.

It’s a worn-out script. He’s a douche. And if he’s this bored retelling it, then that same boredom rubs off on the audience.

Oh, and he thinks his grandmother being some small fraction Native American explains why he’s so spiritual. Excuse me while I snigger.

I was walking home recently, across a busy bit of central London, after dark, when some dude made kissy noises at me, like he was trying to tempt a cat. He was two feet away, staring straight at me and smirking like an icky weasel.

Without thinking I responded in kind with a big, angry, I-will-slash-you hiss.

DESIST

He looked pretty taken aback.

I carried on my way and mused that I appear to speak feline like a mothertongue, but also I got to thinking: what the ever-loving crap?! Seriously, what on earth was he expecting from that encounter? What would a positive result have been? Surely that’s never worked for anyone, right?

Ah, street harassment. It’s been a few months. Usually my experience of you is relegated to when I’m wearing a summer dress (gender norms for the lose) but it sucks whenever it happens. It’s also antithetical to ever actually getting my interest because – no matter how many mad cat-lady vibes I’ve got going on – no one who thinks they can approach me like a pet is getting the time of day.

This particular encounter didn’t throw me much because I actually had a comeback – I walked away pleased with myself for thinking fast – but how you deflect it shouldn’t be the first point of call. WHY DO PEOPLE DO THIS?

Far more often it’s crap shouted from cars – which I find rubbish twice over because they’ve gone before you can say or do anything in response. (Come back right now, dudebro. I have a LOT to say about what you just did.)

A friend of mine recently had some jerk shout “nice tits!” at her from a car. She was (understandably) angry and upset for the rest of the day, but the guy shouting it might have told himself it was a compliment – some interviews with street harassers have revealed what is either complete ignorance or willing ignorance of the effect it has on women. Many of the men, when asked why they do it, say it’s a compliment and it makes women feel nice.

Maybe it is a compliment for a very small percentage of people – I cannot claim to speak for everybody – but I am yet to meet or hear of one person who’s had a catcall, wolf-whistle or similar and felt good about it. The thing about street harassment is, it’s not flirting. Street harassment doesn’t make a person feel good because it isn’t about a person: it’s boiling them down to their physical attributes (‘nice tits’, ‘nice ass’) and funnily enough that doesn’t feel great..

“News of your interest in my ‘nice butt’ has not made my day in any way.”

The other thing is, it’s almost never a conversation: mostly ’cause the objects of the harassment aren’t interested and want to get on with their day, and also because often it’s at a remove – stuff shouted from cars, or (to use the cliché) from scaffolding. The people doing the shouting don’t actually expect a response. This isn’t a tool used to chat up women: it’s used to silence them. Under the guise of a compliment it’s a one-way street of objectification.

And Objectification Street is a crappy street. Seriously, I looked at a flat there once. There were rats all over the place and it smelled bad.

Of course, if people are physically closer to the harassers it doesn’t exactly get better. The wonderful (and award-winning) Anti-Street Harassment UK campaign (ASH UK) was set up after its founder was harassed by a group of men who were initially shouting at her from a car, threatened to rape her, then got out of the car and followed her into a tube station where they assaulted her. The police (who did intervene) then blamed her for responding to them and said “boys will be boys.” SO. MUCH. FAIL.

Um… *cough* male readers – this is essentially Met officers saying your entire gender are all hopeless gropey asshats. Erm… *cough* I wouldn’t take that.

So -what can you do?

And, since you’ve been such a good class of gender justice warriors today, I’m going to let you finish early and watch a video:

“Sweetheart, please stop perpetuating the patriarchial dividend – it’s so over” should be on a t-shirt. I would buy that shirt.

And that’s a wrap. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go back to more important things – like buying cat food for my wonderful kitty – because some cat-calls are nice. The ones that come from an actual cat.*

*Not Schrodinger’s cat. Schrodinger is a meanie.

While it isn’t illegal to protest per se, the authorities are increasingly employing dubious tactics to stop people from doing it. This covers both herding protestors into as small (and invisible) a space as possible, kettling them to stop their movements/punish them for coming out, brute force such as repeatedly dragging a disabled man from his wheelchair, horse charging an already kettled group which included pregnant women. And that’s just on the day. Later protestors can look forward to punitive, Kafka-esque charges for activities which have not broken any laws, bail conditions which restrict movements, and being prosecuted with trumped-up charges such as ‘violent disorder’ as the police try to cover their own arses for nearly killling someone.

I first became active when I had some first-hand experience of the very thin end of this wedge. (Background here if you’re not already sick to death of it.)

The two things I keep hearing from various acquaintances when I wax lyrical about any particular case in the huge portfolio of police abuses are:

a) “Well, what did they think would happen, being there/dressing like that/holding that placard?”
and
b) “Well it’s hardly Guantanamo/a police state/Nazi Germany/any other facetious example”

To the ‘what did they think would happen’ argument indicates that the person saying this already considers protesting to be a kind of war zone, or at least a state in which assault, threats, and abuses of police power are to be expected. The elderly, the young and the infirm should stay away for their own good, and anyone who does turn up is ‘fair game’. I don’t think it’s idealistic to disagree. Protest does not and should not have a basic fitness requirement. Many of those protesting the NHS cuts have serious medical conditions. Funny that. I also firmly believe that the ‘what did you expect’ argument is precisely what those policing demonstrations want you to think. It drives a wedge between ‘normal’ people and ‘protestors’ – but anyone can and should feel free to protest. A protest is a legitimate part of a functioning democracy.

The second argument sneers and insinuates that because someone can name a time or place that a thing is worse then you must be a great big crybaby to still be banging on about improving what’s in front of you here and now. ‘Why are you complaining that some protestors got hit with truncheons? In some countries they would’ve been shot.’ Does that bump on the head feel better now? No? Strange, that.

Let me tell you the view from the ground is scary, and it’s probably going to get worse before it gets better, but we, the people, are in the right and it’s important to stand up to this bullying and harassment. Why do they put so much effort into trying to silence us? What are they afraid of?

It’s important that we protect our rights to free speech, free assembly and freedom of movement. Don’t cede an inch when it comes to your rights: people fought and died for the rights that you enjoy. The thin end of the wedge leads to the mid-size which in turn leads to the fundamentals.

Irritatingly the current climate means just defending the right to protest at all is taking up a lot of energy, when there are obviously other very important things to do as well – but the right to protest is important, so I’m fighting for it with all (peaceful) tools at my disposal.

Here are some organisations it’s good to know:

Netpol – the network for police monitoring.

FITWatch – monitoring the Forward Intelligence Teams who spy on protestors

Green & Black Cross (GBC) – an independent grassroots project set up to support autonomous social struggles within the UK.

Legal Defence & Monitoring Group (LDMG)

Campaign Against Criminalizing Communities (CAMPACC)

Newham Monitoring Project (NPM)

Useful things to know

 
1) Green & Black Cross’s phone number – write it on your arm before a demo, just in case. Keep it in your phone for future reference: 07946541511

2) You do not have to give your name, address, or any other details to a police officer unless you are under arrest. If you are under arrest you only have to give your name and address. Answer ‘no comment’ to any other questions and be sure to call the phone number above for legal support. They will organise for a lawyer to come be with you in the police station.

3) It is best to avoid being photographed by the police if at all possible. Don’t be on a database. You probably don’t have anything to hide, but this won’t stop them putting you on the National Public Order Intelligence Unit’s (NPIOU) database of ‘domestic extremists’ which can lead to more harassment – sometimes on first-name terms.

This post is belated – I thought I’d lost these pictures on an old phone – but wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles, I found them on my computer the other day.

Some time in 2010 or 2011 (I’m dating this by my handset) the Harley Medical Group started advertising plastic surgery on the tube. Images of pert models told women that they needed ‘new year, new confidence’. Plastic surgery is nothing new, but pushing that advertising on people as they go up the escalators was a new and unwelcome assault. “You’re on your way to work, by the way, have you considered that your tits could be better?” Then something wonderful happened: people started answering back. (Click on images for zoom.)

I was tickled to see a few with red printed ‘sexist shit’ stickers which I’d seen sold at a feminist event a couple of weeks before… but then more appeared. People were writing their own slogans on stickers and whacking them on as the escalator sped them past. At first I just saw them at Kings Cross where I commuted through every day. Then, little by little, I saw them in more and more places. More handwriting, more slogans. This was… a movement.

plastic surgery add with sticker on it which reads ‘gender is a social construction

And then, as the posters went away, so the stickers did too. I noticed there was a second wave of plastic surgery ads a few months later which seemed to have toned down their rhetoric a little. Still crap that unnecessary surgery was being pushed on women but something seemed to have twigged with the advertisers, too. This level of crap will not stand. I salute you, culture-jammers of London. Long may you reign.

I was equal parts delighted and embarrassed, to be honest, and didn’t know what to say to the interview panel about ‘your campaign’ (which one?! I kind of have two…). But either way, I went in for the interview and told the panel about the royal wedding incident which got me involved, told them about the Pageantry & Precrime website I set up to gather all the statements and videos about the policing into one place, and how I’d reported from the High Court every day of the trial.

I told them about my other (more ongoing) work with Netpol, the network for police monitoring. When they asked for references the lovely director of Netpol, Val Swain, and Ronan McNern from Occupy Records both said lovely things about me. (Thank you, guys!)

And in August I got a very nice phonecall that I was a finalist in the London Social Justice category, and please come to the awards ceremony hosted by Jon Snow.

Me & Tisha. God my face is SO shiny

And here are all the finalists and winners. Details of what we do are available on the Sheila McKechnie Foundation website. (I’m to the far right, looking awkward.)

The grand prize in each category was some one-to-one personalised tuition in how to be a better campaigner. Much as I’d love to have won it was a bizarre and wonderful surprise to be part of it at all. Nice canapes in St Martin-in-the-Fields and standing in the same room as Zac Goldsmith is never what I had in mind when I first decided that the Met were not going to get away with what they’d done. However – it’s absolutely brilliant to know there’s an organisation recognising and supporting the campaigners. As soon as I have any annual leave spare next year I’ll be doing one of their training courses. Whoo! Thank you and goodnight.

http://www.smk.org.uk/london-social-justice-2012/
http://www.theedinburghreporter.co.uk/2012/09/pedal-on-parliament-campaigner-shortlisted-for-award/

Article originally appeared on The Independent Blog on Friday 3rd of August 2012

On the day of the royal wedding I was arrested for being in fancy dress. I had gone to Soho Square to report on the zombie flashmob I’d heard about on Twitter. I planned to take photos, interview people, and report on it for a friend’s zombie blog. Five of us left the area when it looked like we might be kettled. We decamped to a nearby Starbucks to drink coffee and talk zombie movies. From there we were stopped and searched, arrested, handcuffed and held in police cells for hours. The reason: police interpreted the flashmob as an anti-royalist protest.

We were arrested for a ‘breach of the peace’. Two weeks ago the High Court dismissed four separate Judicial Reviews that myself and others brought against the Metropolitan police. The stage is set for extremely heavy-handed policing over the Olympics, and the crackdown has already begun.

My Judicial Review was made up of fifteen people arrested for speculative breaches of the peace on the day of the wedding. The other three consisted of one minor arrested pre-emptively for the criminal damage he could have committed with two pens in his backpack, and two Judicial Reviews about riot police raids on squats the day before. The police came with warrants to search for stolen bike and computer parts in the Ratstar squat, and paintbombs at Grow Heathrow. In execution the police were more interested in finding out the residents’ identities: they searched squatters’ wallets looking for ID at Grow Heathrow and took all toothbrushes from the Ratstar in what the plaintiffs’ lawyers say was a sweep for DNA.

Others in my own Judicial Review included members of the Charing Cross 10 – a group of republicans arrested on their way to the Red Lion Square’s republican street party, a ‘known activist’ arrested simply for being near Trafalgar Square, and one woman – arrested along with her friend, because one of them has a flyer about the flashmob in their pocket.

In court the Met’s barrister classified our arrest as a category 2 breach of the peace – which means that we weren’t arrested because our own actions were believed to be criminal but because our presence could provoke ‘not wholly unreasonable acts of violence’ from others. In our case the ‘others’ were indisputably taken by both sides to mean royalists.

The weekend after our court hearing was the Jubilee. After my own experience the year before, I went to Republic demo by the Thames as a legal observer. Hundreds of people stood holding placards with slogans like ‘down with the crown’ while an endless stream of royalists walked past. Some booed. Others told them to go home. A few sang God Save the Queen at them – that was it. That was the apparently volatile mix of republicans and monarchists which the police had arrested me to prevent.

Our arrests did not happen in isolation. They are part of what many civil liberties groups point to as a pattern of an increasing de facto criminalisation of protest. Increasingly, those attending demonstrations know they may be photographed, stopped and searched, or kettled without access to food, water or toilets. In the student demonstrations of 2010 the Met kettled school children in sub-zero temperatures for hours. One hundred and forty five UK Uncut demonstrators were arrested and brought to trial for ‘aggravated tresspass’ simply for sitting down in Fortnum and Mason. Increasingly, it seems, the police want to put people off demonstrating – and for the regulars who are assumed to be ‘ringleaders’ the police find ways to tie them into lengthy, expensive and exhausting legal battles.

In our High Court hearing we were hoping for a judgement which ruled that the police acted unlawfully over the royal wedding. A judgement which could have clarified that holding (or being suspected of holding) dissenting opinions does not give the police licence to arrest people or raid their homes with riot police. As it stands: the current judgement has set a troubling precedent. In stating that the police did not act unlawfully, the high court has in effect given licence to the police to do the same again.

We are looking into appeals, but in the meantime the crackdown for the Olympics has already begun. On the 17th of July former graffiti artists (some who had only ever done corporate commissions, others who had not been active for years) were arrested and bailed with conditions banning them from going within a mile of any Olympic sites. On the night of the opening ceremony over 130 Critical Mass cyclists were arrested under Section 12 of the public order act for causing a public nuisance. Their bike ride has been a monthly event for many years and their right to ride without notifying the police was upheld by the House of Lords in 2008. The cyclists were released with bail conditions banning them from coming within 100 metres of an Olympic venue.

Tolerance and free speech are proud parts of our tradition. Over the next few years more and more people will have reasons to protest. Those in power know this and are acting pre-emptively to stop dissenting voices being heard, and the clampdown is affecting even those suspected of being dissenters. My own experience with fancy dress was clearly frivolous, but this is the thin end of a very sinister wedge.