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Witches, Broomsticks and Libraries
My son has been gifted and collected many delightful children’s books since his recent birth. A book which stands out to me on Women’s History Month is: Room on the Broom (2001) by writer Julia Donaldson and Illustrator Axel Scheffler.
Aside from the fabulous use of words and illustrations, the main character of the story is a lovely witch who makes room on her broom for her cat, a dog, bird and frog. The latter part of the story consists of the broom snapping, presumably due to the extra weight of these passengers, then the witch risks being eaten by a dragon. But eventually all is well as the witch creates a new super broomstick with;
seats for the witch
and the cat and the dog,
a nest for the bird and
a shower for the frog.
This book’s depiction of the witch as a morally good character is wonderful but this is not usual. In popular culture, such as fiction, television and film witches seem to have flawed character traits, are morally bad cackling devious women who fly about casting spells on poor and (un/)suspecting folk.
The negative connotations of witches today reflect a long dreadful real-life history of outsiders being accused of being witches – with some being tortured and murdered due to this. The outsiders aka witches tended to be women, women who were providing a service for other women, such as support during childbirth or healing practices, or those that practice spiritualisms that differ to dominant religions. If re-born today some of these women may have been celebrated as midwifes and nurses, although their wages and workloads would still illustrate that predominantly women centered roles tend to be under appreciated.
On International Women’s Day I finished reading Disobedient Bodies (2023) by Emma Dabiri. Disobedient Bodies reminds me about how in a white capitalist cis male world bodies categorised as female and women are constructed as deviant. Proof of being a witch was apparently not just found in practices but on the bodies of women. Emma Dabiri adds to the discussion on witches that I did not consider; that groups of women aka groups of deviant witches were considered to be the most threatening to witch hunters. For a long time women have been pitted against each other, the historical nature of women meeting in groups to support each other as a threat to patriarchal capitalist white systems has added to this.
My son is very privileged to have so many book at the age of 1. Unfortunately I am writing during a time where there are threats to close 25 libraries in Birmingham. Notably, the libraries that me and my son frequent consist of mostly women staff (both paid and volunteers). In addition to the potential for job losses, if this happens there will be babies, children and adults without access to books, artistic classes, warm and safe spaces. To quote my friend and colleague, “soon there will be nothing left”.
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Justice or Just Another One?
Luckily I’ve never been one for romantic movies. I always preferred a horror movie. I just didn’t know that my love life would become the worst horror movie I could ever encounter. I was only 18 when I met the monster who presented as a half decent human being. I didn’t know the world very well at that point and he made sure that he became my world. The control and coercion, at the time, seemed like romantic gestures. It’s only with hind sight that I can look back and realise every “kind” and “loving” gesture came from a menacing place of control and selfishness. I was fully under his spell. But anyway, I won’t get into every detail ever. I guess I just wanted to preface this with the fact that abuse doesn’t just start with abuse. It starts with manipulation that is often disguised as love and romance in a twisted way.
This man went on to break me down into a shell of myself before the physical abuse started. Even then, him getting that angry was somehow always my fault. I caused that reaction in his sick, twisted mind and I started to believe it was my fault too. The final incident took place and the last thing I can clearly recall is hearing how he was going to cave my head in before I felt this horrendous pressure on my neck with his other hand keeping me from making any noise that would expose him.
By chance, I managed to get free and RUN to my family. Immediately took photos of my injuries too because even in my state, I know how the Criminal Justice System would not be on my side without evidence they deemed suitable.
Anyway, my case ended up going to trial. Further trauma. Great. I had to relive the entire relationship by having every part of my character questioned on the stand like I was the criminal in this instance. I even got told by his defence that I had “Histrionic Personality Disorder”. Something I have never been diagnosed with, or even been assessed for. Just another way the CJS likes to pathologise women’s trauma. Worst of all, turns out ‘Doctor Defence’ ended up dropping my abuser as he was professionally embarrassed when he realised he knew my mother who was also a witness. Wonderful. This meant I got to go through the process of being criminalised, questioned, diagnosed with disorders I hadn’t heard of at the time, hear the messages, see the photos ALL over again.
Although “justice” prevailed in as much as he was found guilty. All for the sake of a suspended sentence. Perfect. The man who made me feel like he was my world then also tried to end my life was still going to be free enough to see me. The law wasn’t enough to stop him from harming me, why would it be enough to stop him now?
Fortunately for me, it stopped him harming me. However, it did not stop him harming his next victim. For the sake of her, I won’t share any details of her story as it is not mine to share. Yet, this man is now behind bars for a pretty short period of time as he has once again harmed a woman. Evidently, I was right. The law was not enough to stop him. Which leads me to the point of this post, at what stage does the CJS actually start to take women’s pleas to feel safe seriously? Does this man have to go as far to take away a woman’s life entirely before someone finally deems him as dangerous? Why was my harm not enough? Would the CJS have suddenly seen me as a victim, rather than making me feel like a criminal in court, if I was eternally silenced? Why do women have to keep dying at the hands of men because the CJS protects domestic abusers?”
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Can Barbie ever be Feminist?
Barbie certainly has people talking, the commentary surrounding the film takes a variety of angles. A quick google search shows that Barbie’s ironic take on the patriarchy appears to have ruffled the fragility feathers with some viewers describing it as ‘man-hating’. I could not help but chuckle at a YouTube video titled; Barbie Bombs Innocent Families with Feminist Propaganda…because apparently, equality is such a bad idea.
There have been some superficial and tokenistic attempts to ‘diversify’ the brand. Yet, at its core the imagery of Barbie still appears to be an obvious symbol of oppressive white feminism. The Barbie doll could be seen to project the white feminine beauty ideal, and the main character within the film, Margot Robbie, appears to embody this ideal. I.e., the appearance of a white, cis-gender, heterosexual women with the wealth to be able to afford all sorts of powdery pink capitalist goods and a body type which is impossible to achieve.
In the contemporary era this ideal continues to be damaging. Even for the most privileged of women, it promotes the spending of much more of women’s income than men on items such as beauty, food and lifestyles, and encourages restrictive dieting practices, which can be damaging to physical and mental health (Naomi Wolf, 1990). For marginalised women there is damage caused due to living in a world which promotes the white privileged as normative. Some examples include, the advertising and selling of skin bleaching products to achieve this white or ‘light’ beauty ideal, to schools excluding Black and Brown school children for having afro textured hair (Emma Dabiri, 2019 and Ibram X. Kendi, 2019).
Whilst the Barbie film apparently has a dig at capitalism, the film and the merchandise sold will produce huge profits by selling this particular brand of feminism. So those interested can buy into feminism and make the capitalists happy rather than being political or radical.
Apparently, the film depicts a comedic take on the patriarchy, with Ken’s toxicity and Barbie having to deal with microaggressions when entering the ‘real world’. How far does the film go with illustrating patriarchal oppression? Is the intersectional oppression experienced by the most marginalised of women present? Does Barbie and Co have issues with femicide, police brutality, poverty, mental ill health, rape, incarceration, immigration detention, homelessness or drowning whilst in a boat whilst trying to seek refuge? Or is the patriarchy in film only palatable and profitable if it presents itself in the form of privileged women experiencing comedic microagressions?
Maybe Barbie will lead to some (probably white and privileged) people thinking more critically or feeling empowered but it doesn’t seem to be a type of feminism ‘for all people’, so perhaps it’s not feminism at all (bell hooks, 1982).
I wonder what will happen to the profits made from the film…
Note* I have not watched the Barbie film so apologies for the vague analysis and sketchy details*
References:
Dabiri, Emma. (2020) Don’t touch my hair. United Kingdom: Penguin Books.
hooks, bell. (1982) Ain’t I a Woman : Black women and feminism. London: Pluto.
Kendi, Ibram. X. (2019) How to be an antiracist. London: The Bodley Head.
Wolf, Naomi. (1991) The Beauty Myth : How images of beauty are used against women. New York: William Morrow and Company.
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DIE in Solidarity with Diversity-Inclusion-Equality
As an associate lecturer on a casual contract, I was glad to stand in solidarity with my friends and colleagues also striking as part of UCU Industrial Action. Concurrently, I was also glad to stand in solidarity with students (as a recent former undergrad and masters student … I get it), students who simply want a better education, including having a curriculum that represents them (not a privileged minority). I wrote this poem for the students and staff taking part in strike action, and it comes inspired from the lip service universities give to doing equality while undermining those that actually do it (meanwhile universities refuse to put in the investment required). This piece also comes inspired by ‘This is Not a Humanising Poem’ by Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan, a British author-educator from Bradford in Yorkshire.
Some issues force you to protest
the way oppression knocks on your front door
and you can’t block out the noise
“protest peacefully, non-violently”
I have heard people say
show ‘the undecided’, passive respectability
be quiet, leave parts of yourself at home
show them you’re just as capable of being liked
enough for promotion into the canteen,
protest with kindness and humour
make allusions to smiling resisters in literature
they’d rather passive images of Rosa Parks all honestly
but not her politics against racism, patriarchy, and misogyny
but I wanna tell them about British histories of dissent
the good and the bad – 1919 Race Riots
the 1926 general strikes, and the not so quiet
interwar years of Caribbean resistance to military conscription
I wanna talk about how Pride was originally a protest
I wanna talk about the Grunwick Strike and Jayaben Desai
and the Yorkshire miners that came to London in solidarity
with South Asian migrant women in what was 1980s austerity
I want to rant about Thatcherism as the base
for the neoliberal university culture we work in today
I want to talk about the Poll Tax Riots of 1990
and the current whitewashing of the climate emergency
they want protesters to be frugal in activism,
don’t decolonise the curriculum
they say decolonise
they mean monetise, let’s diversify …
but not that sort of diversity
nothing too political, critical, intellectual
transform lives, inspire change?
But no,
they will make problems out of people who complain
it’s your fault, for not being able to concentrate
in workplaces that separate the work you do
from the effects of Black Lives Matter and #MeToo
they make you the problem
they make you want to leave
unwilling to acknowledge that universities
discriminate against staff and students systemically
POCs, working-class, international, disabled, LGBT
but let’s show the eligibility of staff networks
while senior leaders disproportionately hire TERFs
staff and students chequered with severe floggings
body maps of indenture and slavery
like hieroglyphics made of flesh
but good degrees, are not the only thing that hold meaning
workers rights, students’ rights to education
so this will not be a ‘people are human’ poem
we are beyond respectability now
however, you know universities will DIE on that hill
instead,
treat us well when we’re tired
productive, upset, frustrated
when we’re in back-to-back global crises
COVID-19, Black Lives Matter, femicide,
failing in class, time wasting, without the right visas,
the right accents; Black, white, homeless, in poverty,
women, trans, when we’re not A-Grade students, when we don’t
have the right last name; when we’re suicidal
when people are anxious, depressed, autistic
tick-box statistics within unprotected characteristics
all permeates through workers’ and student rights
When you see staff on strike now,
we’re protesting things related to jobs yes,
but also, the after-effects
as institutions always protect themselves
so sometimes I think about
when senior management vote on policies…
if there’s a difference between the nice ones ticking boxes
and the other ones that scatter white supremacy?
I wonder if it’s about diversity, inclusion, and equality [DIE],
how come they discriminate in the name of transforming lives
how come Black students are questioned (under caution) in disciplinaries
like this is the London Met maintaining law and order …
upholding canteen cultures of policing
Black and Brown bodies. Decolonisation is more
than the curriculum; Tuck and Yang
tell us decolonisation is not a metaphor,
so why is it used in meetings as lip service –
why aren’t staff hired in
in critical race studies, whiteness studies, decolonial studies
why is liberation politics and anti-racism not at the heart of this
why are mediocre white men failing upwards,
they tell me we have misunderstood
but promotion based on merit doesn’t exist
bell hooks called this
imperialist heteropatriarchal white supremacy
you know Free Palestine, Black Lives Matter, and the rest
we must protest how we want to protest
we must never be silenced; is this being me radical, am I radical
Cos I’m tired of being called a “millennial lefty snowflake”, when I’m just trying not to DIE?!
Further Reading
Ahmed, Sara (2012) On Being Included: Racism and Diversity in Institutional Life. London: Duke.
Ahmed, Sara (2021) Complaint. London: Duke.
Bhanot, Kavita (2015) Decolonise, Not Diversify. Media Diversified [online].
Double Down News (2021) This Is England: Ash Sakar’s Alternative Race Report. YouTube.
Chen, Sophia (2020) The Equity-Diversity-Inclusion Industrial Complex Gets a Makeover. Wired [online].
Puwar, Nirmal (2004) Space Invaders: Race, Gender and Bodies Out of Place. Oxford: Berg.
Read, Bridget (2021) Doing the Work at Work What are companies desperate for diversity consultants actually buying? The Cut [online].
Ventour, Tré (2021) Telling it Like it is: Decolonisation is Not Diversity. Diverse Educators [online].
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And still the message is the same…
Following on from last week’s blog entry from @5teveh, @jesjames50 explores further dimensions of Sarah Everard’s murder.
Recently we saw the sentencing of Sarah Everard’s kidnapper, rapist and murderer. He has received a whole life sentence. As a woman within society I welcome this sentence. As a criminologist I am at a loss. There is a lot to unpick here in terms of ‘justice’ and whether this has been served. It is pertinent to question the use of a whole life order on a violent, misogynistic, kidnapper, rapist and murderer; who cooperated after arrest, who pleaded guilty and expected the full force of the law. But I shall leave that to another day, as the media’s portrayal of the sentencing and aftermath is what is currently fuelling my anger. The message remains the same, women can and should do more to prevent their victimisation.
The sentence given is at odds with the coverage which has followed. Handing down the most severe sentence available in England and Wales represents the seriousness of the offence, and the damage it has caused to those directly involved and those further afield. The possibility that the offender was in a position of trust, has violated this trust and committed abhorrent acts appears to justify the whole life order. The comparison to terrorism, something which violence against women has been linked to before within academia, is also very telling. But what is the focus? The focus is on how women can go about feeling safe in society and make lines of inquiry if they have doubts about a police officer’s conduct! Here the onus is on women acting in a manner of keeping themselves safe. The message remains the same: women should prevent their victimisation. Excellent I’ll add this nugget of information to my bag of ‘top tips for walking alone at night’.
Why aren’t the media building on this platform to challenge misogynist attitudes? Why are they not raising awareness of violence against women? Sarah’s kidnapping, rape and murder is horrific: but what about the women who undergo daily violence at the hands of their partners, family, friends? These individuals are also in a position of trust and abuse this position to cause harm to women! Here the media could raise awareness about how deep-rooted the issue of violence against women is, but instead they reinforce the idea that women can prevent their victimisation, and that violence occurs at night, by a stranger, and will have the offender brought to justice. This is not the reality for the vast majority of women. It is an extreme and exceptional case (no doubt something True Crime will encapsulate in years to come) and this is further reinforced by the sentence given. Yet violence against women is not exceptional, or rare: it is an everyday reality! Something the media has failed to draw attention to. And by failing to cement Sarah’s kidnapping, rape and murder in the wider context of violence against women, it raises the potential to set a standard of violence against women. Those everyday cases which do not fit the same circumstances are not considered an issue.
My intentions are in no way to take away from the abhorrent crimes committed against Sarah. The crimes sit in the context of violence against women which is still a fundament issue overlooked within society, and has been overlooked once again. And the rhetoric which has followed, yet again, is around how women can protect themselves in the future. The message remains the same…
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Looking in all the wrong places and finding no answers
Recently we saw the killer of Sarah Everard receive a whole life sentence for her murder and with the sentence came the usual rhetoric from the politicians and media alike. I could tell you how I feel as a former police officer, but I just don’t think that really matters, others have said it but what they say, undoubtedly with conviction, seems rather hollow. What matters is that another life has been taken as a result of male violence, not just violence, male violence. I don’t disagree with those that want to make the streets safe for women, reclaim the streets, I don’t disagree with the ‘me too movement’, but somehow, I feel that the fundamental issue is being missed. Somehow, I think that all the rhetoric and calls for action concentrate too much on women as victims and looking for someone or some organisation to blame. There seems to be a sense created that this is a problem for women and in doing so concentrates on the symptoms rather than the cause. This is a problem for men and our society. Let’s not dress it up, pretend it could be something else, use terms like ‘not all men’, it is a fact nearly all violence, whether that be against women or men is perpetrated by … you guessed it, men.
I was watching a tv programme the other day about migraines and as it transpires there are millions of migraine sufferers around the world, most are women. It seems as a man I’m in the minority. One of the interviewees, a professor was asked why so little had been done in terms of research and finding a cure. He was frank, if it had been a male problem then there would have been more done. I’m not sure I totally subscribe to that because there are lots of other factors, after all prostate cancer a major cause of male deaths seems to have received comparatively little coverage until recently. But he made me think, if men, particularly those of influence accepted there was a problem would they be inclined to act? We call for more females in policing, we call for more females in the boardroom, predominately because we want to make things look a little fairer, a bit more even. We still have a massive gender pay gap in so many businesses and the public sector, we still have accusations and proven cases of sexual harassment. We still have archaic attitudes to women in so many walks of life, including religion. Words are great, useless but great. If you own the problem, you find solutions, men don’t own the problem and that is a problem.
So, it seems to me, that we are looking in the wrong place. Removing Cressida Dick as the head of the Metropolitan Police service isn’t going to change things. Blaming the police as an organisation isn’t going to change things. Look around you, look at all the scandals, all the sexual offences against women, against children. Look at where the perpetrators are placed in society, in positions of trust, as members of a variety of organisations, organisations that traditionally we thought we could turn to in our need. And look at the gender of those that commit those crimes, almost always men.
The solution to all of this is beyond me. As a criminologist I know of so many theories about why people commit crime or are victims of crime. Some are a little ridiculous but are a product of their time, others fit quite nicely into different circumstances, but none fully explain why. There are no real certainties and predicting who and where is almost impossible. Somehow, we need our leaders, predominately men, to grasp the mettle, to accept this a problem for men. If we owned the problem, we might start to tackle the causes of male violence, whatever they might be. Maybe then we might start to address the symptoms, society will be a safer place, and nobody will need to reclaim the streets.
https://www.theloquitur.com/get-educated-and-be-aware-sexual-assault-will-affect-your-life/
Thoughts from the criminology team 