Is This Advocacy?
Here's Nicole, who studies sexual assault and how it's covered up by organisations. She likes to present herself as a victim's advocate, but became a victim shaming ideologue, chastising the wrong sort of survivor in one breathtaking dive. It's quite incredible how a woman who claims to understand a bit about sexual violence can turn on victims begging her to listen. How does it happen?
First, know there's intense pressure on anyone in the public eye. Even worse for someone building their own little pedestal in it. Then, the claustrophobic grip this ideology has in academia, add the fact this 'advocate' is a young woman, and it's not surprising. Or, maybe she's purely motivated by egocentrism, ambition, completely drained of independent thought. What else but 'stand by victims' in the age of #MeToo, reel off some vapid critique of capitalism, call yourself queer and get happy clappy?! There's a particular slogan though that has a predictably stupid lie; 'Transwomen are women!'
In some way a flicker of pity crosses me. I think how miserable it must be to know being an intersectional crusader is mandatory unless you fancy unhinged abuse, scurrilously dishonest gossip and an impossibly hostile working environment. You aren't allowed to just not engage - allyship isn't a neutral position of goodwill, it means destroying those TERFs. It means never letting the slightest faux pas slip by. It means judging everyone on the words they do or don't use, checking out their previous tweets like forensics check out a nonce's computer. See the word 'woman' on their avatar? Fucking burn them!
The pressure's real, but it doesn't justify being an contemptuous, dismissive bastard to rape victims. There is even an option to be brave, to be a feminist. It doesn't necessarily mean shouting it from the rooftops, it could involve quiet non-conformity. It does, however, scupper your chances of rapidly building a fan base online by singing with the queer choir and reaping those easy awoken tokens.
If there is one thing underpinning this, even more than the 'be kind', 'don't make a scene' social grooming of girls, it is this; privilege.
It's all very well saying you stand with the oppressed, but who are they? Are they children working in cobalt mines in Africa? The iPhone workers throwing themselves to their deaths? I guess they'd agree that yes, this is bad, they might have even tweeted on it once. But this is the politics of home. So the oppressed are of course the poor, the abused and often the women, but only ish.
The fact this is build on a morbid, histrionic web of lies is a problem, which is why the awkward questions should be wrapped up with a handy maxim, held at arms length and dropped into the bin / memory hole immediately. You can't leave it there - it spreads disease, a kid could step in it, and there's penalties too.
Thing is, it isn't shit. It is none of the things we are told - theirs is a performance of civic duty that has as much basis in justice and reason as drowning women to prove them innocent.
It is impossible to win an argument built on fact with trite, flimsy mantras - which necessitates the charade. Hence the farcical responses you'll see in these screen shots and the insta-block she uses with immediate effect.
But it's hardly just Nicole. A wealthy, weak militia of well-loved, cossetted intellectuals and fans exist, and their only introduction to suffering was an entitled white male weeping about oppression in university, or an article about a rapist who's very distressed over their inhuman treatment as a newly out trans woman, á la Synthia-China Blast. Unless they are bravely inquisitive it is impossible to understand what this ideology does to those of us with (relative to the West) nothing.
Have any of these people experienced life in a hostel, or homeless with just a day centre to wash in? How about prison? No. Of course not.
If the happy, smug, queer choir went through a rape, or were stalked, or escaping domestic violence, would they be left crying in the busy council office with letters from the police victims officer as proof of their situation, as they begged for a place tonight? Or would they pretty much be swept up by functioning, loving family and friends with a spare room or sofa? Would they be forced to carry their belongings in carrier bags to the other side of town, where a b&b owner waited to give them a stern run down on the rules? Would they have their own shower to sit in and cry as they pick the grit out of their knees, with people waiting to hear how they are and comfort them? I think so, and if they didn't, there'd be a gofundme up, being widely shared and earning within 24 hrs.
I'm a white, 'cisgender' woman. If they had a solitary fucking clue about their celebrated intersectionality though they would know it's not always that simple. I know I'm not the worst off, like Nicole I can perform respectability online if I want. I'm literate, I'm not starving or scrabbling around for dropped change anymore, hence this blog.
I've a few points to make though. Before others my age were revising for their GCSEs, I was homeless. I was preyed on by men and would go home with them for the night to (hopefully) get some sleep in a bed, watch tv, drink alcohol and act like a grown up before being fucked. I was begging, shoplifting (too young for benefits, no one knew where I was and they never looked) and treated like shit.
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Does Nicole actually believe this? Are men really our white knights, only prevented from protecting us by the segregation we irrationally demand? I did ask her, but was blocked. |
They talk about how hard it is for trans people to use toilets - they should try using one when visibly homeless. Try walking into a city centre toilet with their attendants while dragging your drenched bedding. Try it for an afternoon. Going everywhere with your wet, heavy bedding because if you hang it up or leave it somewhere, there's a high chance the street collection will bin it. Try living like that in a northern winter, dealing with violent, lascivious men walking home on a Friday night. Try it.
I was so, so terrified, I felt like I was on a tight rope. I was so frightened and so doomed I just stared blankly ahead, trying to keep going by autopilot and never ever looking down. I missed my seemingly unreachable siblings as they hurtled off on their own journeys, like rubber balls bouncing off hard floors. I broke at the sight of intimacy between people and let another man fuck me hoping I'd get used to it. I had to improvise. Alcohol was useful at first, but heroin was my only comfort, it was essential palliative care for me.
Which, funnily enough, is a consequence of the abuse I went through as a small child and my inability to process or confront it. I would get sudden waves of what felt like stage fright, I was paranoid, constantly on high alert. It never stopped, yet many real dangers passed by undetected.
I don't care who it is when I recognise this in someone. They could be a woman or man and it's irrelevant if they're trans. It could be an animal - it breaks me to see it. Unlike rigidly authoritarian ideologues, I don't have to fully agree or even like that person to feel deep pain, an urgency to help them. No one should be that traumatised and alone in a country where it can be fixed. Everyone should be able to access somewhere.
So, I really do have compassion for victims. It doesn't matter what demographic they hail from. I want what is best for all of them.
I never broke the gender rules much back as a kid. It was impossible. My abuse was never a consequence of breaking them although I'm sure it enabled my abuser. Strangely though, Nicole is the one singing and dancing about gender. I think it's shit.
When I was that young, that broken, the most terrifying prospect was to be arrested and 'returned'. I couldn't risk that, so I lay low. I was just a street drinker, a junkie. I couldn't admit my age and vulnerability, so I had no leverage. Once I'd reached adulthood I was too dysfunctional to manage. I couldn't keep up my community charges in hostels, I couldn't stop using. Around and around it went with more injuries on each lap.
I wasn't just a pushover and a victim though. I couldn't have been. I could often intimidate people if I wanted to. I defended my stuff and myself, verbally, physically. But that comes with risks, and those risks can result in hard lessons that teach you when to fight and when to flee, when to freeze.
In hostels there's often a delicate balance that's shifted with the arrival or departure of every person. Most hostels aren't so big, you normally get to know people's names. There has long been a dearth of places for women, as most hostels were set up for men, functioning often as bail addresses, and refuges are specialist and heaving. You sometimes get hostels run by charities based on religious fellowships that offer beautiful living quarters, but they come with zero privacy, dorm rooms, curfews, breath testing on the door, no visitors, you have to spent half your dole on the charges and they dictate dinner time, demand group activities. Having been through what I had before, it was impossible, repellent, frightening to me.
There was one time I wasn't 'just' assaulted while passed out, or coerced, but violently attacked with explicit threat to my life. I left the police station knowing they hadn't tried much with the forensics, in clothes from lost property that hung off me, checking behind me as I was sure he'd be out and looking for me. I was desperate, dirty, with not a single person to call on. I got hugs from my street mates, who were, in truth, excited with the drama and quick to compete. That's how we lived, lurching from one death to another, one tall tale followed by another, more tragedy or horror. It's like a soap opera where a vastly disproportionate number of deaths and tragedies occur, only to be forgotten within the month.
I really, really needed somewhere of my own. To just be safe and warm. It felt like forever since I'd had that. The idea of having my own t.v. to watch, having a bath and going to bed, was too painful to contemplate.
I cried and then I emotionally buffered, I went very, very still inside. I was scared and exhausted from fear. I stopped. I froze like a million headlights had picked me out of the darkness. I wanted to disappear but only did in the same ways as before - invisible via studious avoidance of passers by. It was a performance, an unspoken conspiracy to never acknowledge me unless near property or the vulnerable. And I understood it. I understood very well.
I was treated with love by women in the day centre. It was actual love. They went above and beyond for me and it was the most beautiful, uncomfortable and guilt ridden feeling I'd ever had. I contended, within a couple of weeks, I was over the worst and I hadn't been that hurt. I rationalised with self-talk I can't even hint at here.
I went headlong into heroin telling myself my growing habit would be ok once I was on methadone. When the methadone began I was flung backwards, I couldn't cope. I really needed it, and they wouldn't let me have it. They warned me, they stopped my script, they never helped me get the things that made me safe and warm. There was a nail bomb in my head and I could not diffuse it with dilated pupils and shaking hands.
I thought I'd dusted myself off, I got a place in a hostel and I tried to avoid the staff with their eyes on my drug use and alcoholism. I kept staring blankly ahead, fixated on my next score. I'd grown up enough, been traumatised enough by my time sleeping rough, and I valued having a roof over my head. All I wanted was to stick it out til I got social housing.
It was noisy. There were fights. Every bit of support I got was limited and conditional. A key worker might be lovely to you, then blank you in the street. They forget things you divulged with great trust, due to the overwork, or something... How fucking stupid was I, to open up like that? That's what makes me a victim. I have to stop that. They can turn to someone else in a flash, telling you to tone it down, to issue warnings about how you staggered in one night, or just out of absolute compassion fatigue. No one is reliable.
Prison was worse. The boredom, the seaches, deprivation, theft and competition. The huge injustice of your boyfriend, who you took the rap for, now mysteriously not responding to letters or calls. The damage everywhere, in everyone. The non-existence of education or pastimes, the sleep broken by noises, and the knowledge you're never alone - it's exhausting. It never was possible to drop the coping mechanism of dulling the pain. I was caught in the past and surrounded by others trapped in theirs. I was blockaded in with intractable grief.
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| Than men - see that, Nicole? Is this misgendering or admission? Even though it isn't really true. How many more than women? |
That image is seared into my brain as I remember the men who seemed harmless, the man with lady's jeans and name who turned on a dime into a scary, hyper-aggressive embodiment of toxic masculinity and how I tried to slip his gaze. I was fully aware he was dangerous really, I stumbled on his preferred pronouns despite trying and bristled at his dominance, how he effortlessly silenced me, how I knew he was lying and sinister. But also, how I'd have instantly fought back at such conspicuous and direct obscenity and infringement on my space and dignity coming from someone who was without this performative shield. Even after all I'd seen that was difficult to say. It's baffling to me now, but negotiating a world which was heaving with dangerous men, I'd only seen the most obvious. I'd been gaslit forever, socialised to be nice, I'd learnt how being judged is crippling and wanted to escape that for myself, and maybe I still wanted to avoid perpetuating it on him. I couldn't see a woman in there, but I thought, somehow, that I should.
When I see the dismissal from these spoilt, ceremonial lib-fems, I notice again the categories we are boxed into for a sanitised collection and disposal. Bigot, well, that's an obvious choice. There's no way to be too harsh on someone if they're a bigot (although it's telling the woman using this is highly educated but unable to see it is her who is unable to hear a different opinion). How about Jameela's choice of gif - a man striking another in the face with a cane, with 'not today, peasant'. Interesting, isn't it?
peasant
/ˈpɛz(ə)nt/
noun
- a poor smallholder or agricultural labourer of low social status (chiefly in historical use or with reference to subsistence farming in poorer countries)."peasants left the farms to work in industry"
- DEROGATORY•INFORMALan ignorant, rude, or unsophisticated person."‘That is a civilized drink, you peasant’"
We're poor, ignorant, rude and unsophisticated. We're uncivilized. In a way, it's true - for many of us who actually have been in emergency accommodation for the homeless, for women fleeing domestic violence who don't have funds, friends or family to save them, for those of us in prison or psychiatric hospital, stripped of your most fundamental rights of autonomy. We might be every one of those things and ugly and nasty to boot. But, Nicole, Jameela and friends, it isn't you dragging your drenched baggage behind. It isn't you trying to reclaim your grip on reality, submerged with others still deep in their mental quicksand, while nurses insist you are on a female ward with only other women. They know this. They know the next victim of the next Karen White won't be them and it won't be anyone they know and love. It would take a crusade of almost unparalleled self destruction for one of these virtuous, magnanimous public influencers to be that recently raped woman, crying in the council office and clutching their police victim support details. There boundaries will remain unbreached.
It's a certain kind of woman who needs these spaces or is forced into them. 'Peasants' is fine. I'd prefer they just say it.
The lib-fems and their woke-bros stare ahead to their true believers, they smile blankly at these victims, diagnose wrongthink and spit out the bad taste in their mouths. They wear sequined blinkers and demand their boundaries are respected, throwing up blocks as shields to create a safe space those peasant women are not allowed.
This will come crashing down one day. I hope the applause makes all of the suffering of truly marginalised women worth it in years to come. I won't abandon feminism, but I also won't forget
