okay, i’m all riled up because i’ve been hearing some otherwise smart women saying some very dumb things, so i’ve just got to get one point off my chest:

women being in positions of power is not feminism – even if they got there on the back of feminists, and even if they appropriate the term “feminist”.

feminism is, at it’s heart, about ensuring equality for *all women*. there are two fundamental principles which must be central to embedding equal opportunity for all: the ability to control one’s body, and protection from discrimination on the basis of sex. feminists may debate many other factors and values around oppression and inequality, but without those two core rights, feminism as a movement, essentially has no meaning.

so you can be a powerful woman, and you can be independent, driven, educated, successful, capable, and equal to any man… but unless you act in ways which advance, at a minimum, those two fundamentals, you are not a feminist, no matter what you choose to call yourself.

to paraphrase jessica valenti: i can call myself an astronaut – that doesn’t make it true.

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as much as i love technology, certain things freak me out – in particular when i stop to think about the amazing technological world that the current generation is growing up in. i don’t know why i find it so unsettling, but i do – i get a distinct sense of unease, as if the world is turning too fast and is in danger of spinning out of control. it’s ludicrous, i know, but the pace of change even in my lifetime, seems to be increasing exponentially with every new development. i worry that as i struggle to keep up, i’ll have less and less in common with those coming behind me – which is of course true of everyone as they age, but the lightspeed acceleration of that ever-widening gap leaves me with a sense of whiplash. as someone who has always embraced the new advances in technology, this feeling is new to me, and i find myself wanting to slow things down. already, at the advanced age of 37, i am bemoaning the loss of simpler times, even knowing as i do, that it will only get worse.

i grew up with black bakelite rotary phones, yet my nieces and nephews will never know a world where everyone doesn’t have a smartphone that isn’t also a camera, web browser, and gps device. seeing toddlers clamour to play with touchscreens just blows my mind.

the only people that will ever see the pictures of me running around with a pot on my head at the age of 3, are people who come to my house and view them in an actual photo album, and there are, luckily, no surviving photos that document my experimentation with green hair. by the time my nieces and nephews hit their teenage years, however, there will be thousands and thousands of photos of them floating around in existence in a multitude of places on the web – their entire lives, the embarrassing and the mundane, will be digitally documented, and those images will likely continue on in perpetuity.

i had to learn to recite my address in case i got lost – yet today we’re a hairsbreadth away from everyone being microchipped. i went to a library and selected paper books to read – these days many people rarely read anything longer than an email on a computer screen. i had to save my allowance and go to a shop to purchase the latest record, but now, any music or movie you want is only a few minutes’ download away for instant gratification. those friends i made at sleepaway camp, i had to write to, using pen and paper and stamps, yet skype and facebook have obliterated any need for something as quaint as a letter.

all of this makes me sound like a luddite, which i’m absolutely not, as anyone who knows me in person will testify. but i can’t help feeling nostalgic – so many of what were formative experiences for me growing up, have fallen by the wayside as nothing more than archaic relics of an analogue age… and i’m only 37. what else from my childhood will become permanently outmoded?

what it feels like is this: the faster those things which were so important to shaping me become outdated, the faster *i* become outdated.

and yet, i know such change is inevitable, and mostly good. as our technology becomes more sophisticated, so do we – i really believe that to be true, (even when it doesn’t often seem so). my nieces and nephews will experience a world which was well beyond my reach as a kid. i am a product of a time when things were constrained to the tangible, physical realm – this generation will have no such constraints. the possibilities, for them, are nearly infinite.

my generation, generation x, once the vaunted vanguard of the new and experimental, will go the way of the dodo – i am convinced of that. and i believe that where it once took a lifetime to become outpaced by the invention of the telephone, or television, or internet, whatever comes next that demarcates that generational chasm between new and old, will happen much faster than it ever did before. and it’s that knowledge that makes me so uncomfortable – i, who once considered myself something of an early adopter, am now lagging behind. when my parents were this age, everything new was aimed at them – today, everything new is starting to be aimed at the babies from the turn of the millennium.

i am technologically old, or getting there. and in a few years time, i’ll still be clutching my iphone 4 and remembering the days of video downloads, when everyone else has moved onto holographic communication devices and projection media streaming. soon i’ll be nothing more than a creaky dinosaur, a living, breathing fossil. me and my photos of running around with a pot on my head, and blessedly not photos of me running around with green hair. and thank god for that.

trading things in – the voluntary butler scheme

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what i remember about my high school graduation – besides the sea of red nylon gowns, and skewed mortarboard caps, the warm afternoon sun raying out from behind the bleachers of the football field, the band launching into an off key “pomp and circumstance” – is this: being surrounded by a circle of friends i would have trusted with my life, embarking on my first love with a boy i’d fancied from afar for years, and the mixed anxiety and excitement of feeling i was the cusp of something indefinably momentous.

that moment was twenty years ago. the adults in your life tell you during high school that it is both the best time of your life, and that it is insignificant when viewed from the lens of everything that comes after. high school commencement serves as a proxy for a coming-of-age ceremony – a demarcation of leaving the shelter of childhood, and gaining societal recognition as an adult. it’s a launching pad into “real life”.

and so as you step across the stage, awkwardly collecting your diploma and shaking hands and trying to face forward smiling for the camera and searching the audience for your family and friends – in that nanosecond before they call the name of the next student… you have arrived.

and for some people, that moment was their peak. there are lots of members of my graduating class who have stayed preserved in that moment like amber – oh, they have nice families and good jobs, and all the trappings of everyday life that we all have. they hold fast to that moment, by living in the same area, seeing the same people, going to the same places, doing the same things. it’s not that there’s anything wrong with any of that – in fact it describes several members of my own family.

but i can’t relate to it, not even a little. i would die a death if i had to live that life – i want nothing of it. for someone as mawkishly sentimental as i am, it’s remarkable that i’ve rarely dwelt upon the foggy memory of my high school era with anything other than fleeting curiosity. in fact, flipping through the facebook profiles of my old classmates, i barely remember any of it at all. those friends that i’d been so close to at graduation, i haven’t spoken to in twenty years. and who are all these other people? did i even go to the same school as everyone else?

if i strain, i can sort of, kind of remember that one golden post-graduation/pre-college summer of friends and first love…and nothing else. after that summer, there was too much real life to be lived to spend time looking back.

so when my ten year anniversary came long, my old friend nathaly dragged me to it, i remember being bewildered even then, at my lack of attachment. after all, at that time i was living in new york, married, with a rich social life and an important job, and i was perplexed by everyone else’s evident nostalgia for their youth. what was so great about high school? we were all adults now – wasn’t that so much better?

my twenty year reunion will be held in my hometown next week. as the trans-atlantic distance is prohibitive, my absence is not unexpected. but i admit, i can’t imagine going even if it were 3 miles away instead of 3,000. i bear only the faintest resemblance to that girl of then (who thought she was a woman). and from what i can glean of people’s lives via the internet, it seems my classmates fall into either that same category themselves, or alternatively, have not changed at all. either way, i doubt we’d have much in common – throw us together for an evening without the rubric of a “reunion” and there are few of them i’d even want to spend time talking to. harsh, but truthful – these people don’t matter to me anymore.

our theme song for our class of 1990 graduation was “don’t you forget about me”, by simple minds. and i know that there are many who emerged from highschool with lifelong friendships, who are eagerly looking forward to getting together, reconnecting and remembering. that’s was never me or my experience – in many ways, my real life after high school was a complete disconnect from what went before, both intentionally and not. perhaps that’s to my detriment, but i can’t imagine why there’s any expectation that twenty years later we’d enjoy getting together.

and ultimately, i did forget – aside from random snippets of memory, there was apparently nothing compelling enough to stay stuck in my brain. i have never longed to return to high school times or relationships, and so upon becoming an adult, with all the real life joys and sorrows that ensuing adulthood entailed, i put it behind me and never looked back. the adults were wrong on that count: it was never the best time of my life – it was simply a time.

so i’ll hang on to my genuine memories, scattered and few though they are, rather than feign ersatz fondness for people and a time so long ago. we’re adults now, with real families and jobs and real joys and sorrows – that’s what keeps me looking forward and fills up my real life. i was indeed, that day, on the cusp of something indefinably momentous, and in the intervening twenty years since i crossed that stage into adulthood, i’m happy to say that everything i’ve done and experienced since, makes my high school girlhood era pale by comparison.

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“france’s lower house of parliament has overwhelmingly approved a bill that would ban wearing the Islamic full veil in public.”

i’ve mentioned here before numerous times that i live in a largely muslim neighbourhood. every day i step out my front door, i see many women in some form of traditional Islamic dress – most often that’s just long sleeves and hijab, but a niquab, or even full burqua, is not terribly uncommon. as an atheist feminist, i’m the first to admit that it makes me uncomfortable to witness, both the disconnect from the westernised culture we both live in, and what such dress represents about a woman’s place in that socio-religious context. it’s something i find symbolically oppressive, even when it is the woman’s fully informed choice to dress that way, as i believe it tacitly condones those (patriarchal) frameworks which exclude choice for so many other women.

but what makes me even more uncomfortable, is the idea that any (largely white, largely male) government should think they are entitled to dictate what a woman does or does not wear.

if i’m feeling charitable, i’ll ascribe these actions to some benevolent impulse – but what all those well-meaning lawmakers miss is this: that to proscribe a certain form of religious dress by specific law, is just as dictatorial as any religion proscribing westernised dress. the attempted imposition of westernised mores on women by telling them they cannot wear the veil, is just as oppressive as any religious requirements telling them they cannot show their hair. because when it comes down to it, the rationale may sound different, but the motives are the same: both embody an attitude of moral superiority, and a belief that society not only has the right to, but an obligation, nay, an *imperative*, to “protect” women through dress code.

when you put the religious clerics and the lawmakers side by side, they all think they know what’s best for the women, who are viewed through a lens of passive participation in their own lives and closets. and whether it’s through religious dictum or democratic law, women are stripped of any agency to *choose what is best for them*.

do some women choose to electively wear the veil? i’m sure many do, even as many do not. is it a choice i would make or agree with? not at all. but under no circumstances would i believe the have the right to tell them that they shouldn’t – just as i don’t believe they have the right to tell me i should. even worse, the targets of this law are people who are already (in many cases) dispossessed of the ability to exercise their will – and yet the lawmakers have banded together and singled them out for special attention and regulation. would any of them dare to dictate what a westernised woman could not wear?

established democracies must be committed to upholding freedom of religious expression, even if it’s an expression we find intensely uncomfortable. in a free society, we must uphold the right for women to make choices, even if those are choices we disagree with – otherwise we engage in perpetuating a power imbalance where women do not decide for themselves. i acknowledge that in some religious contexts, many women may not decide for themselves, and that continues to be problematic – however one set of clothing commandments does not, and cannot cancel out another. we may all feel better not having to see women wearing veils, but it doesn’t change a damn thing that’s going on behind them.

in the end , we cannot change people or their religion simply by changing their clothes, and it’s foolish to try. i think that if we want women to opt out of a religious mandate which views them (and requires them to dress) as lesser beings, we can only hope to incite change by exemplifying freedom, choice and tolerance ourselves.

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so the new government has over the last few weeks, been rolling out their “big new ideas”, both at the national and local level. of course, so much of this is not new at all, simply old Thatcherism given a shiny new patina of glossy technology and lingo. in particular, they’ve combined two key messages: partnering the ideas of paring down waste with massive public consultation.

we’ve been prepared for massive spending cuts to the public sector – well, no surprise there. they’re tossing around figures of 30% or more. but what is new is that they are inviting public sector workers to help propose which areas should be cut. they even have a snazzy new website where you’re invited to help “re-think government to deliver more for less”. all very well in theory, unless you happen to be a public sector worker.

as a public sector worker who manages a small team of 9 in a local authority, right now i am (and all my colleagues are) being asked to justify our existence, whilst looking around and knowing that in a year or so, 1-in-3 of my team members (or i) will likely be gone. those of us who remain will all be on pay freezes for the foreseeable future.

the reality is we’re all fighting not to be downsized, and like anyone else, if there’s a viable alternative that gives me and my team a chance at escaping the very real axe hanging over our head, well, i wouldn’t be shy about offering it up – and i don’t think there are many who would do differently. but it’s a sickening experience to know that in order to save your own neck, you must willingly participate in in the sacrificial offering of someone else. and in the end, they will do what they want anyway, but as one of the crabs in the pot, i’ll bear some of the guilt.

but instead, we’re supposed to go to the website and presumably contribute ideas like:

• sack council busybodies
• deport all refugees – “i am not a racesist nor am i a facshist if they are still under threat of death if they where to go back fine help them out but most of the conflicts they where running away from are over so send them back to rebuild there own countries”
• 10% paycut for all civil servants
• tax non-eu immigrants “to raise enough money to ensure the immigrant is providing enough funds to the Government to cover the extra strain on the nations infrastructure”
  
• kick scottish m.p.s out of westminster
• stop housing “deliberately” pregnant teenagers – “Don’t have children if you can’t afford them off your own back”

those are the kind of savings ideas they were looking for, right? because that’s what they got.

another public consultation exercise being undertaken is the new “your freedom” website. in theory, the government wants to scale back the rule of what came to be called “the nanny state”, so they’re asking people to propose laws and regulations they want to see scrapped. they’ve established a website for public proposals and commentary. again, if you’re truly committed to smaller, more libertarian government, then i suppose it’s a fine idea in principle.

the problem is that it takes almost no imagination to realise such a website is bound to quickly devolve into a sloppy free-for-all of intolerance, idiocy and blatant racism. some of the ideas floated thus far include:

• getting rid of speed bumps as they infringe on civil rights
• getting rid of the human rights act so the british taxpayer doesn’t have to support murderers on benefits
• religeous (sic) freedom for christians – “the Christian way of life should be respected and should not be ‘brushed under the carpet’ just to accommodate other religeons so as ”not to offend them”
• forced adoption of children
• immigration – “every Tom, Dick and Abdul that takes it into his/her head to come to Britain and live like leeches on the backs of the taxpaying public”.
• restore civil liberties – which apparently means “Ban homosexual and lesbians from advertising that their lifestyle is normal. It is not normal and they should not be allowed to tell our children that it is. Stop anyone who does not have a national health number or who does not speak English from benefiting from Free treatment in our health service, take a leaf out of the rest of the worlds health systems for ALL non residents. Stop anyone who cannot speak english from receiving benefits. No English NO CASH”
• ladies (sic) sanitary wear – tampons should not be taxed with vat as a luxury item. now i actually agree with this, but it’s probably not what the site is meant for
• allow people to own guns – because “Hand-gun training and possession teach self discipline and self control. Shooting is one of the few sports in which men and women, able-bodied and physically impaired can compete on equal terms. Being forbidden to own hand-guns implies lack of trust by the government, fear of it’s own people, that the people are immature and also makes us a laughing stock.”
• remove the ban on Roman Catholics taking the throne
• housing for people with mental ill-health – “the law states that, because they have ‘mental health problems’ they have more rights than the other residents, which means rights to create absolute hell for other people and not be evicted. the ‘Community Mental Health Team’ ( who really would be best dispensed with altogether!) act like a hysterical bunch of do badder do gooders by foisting their bizarre services often at the whim of a faceless bureaucrat in a housing association on the wrong people and leaving the really ill folk seriously alone”
• and take ian huntley off suicide watch because “if he wants to kills himself, why not let him?”

and that is just from a quick perusal of the postings submitted *today*. such vile, contemptuous opinions are being hosted on state-sanctioned websites which i, as a taxpayer, help pay for.

let’s not be daft: there is absolutely no way the government will action any of these proposals, whether spending cuts or legal repeals – even if there were a genuinely good idea hidden somewhere in the pile of shit, it would be a nearly impossible logistical task to even trawl them. these websites are simply technological lip service to mollify voters who got stuck with a “coalition” that absolutely no one is happy with.

is this really the best, most effective way to solicit public opinion that this short-sighted government could come up with? have they never read internet comment forums before? have they never scrolled to the bottom of an op-ed piece? it’s the equivalent of an electronic slam book.

but the pretence and expense of this is all the more baffling considering we *just had an election* whereby people presumably made their political priorities quite clear. it’s simply not possible to have effective collective rule, and in fact doing so risks de-prioritising those who are most vulnerable and fewest in number. the role of government is to balance the needs of all its constituents, not just those of the majority. which is, after all, why we elect leaders to act on our behalf… or at least, that’s how i thought it worked?

in the meantime, the great ill-informed masses will get to continue to graffiti the websites, in the name of democracy. on my tab. i’m tempted to submit my own e-proposal that cameron-and-clegg simply unplug the servers that host these pages, and do the jobs we pay them to do – come up with and implement smart, considered ideas.

and i would, if i thought there was a prayer in hell that anyone would actually get a chance to read it.

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it’s the 4th of july here in london, and i’ve been thinking about how complicated my relationship with my birth country has become. “birth country” – even those words are complicated. “home country” doesn’t feel right any more. it’s not home, and hasn’t been for quite some time.

there are things about the u.s. that i revere, things i miss, things that embarrass me, things that are ingrained in me, and things that i loathe. and that is true of most any country – that’s not the complicated bit.

it is only when you live outside a country you grew up in, that you have the chance to evaluate it from afar. the distance is the complication – it tests your bonds. a country, especially one as large and diverse as the u.s., is more than just the sum of its parts. and as an expat so is your relationship with that country -it is part nostalgia, part fantasy, part critique.

as my identity as an american continues to change, as the country itself continues to change, i don’t always know how i feel. praise comes with qualifications, love comes with conditions – everything has strings and disclaimers attached, both because i can see things more objectively at a remove, but also because i am now on the outside speaking to an audience of outsiders. i am simultaneously defender, detractor, cheerleader and critic.

i am american – it’s as much an immutable fact as the colour of my eyes. i didn’t choose to be american, and i wouldn’t choose not to… but i don’t know that i would choose to be either. we are two moving points, american and i, bound together, yet never making the same line.

today is independence day, a day americans are called to celebrate the freedoms of the birth of a new nation. now, the definition of freedom seems to have changed beyond my recognition over the past few years, and that is the source of much of my conflicting feelings towards america. the distance makes it easy to avoid the excessive patriotism and expressions of divine supremacy.

and yet, the one thing which i wholeheartedly, and without reservation, love about the country of my birth, however, is the ideals to which it aspires.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

those words never fail to send a chill down my spine. it simply doesn’t get much better than that. and it is because of those vaunted ideals, that i have such complex emotions about america. when you set the bar that high, you will inevitably be judged on your shortcomings. and at the same time, i can’t help but be lured into believing that it can be achieved.

oh america – you both inspire and frustrate the hell out of me, and i couldn’t quit you even if i wanted to. happy 234th birthday. wishing you the best year ever, and hoping you continue to improve with age

an american paradox – strung out

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