My experience of Steve Hedley and a message to the British Left.

*Disclaimer/TW*
Triggering issues including mental illness, domestic violence, victim blaming and body elitism are discussed in the following post.

As most trade union/left activists in the country know, there has recently been an incident regarding domestic abuse. On International Women's Day 2013 Caroline Leneghan (RMT- Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers union) made public an account of how her ex-partner Steve Hedley (Assistant General Secretary of RMT) abused her physically and mentally during their relationship. Leneghan's blog can be found here and contains pictures of her injuries that some readers might find upsetting. In her blog she detailed how when she took her complaint to RMT & she detailed several ways in which RMT tried to disregard her allegation

1. The investigator attempted to make a link between her mental illness and the abuse she suffered.
2. She was asked about her personal history.
3. She was asked how someone of Hedley's build with a history of boxing didn't hurt her more.

RMT then cleared Hedley and on the back of the investigator's attempt to blame Leneghan's mental illness he wrote a statement which you can read here.

A few weeks before this Leneghan published her account of the abuse she suffered at the hands of Hedley, I got into an online argument with him. Firstly during the argument he stated that I 'couldn't handle the topic' attempting to convince me and others that my point was non other than a product of me being to delicate for the discussion.


His tone with anyone who contributed to that discussion was vile, but to me in particular. He told me that 'in the real world' people argued and alleged that I was a 'middle class student' who would soon be 'sacking the workers' (presumably with my English degree from Edge Hill). When I affirmed that I was indeed working class, a council tenant, a care leaver and had extensive experience in the 'real world' he then shifted his attack to my looks. 

Hedley's attempt to silence me by telling me I was middle class, then telling me I was ugly then telling me I needed to 'find myself a partner of some kind'  made me feel like my part in the debate was completely dictated by my gender and by my age. A well paid middle aged man in the high ranks of the RMT being misogynistic, ableist, and attempting to intimidate a young woman isn't as serious his violence to Leneghan, and I wouldn't want anyone to think that for a second. What is similar, however was the way in which Hedley reacted. 

First he attacked me and then when I fought back he told me that my mental health was the problem and that I needed to 'seek some help', he also went to look on my profile. Finally when I refused to allow him to bully me publicly he told me that I was playing the victim and that I had been attacking him by swearing in my comments.
 First he physically attacked Leneghan and then when she sought help in his statement he told the world that her mental health was to blame and he hoped she would get the help she needed and he implied he had been the victim. 

There's a pattern emerging, isn't there? I spoke to someone who worked with domestic violence victims and they told me that abusers tend to use one set of behaviours repeatedly to disempower the people they wish to hurt. Hedley's attack on my mental health and his pointing to Caroline Leneghan's as the problem isn't a coincidence, it's a tactic used to make onlookers (and the victim) question the validity of their opinion. 

Unfortunately I've encountered many men that attempt to silence me with bullying tactics and many of them in the Left, I've seen first hand in the SWP what not listening to women and survivors can do. It's poisonous. So I have a message to the British Left;

 women will not be silenced any more and your attempt to disregard the abuse we suffer will result in your cause being weaker. No longer can you hide misogyny or rape apologism behind a veil of doing the best for the party or the cause. No longer can you appropriate the women's struggle with tokenism to strengthen your appearance whilst simultaneously pushing silence upon us. 
There will be no radical left without women's liberation and no women's liberation with victim blaming and rape apologism. 

Polytines: Polyamory and Valentines Day; the dilemas and the advantages of.

Communication is a huge factor in most polyamorous relationships anyway, (why wait until February 14th to tell all the special people in your life that they're special?) but Valentines Day can be a tricky one. I've collected some of the best personal problems and advantages of Polytines Day.

Let's start with the advantages:

1. You get to celebrate more than once, with different people in different ways.

2. Your partners know you in different ways and you have different things in common. One of them doesn't like prawns? (NOTE: I have a huge phobia of prawns) Don't stress it, you'll be able to go to your favourite seafood restaurant with another partner.

3. If you're in a triad or a quad and this means shared responsibility. Two heads are better than one, and this comes in handy when deciding on the other partners' present.

4. That married couple you've been dating have celebrated many Valentines Days together and now that you're in the picture they're both happy to have someone else to treat on Valentines Day. Woo hoo!

5. Your poly family gathering means that this celebration is more like Christmas! But better, Christmas with more sex.

6. The fact that you believe Valentines Day is a capitalist construct which attempts to claim human emotion and sell it back to consumers in order to validate love, doesn't matter, because your primary has a new partner that they are dying to spend the evening with.

7. You've been having a sexual relationship with one person and a romantic relationship with another you get to spend time with them both.

8. More partners= more chance one of them will be able to cook and more chance that one of them will enjoy your favourite album (The Moldy Peaches)

9. More sex. More people to send cards to!

10. Less monogamous drama!! It's easy come easy go. (Puns intended)

Now the disadvantages:

1. You'd think you'd get to celebrate more than once, but you just end up sacking someone off for the night.

2. Your new partner surprises you with a visit to their favourite seafood restaurant (they don't know about your massive phobia of prawns). Panic attacks are sexy, right?

3. You're in a triad or a quad and so today means you're now skint for the rest of February. Thanks capitalism.

4. That married couple you've been dating have been invited to a couples' dinner party, it's a tradition with friends and now you're stuck at home, listening to your housemate intermittently cry and wank.

5. Your poly family gathering turns out more like Christmas than you could imagine, in an argument.

6. Fucking brilliant, your only partner at the moment believes Valentines Day is a capitalist construct which attempts to claim human emotion and sell it back to consumers in order to validate love.

7. You've been having a sexual relationship with one person and a romantic relationship with another. They live at opposite ends of the country.

8. The sad truth is that no one but me likes The Moldy Peaches album and I will always overcook the vegetables.

9. You will get thrush from all the sex. And paying the postage on the Valentines cards you sent out will mean you can't afford thrush cream.

10. As a romantic gesture your partner's partner travelled up to see them! They brought flowers! You're so touched by this gesture you decide to let them have the night together and eat the romantic (although slightly overcooked) meal you made for the two of you. Ahhh the things we do for our many loves! 

On same sex marriage

Dear Rosie Cooper, 

My name is Kashka, I sit on the committee of Merseyside LGBT Students'
Network and I'm also the President of Edge Hill's LGBT+ Society. I
originally planned to contact you a few weeks ago to invite you to
partake in a debate we're holding for LGBT History Month entitled 'Is
Equal Marriage the final battle for LGBT liberation'.

 
After the vote in parliament on equal marriage, and you decision to
vote against it, you can understand why I am now not inviting you to
speak. I don't believe there are words to explain to you just how
poisonous and destructive your actions have been. The decision to vote
against granting equal rights to same sex couples was shared by bigots
from the conservative party and UKIP. 
As an individual I am hurt, as an activist I am scared and as someone
who has lived in West Lancashire for the majority of my life and been
under the care of the local authority; I am horrified. I'm horrified
that people around the country will see your name on the list of shame
(so it's entitled in an online blog) and think that your vote reflect
the opinions of those in the area. I'm horrified that the local young
people, who are too scared to come out as gay, bisexual, lesbian or
trans* will see that their local government sees them as less than
their heterosexual peers and this will feed internalised homophobia.  

You have failed to represent these young people.
You have failed to represent me.
You have failed to represent the any of the LGBT people in the
district. 
You have failed. 
You have hidden behind 'morals' without thinking of consequence,
without thinking of representation and because of that; you have failed
yourself.
I will eternally remember that the person 'representing' me in
parliament believes that I am not entitled to marry. I had previously
voted Labour because I saw them as a progressive party. Maybe they
still are and if you consider them to be; maybe you should consider
leaving. 

The damage you have done is permanent and there's nothing
Christian about it.  

 Yours, a former Labour supporter,

 Kashka Georgeson

Phat resources on Fat Shaming, Body Positivity and Self Acceptance.

 

A lot of people have messaged me to ask questions about my post on fat shaming and body image to ask questions. There are loads of resources out there. I'm going to list a few here. :) 

What it's all about- wikipedia

If you have tumblr the body positive tag is always fun- http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/bodypositive

And here are some other tumblrs you might like-
Fat Art
Body Positivity
Fat Grrrl Activism
Body Posi
Redefining Body Image Post
Big Fat Feminist
It Gets Fatter (For fat queer people of colour)  

If you want things on facebook-  
Body Positive Image Campaign

For twitter- 
Fat Positive Tag
Body Positive Tag
Fat Positive Hulk

Google image that shit. 

Asortment of websites and blogs-
Body Shaming Article 
http://fiercefatties.com/
Fat Liberation Manifesto 
Recognising body shaming 
Top 50 Self Acceptance blogs
Fat Feminism
The most highly rated fat acceptance books
Fat positive youtube videos
Ways to deal with body shaming 
On raunch culture and body image 

I'm happy to answer questions etc, but a lot of answers will be found in these resources! :)

Why I'm not running in my union elections

Firstly, I'd like to thank everyone who encouraged me to run in the election & everyone who has supported me in the last few months, those friends who have ferried me to hospital appointments and given their time to listen to me. Partners, who have emotionally supported me & helped remind me who I am at times when I lost sight of that. Comrades and activists up and down the country who inspire me and remind me why we do what we do. I feel privileged to have you all in my life.

I’ve made no secret about how much of a difficult time I've had with Edge Hill Students' Union over the past couple of years. From the destruction of the student council, to poisonous nepotism and the active discouragement of student participation from certain sabs, I've found engaging with my union continually disheartening. I felt consistently unrepresented, as LGBT+, as a woman, as a disabled student. I felt these groups were ignored. After an interaction with a sab who stated that they didn't feel they represented these groups in their first year in their role but didn't feel they 'had time' to represent these groups in their second year, I was horrified, I was dismissed.

I decided something had to change so became involved in my union in multiple ways: I didn't want to be an armchair activist. I took a leading role in rebuilding the non-existent LGBT+ Society, we created a community that was formerly invisible on campus. We did amazing things like being quoted in the universities' anti-discrimination policy, getting our safe space policy union-wide, having Peter Tatchell talk on campus, holding safe space support, campaign, social and educational meetings for students every week.

 We took Edge Hill Students to their first NUS LGBT Conference, we joined forces with the three Liverpool Universities to form Merseyside LGBT Students' Network. We networked with LGBT activists up and down the country and through MLSN I saw what a union that cares about *everyone* looks like. I lead LGBT students on their first demo, we built relationships with LGBT staff & got a gender neutral toilets motion passed at directorate and then held a direct action when facilities management decided to ignore the motion. I hope after leaving Edge Hill that even if for a short time, the work we did has improved life for LGBT students on campus. In this time I learnt just how powerful the passion of a few people can be.

But this wasn't written to brag about what we achieved. The the primary reason I decided during my second year to run for vice president of arts and sciences was because of the way, despite the positive change I helped instigate on campus, some sabs who should have been encouraging and supporting this change, were still dismissive. And there was a lot of work left to do.

In my time attempting to be proactive on campus I tolerated sexist jokes, I tolerated the condescending looks, tones and emails. I even tolerated an incident when three male (cis/straight) men laughed at a transphobic postcard we received during a post secrets campaign for International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia, because I felt ignorance was their problem. As a result of this me and other students in the society arranged and delivered an educational session on trans* oppression. Of the two remaining staff who first laughed at the joke, the one who turned up made a joke about me attempting to turn him into a homosexual.

I spoke about my running for election openly. I was planning on slating with Kate Jackson, a brilliant woman who is one of our best allies on campus. I received a mixed reaction from union sabs from encouragement, to amusement and even active verbal discouragement from one person! I had fellow students delete me from social networking website because they were running, too. I had other candidates interrogate me about Kate Jackson’s campaign every time they saw me! But, despite the election stress I was determined that minority group students should no longer be made to feel unimportant, I built up good links with the Islam Society and the Christian Union, I attended Feminist Society meetings, and I had meetings with the universities’ head of Equality and Diversity. I decided that with enough energy and passion students on a grassroots level could instigate change themselves. I had decided my slogan, my campaign colours, and my manifesto. So what changed? Well…me.

A fair amount of people on campus know about the fact I’m disabled. I’ve made sure LGBT+ Society has had a regular disabled caucus and that it’s accessible to people with a range of disabilities. Being out about being disabled, for me, is harder than being out about my sexuality. People get used to the fact you’re not straight, but that you’re disabled? Completely different. And there have been huge barriers in participating with the union because of my disability. I planned to change them, I planned to do for disabled students what we had done for LGBT students, and to put disabled students at the center of that change.

So now, instead of talking about what’s wrong with the behaviour of some individuals in the union, I’m going to talk about what’s wrong with me. I recently found out that the medication I’m on which slightly improved my eyes, has stopped working. It’s truly heart-breaking to find out that medicine that has severe symptoms (weight gain, energy loss etc) on everyday life isn’t doing what it should. My eyes are slowly getting worse and because of the symptoms, my hypothyroidism is getting worse. And because of the nature of hypothyroidism my bouts of depression and anxiety are getting worse.

Yes, there are still significant problems with the way some members of union staff feel entitled to treat serious issues surrounding ability, gender and sexuality. But I’ve had to take the decision to step away from the union this year in order to allow myself time to read, time to attend hospital every other week and time to spend with important people in my life. Coz, guys, what is scarier to me than allowing idiots to go on behaving like idiots; is not knowing if I’m going to lose my vision. If you’ve met me, which I’m presuming you have as you’re reading this: you know I care, a lot. And until I know whether or not I will be losing my sight I’m going to direct some of that care towards myself and the important (and often neglected) people in my life. I’m tired, increasingly depressed and I don’t have the energy to keep banging my head against the brick wall of other peoples’ ignorance. I have plenty of other battles and I’m not just politically active on campus, honestly, with the behaviour I’ve seen displayed I feel those individuals need positive change more than I do.

For those of you whose health allows you to run in this campaign: good luck. There are some amazing candidates who actually care, I should know, I was meant to have the privilege of running alongside one. 

Thanks for reading, if you have read all this! And thank you to all the amazing student LGBT, Women's, Disabled activists who remind me that there are people who are fighting for change. I'm going to miss not seeing (pun intended) you as often as I'm used to! 

Whose fat is it anyway?

*Disclaimer: this blog applies to me and is applicable to my experience. I certainly don't speak for all women, let alone all overweight women.*

I have something I need to say, and it's not pretty. It's not sexy either. It's about fat. And not just any fat. my fat. I'm not sure how much and how emphatically I can stress this to you, dear reader; I don't consider my fat to make me an inferior person. And I never will. Rather than recount the long and complex journey I've taken with my body image over the years, or discuss the feminist issues surrounding fat, I'm just going to lay down some rules. If you struggle to shrug off the prescribed norms surrounding bodies and fat that fine. But here are some simple rules you can follow for interacting with this fat person:

1. If you get the urge to inform me I'm fat: suppress it. (This one goes out to the men in clubs, the girls from high school and all the other people who feel it's hilarious to tell me I'm fat). It might come as a surprise to you but I actually know I'm fat. Weirdly enough, I can see myself. I don't need you to inform me. Unless you have some deep seated issues relating to your self esteem & you think will benefit from putting me down: I don't understand why you'd want to take time out of your life to tell me.

2. Please don't presume you know why I'm fat. As it happens I have an illness relating to my metabolism which causes me to gain weight. But, even if this wasn't the case, I don't want your diet advice. I don't want your exercise advice. I don't want to join in with your weight loss challenge and no, dear lord, no, I don't want to hear about how your Nan/ Mum/Aunty's Dog lost weight. Strangely enough I'm not overweight because I'm not intelligent enough to google diets.

3. Please don't body shame me. Body shaming for me is really complex, but basically: I'd prefer it if all your comments about my body were kept to a minimum. A good minimum is silence. if I want your opinion, I'll ask for it. I don't need you to tell me I've put on or lost weight. I certainly don't need you to say 'Minute of the lips lifetime on the hips' whilst I'm eating. I don't need your humiliation. Thanks. If you choose to believe the hype society makes about all fat people being lazy and generally awful human beings and feel compelled so strongly to save me from yourself: why not do it privately? And then I can privately tell you to go fuck yourself. :)

4. Don't presume that *any* weight loss is good. See, society has constructed a reality where fat=bad. So when you see that I've lost a little bit of weight, you want to tell me 'Hey, well done, you're not as physically repulsive as you used to be'. The problem here though, is that my weight is a symptom of a disability. Sometimes I lose weight because I'm ill, or cant afford to feed myself properly or can't afford a lot of heating or because the illness that my weight relates to is easing up slightly. But all those variables are temporary and so inevitably I'll re-gain that weight. If you notice this, it is most certainly not your place to be disappointed. I'm not asking you to keep quiet because I'm arsey, but because it's not good for my mental health for you to congratulate me on poverty weight loss and the pressure to maintain a completely unsustainable weight loss isn't helpful either. 

5. Please don't presume that I require or will welcome your approval. I once received a phone call off a family member who thought they would ring me up to remind me that fat girls can be attractive too! Listen, purrr-lease; if you have a problem with confusing weight and attractiveness, that's your business, baby. Don't make it mine. I don't hold the same values as you or see the world through the same lens, I don't need you to find me attractive *despite* my clearly disgusting and horrific disability. Really. Also in relation to this: don't presume that people you deem unattractive don't ever have sex or that people don't ever find them attractive. You're sorely mistaken.  


What I think happened is that somewhere down the line fat got communal. And now people who have no qualification other than being slimmer than me, and not suffering from the same condition I do, now feel like it is there place to save me from my gluttonous ways. For a long time I allowed myself to be taken in by this culture that thrives on insecurity on punishment and not help, on laughing and not caring. But my fat doesn't belong to this culture, it doesn't belong to well meaning friends, it doesn't belong to drunk men in pubs or anyone else:

it belongs to me. And you should probably respect that.

Just the view of some ‘big fat bitch’? Body Elitism and Me

  So I’m thirteen, on the bus to a school I joined three months ago and I’m trying not to cry. Yes, three months, that’s enough time for the boys in my school to work out I didn't have any ‘hard’ siblings and notice I was a ‘big fat bitch’. This I was used to, and scary as the thought is, this is what I expected. On this particular day what I didn't expect was for all the boys on the bus to have gone to the bakery. What I didn't expect was for one of them to hit me in the face with cream cakes to the joyous chorus of ‘FATTY! FATTY! FATTY!’ What I didn't expect was for one of them to spit in my face. I didn't expect that. I didn't expect them to throw half-full coke cans at the back of my head.

By the age of thirteen, I had internalised how undesirable, unattractive and unacceptable society found (and still finds) ‘fat’ people to such a degree, I expected verbal abuse. In fact, I remember scolding myself, for crying. I told myself ‘You should be used to this by now.’ I did this right through my teens, continually repeated the messages society taught me. I told myself I was disgusting because I had stretch marks, unlovable because I couldn’t control my own body. At seventeen I was diagnosed with a thyroid condition, the main symptom being ‘weight gain’. I remember wishing I could go back though my life and tell every person who had sneered, laughed or shouted at me for my weight, about my condition. Five years on, I know that the problem isn’t fat or slim; the problem is in my head. The problem is in your head. The problem is on the television, in-between the pages of magazines.

This culture of ideals, this construction of ‘perfect’ is even more prevalent in today’s youth, and with the rise of plastic surgery, body shaming and positively poisonous gender-norms, it continues to rise. My story isn’t unusual. There are thousands of others from women and men who are labelled as unattractive because they’re overweight. There are stories from people who have suffered because, they’re told they are too thin, too fat, have the wrong hair colour, or posture, or facial features, or are too pale, or too dark.

This is body elitism, the fact that we are taught ‘what’ and ‘who’ is attractive. Body elitism is the idea that one kind of body is superior, it’s the resulting label of bodies that don’t completely fit in between those narrow lines inferior as ‘ugly’ or ‘wrong’.  Today, rather than saying, ‘my body is wrong for a reason’ I’m saying ‘a body cannot be ‘wrong’’. A body is made up of flesh, veins, skin, and muscle. Bodies are diverse; bodies can be healthy or unhealthy. Bodies have different abilities, different uses. If a body exists, it is not ‘wrong’. What is the point in deciding one is ‘better’ than another?

The truth is that even capitalism, the economic system that thrives on our  prescribed inferiority complexes and sells us the products that can cure ‘imperfections’, (boost skin, decrease wrinkles, re-energise tired looking bags,) even this machine of consumption, that sells us this ‘superior’ body, doesn’t 100% know what exactly this body looks like. It comes as no surprise that the major companies that sell tanning products to women in the west, sell skin-bleaching products to women in the east. It does come as a surprise that big toiletry companies try to sell products with campaigns about ‘real’ women, as if we should be thankful that they aren't using the kind of bodies this culture deemed ‘superior’ in the first place.

When I think about this, I get angry. But I’m angry at the culture itself, I’m angry at the way people are forced to hate themselves, not at women who fit into the ‘superior’ category. This is where I draw an important line, because most of us can recognise how we shouldn’t feel inferior for being fat/thin/having different facial features. (Although that doesn’t necessarily mean that we don’t). What I’ve found increasingly troubling is this rhetoric of ‘real’ women (as if there is such a thing). Now, it seems, those who sell us are insecurities are trying to sell our differences, too. Now we’re told that ‘‘real’ women have curves’. ‘Real women have meat on their bones’.  

Now we’re taught that rather than challenge the idea that one body is inferior on the basis of specific characteristics, we should challenge other women. ‘Bigger women’ have been told (and some embraced the idea) that other women, judged in the same society, oppressed by the same narrow guidelines of ‘attractiveness’ are the direct enemy to their body autonomy. I’ve seen this warped idea play out in several social situations, from other ‘bigger’ friends saying things like ‘(Slim girl) might be thin, but she’s really ugly’ or ‘(Slim girl) has a body like a child, she’s not even like a woman’. Most horrifyingly, I’ve seen it play out when a relative said of ‘anorexics’; ‘It’s the way they think, they hate us’ and continued to insult them on the basis of their condition.

No!

Just stop.

Like everyone else in this distorted reality, people who suffer from anorexia are taught to hate themselves.

What can stop this slaughter, this construct that is literally killing people? Well I don’t have all the answers, but it’s my belief that thorough and far reaching social change would ignite a process of women collectively shunning these prescriptive standards. I believe the media and corporations being owned by the people would result in media and businesses that work for people not profits at any cost. These things I believe, but some things I know.

 I know that my struggle against body elitism is more than giving the finger to people who walk past me and sneer or laugh. I know that I never want anyone to have to be bullied like I was for their appearance. But more than this, I know that other women, other people are not my enemy, because no matter how ‘pretty’, ‘skinny’ or healthy another person is, they are still judged, every day. I wouldn’t wish my experiences on them, and I certainly don’t blame them for my suffering. If I want liberation from constrictive body ideals, I want it for everyone, regardless of shape, race, ability, facial features and regardless of whether society sees them as ‘prettier’ than me.