So how come you think you’re able to take my female actuality away from me, Mr Mark John Jones? You’re not female. You’ll never be female. I’m taking your “female status” away from you right now – because I am female and you’re not.

You’re XY, I’m XX. And yet, somehow, you think that by having surgery, wearing frocks and painting on the clown face that makes you female? I don’t think so, Sonny Jim. If just that shit makes you “female”, what does that make me, a natural born and lived female – superwoman?

What’s more, you attempted to rape another human being after having murdered your boyfriend because he wouldn’t pay for your gender reassignment surgery. Females understand what rape is, the powerplay involved and the trauma that results. Males use rape as power and coersion to get what they want. You’re male.

And now the powers that be (male, of course) have agreed that you should be placed in a “women’s” prison because you, tender flower that you are, believe you’re “female” – even though you tried to rape someone! Talk about putting the fox in the henhouse….

I realise hands will be thrown in the air and cries of “transphobic!” will echo around the world but people assigned female at birth are my concern and I’m never going to apologise for that. I’m guessing that there must be quite a few transgendered people out there thinking that Mr Jones has let the side down somewhat too.

…a bit of pointless  relief.

Hat tip Allecto

…we have 28 confirmed cases of swine ‘flu in this country now.

Of course I realise that this is potentially dodgy for the very young, the elderly, people with respiratory problems, etc. Globally, the situation is becoming so worrisome that the World Health Organisation might raise its pandemic level from five to six – its highest alert.

28 cases…

Yet, statistcally, 100 women and girls were subjected to sexual violence in this country today alone. And there’ll be another 100 tomorrow. And the day after that. And the day after that… Last week 700 women and girls were subjected to sexual violence in this country and this time next week the tally will be 1400 since April 28th. And that’s just on our tiny little isle. Globally, the situation is terrifying.

But, hey, who’s panicking?

That’s right; no-one. It’s just business as usual.

…went out in our pj’s tonight.

We went for a meal and the thinking was that we’d be far more comfortable in pj’s because:
a) we won’t have to do any of that “getting ready for bed” shit when we stumble in

b) we won’t have to do any of that “Sorry, got to let my waistband out a bit” rubbish when our day/evening clothes couldn’t accommodate the intake of nice nosh we were subjecting them to. And

c) having to bother about all that looking ‘nice’ bolleaux.

I tell you what; there are few more liberating feelings than sitting in a restaurant full of other people in their ‘nice’ clothes on a Friday night in your pj’s and slippers tucking in to a plateful of fab food in good, likeminded company and NOT GIVING A SHIT about how you’re perceived.

It was fab. I might just go out in my pj’s from now on.

Woman is the nigger of the world
Yes she is…think about it
Woman is the nigger of the world
Think about it…do something about it

We make her paint her face and dance
If she won’t be a slave, we say that she don’t love us
If she’s real, we say she’s trying to be a man
While putting her down, we pretend so hard that shes above us

Woman is the nigger of the world…yes she is
If you don’t believe me, take a look at the one you’re with
Woman is the slave of the slaves
Ah, yeah…you better scream about it

We make her bear and raise our children
And then we leave her flat for being a fat old mother hen
We tell her home is the only place she should be
Then we complain that she’s too unworldly to be our friend

Woman is the nigger of the world…yes she is
If you don’t believe me, take a look at the one you’re with
Woman is the slave to the slaves
Yeah…you better scream about it

We insult her every day on tv
And wonder why she has no guts or confidence
When she’s young we kill her will to be free
While telling her not to be so smart we put her down for being so dumb

Woman is the nigger of the world
Yes she is…if you don’t believe me, take a look at the one you’re with
Woman is the slave to the slaves
Yes she is…if you believe me, you better scream about it

We make her paint her face and dance
We make her paint her face and dance
We make her paint her face and dance
We make her paint her face and dance
We make her paint her face and dance
We make her paint her face and dance

“I had to find out more about myself and my attitude to women…” kinda speaks volumes, don’t you think?

Funny, the things you can learn on a sunny Spring Saturday in the centre of London. I learnt that the pubs don’t open till midday… some capital city that is.

On the other hand, a lot of people learnt that

because we made it clear.

In a fun way

All through the retail centre of a major Western capital city

women and girls marched and shouted and whistled and chanted

while shoppers and tourists looked on, took pictures and couldn’t help but hear us.

Well, it’d be difficult to avoid hearing us….

(“Shrill” is fucking excellent as far as I’m concerned)

The message is clear.

We have had enough of male violence against women and girls – in all it’s forms.

I marched with Sharkbait, Stormy, rmott and Fanny Blood – and thousands of other women who all feel the same. Regent Street is pretty wide in places, it being an alter to patriarchal capitalism and all that, but yesterday lunchtime it was filled from edge to edge by shouty women and girls who were making their feelings known.

We should do this every day – until the violence stops.

Hope you had a happy International Women’s Day.

Hope you’re fighting for those who didn’t.

…who would leave a huge gap in the world if they ever stopped writing.

It’s Wednesday and this is a Wow that more than makes up for the general lack of Wows at the foot of my stairs this year.
Amananta, thank you. You rock.

Hunger only for a taste of justice, hunger only for a world of truth. All that you have is your soul.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CoNtYC_XDC8]

….one where women and men are equal, a society without pressure, without inequality, where all differences between people are eliminated”

“…if we are really trying to create a new society, we have to develop women. If women are enslaved, then so are men.”

“How could we have lived like this for so long? How could we have accepted this for so long?”

All quotes from here. (Hat-tip amananta.)

I don’t profess to know a great deal about the Kurdish struggles. I understand that Saddam Hussain attempted to annhialate the Kurdish people in Iraq with toxic gasses and I know a little about Kurdish traditions, customs and culture from Kurdish women and children I’ve met in my line of work but that’s about it. I’m not pretending to set myself up as a spokesperson for the Kurdish nation or anything quite so bourgeoise considering my Western privilege. In fact, the point of this post has very little to do with the Kurdish nation per se although the racism they face – just like racism everywhere – is abhorrent.

I looked at the picture at the top of that report. Women with guns. I’ve always thought of guns as mainly a man thing because I’ve always thought of being able to kill another person as something men readily accept – whether in the line of ‘duty’ or to protect their ‘property’, (which amounts to much the same thing, really) – but that women generally shy away from unless backed into a corner.

Then I read the report.

The people who said the words I’ve quoted above are simply Freedom Fighters but even their Kurdish Regional Government is attempting to distance itself from their egalitarian stance because they’re no longer fighting for just Kurdish freedom but they are now “fighting to generate dramatic social change“.

They’re fighting to defeat patriarchy.

They believe that “global crises and injustice are a result of millennia of male-dominated rule“. I believe that too but am I prepared to become an outlaw, take to the hills and be part of an armed struggle to “get rid of society’s ingrained enslavement“? The Home Counties is a very different place to the Turkish mountains but the essence of the struggle is the same. I don’t carry a gun and the actions I take don’t kill people but the things I do and say as a radical feminist would seem to firmly place me in the ‘outlaw’ category and our goals seem very similar.

I could/would never claim political solidarity with the PKK although I somehow feel it. They’re driven by the same passion that drives radical feminism. The passion to witness human beings – female and male – living their lives free from patriarchal oppression; the willingness to be deemed completely a non-person, totally expendable, as a result.

Globally, radical feminism has many guises. Some of them don’t even use the word “feminism”.

“…they say that it was because they are driven by passion that they have survived this long.”