Alien Lifestyles

Imagine we have finally managed to get off this planet properly.  Like in Star Trek.  Long range ships with gravity and all that good stuff.  What would we think if we found a planet where one percent of the ruling beings had control of eighty two percent of the wealth available?  (The total population of that race being 7.6 billion.)  With forty two of those beings having the same amount of wealth as the 3.7 billion poorest.

Wouldn't the Starship Captain report in their log that the planet seemed a trifle unfair and undemocratic?  And what would our explorers think about extreme poverty over huge swathes of another planet?  Lack of awareness of environmental damage being caused by the population, threats to use horrendous total wipeout weapons.

I think human explorers would be quite judgemental to say the least.  Yet here on Earth, right now, the number of people controlling 1% of all our wealth has actually got smaller, according the latest Oxfam wealth report.  The world's richest man increased his fortune by $6 billion in the first ten days of 2017 (Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, in case you haven't guessed).  Yes, in just ten days.

I wrote about the last Oxfam report on this blog.  Unsurprisingly nothing has changed much in the year since.  Other than the gap widening between wealthy and poor.  But once again I must also rail against our capacity for accepting this as 'the norm'.  We are being conditioned to see huge wealth for the one percent as nothing to be concerned about.

Yesterday saw the first anniversary Women's Marches.  I am so glad that momentum is being kept up on inequality and abuse.  Now we need the same momentum on redistribution of resources.  And on democracy.  The 'show' of democracy is often a front for the purchase of elections - whether by candidates or parties, media tycoons, oligarchs or whatever.  Electoral systems work against the voters.  And in many countries, there is not even an attempt to have democratic participation.

Again, let's think what we would be trying to impose on planets we discovered.  'Yes, [alien race yet to be identified] you must live in this way - so much more beneficial for all, so much fairer.'  Because obviously telling other people how to live has worked so well on our own planet.  

And we should not forget that currently it is the super-wealthy who are investing in space travel.  Unless we take action, maybe in decades to come the Oxfam report will be that one percent of the population now lives off planet whilst the remainder are struggling with smog, skin cancer and lack of natural resources....

The Language of Women

I have been wanting to write about the Harvey Weinstein scandal and its implications since the news broke.  But it has taken me a while to consider what I thought I might add to the debate.  There has, understandably, been a huge amount of comment around the revolting behaviour which has finally been made public.

In discussion with a friend last week, I was saying that I had no experience of such treatment.  But then as we talked, we realised that we both could name many times when our gender had been used to make us uncomfortable or afraid.  For example, I worked on London trading floors in the Nineties.  Barely a senior woman in sight and you were forced to push between lines of blokes to deliver any message or file.  They would push back on their wheelie chairs to intimidate you.  My friend and I could both name times when we had been groped at bars, shouted at in the streets, felt unsafe to be somewhere, etc.  Imagine if a woman grabbed a man's crotch whilst queuing for a drink or screamed about his trouser bulge from across the street?

Earlier this year, I blogged about Naomi Alderman's book The Power.  It tells of a world where women are in charge and I commented on how shocking the anti-male violence seems in the book yet the author is describing little that is not, in our world, being perpetrated against women.

And I think this is one of the most telling points with the Weinstein scandal.  Men like him - and lets be fair, he is hardly even the tip of the iceberg - have felt able to continue their activities because the world is still so skewed towards the idea of the inferiority and subjugation of women.

Last week, I watched a documentary about the suffragettes.  It really struck a chord when it talked of the disgusting language which the press and politicians of the time felt able to continually use about women.  Many of us know of the force feeding and other violence towards the suffragettes but I had not realised quite how appalling the anti-suffragette campaign had been in other ways.

We live in a world where the press cannot be as overt as they were then about their hatred of equality for women.  But every day women are written about and spoken of as inferior to men.  It is completely ingrained.  Criticism for working or for not working.  Comment on signs of ageing, shapes of bodies. The deification of motherhood but the insistence that you should snap back into physical and mental health after giving birth.  After I watched the documentary, I looked at the Daily Mail website - a loathsome place but I braved it for research purposes.  Here are some examples of the language used about photographs of female presenters and actresses going about their daily lives:

'putting on a leggy display' - wearing shorts in a hot place

'packing on the PDA' - giving their partner a peck on the cheek

'flashes a glimpse of' - a photographer has managed to get an upstart or down top picture

'steps out in racy...' - wearing a strappy top

'showcasing her...' - dressed in something figure hugging, short, etc.

And so on, ad infinitum.  It is considered acceptable to comment on female presenters' or journalists' ages, outfits and bodies even though they are doing the same work as their grey-suited, ageing male colleagues.  No-one takes to exception that we have only ever had two British female prime ministers and language is used about them which would never be used about males.   Look at the questioning suffered by female politicians about their life plans and intentions.  And as for women in business or positions of responsibility?  Can open, worms everywhere.  And these worms are not turning.  We are not breaking the ceilings because they are not glass.  They are institutionalised, conditioned, brainwashed steel.  In other blog posts, I have mentioned to need for us to stay angry.  The Women's Marches were a start, the brave women speaking out about Weinstein and others are another step on a long road.  But a road which must be travelled if we are to do right by the next generation.  Our ancestors fought for the vote, for equality.  They achieved a lot.  But so much more remains to be done.

The Power

A while back, I posted a picture on Instagram of a book chosen by my book group.  It was The Power by Naomi Alderman.  I didn't make it to that group discussion unfortunately but I brought the book on holiday with me and ever since I picked it up, I have been reading frantically.

It tells of a future where women hold the reigns of power in the world.  Where this is normal.  Where men are assumed to be the softer sex.  And of how the world may have become that way.  I won't go into the story - it would spoil it for you.  I am not a book blogger and I am unused to writing reviews.

But occasionally on this blog, I have recommended books and I cannot recommend this one highly enough.  It is a hard read in some places, with descriptions of violence both sexual and otherwise.  But then you remember that in describing the women's violence against men, the author is simply describing the violence perpetrated against thousands of women on a daily basis in our own world.  And suddenly you wonder why we read or watch so many reports of such treatment without being angrier.  It has become commonplace to hear of rape, sexual slavery or women being trafficked.

I wrote, at around the time of Trump assuming power in the US, of the need to stay angry.  For us not to allow the women's marches and protests of that time to fade away.  This book should be read by all women - and preferably men as well.  Not as a vision of what a matriarchal world should be.  But as a call to continue the protest in our own time. 

We are living in a world where Trump can still be elected - and even worshipped by many - despite his distain (far too polite a word) for the female fifty percent of the population.  We are living in a world where an immensely successful female singer can be groped in a public place and then have to go to court to clear her own name (an experience shared by thousands of women of course).  We are living in a world where women are still routinely denied the capacity to choose when to be pregnant.  And so on, ad infinitum.

Read The Power if you have the opportunity.  And then think about what needs to be done now.

[If you can't get the book, look it up on The Writes of Woman.  There is an excellent synopsis plus an interview with Naomi Alderman.  The book won the Bailey's Women's Prize for Fiction 2017 in June.]

Not Endangered Enough

This weekend, there was a furore over remarks made by John Allan, the chairman of Tesco - apparently the UK's biggest retailer.  At an event aimed at encouraging more women and ethnic minorities into the UK's boardrooms, he apparently said 

“For a thousand years, men have got most of these jobs, the pendulum has swung very significantly the other way now and will do for the foreseeable future. If you are a white male, tough – you are an endangered species and you are going to have to work twice as hard.”

The headlines which were drawn from this were 'Tesco Chairman says white men are an endangered species in the boardroom'.  Accompanying reports construed the remarks as complaints.  From a white man who is one of twelve Tesco board members - nine of whom are white men.  Mr Allan's reposte to the criticism was that in the context of his speech - to an audience he was trying to encourage to aim for board level - he was actually supporting women and ethnic minorities.

What puzzles me, though, is how in 2017, we are only just finding white men in board rooms to be an endangered species.  It is almost a century since women got the vote.  It is over forty years since feminism really began to ramp up the pressure.  And yet at the UK's biggest retailer, there are still only three women board members - despite what must be a huge female clientele.

Why are we not angrier?  Why are white men only now endangered?  Why are they, well, not extinct but still appallingly dominant?  And as for ethnic minority representation...  

It is over twenty years since I started a job at the House of Commons.  I worked for one of just sixty female MPs.  It was a rampantly male environment, despite the departure of Thatcher only four years before I arrived.  It is nearly twenty years since I worked for a very well known investment bank.  Which still has not had a female leader, to my knowledge.  We currently have only our second female Prime Minister.  Not exactly vocal about women's place in the world though, is she?

I have written before of the need to stay united.  The Women's March must not be a moment.  It must be the start of something new.  We should be furious about wages and job prospects as well as about our right to abortion, contraception, personal safety.  Until women have more political and financial power, campaigns for other rights will revolve around trying to convince white men to do what we want, behave how we want.

Our ancestors, near and far, would be horrified at the lack of progress.  

Mr Allan was, it seems to me, trying to make a poor joke about how men should be worried for their positions in the coming years.  Actually, the issue is how this this 'joke' is still even relevant when it comes to numbers and representation.  Thanks to his own high profile, he has (unwittingly) called attention to the disgrace of the last hundred years.  How did it come to 2017 and men are only just endangered in the boardroom...

Bubble Momentum

We were told, after Brexit, to get out of our bubbles.  Apparently, we were all only preaching to the converted.  Both in person and on social media.  Looking at my own posts, I definitely felt this to be true on social media.  I had shared and shared stuff in favour of Remain.  But actually I was just exchanging stuff with like-minded individuals.  Not changing anyone's mind.  

I always worry about tweeting something which accidentally attracts mass vitriol.  I don't know who I think I am going to reach, in that vast twittering ether but anyway.  I have, however, been making a point of reading more of the 'opposition' social media traffic. It is mostly, in my opinion, horrific.  The opinions being expressed are the antithesis of my own feelings.

But it is quite clear that many of these people are just as well organised as the more liberal-minded of us.  And their lack of empathy for others means they are far more likely to use the most appalling language and to express the most outrageous opinions on social media.  A mass of shock jocks, vying to cause the most offence.  Led by Trump, whose position gives permission for such behaviour by others.  People who believe in fairness and honesty are more reluctant to offend in my experience.

Some of the tweets and other pronouncements rejoicing at the end of Obama's presidency and the installation of Trump have been sickening in their ferocity.  I am not for a minute suggesting fighting fire with fire.  But the opposition does need to organise.  The same needs to happen in the UK.  It is not just about lack of effective political opposition anymore.  It is about developing a presence, a language which will appeal to those tempted by racism, sexism, etc.  Piers Morgan and Katie Hopkins, for example, are despicable but their voices are being heard.

The Women's Marches this last weekend were angry enough and well organised enough to be a start.  Momentum is now the key.  In the US, Trump forms a focus for the anger.  In Europe we need to turn our focus onto the Far Right and organise before it is too late.  Trump is in power and it is going to take quite something to unseat him.  In Europe we have an opportunity to prevent his like from gaining power in the first place.  And that means coming out of our bubbles fighting.