On women only train carriages

I often utilise women only spaces (officially ones or unofficial ones) to avoid harassment in public & at social events (toilets, gyms, kitchens at parties, clothes shops) and, you know what? It works. The issue of public transport is the issue of choice. Now, it would be real simple if you and your buddies could make the honourable choice to stop flexing your metaphorical members in a cat call-off on a Friday night, but my experience has concluded that you can’t. So the idea of women only coaches on trains and tubes (proposed for consultation with women by Jeremy Corbyn) is one simple (by no means 100% solve-all option to give women a choice to be in a carriage with no men in it. Now, whilst there may be problems with this idea (that would be useful  for women to discuss together) men have taken to twitter to air their disgust at this policy idea. 

I have been harassed on public transport since the age of 14. Telling me that this ‘could easily happen to men’ even though it doesn’t is telling me that I, at age 14 on the train from Southport to Appley Bridge deserved to be cornered and & have middle aged men interrogate me about body.

Because the truth of the matter is in the last eleven years I have grown to expect to be sexually harassed and assaulted on public transport with very little support from other passengers. And when that support comes it is usually from other women.

Every time I have been harassed on public transport it has been (to my knowledge) by a man 99.9% of these instances the man has been white 99.9% of instance he has been unchallenged.

-It was a man who repeatedly tried to touch me on an empty platform in Liverpool when I was 21.

-It was a man who harassed me on a weekly basis on the 395 bus from Ormskirk to Skelmersdale, who got annoyed when I refused to speak to him and followed me part of the way home when I was 19.

-It was a man who rubbed his genitals on my hip on the London Underground when I was 18.

-It was a man who intercepted another man who was drunkenly propositioning me at Ormskirk bus station only to then sexually harass me for the entire journey home when I was 22. Imagine that- getting sexually harassed whilst you’re being sexually harassed.

-It was a group of boys (age 12-16) who spat at me, threw food and drinks at me & chanted names at me every morning on the school bus in Shevington when I was 14.

-It was a man who touched my body without my consent on the 143 bus in Manchester when I was 23. And who got the funny looks when I shouted over to my friend  ‘Ew this man is trying to grope me’? Oh yeah, me.

-It was a man who rubbed his thigh against my leg and read over my shoulder on the bus last night.

-It was a group of four men who made comments about my fat body this morning at the coach station.

I am 25.

I have been spat at, cornered, followed, groped, shouted at, whispered to, blocked from moving, stared at, spoken about, had pictures taken of me, been called names, been coerced into conversation, been sexually shamed & had my belongings confiscated.

I have tried ignoring it, challenging, discussing it, reporting it, shouting back, glaring, asking other passengers for help & physical confrontation.

Any whilst it might hurt a few feelings for men who have decided that this is ‘segregation’ (which is not only pretty flagrant use of a racially charged word but just horrifically incorrect) or that ‘all carriages should be harassment free’ (yeah, they should, but erm, they aren’t & I don’t see you looking up from your copy of the Telegraph to challenge other men on their behaviour) I can’t help but feel cheated.

Yet again men’s views are privileged above women’s safety and autonomy. That same privilege that comes into play when a man decides his desire to touch a woman comes before her permission. Your feelings are hurt?  Your FEELINGS are hurt. Fine. That doesn’t make your beliefs correct. This isn’t Dawson’s Creek. This is the real world. And I have a life time of research called ‘Being a Woman on Public Transport’ to support my ideas.

So I’m sorry if the idea that women want to be safe from the daily barrage of crap you throw at us is hurtful. It seems so many of you are moved to tweet, maybe whilst on public transport, maybe whilst ignoring the awkwardness of a woman being harassed three seats down.

I am tired of pretending to be on the phone, pretending to know other women on public transport to defuse harassment situations and most of all I am tired of pretending to care about your feelings. Close your legs,  get your hand off my thigh, log off twitter and shut up.

# 1 things you thought would be different in the queer community that aren't - Productivity

  Like many people with mental health problems, disabilities & addictions & regressions I live in fear of someone asking me THAT question
'What have you been up to?'
1. Because they are usually only asking this so they can tell me about their new job/house/other thing that garners them 'productive human' privilege in painful, smug, insensitive detail.
2. Because when I answer honestly 'Nothing' it seems to unsettle them.
3. Because what I have been up to is eating nutella out the jar, crying & harboring resentment towards everyone in the world who doesn't feel as shit as I do.

I've not been writing. (In fact I've not been writing, working, smiling, exercising, socializing or any other verbs that are expected of me).

I've not been writing for a while now. Not writing poetry, not writing job applications, not writing much of anything. In university my favorite tutor once told me that writer's block was just ego. As if your particular words are so precious that you can only pour them out over a page when they have crystallized into a literary masterpiece. Get over yourself, learn some humility, develop drafts. But I don't have writer's block, not least because (like that tutor) I don't believe in it.

 I have life block.

I have life block & I can't talk about it to people within the wider queer scene because our dominant ideas about mental health center around palatable, imagined try-hard-activists-who-somehow-manage-to-struggle-through-their-problems-to-contribute-in-a-meaningful-way. And I am not contributing to shit. I am regressing & retreating  & relapsing into behaviors I used to need cushion myself from immediate dangers I don't even experience any more. I am breaking. Every aspect of my life seems to some how be on the verge of complete failure, I am in a grey area of my own inability to human, And if I'm honest it's fucking sad & boring  enough without feeling like I need to create a long list of imaginary shit I've been up to.

Source-http://www.landeeseelandeedo.com

The thing I've noticed most by my newly found desire to spend all day alone in my bedroom crying is this; productivity as a superior trait is not a concept that is challenged enough. And that little question 'What have you been up to?' eats into me, sets my brain desperately searching for a truthful response because I don't want to lie to you when you ask me. But given that you just spent ten minutes explaining how busy you've been (and leaving spaces for me to make impressed noises) I kinda need to. I know this because when I don't I see a flicker in your eyes that tells me it's not only that I'm not contributing to the conversation, I'm not contributing to the community. And that you think that makes me (get ready for some oppressive nonsense) 'Lazy'. Surely I have Things To Do? Surely I have Ways To Be Productive?

The fact of the matter is; this bullshit around productivity is capitalist, lifestyleist cuntery. And I've let it make me feel bad for too long. So I've stopped engaging in circles where capital is awarded to the people running the most zine making, lesbian knitting, yogurt weaving, beard recycling, vegan whittling, post grad smoking, guitar protesting workshops/marches/petitions/meetings.

 I'm not even mad, kids, I'm just opting out of this verbal wankathon of Judith Butler/<insert relevant event>, I'm just sitting this one out. 

It's not that I have no desire to do anything, it's that the big tasks in my life are so big that every time I think I might go for a walk or write a letter or take a shower my brain says 'Hey, what about all these things you should be working on/obsessing over?'

And here we come to my main point of writing this. I have decided that I'm stepping out of this unacknowledged privileging of productivity (in queer spaces particularly). And instead of meeting, and advising, and workshoping I'm going to give myself permission to do nothing. And I'm going to do nothing until I feel like trying another verb; healing (whatever the fuck that means).

I've lost count of the amount of times I've been knocked off my feet by wave upon wave of regression & relapse & I know I'm not the only one who is struggling to stand up and dust myself off to try again. I think those of us who experience life block, whose lives fold in on themselves every few months or years (who suddenly find themselves unable to leave the house or answer their emails or speak to family or friends, or go to work, or eat properly or wash or get dressed, those of us whose parents don't financially pick up & put us back on our feet, those of us whose conditions aren't curable) need to take time to recognize that our mental health problems, our day to day struggles aren't what most people are talking about when they are discussing mental health. Because recovery for us isn't a story ark, it's us bracing ourselves against the storm long enough to try and function (whatever the fuck that means to us) for a short while.

If you know that you, like me, fear that horrible question, and other variations of it (no, I don't know where my 'career' is going, and I don't want to hear about yours, thanks) let's make a pact. Let's decide instead to ask each other about how we feel (and genuinely care about the answer in a non-condescending manner), congratulate each other on getting out of bed, high five over surviving life thus far, even if we have gotten here in week old pyjamas with stains on them  and our friends/family/partners have become repulsed by our endless ability to fuck up and freak out.

 Even if we've not written anything for a while.