I feel I should preface this post with a couple of points:
Before yesterday I didn't know what "twerking" is
Before yesterday I only had a vague grasp of what a Miley Cyrus is
Ninety per-cent of the discussion I've read about this performance has focused on its overtly sexual nature, speculation on Cyrus' drug usage, eyebrow-raising at that really weird tongue thing she does and the inappropriateness of broadcasting this routine to an audience of impressionable children and young teenagers. Until that is, Caitlin Moran retweeted a link to a blog exploring its racial implications.
I read the blog a couple of times, trying to take in the message. In all honesty, at first I felt it was overanalysing somewhat, looking for issues that weren't there. But then I'm not a black woman; I have never had to consider that traditional feminism doesn't account for specific issues faced by women of different ethnicities. That's when I started to deconstruct my own feelings about this blog post, the VMA performance and other forms of normalised "accidental" everyday racism.
I still don't think Miley Cyrus' dance routine (I'm being generous in calling in that!) was overtly racist in the same way it was overtly sexual. But it DOES perpetuate accepted stereotypes about black women and representations of their sexuality.
To me, being racist means a deliberate and conscious act which harms or denigrates one or more people based on the colour of their skin and/or aspects of their culture.
I don't think that applies to Miley Cyrus in this instance. What I do see in her performance is what I've called "accidental racism"; that is, an unconscious attitude towards (in this case) black culture which stereotypes and misrepresents a key intimate aspect of black women's lives.
The fact that the racial implications of the performance need to be highlighted is entirely the point. We don't see this as 'racist' because such representations of black women and black culture have become normalised to us. A few decades ago, it wasn't seen as sexist to market a kitchen product to women in this manner because demeaning women was normal and accepted. It has taken many years to challenge that and begin to eradicate sexism, and yet we still see adverts for cleaning products, supermarket chains, etc. that focus their preference by mothers as their unique selling point. And yes, when people complain that such adverts are sexist, we're told that we're overanalysing and looking for issues that aren't there - because attitudes that cleaning and grocery shopping is the preserve of the little wifey at home are still normalised.
It is possible to perpetuate damaging racial stereotypes without realising you're doing it. This insidious form of oppression is much more difficult to challenge because it first requires an awful lot of work to demonstrate that it even exists and that you're not grasping at straws to find it.
A few days ago, a friend published a link to a series of "automatic preference" tests, one of which looks at whether you lean towards or away from black or white people's faces. I have NO idea how it works, but when my results were given, it also gave a breakdown of the total number of respondents and the average result. Staggeringly, the majority - over a quarter - of respondents were found to have an automatic preference for white people over black people. This means that without any conscious decision making, they found a white face more tolerable than a black face. THIS is entirely what is meant by accidental racism.
One final thing I would like to say on this matter is that I don't hold Miley Cyrus 100% culpable for the content of her performance. There is a team of stylists, choreographers, managers and broadcasters who need to ask themselves what the hell they were thinking when they decided this was a really great routine for a young, female artist.
Something a little more lighthearted for me today!
It smells slightly Autumnal today, and I'm very excited. It's about 18 degrees outside, so a bit cooler than recent weeks and there's a hint of something russet, red, golden and crunchy in the air.
I love Autumn; it's definitely my favourite season. The colours are so exciting, their warmth contrasting against the bite in the wind. Putting away floaty dresses and tops, bringing out the snuggly jumpers, scarves and boots - it's like that most excellent part of the day where you start to wind down and relax, shaking off the frenetic activities of the day and embracing a quieter, more pensive time.
I eagerly anticipate evenings spent in twilight, drinking hot chocolate and warming chilled fingers and toes by the fire.
Yesterday was a really scary news day. The detention of David Miranda at Heathrow airport under schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000 has sparked outrage and nationwide, if not global, questioning of the incident and its wider implications.
In short, if you've missed any of this, David Miranda is the partner of Guardian journalist, Glenn Greenwald, who has recently reported on Edward Snowden and assorted surveillance programmes in the United States. To clarify - Greenwald is the journalist, not Miranda. Whilst travelling through the UK en route to his home in Brazil following a trip to Berlin, Miranda was stopped by border officials and detained for NINE HOURS. That is nine hours without the presence of a lawyer, legally compelled to answer any and all questions asked of him, and having all his personal effects - mobile phone, laptop, even a video game - confiscated. After nine hours he was released without charge or arrest, basically because he had done nothing wrong.
That is horrifying. What is even more horrifying is that this incident was "legally and procedurally sound" according to the UK Home Office. The law accommodates this sort of action against an entirely innocent person, denying them the right to silence, exposing us all to arbitrary detention, intimidation and interrogation.
I decided to have a look at the Terrorism Act 2000 and learn a bit more about it - know thine enemy, etc. Good grief, it is terrifying. Ironic for a piece of legislation intended - if taken at face value - to combat terrorism.
Schedule 7 refers to Port and Border Controls, and amongst other things says this:
"whether or not he has grounds".... whether OR NOT
As it happens, section 40 (1)(b) refers to the definition of a terrorist, but I think that's pretty much irrelevant just now seeing as this little sentence gives officers the right to detain absolutely anyone, regardless of whether they have reason to believe you're up to no good.
That is, they have the right to arbitrarily stop you on you journey, take you to a small room, deny you access to legal representation, confiscate your belongings and interrogate you non-stop with questions you are forced to answer. And there is nothing, nada, zip, zilch we can do to stop it.
I'm not alone in suspecting that David Miranda's human rights have been infringed here, and a cursory glance at the Universal Declaration of Human Rights confirms that.
Well I don't know about you, but I'm really quite frightened. A year ago, I wrote a three part post about Human Rights and Human Wrongs (links to parts one, two and three), explaining why I champion the human rights of even the most abhorrent of criminals. I said then that it is because we observe human rights as universal and absolute that I could sit in safety and write about such issues, free from the fear that I could be arrested, tortured or worse. Once we started rescinding human rights of individuals and citing reasons they 'deserve' it, we are on a slippery slope to a very scary place. It takes very little for a government to move the goal post to define a "suspected terrorist" and then justify treating them in manner which wholly violates their human rights.
Today the UK Home Office has defended the treatment of David Miranda. And that really frightens me too.
It used to be that the most awkward question your child could ask was "where do babies come from?". A pivotal moment in your child growing up; making the leap from innocent belief in fairies and storks, to the bare and frankly slightly gross reality of S-E-X.
We crossed that bridge with my eldest boys a while ago. Their school started sex education classes from Year 1, beginning with simple things like the correct anatomical names for genitals and discussing family relationships. I have a fond and honestly not at all cringe-worthy moment of Lucas bounding out of school one afternoon, very excited to know the proper name for his private parts and loudly declaring that he also knew the name for what women have - "it's FLANGINA, isn't it Mum!". Don't worry, he knows the proper name now and the novelty of singing songs about private parts has almost worn off.
So far it's been a pretty painless experience, although we're yet to get to the mechanics of what goes where. I'm resolved to stick with honest, age-appropriate answers to their questions as and when they ask me. For now, the boys have decided that sex sounds gross and they'd rather hear about the details when they're older. I'm cool with that but remain slightly concerned that they'll pick up some weird interpretation of it from playground gossip.
That's something you just can't account for when you have children. You can plan out what you'll teach them and when, but there's just nothing you can do about the stuff they hear at school from other kids. It's actually more alarming than I'd ever realised. Lucas has often come home from school puzzled or upset by something he's overheard, and it's lead to many discussions about racism, sexism, violence, bullying and so on. I feel he's more world-aware than I was at his age and all of it prompted by things he's picked up outside of my control.
So, back to the question he asked this week which filled me with dread.
"Mum, when can I have a Facebook account of my own?"
Oh, good lord. Never. Never ever ever. I've seen the Facebook pages of some teens and pre-teens (forgetting for a moment the T&Cs about a minimum age of 13). Some of them are HORRIBLE; admittedly no more horrible than those of some adults but it shocked me to see kids behaving like this. Thinking back to my school days, I'm pretty sure kids are no more or less horrible than they used to be, but social networking is a whole new platform for them to explore that whole mess of hormones, relationships, friendships, conflict and general awfulness that comes with adolescence. Not only that, but once something is out there on the internet, it's there forever. Even deleting stuff doesn't make it go away.
In the same week as news broke of the terribly tragic death of Hannah Smith, people are again talking about cyber-bullying and how to tackle it. I've only come vaguely close to the receiving end of this, following a fall out on Twitter with a certain celebrity "doctor" who proceeded to invite his followers to send me unpleasant messages. For the rest of that evening I was inundated with insults, threats and assorted nastiness. It was upsetting but thankfully over after a few hours. I cannot begin to imagine what that must feel like over a prolonged period of time. The internet breeds anonymity and with that a sort of perverse courage to type things you would never say to a person's face.
How do I introduce my children to the universe of social networking and adequately protect them from this aspect of it? I'll be buggered if I know! This stuff didn't exist when I was a young'un. Mobile phones were barely in circulation and certainly couldn't take photos or upload things instantaneously to the internet.
My eldest son is only 8 so I have a few more years where I can get away with telling him he's too young for the likes of Facebook, but given that he's already remarkably tech-savvy I think I have some research to do about protecting children online.
Let me preface this post by saying that I have no issue with the government taking steps to lessen illegal immigration. What I do have a huge problem with is how this is being handled and the impact it's having on an already tense and volatile situation regarding race relations in the UK.
Two things in this week's news have grabbed my attention and got me feeling all soap-boxy. Firstly, the delightful "Go Home" vans pootling around North London courtesy of the Home Office's latest brain fart:
Bleurgh. Where do I start with this. "Go Home"... such a nasty, insidious slogan. There's no way the government chose this without careful deliberation and awareness of the far right connotations to those two little words. It's a phrase often touted by bigoted hate groups and levelled at anyone who looks a bit foreign. You don't drive a van like this around an area with a high number of ethnic minorities without expecting to cause some upset.
Secondly and even more alarmingly are the spot checks at two London Underground stations by UK Border Agency officers. The news has reported that people from ethnic minorities have been specifically targeted by the officers and asked to prove that they have a right to be in the UK. Just picked off the street and treated like a criminal... Riiiight. Yep. I can see the logic in that one. Because there's no such thing as a white immigrant? And definitely no such thing as a British person with brown skin. Mark Harper, Immigration Minister, insists that the checks are based on intelligence and in no way utilise racial profiling but I think that's about as likely as me winning tonight's Euromillions draw.
It occurred to me this morning that three nations who were founded off the back of immigration and invasion also happen to have a beyond ironic problem with racism and prejudice against other immigrants.
Britain: we're a mongrel nation. There is no such thing as a "true Englishman" and there never has been. Vikings, Saxons, Romans, Normans - we've been invaded by just about everyone! We have been a tiny little melting pot for thousands of years and now we choose to get a bit tetchy about sharing our soil with foreigners. Lunacy.
America - we stole America from the Native American tribes! Got lost on the way to India, found some new luscious land, booted out the locals and claimed it as the Free World (irony, much!). THEN we stole a bunch of people from Africa, enslaved them for generations and only in the last 50 years acknowledged their basic human rights, and yet still black people in America face daily prejudice and hostility.
Australia - we drove out the indigenous population and turned the country into one massive penal colony! More than 165,000 convicts were shipped out Down Under over an 80 year period. The indigenous Aboriginal communities were marginalised as the white population took hold and made it their home. Australia is now notorious for problems of racism against Chinese and other South East Asian migrants and in the last decade has faced accusations of institutional racism against the remaining Aboriginal community.
Of course there are issues of racism in other countries, and yes this is a very simplistic view of the history of immigration. My point is that immigration is not new and neither are we passive participants.
What does any of this have to do with the UK Border Agency and the Home Office's ham fisted attempts at dealing with illegal immigration in Britain?
Everything.
The government have made what could generously be described as a real cock-up this week. If I'm feeling sceptical, I may call this a stunt to gain votes from the ultra conservative areas of the UK. At worst it's a divisive ploy, drawing on ignorance and toying with the already fragile relationships between those who make and keep the polices, and those who have to adhere to them. It would not take much to reignite the riot scenes of August 2011 and it seems the government are being ever more explicit in taking steps to repress the vulnerable minorities, whether they be immigrants, the disabled or the poor.
There's so much more to say on this, but for now I shall leave you with an alternative to the Home Office's "Go Home" van. I think this is certainly easier to digest:
I'm toying with a new section for the blog, reviewing family 'stuff' we have/use/experience. It might be awful or I might get bored of it, but bear with me while I muck around and experiment.
Let's start off this one by saying that caravans are COOL, mmkay. I love them, always have. There are many happy memories of family holidays in caravans in Wales, Clacton-on-Sea, Skeg-Vegas and now Somerset. Last year I tried to persuade my husband of their virtues, but he looked horrified at the suggestion we try such a getaway and later confessed that his only experience of caravan holidays was a certain episode of Father Ted:
Nevertheless, in April this year we found ourselves in a pickle with our house (you don't want me to go there, trust me) and needed a break. We found a 4 night stay for the following week at the Haven caravan site in Doniford Bay, near Watchet, Somerset for £124 and booked it (husband feeling very brave at this point). After looking at all the different types of caravan available (they range from Standard to Deluxe through to Prestige!) we settled on "Deluxe Plus" as it seemed to suit our requirements and budget best. Dvd player, check. Three bedrooms, check. Oven, fridge-freezer, microwave, shower, kettle. Done. The park looked small enough that regardless of where the caravan was located, we wouldn't be too far a walk from the entertainment area or the beach. Sorted.
Excitement tempered with apprehension best describes our mood on the journey down. We were desperate for a seaside break but more than a little nervous about what the park would be like and who we might encounter whilst staying there. Graham Norton "riverdancing" round our kitchen/lounge for 4 days did not sound terribly relaxing. My husband has a limited tolerance for naff cabaret style entertainment and I hadn't really dared to explain what Rory the Tiger is or the potential scope for parents being dragged onto the dance floor to "Agadoo" at the evening disco.
First impressions of the park were good. It was clean, green, spacious, right by the sea and very easy to find. The reception area was well sign-posted and the staff who booked us in were smiley and friendly. We discovered, to our delight, that we had received a free upgrade to a Prestige caravan complete with 'un vue de la mer'. We travelled over to our van to inspect our home for the next few days - WOW! It was gorgeous! Much posher than our house, in fact.
Our view. There is the sea right in the background. Honest.
The family settle in with a game of Monopoly
The journey had taken longer than expected (Milton Keynes to Watchet isn't that far as the seagull flies, but the majority of the journey is country lanes) so we decided to chill for the first evening and went for a gentle stroll down to the beach before picking up fish 'n' chips from the onsite cafe.
The beach was a little disappointing. Haven markets Doniford Bay as a "sandy shingle beach". Sandy. We found no sand. Lots of muddy rocks though! It wasn't what I'd call a pebble beach either. Just sort of... muddy and rocky. You couldn't spend an afternoon sunbathing there or splooshing around in the surf. Certainly no sandcastles!
Munchkins at the beach
Our supper was very tasty, though. We managed to feed all 6 of us for around £20 (not counting the ketchup I picked up at the onsite Spar shop, which was a further £2.50!), so it really wasn't bad value at all.
Having decided that the local beach wasn't going to do for sandcastling, we drove along to Minehead, which is about 20 minutes away by car. We picked up a picnic at the local Tesco and spent the day on the beach. I did find out from a lady in the local nik-nak shop that the sand had been shipped in a few years previously specifically to make the beach more appealing to tourists! It worked, and we had a wonderful time. Minehead is a lovely little town with all the predictable seaside amenities - amusement arcades, ice cream cafes, a multitude of shops selling buckets, spades and assorted beach paraphernalia.
BEACH FOOTBALL!
Sandcastles are cool.
We decided to be brave that evening and check out the entertainment in the Live Lounge back at the holiday park. Braced for an absolutely disastrous cheesefest of unforgivable proportions, I reminded the husband that regardless of how hellish he found it, the children would love running about, dancing to terrible music and mixing with the other overexcited children. I wasn't wrong... well, not about the kids. They loved it. I was very wrong about my husband hating it. I think he maybe enjoyed it even more than I did! That's saying something, given my weakness for cheesey music and penchant for a bit of dodgy dancing (Agadoo, anyone?). There was a moment I wish I had caught on film of him on the dance floor, bopping along to Gangnam Style at the behest of our son.
I don't know if it's the sea air, the holiday spirit or the infectious merriment of the entertainment staff but you just can't NOT enjoy all the singing, dancing and daft games they put on. The entertainers weren't in the least bit phased by the small audience and performed absolutely 100%. The audience was divided into teams - yellow or blue, depending on whether your caravan number was even or odd - and games played throughout the evening earned each team points. Around 9:30pm the points were totalled up and the winning team (ours!) awarded 20% off at the bar. Excellent! We pottered home about an hour later, exhausted but in a brilliant mood.
Ethan showing off the flips flops and sticker he won
Unlike Haven holidays of my youth, you can now sign up for lots of activities on site. They vary from water sports, orienteering, club breakfasts and lunch, to archery, wall climbing and - our favourite - the bungee trampoline. The timetable of activities included a guide to age recommendations as well as prices. Some were free, others cost between £4 and £8 per child. We opted for archery (age 6+) for the boys and a ride on the bungee trampoline (age 3+) for each of the children. The archery class was super. Because we had travelled off-peak and the park was pretty quiet, there were no other children there. The instructor was still very much on form, chatted and joked with the boys and gave them lots of turns shooting the bow and arrow. He figured out their strengths and weaknesses and really helped them get to grips with it.
Legolas/Lucas
The bungee trampoline was the hero of the holiday as far as the children were concerned. If you haven't tried one, you just have to. The squeals and giggles from the children are testament to how much fun it was, and as the contraption overlooked the sea, I can imagine the view they got up there was pretty amazing.
For the rest of the day, we played in the amusement arcade before going for a swim at the indoor pool. The arcade was very fun, very kid-oriented. Lots of 2p machines and games, a few 10p games. If you like loud noises, bright lights and squealing kids, this is the place for you! The pool was a little less enjoyable. It's smaller than we expected and the outdoor section was closed (this was the end of April so still not peak season though). There are no slides in the indoor part, but there is a shallow splash pool for babies. There are a few cubicles at the poolside for changing and a small number of tables if you want to sit and watch. We didn't spend long there... It just wasn't the sort of pool where you could really kick back and enjoy. I'm glad we tried it but I wouldn't make a huge effort to try again unless the outdoor bit was open and turns out to be much better.
We had a quiet evening in sampling a couple of local ciders (just us, not for the kids!) and watched a spot of telly with the balcony doors open, taking in the sea breeze and sunset:
On Thursday, our final full day, we invited my mum and stepdad (who live locally) to join us for a picnic. We went back to the clifftop area by the sports section and settled down at one of the lovely picnic tables. There was a small playground nearby and lots of grassy area for the kids to run around. The weather was amazing, so we just spent the day taking in the sea air and relaxing. I can certainly say that Doniford Bay is one of the more peaceful caravan parks I have visited, though that may be in no small part due to the time of year and low number of guests!
We were sad to leave on Friday. The checkout process was painless enough. The only requirement was that we returned the keys to reception by 10am, so we packed up the car, washed and dried our dishes, gave the van a quick once over to tidy up and were on our way. All the way home, we talked about how much we wanted to stay longer and started planning our next trip back.
That my husband - the British seaside caravan holiday virgin - would happily go to Doniford Bay again tells you what a super family holiday it is. It's not glamorous or brimming with culture. It is a brilliantly friendly family holiday, and if you go out of season it can be a great budget option too. Perhaps if the week had cost us more than £124, we wouldn't have been as pleased overall but for what it did cost us, the caravan was beautiful, the park was clean and quiet, the entertainment was first class and the food available on site was tasty and reasonably priced.
I've been trying to write a piece on body image for over a year now but it just never seems to come out the way I want it to. I don't know any women who have lived their lives without worrying about the way they look at some stage or other. For some, it's an all-consuming anxiety. For others it's a more casual awareness, perhaps just the occasional urge to lose a few pounds for summer or to get into a particular outfit for a special occasion. Society is saturated with opinions on women's figures, faces, fashion and hair styles (I couldn't think of an 'f' for that last one!). Even the Duchess of Cambridge was exposed to this, courtesy of OK! magazine's spectacularly vile front cover this week, one day after she had given birth:
I've since read that OK! magazine have apologised for this feature in the wake of thousands of complaints via Twitter and Facebook. The damage has been done, however. Quite how they explain their comments on Twitter remains to be seen:
Of course, Kate Middleton isn't the only woman to find herself under this manner of postnatal weight loss scrutiny. Magazines and tabloid newspapers of this ilk have long stalked celebrity mothers, commenting on their figures before and after having had children. It's not just post-baby belly and weight gain/loss that comes under fire. Cellulite, stretch marks, lack of attention to make-up and hair - there have been entire "articles" dedicated to coverage of each and every one of these, and not complimentary ones. The overarching theme seems to be that it is not OK to 'let yourself go' just because you've become a mother. You might well have made a tiny person and taken on 24/7 care of said tiny person, but that's no excuse to not look your best.
The effect on the average female can't be underestimated. There is a ridiculous social construct of what constitutes an acceptable appearance for females, and along with that goes the view that women who don't conform to this ideal are somehow deviant and worthy of disdain. In order to be interesting, we must first be attractive.
Last month, Marion Bartoli won the Wimbledon Women's Championship with an absolutely smashing performance. The news coverage of her victory, however, didn't talk about her talent or her journey to the top. It didn't speak of how she could inspire a generation of youngsters to pick up a tennis racket. There was no mention of her home town's pride or how her family would celebrate. What dominated the coverage instead was a mindblowingly misogynistic remark from commentator John Inverdale.
"Do you think Bartoli's dad told her when she was little, 'you're never going to be a looker, you'll never be a Sharapova, so you have to be scrappy and fight?'"
What relevance her appearance has to her ability to play damn good tennis, I cannot figure out. Why Maria Sharapova's looks should have given her an edge is another mystery. How sad that a fantastic achievement by a brilliantly talented woman should be sidelined in favour of discussion on her looks.
Yesterday I watched a short but powerful interview with Dustin Hoffman in which he speaks of the moment he realised the extent to which he had bought into all the crap about women needing to be beautiful in order to be worthy of consideration. It's only 3 minutes long, so do watch it. You won't regret it:
It speaks volumes to me that this treatment of women is entirely subconscious to most people, and that women ourselves perpetuate it unknowingly. It tells me that our social consciousness is so entrenched in having a fixed definition of "beauty" that we have lost the ability to see value and worth in talent & brilliance on its own. Look to the music industry: find me a female vocalist or musician who is not beautiful by commonly accepted standards. There are very few, if any. It seems that you can't be a successful artist if you're not marketable, and you can't market ugly chicks. Sidelining women isn't new. Science is full of amazing, brilliant women and their achievements, but they're not household names like Einstein, Newton or Freud. Ever heard of Rosalind Franklin? Without her input, Crick and Watson couldn't have made their discovery of the structure of DNA. How about Nettie Stevens, who made critical discoveries about chromosomes determining the sex of an organism? Mathematics, literature, science, engineering, medicine, entertainment - countless industries and disciplines where the work of women has been marginalised or credited to their male counterparts. Even today the representation of women is unbalanced against that of men. The Bank of England recently announced the inclusion of Jane Austen on the £10 note, but only after a powerful campaign and backlash against the removal of Elizabeth Fry from the £5 note and her replacement with Winston Churchill. Left alone, this would have meant that there was NO female representation on our currency (aside from the Queen, obviously!). It all comes back to the same thing. Women face an uphill battle to achieve the same recognition and status as men, at the same time being judged for the way we look and the effort we put in to making the best of ourselves. Young girls and women are trained from an early age to worry about their appearances through exposure to the mass media and the ever increasing abundance of vanity products aimed at children. You can now buy high heels, make-up, clothing with the Playboy logo emblazoned across it - PLAYBOY, for heaven's sake! - all aimed at girls under the age of 10. This has turned into a longer post than I intended, and I still don't feel I've got my teeth into the subject. There is just so much surrounding this issue. The No More Page 3 campaign, Mumsnet Let Girls Be Girls campaign, every bit of feminist writing out there - all of it very much needed. The couple of examples of sexism I've picked out for this piece all relate to incidents from the last month or so. If I was to delve further back, we could be here all day discussing instances of everyday sexism and misogyny. I think I'll have to come back to this topic when I've organised my feelings on it a little more!
