text:
tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2370510363137369222016-10-25T14:49:40.403+01:00BidishaJournalist and TV+radio broadcaster: human rights, arts, gender, travel. Trustee, Booker Prize Foundation. Outreach worker in prisons and detention centres. 5th book, Asylum and Exile: Hidden Voices of London, out email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-237051036313736922.post-81326784041308456632015-01-01T00:30:00.000+00:002016-04-18T11:07:13.588+01:00Asylum and Exile: Hidden Voices of London

I am delighted to announce the publication of my 5th book, Asylum and Exile: The Hidden Voices of London (Seagull Books/Chicago University Press), which is the result of my outreach work with asylum seekers, refugees and undocumented people in the capital and includes their testimonies alongside my own account. The publisher's page is here and the Amazon UK page is here.

For Books' Sake have already given Asylum and Exile an attentive and very generous 5 star review which can be read here and there has also been some great press in Nose In A Book, a long interview in Asian Culture Vulture and another in The Heroine Collective. I've covered the project in a recent Guardian article headlined I want to give asylum seekers in Britain a chance to tell their own story; two pieces for Wasafiri called Militarising Against Refugees and Shouting Down The Facts; and two essays for the Free Word's Briefing Notes series, called Psychogeography of trauma: inside a UK detention centre and The reality of asylum and refuge in modern Britain. I've also discussed the issues in my introduction to Big Writing for A Small World (Scribd copy of English PEN publication) and the articles Rape, refusal, denial, detention: refugees dancing at the edge of the world and Asylum: no woman should be missed out. English PEN have written up the debate at one of my events on this issue in a wonderful piece here and The Nation have written an article on my work called 'I came to you for help and you treated me like a prisoner'.

In-depth TV and audio interviews:

Half hour special on migration and refuge with CCTV America (December 2015)

Sky News debate on the refugee crisis (September 2015)

Half hour interview with Suzi Feay at English PEN/London Book Fair events (April 2015)

Mehvish Arshad at Asia House has published an long text and audio interview with me here (Jan 2015)

Donna Freed at Radio Gorgeous has produced a beautiful half-hour interview with me here (February 2015)

 Asylum and Exile follows the publication, in May 2012, of my fourth book Beyond the Wall: Writing a Path Through Palestine. An extensive selection of 2012 and 2013 interviews and press can be found here and a March 2014 interview by Clarissa Sebag-Montefiore can be found here. There's a full press release just below this video of me giving some readings from the book. I come in at 57:58

press release

I see books like Asylum and Exile as evidence of a deep seated refusal to tolerate the divisive politics that extend right across the political divide. Well done for speaking up and bearing witness. We must never stop telling the stories of those we consign to the margins.

Maurice Wren, Chief Executive, The Refugee Council

It's a little book, but in its 150-odd pages it manages to be wide in scope yet intimate, funny, warm, sad and horrifying. ...Asylum and Exile is a 4 star read, with an additional star because it's so fundamentally important.

Jennie Gillions, For Books' Sake

The result of Bidisha's outreach work with refugees and asylum seekers since 2012, Asylum and Exile goes behind the stereotypes and scare stories to reveal the humanity, tragedy and bravery – and frequently the humour – of the individuals who've left everything behind to seek sanctuary from violence.

The men and women Bidisha worked with were of all ages from 19 to their late 60s. All had fled war, persecution, extreme poverty and civil unrest in countries as diverse as Cameroon, Iran, Syria, Somalia, Malawi, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sierra Leone. Some had been in the UK for months, others for more than a decade. All spoke at least two languages. Among them were mathematicians and criminologists, soldiers, students and teachers: the man who had lectured in Persian music at Tehran university and now works in the freezer room of a sandwich factory; the woman who had been a teacher but was asked, when she arrived in England, if she knew how to turn on a light switch; the woman who became a manager in an English company only to be pulled out by police in front of her colleagues and imprisoned, who loves her red dancing shoes above all her other possessions.

In England, with no money, no access to public funds and no papers authorising them to work they labour illegally as cleaners, factory workers, dishwashers, care assistants and in other unstable, unseen, underpaid and gruelling roles. Many have bounced between prison and detention centres. Their London life is one of trying to survive on five pounds a day, of interminable bus journeys across the capital, appointments with legal aid workers and reliance on near strangers to get a foothold on life in the city with little or no support. Despite this, their unerring vivacity, talent and will to survive are a testament to the strength of the human spirit.

Asylum and Exile comes out at a time when immigration is one of the most passionately debated issues around, with a rise in anti-immigration, anti-asylum rhetoric both in the UK and elsewhere, particularly in western Europe and Australia. Asylum seekers and refugees are being argued over, demonised, scapegoated and disbelieved – or patronised and advocated for in heart-wrenching yet generalised terms – but are almost never given a chance to speak in their own words about their own lives. Bidisha gives space to their testimonies, which are by turns shocking, moving and hilarious. She gained rare access and was met with such trust and frankness that Asylum and Exile stands as a unique document|: an accessible, uplifting and humane book whose stories are as buoyant, noisy, confrontational and diverse as Bidisha's classroom itself.

Poster greeting arrivals at Praxis

The outreach sessions were co-ordinated by the literary and human rights charity English PEN with the Migrants Resource Centre in Victoria and Praxis in Bethnal Green. Asylum and Exile began in the unheated rooms of severely underfunded charities in London. Yet its narratives and characters cross the globe, reflecting the consequences of some of the world's most violent conflicts and fragile states. Stereotypes and generalisations disintegrate and what emerge are the stoical spirits, vital personalities, inner strength and defiant intelligence of the individuals themselves. The book is not an academic tract or a fierce polemic but a humane account based on personal stories expressed in idiosyncratic voices, not clichés from a newspaper. Asylum and Exile is a tribute to the honesty of raw experience, the power of personal testimony and the ability of the spoken word of truth to transform both the teller and the listener.

email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-237051036313736922.post-21911570244074767932014-12-31T00:30:00.003+00:002015-08-12T22:32:23.813+01:00My shade of feminism
In 2012 I was asked to contribute to the brilliant anthology, Fifty Shades of Feminism, which was published by Virago in 2013 and inspired events and other anthologies across the world. The Daily Mail excerpted and edited my piece but I think enough's time's passed for me to reprint it here in full.

Just like Christian Grey, the toxic abuser – sorry, dashing lead – of Fifty Shades of Self-Hate, I have my own secret red room of pain. In the secret room I file every example of womanhating I have experienced or witnessed, large or small: the harassment, the mistreatment, the violation, discrimination, unwanted touching, injustice, belittling, victim-blaming, casual 'jokes' which are really insults, marginalisation, objectification, patronage. Everything from the rapes and beatings, the sudden attacks and long hidden abusive relationships, to the work meetings in which I see women being talked over, interrupted, subtly undermined or openly put down. I keep a log of the abusers I know, every one of whom got away with it and has a public reputation as 'a really nice guy.' I even trap the silence of those who, when a woman speaks, simply look over her head and ignore it.

In the room I stock everything from the beauty, diet, fashion and surgery adverts encouraging us to make ourselves ever more artificial, self-obsessed and doll-like to the damning statistics showing how few women are represented as powerful and knowledgeable experts in the media, how few are appointed to the best jobs, how few women artists are credited and rewarded for their genius, how few are paid equally or given meaningful opportunities, acknowledged as pioneers and remembered by history. I archive the manifold stereotypes and base insults, the jibes and jokes. I put in those subtle moments when the mere mention of a woman results in a snort, a snigger and a rolling of the eyes.

I never forget those details. I've been a feminist all my life because society's scathing contempt for women, its exploitation of women for underpaid and under-acknowledged menial, caring, sexual and administrative labour, the ubiquitous and endemic violence against women and the leniency towards abusers of women are completely and utterly obvious. What is more painful than anything is some women's internalisation of this hatred: their harsh and brittle judgement of themselves and each other. In a patriarchy, both sexes are brought up to behave the same: to worship men and deride women.

Many things have changed for women in the last fifty years – but much has remained the same and so much still needs to be done. Desperate times call for feminist measures and we are currently in the middle of great change, challenge and activism. The age of revolution has returned, grassroots feminism has proliferated and there is an inspiring outrage and energy, spurred by issues both old and new. Our concern about relatively recent social, economic and cultural shifts is combined with frustration that longstanding battlegrounds are still live and galled disbelief that we are having to make the same arguments over and over again – like pointing out that a rape survivor is never responsible in any way for a man deciding to rape her.

We are concerned about the pornification of culture, the mainstreaming of the sexploitation industry, the sexualisation of girl children, the sharp increase in cosmetic surgery including labioplasty, the commonness of abusive relationships among the young and the normalisation (among both sexes) of the abuse, coercion, violation and control of young women by their boyfriends. We are concerned that in the fight over abortion rights the fundamental understanding that a woman has the right and the intelligence to decide what happens with her own body will be lost. We are concerned about trafficking – which involves kidnapping, deception, violent physical and mental brutalisation, traumatisation and constant rape – and about the wider assumption that it is okay for a man to pay a human woman for sex as though he's ordering a drive through meal or renting a DVD. Women are not objects to be bought, sold, used and abused by men.

We are concerned about female genital mutilation, 'honour' killing, forced marriages including child marriage, rape as a weapon of war and a perk of peace and the infinite rape myths, victim-blaming and perpetrator excusal which have resulted in 90% of rapes going unreported and only 6% of the remaining 10% resulting in a rape conviction in the UK, which is not a warzone and has a legal framework for prosecuting rape yet still cannot bring itself to punish rapists.

We are concerned about the media vilification and sabotage of those few women in power, the reality and resilience of the glass ceiling and women's many unpaid, expected and unacknowledged labours away from the office. Women in families take care of children and elders because the men in families do not.

Thanks wholly to feminism we now have a language, a vision, an understanding and an analysis to apply to our pain. What we need now is for the perpetrators to stop. The oppressors are not winning by cleverness or sophisticated rhetoric but by sheer force, by the violent leverage of brutal power – and shame on them for that. The question of gender is not very complicated: treat women as you would be treated, because we are people, human beings with minds and names, ideas, talents, real lives. If you would not like to be raped, harassed, ignored, patronised, ignored, treated as stupid, judged by your age and appearance or used only for the cheap, nasty and repetitive labour you can give, don't do that to others.

I remind myself during moments of activist fatigue and flagging faith that the women's movement is the longest and most successful peaceful human rights fight in world history. The resistance we encounter is a sign that we are on the right path and that our words have hit a raw nerve. Those who react with vociferous derision when they are called on their misogyny are enraged because their cover has been blown, their presumption of superiority has been questioned and women have dared to challenge them and answer back.

Those who say that women are their own worst enemies or that feminists are in disagreement about core issues are lying. There are more than fifty shades of feminism, but they're fifty shades of the same colour: red. Not grey, that in-between yuppie hue of prevarication, indecision and relativism. Feminism is coloured the red of women's rage, women's despair, women's power, women's brilliance and women's ability to survive. It is the lifeblood of emancipation, which pulses with neverending faith that freedom and justice are only ever a heartbeat away.

firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-237051036313736922.post-41651323802586574912014-12-31T00:30:00.002+00:002015-12-21T13:01:40.985+00:00On sex, race, migration and asylum
This long interview was initially granted to Asian Culture Vulture magazine and pegged to my book, Asylum and Exile: The Hidden Voices of London, which was the result of my outreach work with asylum seekers and refugees in the capital.

What was the moment that made you realise you wanted to write Asylum and Exile?

I realised within one or two meetings with my students, encountering their stories, their passion and their talent, that their words couldn't go unrecorded. They were the most outgoing, wise, experienced group of people I'd ever met – yet refugees and asylum seekers are vilified in the press and are heard nowhere in debates surrounding these issues. They are silenced and demonised, or pitied and patronised – but every encounter, for me, was wholly life-affirming. These are individual human beings who must be respected and whose words must be heard; I was determined to use my (very limited) power to make that happen. It's a typical journalist's habit to make notes on everything all the time, regardless of whether those notes make it anywhere – but this time I really paid attention, memorising everything, writing up my 'case notes' at the end of every outreach session I did, then doing a lot of reading around issues of asylum, forced migration and refuge. I began doing outreach work in the top half of 2012 – promoting my previous book, Beyond the Wall, a reportage from Palestine, at the same time. I wrote Asylum and Exile at the very end of 2012, beginning of 2013, when it was still fresh in my memory. But I've continued doing outreach work since.

What were your expectations before you started teaching the asylum seekers from your book?

I knew the sessions would be thought-provoking and eye-opening but I didn't except the effects to go beyond the classroom, or that together we would create something bigger than ourselves – not just the book but the good energy and fellow-feeling. I kept my expectations of myself low: the worst thing you can do is go in assuming that you are going to transform people's lives, and indeed I didn't transform my students' lives. It was they who opened my eyes and made me realise that it's often the people who are the most overlooked and ignored who have the most to teach others. I thought the sessions would be constructive in a literary sense, but they took on a significance which was far more humane and humanitarian as the weeks went on.

How did your perceptions change once you started teaching? What surprised you the most?

What surprised me was that people kept coming back to my sessions! It seemed to me that I was the one doing all the learning and developing, through listening to them, but that I myself was not contributing to my students' knowledge in any way. They would share their stories and their writing with me – but these are people who already speak at least 2 languages fluently, and very few needed actual help with their English. The most interesting moments happened in between the writing exercises we did, not during them. I wasn't surprised that my students had stories to tell about what they'd witnessed or survived both in England and in their home countries, but I was surprised by how politicised the whole group was: in the midst of their own personal experiences there was a very high awareness of the fact that the actions of powerful groups (whether governments, militia, rebels or whoever) led to millions of women, children and men being displaced, threatened, violated, tortured and generally having their lives torn apart, while the rich stayed rich and violent perpetrators acted with impunity, often with the collusion or non-involvement of the international community. All the students I had who were from African countries had a very high awareness and knowledge of the mess that Western European colonial exploiters callously left behind. All shared a cynicism about power-holders and governments and a scepticism about international bodies who talk the talk but don't walk the walk.

What is the main message you aim to share with Asylum and Exile? What was your intention? Do you hope this book will bring about measurable change?

Never judge anyone by appearances – you have no idea what people have lived through, survived, escaped, achieved, learnt or striven for. It's those who are denied a voice who have the most to say about how the world really is and we should be looking and listening out for what they can teach us, not paying attention to well-fed, cossetted, ambition-hungry politicians. My intention with Asylum and Exile was to uncover unheard voices, add nuance and individualisation to the debate on asylum, remind readers that this is not an issue to be discussion but a question of people's lives and get them to see asylum seekers and refugees as people. I was certain that I didn't want to write a polemic that tells people what to think. I thought the best way to change the way we approach the negative stereotypes which bedevil all discussions about asylum and refuge was to bring out people's stories and personalities, in their own words. I don't know about 'measurable change' but frankly things are so stuck that even a tiny bit of change, or nuance, or complexity, would be valuable.

Where do you think this negative perception of asylum seekers has come from?

These negative perceptions are not accidental at all but are the result of right-wing isolationist politicians, timid and placatory left wing politicians and a jingositic, xenophobic tabloid media deliberately playing on people's ignorance, racism, cultural stereotypes, fear of difference and fear of change. It's a deliberately strategy and it works: it sells papers, it stokes the kind of fear that leads undecided voters to come out in support of whichever party appears to take a firm line. But it's al illusory. The fact is that asylum/refuge numbers to the UK are relatively low, that England is not 'full', the majority of benefits claimants are not 'foreign', the majority of UK criminals are not foreign – and asylum seekers and refugees are telling the truth about what they have survived. No rational person on the planet leaves everything they have, their home, their family and friends, their achievements, their roots, their life, to risk everything to attempt to take advantage of a completely foreign country where they know they will be tested, disbelieved and possibly even detained – if they don't die en route.

At the book launch, Maurice Wren, CEO of the Refugee Council, talked of a system to distinguish genuine asylum seekers from those wanting to abuse to the system. How possible is it to create such a system?

Maurice was talking about the myth that the asylum system likes to create around itself: the myth is that Britain has always been a welcoming and tolerant place, and the asylum system is simply there to weed out genuine claimants from abusers. That is what those within the system, the assessment boards, the Home Office and the border agencies tell themselves. The reality is that asylum seekers (and indeed all survivors of violence and persecution) tell the truth and the system, far from being a discerning one, is a cruel and disbelieving one in which the policy is to be openly sceptical of any claim as asylum seeker makes, to persecute them and treat them as though they are lying.

As someone who works within the media industry; an industry that often creates the negative stereotypes surrounding asylum and immigration, do you feel a sense of conflict within yourself? If so, how do you try to resolve it?

My 'end' of the industry isn't the end which vilifies asylum seekers: we have the gutter press or the tabloid press to thank for that. Funnily enough, though, I am just as frustrated by seemingly sympathetic reports in broadsheets, which relay the numbers of asylum seekers who are trying to reach a safe port in a boat which sinks, or a lorry convoy which is raided by police… the victims in these cases are spoken about with great pathos, but are still not portrayed as individuals with names, lives and particular stories of their own. The solution to this is specific, accurate, long-form reporting and an emphasis on humanising and individualising the people involved, so that they seem less mythic and more real. The media doesn't always do this very well, usually because of time constraints and issues of access; but charities do it incredibly well. For example the charity Women For Refugee Women has produced several testimony projects and performance works based on the reality of being an asylum seeker or refugee. In terms of traditional media I really appreciate everything The Guardian has done to investigate the abusive culture that exists within detention centres – in particular the sexual abuse of women detained at Yarl's Wood. The newspaper's investigation is an example of sustained, specific and compassionate reporting which is constructive and committed without being patronising.

What do you hope to see in terms of the issue of asylum in the General Elections this year [the interview was done in 2015]?

I'm extremely disturbed by the debate which has developed around these issues. First there has been a dangerous elision of asylum and refuge with all types of migration and immigration, with Islamophobia and fear of terrorism thrown into the mix, with a hefty does of head-scratching about 'whether or not multiculturalism really works or is a good thing, at the end of the day.' It bothers me to see England becoming more insular, more sceptical, more right-leaning and yet more culturally ignorant and happier to peddle ever more outrageous and bigoted clichés. UKIP have been incredibly good at harvesting all of that ignorance, bias and fear and instead of condemning UKIP, the Tories are trying to take advantage of some of that fear and use it to gain votes of their own, implying that immigration is 'indeed' something to be concerned about and attempting to quell their voters' (groundless) fears. Meanwhile not one single mainstream politician on the left has stood up to counter any of the myths and tell the truth. Why? There's no career traction in the issue, no money and no votes, and it'll take a long time for the general populace to really take in and beginning believing the truth rather than the lie.

We now have former migrants criticising and vilifying newer immigrants and asylum seekers – as someone who has come from a migrant family, what are your thoughts on this?

I do know what you mean: as long as people have been migrating (that is, as long as there have been people on this planet) there has been a quite understandable tendency to want to assimilate in a new place, to ingratiate and to imitate. There is also a kind of pride – or should we say ego – that comes from having successfully survived a migration and settlement in a new place: a cruel tendency to say, 'Well, it was hard for me when I first came here, I had to fight for everything, I had to fight for acceptance. So why should it be easy for you? You people have to prove yourselves, just as we did.' There's the well-known phenomenon of successful migrants tending to vote Tory – the party least amenable to true multiculturalism – for economic reasons and also because the conservative Darwinian dog-eat-dog, rise up on your own, fight for what you have mentality tallies with their own experience trying to make it. You could say it was also a trauma response, in a way: there's a tendency for those who have suffered to replicate hostile contexts, beliefs, environments, values and also an unconscious desire to ringfence and aggressively 'defend' whatever you have achieved in the last one or two generations; there's a sense of precarity and tenuous position that comes from being a migrant which leads people to (subconsciously) fear newer arrivals, as if what they've gained may be taken away at any moment. It also shows a lack of humanity, I'd say. Tribal behaviour of any kind bothers me and I am always disgusted when people are friends only with their own kind, without any interest in or compassion for anyone who seems or looks or is different. It bothers me when white people do it and it bothers me when non-white people do it.

Asylum and Exile tells the stories of the asylum seekers – what are your hopes for them to share to their own stories? How possible is it for them to do this at the moment?

While my students certainly spoke freely with each other and with the caseworkers and charities that helped them, I feel that the conversation should be happening at a far wider level: it should be happening in public life. That means the media, public events, panels, the written and published work. Asylum seekers' stories give us a true picture of what Britain is really like – but to get to that true picture, ironically and depressingly, you already need to be on the inside, to have a platform which attracts people who are willing to listen. As soon as I was into my classes and meeting all the wonderful people I realised that what they had to say didn't stop with me, I could pass on the humour, humanity, wisdom and pain. A young woman at a university seminar I spoke at in London asked me (nicely) what right I had to write this book, and she was absolutely right. I have no moral right, beyond the desire and ability, the worldly power and the permission of my students – but nothing has given me the authority to do so and I don't particularly want to be a bleeding-heart heroine or spokesperson for people who are well able to speak for themselves. Of course it's unfair that I get to bring out this book and be certain of it getting at least some degree of coverage; that's why I've tried to stick to talking about the issue rather than giving celebrity style 'lifestyle' interviews. In terms of talking themselves, while I had several very forthcoming students, not many would really want to sit in front of an audience of strangers and rehash their experiences for other people to coo and sigh over. Many of my students were consumed simply by the necessity of surviving and getting on with daily life. Attending book events – even writing books at home in comfort – is something that the privileged do.

What drew you to a career in writing at such a young age?

Passion! I was always interested in everything, inquisitive, friendly, passionate, political, not shy: pretty much the typical personality type to be a journalist. I was enraged by the sexism and racism I saw in front of my face all day, every day, but at the same time excited by the galleries, the gigs, the design, the books, the artistic world around me. I always knew I wanted to be in journalism: I remember telling people when I was 13, and by 14 I was a journalist and having the time of my life. It's a true cliché that you should do what you love and also do what comes naturally, what feels easy and right and joyful. I'm lucky too in that journalism is also a fun career: it's sociable, it's outward-looking. When I write non-fiction I feel confident that I am influencing the debate in some small way, whether I'm writing about gender or Palestine or asylum. With fiction, I'm much more circumspect.

You had your first book published at 18; what do you think were the advantages of starting at such an early age?

To this day, I am ambivalent about cutting my first book deal at 16 and having the novel, Seahorses, come out at 18, followed at 21 by the second novel, Too Fast To Live. Probably because I'm ambivalent about doing fiction in general: I'm not someone who loves novels above all else or advocates for novel-writing in the way I advocate for journalism. I sometimes see novels as part of the entertainment industry. But generally speaking I'm proud of what I've dones since I was 14, despite its ups and its many downs and long periods of freelance panic and nothingness – those weeks which bring zero opportunities and no emails. Nightmare. One thing that I'll say in favour of early success is that it gives you a head start and enables you to ride out the dud years that happen in a freelance career without losing too much traction. I'm lucky in that Seahorses was reviewed very well and sold well, but I was so immature at the time and I regret no longer being with the best agent in the business, Jonny Geller at Curtis Brown, and with a big publisher like HarperCollins. I never quite got back up to that level again, nor did I fulfil my promise, although I have gone on to forge a very fulfilling broadcasting career, which is where my passions and capabilities lie. Still, I do feel some pride in having survived for 22 years in the media and publishing worlds, which have transformed so much and come under such pressure from various changes. I think just surviving is something in itself. However, there's so much I still want to achieve – not just career wise but life wise – that I don't think my previous accomplishments count for anything. It's been a very hard few years, from 2009 onwards, for reasons both professional and personal, so I'm actually in a phase of self-questioning and reinvention and wanting to step back from the fray for a good few years.

There is the constant debate about migrants, no matter what generation, feeling a split sense of identity between the country they live in and the country they are originally from. What are your thoughts on this? How do you deal with this conflict if there is one?

I actually think it's a cliché that all second generation people feel some kind of split or conflict or rootlessness or whatever it is. I don't feel that. First of all, there's nothing wrong with not feeling 100% at home in a place; few people, of any kind, do. And those that do tend to be insular, parochial, solipsistic, ignorant bores. I can't think of anything worse than a pathetic Little Englander who thinks England is the best place on earth – with no deep knowledge of any other place – and that famous saying, that anyone who's tired of London must be tired of life, just struck me as the most insular, ignorant, arrogant claim in the world. I feel completely at home in all places. I feel like an international, which is what I am, not just for reason of racial heritage but also reasons of privilege, class and entitlement, which one should not be disingenuous about. I used to go to India nearly every summer as a kid, stopped when I was 14 because my career had begun and I was crazy in love with it, went back in 2013 and completely, utterly loved it. In terms of the energy, warmth, dynamism, contradiction, rate of change and female solidarity, it was a total buzz – far more so than England, which actually feels incredibly flat these days. I think the real forward drive is to be found in China, India, parts of Latin America, parts of Africa, not Western Europe. After being in India and China I now look at England with a far more critical eye than I did: I see it moving away from the rest of the world, suspicious of foreigners, socially stagnant, heavily mired in misogyny, porn culture and rape culture…. so like all migrants I plan to go onwards, somewhere.

How was it entering the career at such a young age and also as an Asian girl? Do you think you had a different experience?

It was, frankly, a thrill beginning a career at 14 and it was a lucky experience for me because I was a novelty and therefore not a threat. I knew then and still know that many of the places I work for are endemically casually sexist and virtually all-white (although the arts and style magazines I worked for were slightly better on this score than the more traditional newspapers and broadcasting outlets) but I was heavily protected, especially during the many years when my career was happening in tandem with school and university: a circle of friends, all style journalists, who were 10 years older than me and who showed me the ropes (and also showed me a really good time), the fact that I did my reviewing at writing work from outside the offices of the places I worked for; the fact that I cut my first book so early into my career, which gave me a lot of power or leverage within my career. I was always gender- and race-political: how could one not be? But these senses have sharpened even more as time went on: every few years there is a new, young, fresh name who is celebrated within journalism, but only a few are let through in every round. The general representation doesn't change and as we get older, I see women (and in particular women and men of colour) being sidelined or plateauing more and more. Make no mistake, we live in a white male patriarchy. Every so often, a few people who don't fit the mould are allowed in and tolerated, but never in numbers which would change the scene. We get only so far before hitting the ceiling, being replaced and then having to back off and find another way to survive.

What are your thoughts on the number of British Asians authors in the industry currently? Do you feel they are represented fairly? And more specifically, British Asian women?

For me this is not just about British Asians but about taking a really wide-scale view of diversity: all races, all ages, all backgrounds, all shapes and sizes and not just the very readily accepted type of the privileged, straight, entitled white male who doesn't think about his own (or his friends' and colleagues' own) sexual and racial entitlement for one second. We live in a rich and diverse world and it's shocking to enter into any influence professional institution, whether it be the media or politics or the arts, and see that right the way through, there is a severe lack of any racial diversity whatsoever, added to the fact that there is a gender pay gap, that there is casual sexism, that there are so few women of any colour at the top. This is down to sexism and racism; not the overt kind but a much more deadly, subtle and usually subconscious kind which prefers a white male club to anything else. To this day I am staggered by people's ignorance and sexual and racial clichés about race and gender: the banal obsession and romanticisation of the Raj era of British colonial exploitation in India; forced and arranged marriages; women's oppression and victim-hood (which the West harps on without acknowledging that male violence against women is endemic everywhere); the inability to recognise that not all brown people are Muslim. The list goes on and on. We are rarely presented as experts on things which are not related to the clichés I've mentioned, and when we are it is in the light of a perceived problem which we have been said to have caused (sexual exploitation, FGM, forced marriage, terrorism). Meanwhile, as I mentioned before there is a real lack of diversity when it comes to power-holding, influence and career achievement behind the scenes: as book editors, theatre directors, film producers, executives, commissioners and so on.

I read an interview with Kamila Shamsie, the novelist, in which she described being part of the brilliant Fifty Shades of Feminism essay collection (which I am also in) – and many of the white Western feminists made pretty racist, smug, arrogant, ignorant allusions to how relatively lucky they felt to be in England/America and not some foreign backward distant culture where (they thought) it was all much worse. The sheer complacency, racial arrogance and cultural ignorance of that stance really gets to me: negatively stereotyping and generalising about areas, cultures, continents spanning thousands of miles. These people usually know nothing of the world beyond their cosy little circle; and people who think of themselves as sexual progressives or liberals are the hardest to get to see the truth.

For a novelist there is a special category of novel you are supposed to write, and it must conform to Western sexual, racial and class clichés: you must write something about parental oppression, religion and terrorism and radicalisation, about burning widows and child labour, about forbidden love in a mango grove during the monsoon season, about conflicted identity and about women who suffer. Or something about wearing a Muslim veil – how much you love it or hate it – or something with veil in the title! Beyond the Veil? Under the Veil? Sex and the Veil?

What were some of the difficulties you faced as you entered the world of writing as well other broadcast areas such as radio and television?

I was incredibly lucky because my career has developed organically and I never had any struggle getting in, but as with all people facing the double barriers of sexism and racism, I am aware of how tenuous my position is. You are given just one chance to succeed – and if you fluff it, that's it. I am noticing these barriers more and more as time goes on as I see young men promoted over women with far more expertise, drive and experience and I see that the women and people of colour, including me, have hit some kind of shelf, or wall, or plateau, or glass ceiling. Despite our achievements and our track record, the big commissions and name-making assignments aren't coming. I also witness casual sexism on a daily basis. In my experience, when I have tried to speak or write about this, giving copious concrete examples, I have simply been blacklisted from the organisations I was alluding to. It bothers me intensely that women and people of colour of both sexes are so heavily under-represented at all levels of the worlds I work in – not just in front of the camera or mic or page but also behind the scenes as editors, producers, directors, executives and decision-makers. We know that black and Asian actors are leaving the UK because roles are not written for them; I wouldn't be surprised to see the same thing happening with writers, producers, broadcasters, journalists and other talent, especially in those working in the freelance, unstable, creative or media world. Certainly, I'm thinking that way.

Finally, what's next for you? Is there another book in the pipeline?

I would be very interested in doing a long stint in a women's prison. I've already done some prison work (since 2012) but would love to commit myself to three years in one place. The same goes for doing more work in detention centres – easily the most frightening places I've ever been, and worth exploring (and exposing) for that reason. So I want to expand my humanitarian work, and not just as a reporter.

My other job is in broadcasting so I'd like to do more documentaries with the BBC. They're always enormous fun and you meet tons of wonderful people in the process.

email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-237051036313736922.post-9834664498562877652014-12-31T00:30:00.001+00:002015-08-12T22:27:28.594+01:00Psychogeography of trauma: inside a UK detention centre
A slightly different (worse) version of this essay was published by The Free Word Centre as part of its Briefing Notes essay series. Read the original here.

The detention centre was, hands down, one of the most frightening places I've ever been to. This was because of the sheer nastiness, anger and self-satisfaction of the staff – civilians and guards alike. It was horrifying, a sinister place, and it was clear to my colleague and me that nobody who worked there had even one dreg of basic human feeling for the individuals they were detaining or any understanding of, or interest in, what those people had survived.

The staff were suspicious even before we arrived, asking for written assurances that we wouldn't name them or hint at where the institution was. The staff referred to the people inside as detainees and asked that "the workshop content is suited to a detainee context." I replied via email, "I can confirm and guarantee this, having spent many weeks working with asylum seekers and refugees, a large proportion (about 50%) of whom had themselves been detained or imprisoned or both…I understand the sensitivity required to work in such environments and the necessity of not pushing individuals for personal stories or details… I have also worked with people of varying levels of psychological wellness, language skills, vulnerability and other needs. More than anything I want to foster an accepting and constructive environment…"

***

The detention – or 'immigration removal' – centre is in a part of England renowned for its landscape rather than its architecture or human-made sites of interest. It's a minor, plain-enough town, ugly but bustling and not unpleasant on the morning we arrive. Even though the centre itself is a short taxi ride away, its atmosphere has seeped into the town itself, and its people. There's a jovial, talkative woman driving our cab. "Are you a legal team?" she asks us. Local drivers are accustomed to taking legal aid professionals up to the centre, I gather. At first I think she must have sympathy for the detainees, what with "English not being their first language" and all. Then she surprises me by telling a crude rhyme, which comes out of nowhere:

There was a young lady from Rabat

Who gave birth to triplets Pat, Nat and Cat

Breeding was fine, but feeding wasn't

When she found she had no tit for tat.

She throws back her head and laughs, with grotesque relish and mockery, and this macabre exultation – shocking two milksop Londoners with her rhyme – sets the tone of the day.

We draw close and I see the place. Darker, blockier, seedier, uglier than a prison. Prisons have a school vibe to them, a sense of pressurised containment. Some of them look like quite jolly red brick Peabody estates. They're peaceful from the outside, thick with it. But detention centres are built to terrify and repel even from the outside. They're designed to be visually disruptive, ugly; a psychogeography of trauma inflicted. There are more rolls of barbed wire outside this detention centre than outside the prison I visit: three rolls atop metal mesh fencing. Barbed wire runs up the muddy grass slope. There are yet more rolls of barbed wire, netting and cameras around the building, which is blocked across the old stone archway that was once the gate of the city. The place seems abandoned – as if everyone just ran out twenty minutes before we turned up. We don't even feel as though we're being watched. We feel as if there's no-one around and nobody cares where we are, who we are or what we're doing.

I go to the visitors' centre where we're supposed to leave our things in lockers numbered from 1 to 180. There's a sign saying "Powdered baby milk/food is not allowed in the centre. Please ensure you have enough baby milk/food made up for the duration of your visit." There's a form I can fill in, headed "Violence reduction: reporting any incident of unacceptable behaviour." It invites me to describe "what incident has cause [me] to feel intimidated, upset, threatened, humiliated, embarrassed or frightened." At the bottom of the form, in block letters, it says, "Everyone has the right to feel safe here…. Unacceptable behaviour in any form will not be tolerated." I'm assuming that this is a form for reporting on detainees' behaviour, not guards' behaviour. There's even a drugs amnesty box where you can slot in those last few fronds of weed or whatever it may be. Although there are warning signs everywhere – like "passive sniffer dogs are in use here" and detailed instructions in how to body-search a "male subject" – the truth is that I could stroll in with some drugs, a gun and a camera. Nobody scanned me, checked me or searched my bag.

We go to the main entrance, Fortress Gate 1, and the guy – the officer? The guard? Who are these people allied to? The police? – greets us with a strange combination of derision and indifference. He doesn't question our purpose for being there. We hand over our ID and he barely glances at it. "Is there anyone else coming in with you? Just you two?" In prison you get a shrewd and searching look and the hard yet oddly reliable staff rebut any friendliness, leaf through your ID as if it's fake, then write your name in little letters a little book along with the time you came in. Here, they don't care, or don't know, and that's what makes it so frightening. One man makes an announcement on the communications system: "Call out. If anyone knows the whereabouts of Officer Ryder, can you call in?" Later I find out from a colleague who sits on asylum appeal panels that these detention centres are run by private companies, the same ones (like G4S) that're making a killing from operating huge American prison complexes. The staff are private company employees, not public servants.

At this immigration removal centre there's a "rec pitch" – a football pitch – a gym and an education centre, which is where we're going. "Do you ever get trouble?" I ask the woman in charge of education, a brisk type who, like our taxi driver, seems full of uncanny, righteous anger. "No – no – there's only one officer and that's for our protection," she says with a laugh that hits my nerves. The education centre's like a modern school block with corridors and classrooms. I go in to meet some of the other staff and see a woman vigorously cleaning her hands with hand sanitiser, as though the detainees are dirty and whatever they touch is dirty. The staff laugh amongst themselves about how the detainees "sleep 'til two or three in the afternoon." I point out that sleeping so long is a symptom of depression and they nod blandly without a trace of empathy. "They do like their sleep," they say, snidely. Other staff members, alerted to the novelty of us being here, sidle in and look us over with narrowed eyes and twisted smiles. After asking a few questions and painfully pulling out answers I learn that most of the long term staff work wholly within the detention system, moving from centre to centre. They make a career of it.

The woman in charge of the education centre takes us to the small classroom where the furniture, walls and supplies are in a better state that those at the charities where I do outreach work helping asylum seekers and refugees. The woman casually gives me three flimsy free-with-a-newspaper editions of an Ian Fleming novel, Casino Royale, and says I can give them to the detainees if I want. She doesn't seem to give a damn either way. She goes out to find and harangue some of the detainees who'd promised to attend my session.

A few men come in – there are no women here – heads bowed, walking slowly and creakily as if weighed down, looking at me out of the corners of their eyes like mistrustful kicked dogs. They are from all over the world, southern Africa, eastern Europe, east Asia, with varying levels of English. One east Asian guy had a full life in the UK, running a business and making music, with a wife and baby, before he was picked up and slung in here. There are good facilities for making music at this centre, apparently.

One man comes in on crutches. His leg has been amputated, or hacked off, just below the knee. He is completely silent and seems shattered, mentally.
"Aren't there more coming?" asks the woman in charge of education.
The guys shake their heads heavily. They mention their friends' names and say they might go and look for them again, they might be sleeping. The woman laughs at their slowness.
"It's healthy and safety," she says to me in front of them. "When I do it, I get them moving about looking for fire exits. Otherwise they sit there saying they dunno where the fire exits are. If they say they're tired I get 'em to stand up and jog on the spot. I'm cruel like that."

I go through some bits of reading and some short writing exercises but don't make much headway. It's not that the men are disengaged or contemptuous, it's that the oppressiveness of the environment itself, its fearfulness and energy sapping intimidation, has seeped into them and mixed with the horror that is quite obviously already there. We're having some fun with different genres – Horror, Romance, Comedy, Western, Sci-Fi – and I start a sentence and get them to finish it in the spirit of a certain type of writing.

"Comedy. Something positive," I say. "'If the man doesn't catch his train on time then….'"

"Then he will die!" bursts out one of the men in the class, his eyes huge and full of tears, his dry voice trembling.

That is how it goes on. Many of the men at the back don't want to speak because their English isn't good. They are forcing themselves to be in the class and gruffly encouraging their friends. But they are all here for the same reason: whatever they went through to come to the UK, whatever they left behind, they weren't believed, they tell me. Not the guy who's crying, not the guy whose leg was chopped off, none of them.

The despair and a strange feeling of intimidation spread across the entire class. All the guards I've seen so far are short, heavy-set white men. Every so often one of them slopes into the room as though he owns it, trades sardonic looks with the education woman, looks at the detainees as though they're scum, looks me up and down with glinting eyes and a smug smile and says, "So. You're the author." There is an overwhelming sense of foreboding.

The cynicism lifts slightly when we visit the library, which is empty. The librarian speaks with real care for the detainees, showing us the selection of films and books in different languages, the long stacks of dictionaries: Albanian, Vietnamese, Turkish, Arabic, Urdu, even Tamil for Sri Lankans fleeing the aftermath of the civil war. She tries to make sure that every language spoken in the centre is catered for.

When the session is up the men go off, slow and pained. The education woman seems fiercely pleased as she walks us out. "I'm reading Jane Austen's autobiography at the moment," she boasts loudly. Austen didn't write an autobiography. "I don't intend to read any of the novels. I've seen the films." She says it with sharp, slashing relish, eyes glowing as though she's put Austen firmly back in her place.

We call for a taxi, twice. It doesn't come. Perhaps the taxi firm thinks it's going to be picking up detainees, illegal immigrants who won't pay the fare. There's a minivan parked outside the detention centre, full of luggage: cheerful, normal-looking wheelie cases, as if people are going on holiday. Staff members are pulling out the luggage and leaving it on the ground. It's shift handover time and guards are coming out of the centre, swaggering, marching and righteous, jaws tensed. They're so angry that they jerk their cars hard out of the parking spots, backing out sharply and speeding through the car park, tyres scraping, engines revving hard. One of them almost runs over my colleague, I think deliberately, backing straight into him as we idle about waiting for the taxi. As he drives past the officer's face is hard and set and satisfied.

***

On the way home I read a piece one of the detainess has written, entitled A Conversation That Changed My Life:

"The conversation that changed my life in the UK is the one I had in the Home Office during my first interview, because that conversation was one kind of a bad dream for me. After that conversation I found myself in the detention centre. Adding to what I faced in my home country, it seems like life is a scary movie which I would like to get out from."

firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-237051036313736922.post-28197832229781577672014-12-31T00:30:00.000+00:002015-08-12T22:27:04.807+01:00Choosing political sides in England's porn-fed, combative culture
This is an oddly backdated essay reprinted from the 28 Days project released a month before the 2015 general election, just before the Tories got in for another 5 years with a (slim) majority. You can read the original here.

"If England's not careful it's going to wind up on the wrong side of history," I said.
"Compared to what? Its past? Hasn't it always been on the wrong side?" was the sardonic reply from a colleague.

We were at a panel discussion about the reality of asylum and immigration in Britain. The audience was full of people who work in the field: service providers, to use that chilling phrase which leaches all the humanity, pain, richness and desperation out of their vital work. I was talking about my latest stint of outreach work, with asylum seekers and refugees, and how the individuals I encountered and the things they had survived were so different from the derogatory and scare-mongering messages put out by politicians and the media.

My colleagues described how they'd witnessed the development of a 'Fortress Europe' mentality: an informal bloc of Western European countries whose policies and public messages are openly hostile not just to asylum seekers and refugees but to immigrants of all kinds, to true multicultural understanding, to a nuanced acceptance of religious or cultural difference. There is a mindset of arrogance and racism which sees the rest of the world as backward, dangerous, uncivilised, tribal, contaminated with violence and propensity towards terrorism and religious (but really, they mean Muslim) fundamentalism. It's as though Orientalism is back, only even nastier than before and without the swollen-up self-assurance of Imperial, exploitative power. There's an attitude of uncaring exclusion and desperate self-protection against the perceived barbarity of outsiders, often simultaneous to economic recession and the breakdown of reliable education, employment and stability within these European countries themselves. Even politicians on the mainstream left will not stand up for multiracial multiculturalism, open borders or asylum seekers' and refugees' rights. They won't debunk the myths or take the heat out of the bile and misinformation. Why is that? It'll take too long to change hearts and minds and anyway there's no money or votes in it.

There was a sense on the night of the panel discussion that England in particular is at a critical point. There is less social mobility than ever before, greater insularity and pessimism, a developing xenophobia and isolationism, higher youth unemployment, less equality of opportunity, greater instability in the job market, a housing crisis in the capital, a weakened welfare system. Underlying everything are the terrifying levels of male violence against women and girls: the harassment, the rape, the objectification, the ageism and dismissal, the mockery, the victim-blaming and disbelief and perpetrator excusal by everyone from social peers to the police and judges, the molestation, the grooming and exploitation and abuse, the gendered bullying in schools and the full-blown development of porn-fed, coercive rape culture. There is the commodification, pornification, sale and renting and usage of us by men and the mainstreaming of a society in which it's okay to rent and use a human woman to gratify you sexually. We fear terrorism, gun crime, natural disasters, wars – but the most common form of violence in the world is male violence against and abuse of women and girls within the home. That's in addition to the fact that women have to do more cooking, cleaning, childcare, family admin and parental care because men do not do enough; that we are paid less for the same work; that our behaviour, achievements and ambitions are subject to an onslaught of double standards, pejorative stereotypes, sneers and degrading insults; that our employers punish us for being pregnant and having children; that we are kept out of the higher tiers of every profession and discipline from scientific research to academia to the arts to the media to politics. And when we speak up about what we have witnessed and survived, we are threatened and punished, sometimes by the male perpetrators, sometimes by their male cronies, often by male strangers who send us anonymous rape threats.

I do not believe that people are politically apathetic. Quite the opposite: we are riled, mistrustful, angered and exhausted as we live out the consequences of trying to survive in this hard, patriarchal, capitalist society in which London has become a playground for the international super-rich while the government's euphemistic 'austerity' drives make brutal cuts to social care services, legal aid, charity projects and public sector jobs, all of which have directly impacted the lives of the near-destitute, extremely vulnerable asylum seekers and refugees I work with.

Given the male abuse and inequality we suffer, women are the major users of these services, as well as the majority of employees in the public sector. So we lose our jobs at one end and at the other we lose protection, we lose assistance when we are survivors of male violence, as victims seeking advocacy, as daughters trying to secure support for older relatives, as mothers struggling to survive when our children's fathers don't do any fathering and we can't find work that will accommodate our family lives or pay enough to cover childcare. Rape crisis services close despite endemic levels of male sexual violence; women's shelters close despite endemic levels of male domestic violence.

Meanwhile, mainly male, mainly white politicians sit back as three course dinners are served to them, with good wine. They work hard, they are dedicated, but they will never be hungry, or cold, or poor, or isolated, or understand what it's like to fall down between the cracks in society. There is a shock as one looks at the leaders of the three main parties, plus the UKIP freak, and sees that they are, but for a few minor nuances, much the same type. The fabled apathy of the populace kicks in not when we talk amongst ourselves but when we consider the possibility of the political elite listening to and acting on our demands and grievances. We do not believe that they will do so; they have lost our trust and our faith. We believe, instead, that politicians work on behalf of themselves and their wealthy, powerful, well-connected friends.

When did the political system begin slipping away from us like this? Not with Cameron and his men's club of Eton and Oxbridge cronies. I'd say it happened before then, when Labour betrayed itself to become New Labour, the party of the bourgeois yuppie, the groovy Britpop rightwing-leftwing hybrid that quickly became a war-mongering monster led by a deluded religious zealot. Millions of people protested the Iraq war but it made no difference and that told us everything: people in power don't listen to people without power. Women are always at the bottom of that heap, of every heap, which is why, scrolling forward a decade-odd, Osborne's cuts disproportionately affect women – and he didn't even realise.

The revolution that must come is a specifically feminist, anti-macho, anticapitalist one which dissolves and sweeps away the current combative and exclusive political system altogether. Will I see that happen in all the election years I'll witness in the future? I doubt it. But I know which side I'm on.

firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-237051036313736922.post-25359596495492287132014-12-30T00:30:00.000+00:002015-08-12T22:26:11.806+01:00The reality of asylum and refuge in modern Britain

This essay was first published by the Free Word for its Briefing Notes series, pegged to my book Asylum and Exile: The Hidden Voices of London.

Bodies in boats. Grateful, half-drowned people wrapped in blankets. Women dying of suffocation under plastic packages in long distance goods lorries while traffickers pocket their savings. Gangs of organised criminals terrorising Britain. Impoverished, illiterate moochers living off the state, filling up hospitals. Detainees being abused horribly by staff in UK detention centres like Yarl's Wood.

Those are the images and horror stories that stifle any meaningful investigation into what it's like as a human being with a name and a face, a life and a past, trying to survive as an asylum seeker in Britain. Some of the stories invite our pity, others are designed to attract our hatred and suspicion. None of them represent asylum seekers as complex, distinct individuals. The nastiest clichés are promulgated by some of the most powerful and pervasive forces in society — the media and politicians of all stripes — against those who have the least power and visibility and are concerned more with basic survival than gaining votes or readers.

Politicians both marginal and mainstream hustle for public support by fear-mongering and fudging, making sweeping statements about foreigners who they say are criminals, advantage-takers, callous and opportunistic illegals, troublemakers who do not know how to behave, who import regressive values, who refuse to learn new languages and muck up residential streets with their garbage. The stereotypes go unchallenged because those with the loudest voices and the greatest number of vested interests are shouting above (and about) those who have no public voice. The clichés pander to pre-existing prejudices about foreigners, incomers, the dangerous and malign 'other' who will take and sully. Nobody bothers to try and get to the truth because, at the end of the day, the people being slandered are largely invisible to them, being bounced between detention and prison, living near-destitute or with the meagre support of charities or working off the books in factories, building sites or cleaning firms.

An asylum seeker is an individual who is petitioning to be formally recognised as a refugee. Once recognised, refugees gain certain very basic and minimal rights to protection and support by the state, but that is only the beginning of a long journey towards starting a full and dignified life and establishing a support network, stable housing, employment or education in a completely new country. At the moment the situation, as described to me by the CEO of a major refugees' charity, is "Fortress Europe": there is a culture of systematic rejection of asylum seekers, of denial and disbelief of their stories (particularly women asylum seekers who have survived rape and other sexual torture), of brutally enforced deportation or detention in hellish incarceration complexes where detainees have even fewer rights than convicted prisoners. The most sinister place I've ever visited was a UK detention centre, which had more rolls of barbed wire around it than any prison and whose staff were universally angry and hostile.

Meanwhile, myths about asylum abound, the most pernicious one being that the number of asylum seekers is intolerably high, that most asylum claims are false and that the country is 'full' and can't take any more. In continental western Europe boats have been refused permission to dock. Australia actually seems proud to advertise its antipathy towards asylum seekers, warning that anyone who tries to enter by sea and runs into difficulties will not be saved. I am shocked, as ever, by the sheer cruelty, the inability to see asylum seekers as human beings, the indifference about whether they live or die and the failure to imagine what these people must have experienced in their home countries, what they lived through which made them think that anything — even the prospect of drowning in a dinghy in a foreign sea — was better than that.

Three years ago, enabled by English PEN, I began doing outreach work in the form of writing workshops with refugees, asylum seekers and migrants from all over the world from Syria and Iran to the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sierra Leone, Malawi and Uganda. These experiences inspired my latest book, Asylum and Exile: The Hidden Voices of London, which features my students' testimonies. I came to the conclusion that all the tabloid journalists, pundits and political bigmouths who rage against asylum seekers must never have met one. As I listened to my students' experiences, read their writing and let myself be teased, mocked and berated by them it struck me that here were the warmest, funniest, most interesting people in the world, who had gone through unimaginable things: a man in Timbuktu witnessing a neighbour being disembowelled by an armed rebel as a warning to the other villagers; a woman who had been raped by rebels and then thrown out by her family because of it. "Please believe us," said one woman to me, "if we go back to our countries they will rape us and kill us. Our leaders don't care anything about us, only oil and minerals and power and money." There was Claude, from the Congo, who had a degree in criminology and was forever ingratiating himself with the ladies — "Hello auntie, you know I am always pleased to see you. Can I get you some tea?" There was Manny, formerly a composer and professor of classical Persian music at Tehran University, who does odd days in a sandwich factory, in the freezer room, where people constantly fall ill from the cold but will be replaced if they miss a day of work. And there was Beatrice, who wants to be a writer and who described to me how, in England, it was assumed by many that she didn't know how to read or write, turn on a light switch or wash her hands after using the bathroom. "I don't say anything," she said, "because I don't want to offend them."

Meanwhile, the country is being run by a club of white men who went to posh school and posh university and have experienced nothing of the real world: its diversity, its hardships, its chaos and violence. They decide on domestic and foreign policy, wars and aid money, arms deals and the euphemistic 'austerity' measures which have cut legal aid, public services, social services and charities' budgets at the knees and directly imperilled so many people's wellbeing including that of my students. They sit in their heated rooms in their expensive clothes, eating good food and drinking good coffee (all things which are out of the reach of my students), as they decide these things. They do not live with the physical consequences of their own policies, only the political consequences which affect their careers.

As the months progressed I felt ever more strongly the irony of being in a country where the most interesting people are the least heard, while those who are the most ignorant speak with the greatest volume and entitlement, making decisions in the full confidence that they will never have to experience the results.

Not every asylum seeker arrives dumped on a shoreline, barefoot, penniless and wrapped in a foil blanket. All my students arrived by plane. They fled international and civil war, fragile states in which law and order had broken down, extreme poverty and political persecution. Many of my students had been bounced between detention and prison or left in limbo for years between being refused leave to remain — that wonderfully Alice in Wonderland phrase which would grant them the right to stay in the UK — and receiving the final letter ordering them to get on the next plane.

One woman told me that she spoke such good English because her parents, who had been political figures, were repeatedly exiled abroad due to their work. All my students spoke at least two languages fluently and, like all people of a migrant background including myself, learnt new ones quickly. All were educated to last-year-of-school level and the overwhelming majority were educated to college level and beyond. Every single one wanted to work because while not all work gives dignity or an identity to be proud of, it gives a little money, it takes up time, it uses up energy, it involves other people, it gives a shape to the day. But asylum seekers have no right to any public money or services, no right to be housed or to work. So they labour as cleaners, packers, building site hands, relying on this shady, unreliable and exploited labour in which (one building site worker told me) a boss can promise money and then withhold it for days, or renege on an agreement and under-pay.

There is a crisis in the issue of asylum because there has been a crisis in world governance, war and conflict, poverty and inequality, which is not some accident but is the fault of violent perpetrators (whether renegade militia or rebels or national armies), selfish rulers, uncaring commercial interests, greedy power-holders and opportunistic political players. It is not the fault of the millions of asylum seekers and refugees who are fleeing the consequences of such parties' actions. It is the nastiest kind of cynicism to scapegoat asylum seekers by saying that their testimonies are lies (or, to quote what the Home Office staff said to several of my students, "This is all just a fairytale you've made up,") and that they have left everything behind, their identity, their life, their family, to take advantage of a foreign country.

Every asylum seeker I worked with was desperate to contribute, to feel like a part of society, to be seen as a person with something to offer, to not be invisible. Politicians at all points on the spectrum exploit the electorate's fear, racism, insularity or simple lack of knowledge about the reality of asylum and there is no politician of any party who has dared to stand up and set the record straight about the numbers of asylum seekers in the UK, what they left behind and how they are treated here. It is as though asylum seekers' stories begin the moment they arrive in a country and nobody bothers to ask what they have escaped.

Every human being has a personality, a social context and a past which make them who they are; but asylum seekers are not seen as human beings, so nobody is interested in those things. This is a failure, not of policy, but of common decency: the inability to see others as people just like ourselves. All it would take for prejudices to be broken down would be for politicians, the media and the public to stop shouting in fear and start listening with respect.

firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-237051036313736922.post-31284668727857035482014-12-29T18:16:00.000+00:002016-05-18T16:48:15.047+01:00China Flash: a collection of my recent articles about contemporary China

The Zaha Hadid-designed Galaxy mall
complex, Chaoyangmen, Beijing, end 2014

Only condoms can save China from a 'raging epidemic' of sexually transmitted diseases

Film-maker Jenny Man Wu on contemporary Chinese women's wit, pain and ambivalence

Lean In Beijing on the new sexism, corporate ambition, marital choices and awesome girls in China

Benedicte Bro-Cassard, Beijing fashion photographer, on luxury, sugar daddies and sugar daughters

Kong Lingnan, Beijing painter, on natural beauty and human ugliness

Writer Kerry Brown on the seven elite men who rule a country with Communist roots and capitalist shoots

Writer Zhang Chao on media misogyny, social changes and the pressures facing young Chinese women

Dashilar Design Hop: highlights from Beijing Design Week 2014 (Time Out Beijing)

Being a submissive in Beijing's S&M scene (Time Out Beijing)

ABS Crew: Beijing graffiti artists on legal, semi legal and illegal Chinese street art

Even afternoon tea says something about modern, monetised China

Porcelain dolls, bad Samaritans and the law

"Do not believe most of what you read about China, it has already changed."

Benedicte Bro-Cassard, Beijing photographer

email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-237051036313736922.post-30379923644438096062014-11-06T03:46:00.000+00:002015-01-26T12:14:46.234+00:00China Flash: Only condoms can save China from a "raging epidemic" of syphilis and other sexually transmitted infections
This 'as told to' interview was granted to me by Dr Neil Schmid, Beijing chief of sexual health charity DKT International, and first ran in Time Out Beijing's November edition. The text below is by and (c) Neil Schmid, not me.

China has the highest overall contraceptive prevalence rates in the world: 88 per cent of women of reproductive age (15-49) use contraceptives. But that official figure is highly problematic: it's unrepresentative of sexual activity across the Chinese populace for the fundamental reason that it excludes unmarried women and all men, married or unmarried. So it's a highly gendered measurement of what constitutes normative contraceptive use. And in China, that concept forms the basis for the entire family planning policy as well as access to and, crucially, knowledge of all contraceptive methods. The upshot of this situation is that married women bear the brunt of contraceptive responsibility, men don't, and those outside of married couples -- namely 249 million people -- are largely ignored in terms of sex education and general public discourse on all the contraceptive methods available. I want to address these inequalities and other sexual health concerns first by promoting condom use among youth and by providing both women and men with additional contraceptive options.

At the moment, the Government's family planning policy favors IUDs [intra-uterine devices] and sterilisation for married women, and these two methods currently amount to roughly 50 per cent and 30 per cent respectively (i.e., a whopping 80 per cent) of all contraceptives used by that group. The legacy of this system is that because all these procedures were, and still are, done in government-controlled clinics, contraceptive choices have been highly limited. Not having a variety of choices means that information about other contraceptives isn't necessary, and both institutions and parents are thus never obliged to develop the knowledge and concern to communicate different options. Also, hormonal contraceptives such as the pill, implants and injections don't generally appeal to Chinese women because they often believe that hormones disrupt the body's balance. An unfortunate result of the lack of short-term contraceptives among younger, unmarried women is that multiple abortions are relatively common and there's frequent misuse of emergency contraceptives such as the morning after pill. If used excessively, both these methods can affect fertility in the long term. Finally, there a social conservatism that feeds into these larger patterns: you'll often see adverts for abortion clinics in the Beijing subway, but you would never, ever see an advert for a condom.

Today's Chinese youth have enormous amounts of freedom, access, and mobility which their parents never had. Enablers range from rapid urbanisation to apps like Momo, billed as 'the magical tool to get laid', which were completely unthinkable among their parents' generation. Where the state was once revolutionary in addressing citizens' reproductive and sexual health needs, it's now turned a conservative eye to the new revolutionary changes affecting its population. The negative results are a rapid increase in unwanted pregnancies, abortions and STIs. 50 years ago, syphilis was virtually eliminated from China by government initiatives. Now an epidemic rages, with an average of more than one baby per hour being born with congenital syphilis in China. And unfortunately that's one out of multiple STIs which are increasingly rampant across the population. As important and useful as IUDs and hormonal contraceptives might be in preventing unwanted pregnancies, they do nothing to stop the ever-growing spread of sexually transmitted diseases.

DKT International runs extensive programmes addressing sexual health in China. Visit their site. To read my China Flash series of articles about contemporary China, please click here.

email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-237051036313736922.post-6133203722843347912014-11-05T14:54:00.000+00:002015-01-08T14:26:32.387+00:00American Apparel and photographer Terry Richardson....both still having fabulous sleazy careers in Beijing
To read my China Flash series of articles about contemporary China, please click here.

I photographed these full height window displays at Taiku Li, the coolest mall complex in Sanlitun, Beijing. The images were up throughout August, September, October and November and may well still be up. American Apparel's Dov Charney is a sex abuser - see here and here and here and here for starters; he has now been junked from the company, which is known for its sleazy advertising images of young women.

The two photographs below are the American Apparel store fronts which face the street (I don't know who the photographer is):

And, in separate news, photographer Terry Richardson is a sex abuser - see here and here and here and here and here . Below is the Evisu window display at Taiku Li, photographed by Terry Richardson:

firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-237051036313736922.post-16533149830973336712014-10-23T06:28:00.000+01:002015-01-08T14:24:24.415+00:00China Flash: Lean In Beijing on the new sexism, corporate ambition, marital choices and awesome girls in modern China
This is a greatly expanded version of an article which first appeared in Time Out Beijing last month.

A Lean In Beijing meeting, image (c) Lean In Beijing

Lean In, Sheryl Sandberg's book about how she battled corporate sexism to rise to the top at Facebook, has struck a chord with young, ambitious women in China. "I saw Sandberg's TED talk in March 2013," says one of Lean In Beijing's founding members, Allison Ye. "I was shocked because I had never seen a successful Chinese female leader talk with such openness and honesty about how exactly she got there. It was refreshing. Her message was that we can be responsible for our situation and we can control our lives. It was very positive."

The talk triggered the formation of Lean in Beijing, which sent a survey [PDF]to more than 500 women, asking about their aspirations, their careers and the challenges they experienced in their lives. It revealed that 90% of respondents had never seen a professional women's network – and wanted one. "We had 60 to 70 women at our first meeting, and every one had a story to tell. Things they wouldn't tell to their own friends and families, they would tell to strangers," says Ye. The Lean In message of female solidarity, boosted by speaker events, high social media connectivity, consciousness raising 'circles' and the open discussion of everyday sexism has proven so popular and necessary that Lean In has spread to several Chinese cities far beyond Beijing. Even within the capital, Lean In members have founded their own offshoots like the Lean In Thinktank led by Yolanda Wang and Maggie Zhang and the six Lean In College mentoring schemes founded by Alicia Lui. The mentoring scheme involves bringing in younger professional women to be mentors to college age students, Lui tells me. "Mentoring is a really great way to work through relationship, career and family pressures. At our last event in May, 150 students showed up and we had 15 mentors, all from different industries and with different interests. After the event, lots more professional women wanted to be a part of the network as mentors."

We are meeting up at a time when gender inequality is back with a vengeance in China, with ancient stereotypes about femininity, double standards about gender roles, endemic and normalised violence against women, media misrepresentation and longstanding pressures on women meeting new corporate injustices around equal pay, property ownership, female leadership and opportunity, as chronicled in Leta Hong Fincher's brilliant and vital book Leftover Women: The Resurgence of Gender Inequality in China.

Lean In Beijing's discussions aren't just about strategising within a corporate context, combating institutional sexism, why prominent Chinese women business leaders stand at less than 5% or why women are paid less than men for the same job. "It's [also about] the pressure of getting married young, the pressure that's coming from all directions," says Ye, "not just the family but the media, the government, society. Every young woman in a family is pressured to get married really young. The message behind it is that a woman cannot be happy by herself, she needs to be someone's wife, someone's mother in order to be fulfilled in her purpose in life." Yolanda Wang agrees: "For a man in China, at the age of 30 you're meant to have a career, a car, a job. For a woman, the main responsibility is to find someone, to get married. And the pressure on her [to do that] starts at the age of 22 or 23."

Recently, the journalist (and friend of Lean In Beijing) Roseann Lake co-organised the Leftover Monologues – women's monologues from all over the world, prompted by a combination of the Chinese women's movement, Leta Hong Fincher's work on gender inequality and activist Eve Ensler's Vagina Monologues. It was the first time many of the Chinese contributors had presented their own stories. "It's really hard for Chinese people to speak out. They'll be judged by society as a bad girl, judged by family and friends," says Maggie Zhang. The Lean In movement in China is radical in itself, for its fostering of open dialogue. The conversation goes far beyond tips on how to negotiate for higher salaries, be less self-critical, manage career progression, handle confrontation or consider a company job versus entrepreneurship - although Lean In Beijing members have discussed all these and more. "The idea is not necessarily limited to work or career, or even family," says Lui, "it's more about a close knit, confidential community of women who listen to you, empathise with you and help you." "Women at big companies are afraid to speak out at meetings," says Wang, adding, "In the US women sit and talk about their [professional and life] dreams. In China people ask you, 'Do you have a boyfriend? What does he do?' Nobody thinks a woman has a dream." "We asked women how they saw their purpose in life," says Ye, "and lots of women told us that that was the first time they'd ever asked that question of themselves."

"Our parents tell us not to get a boyfriend when we're at college, so we can concentrate completely on our studies," says Maggie Zhang, "but then, when we turn 25, they pressure us to get a husband." "I was told, 'You should never try to be too smart or you won't find a boyfriend' by my mother's friend," says Lui, "and I was pressured to marry from the age of 26. The family is still considered the centre of everything. I've heard, 'You can't get a PhD because no-one wants to marry a PhD.'"

"The other side of the 'leftover women' story is that we're moving forward as never before," says Ye. "Women don't need a partner to sustain their lifestyles. It's inevitable that women in China will have more freedom and that this will force change. The post-90s generation is already changing things, they're really independent. They see that it's important to have your own thoughts." Lui chips in, "On one hand China has been one country that's done the best in equalising everyone to some extent. People's lives are getting better. But there are problems with the way it's being done and the consequences. The Chinese haven't got used to money yet. They want to show off, to show people what they've got. CEOs of companies are in their 20s and 30s. They start a company, they make money. The Chinese mentality-change is one of the fastest in the world, because of the way modern China has started itself up." "The economy is changing very fast. But society changes slowly," says Wang. Ye says, "My parents went through the hunger, when they didn't have enough to eat. That's why what they want for me is the best: comfort, a husband. When my generation has its kids, it'll be different."

While women are regarded as valuable only within the domestic sphere, where their labour can be exploited for free, domestic duties are regarded as demeaning for men to do. "If a man is a stay at home dad, people think he doesn't have what it takes to go out into the world and support the family. It's about saving face," says Zhang. "In Chinese TV shows the man is always rich, tall, successful and the woman is obedient and subservient."

"There are a lot of social barriers," Ye agrees when I balk at the idea of individual women changing themselves in order to somehow evade, circumvent, win out against or contend with endemically antiwomen structures, judgements, customs, stereotypes and activities. "We can't change the outside of society very fast but within our generation and the next we can change the policy-makers of the future. There's only so much one person can do, but if everyone plays their part you can change a lot." However, the barriers to equality and liberation are high. "You are discriminated against as a single woman," says Ye. "Single women are barred from adoption. Sometimes a woman will choose her family over her career. Or she'll choose her career. But women aren't allowed to be both." Yolanda Wang's company asked one of her female colleagues to sign a piece of paper promising that she wouldn't get pregnant for two years. "We never hear about men's work-life balance, only women's. And you're judged badly whatever you choose," she says. Maggie Zhang adds, "We have to educate not only women but also men, who are under huge pressure to be successful."

Alicia Lui believes that Sheryl Sandberg's inspiring talk and book have "raised issues which enable us to have more open conversations about [sexism]. Lean In was a catalyst. It said to women, if you really feel you have a need for something you have to raise your hand and ask for it."

Ye believes the movement is a chance for women to look at their lives afresh: "Before you change anyone's life you have to change the way they see themselves. We have high rates of employment for women here, but sometimes women are happy with less demanding hours and less pay, because it means they still have time to do all their family duties. I believed all that too – until I was brave enough to say that that was not what I want. Once people see alternatives then they can begin to lean in and change their lives. We want to help women pursue their own definition of success, help them when they're young and share stories of other women's lives so they see themselves in these women."

Lean In Beijing derives its momentum and power from its focus on co-operation between women. "Why do women judge each other?" says Allison Ye. "We don't have that tradition of women helping women." "We support each other to take the next step," says Alicia Lui, "but starting something requires the other side to response. I argued with my mum [who put pressure on me to marry] and now she's coming to understand my thinking. Each of us has a personal stake in Lean In Beijing because these issues affect us personally."

Yolanda Wang says, "At my first Lean In Beijing meeting I realised I'm not on my own, I'm not crazy. Women are so honest, so encouraging, they push you to change things. For women it's very hard to be their real self. Who they are now is who their family wants them to be, who society wants them to be. The cliché was that the only thing between girls was jealousy. But that's not true. It's so good to see girls who say to each other, 'I like you because you're awesome.'"

For a full list of my China Flash series of articles about contemporary China, please click here.

email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-237051036313736922.post-68460027959144852702014-10-20T10:15:00.000+01:002014-10-20T10:18:55.733+01:00WHY: What's happening for the young? A new festival at the Southbank, launching Thursday
Children and young people stand up for their rights at a new Southbank Centre festival, running from Thursday 23 to Sunday 26 October 2014

WHY? What's Happening for the Young will take over the entire site for four packed days of talks, debates, performances, free participatory events and workshops exploring all aspects of the current protection and promotion of children and young people's rights in the UK.

Programmed in consultation with over a hundred individuals, organisations and figureheads, WHY? brings together the voices of children and adults of different backgrounds and experiences to explore what it means to be a child today. The festival is an opportunity for policy makers, social workers, families, children of all ages and their schools to immerse themselves in fundamental questions about childhood today. Inspired by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the topics covered include politics, young people's access to culture, immigration, career advice and sex education

WHY? highlights include:

A chance for children to make political banners and learn protest songs before taking to the Southbank Centre streets to participate in the BIG PROTEST for children's rights (Thursday 23).

Events with leading policy-makers, figureheads, teachers and artists including: Maggie Atkinson, Children's Commissioner for England; writer and Kids Company Director, Camila Batmanghelidjh CBE; classical musician and organiser of Channel 4's 'Don't Stop the Music' campaign, James Rhodes; Coronation Street star, Charlie Condou; actor and director, Femi Oyeniran who starred in Adulthood and Kidulthood and artist, banner-maker, Ed Hall. The voice of children and young people will be at the heart of WHY?,with many of the discussion panels including at least one child or young adult.

An interactive session led by UNICEF for adults and children to openly discuss and explore the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (Friday 24).

Bryony Kimmings' That Catherine Bennett Show – an interactive show for families challenging today's role models for eight-year-old girls (Saturday 25 – Tuesday 28).

Pondling  – a family comedy play with Best Actress (Dublin Fringe Festival 2013) Genevieve Hulme-Beaman about the confusing troubles of a growing little girl. (Friday 24 - Saturday 25).

A Devoted and Disgruntled event focused on arts and sports in education (Saturday 25 & Sunday 26).

Hungry Childhoods – an exhibition of artwork by children and young people experiencing chronic hunger and food insecurity (a partnership by The Kids Company and Ella's Kitchen.)

Jude Kelly, Artistic Director of Southbank Centre, said:

"All too often children and young people's rights and creativity are sidelined so at WHY? What's Happening for the Young? we seek to provide an open platform for urgent conversations about how the needs and ideas of children and young people can be properly included in the world. In this country we no longer take seriously the adage 'children should be seen not heard', and we don't send youngsters up chimneys or down mines or into the mills or fields to earn their keep. With the number of toys, games and clothes aimed at the children's market other societies might even accuse us of becoming too indulgent of children's perceived tastes. However, we know from research that too many children don't experience basic levels of happiness or a sense of belonging. They suffer from pressures at school, online and from notions of 'fitting in' that can cause real worry or sadness for them – and too many children still have to deal with violence and neglect inside the home. Once they reach teenage years they are often expected to behave like adults, but without enough support."

Barbara Reeves, Partner in sponsor Mishcon de Reya's Family Practice, said:

"This festival will provide a forum for children, young people and adults to debate, probe and question ideas around children's rights and raise awareness, an issue that we feel extremely passionate about. Our objective is to put children – specifically their wishes, needs and wellbeing – at the forefront during parental disputes and separation. As a nation, we rarely consult children on issues that impact, shape and influence their lives. At Mishcon, we believe it's important to lead a national debate about this critical issue."
Maggie Atkinson, Children's Commissioner for England, said:

"I don't 'campaign' in my role as Children's Commissioner for England but I have a legal duty to promote and protect children's rights, so I am delighted that the Southbank Centre, one of the country's best known arts centres, is championing children and young people's rights."

For further details click here.

All text and images (c) Southbank Centre

firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-237051036313736922.post-51384433441215687032014-10-18T00:30:00.001+01:002015-01-08T14:27:10.196+00:00China Flash: Film-maker Jenny Man Wu on contemporary Chinese women's wit, pain and ambivalence

This is a greatly expanded version of an article which first appeared in Time Out Beijing, where I am currently doing a stint as Deputy Editor.

Jenny Man Wu is a film-making powerhouse, describing her work as "soul led, not fantastical or abstract" and "inspired by a European arthouse sensibility in terms of the acceptance of the director as an auteur, rather than the Hollywood sensibility where a producer is the most important person and decides on the cast, the setting, the marketing and the distribution. It's not important to me to make a million dollar movie. I want to continue to make low-budget movies where I have the right to do what I want, to show to and influence a certain small number of people. When I consider the price and sacrifice a director needs to pay to have a high budget cinema-style movie, I can say no to that. And if you're making movies that you want to be screened in China you have to submit to censorship from the government."

Over the course of four punchy short films, Man Wu has garnered international attention within just a few years of graduating from her studies in screenwriting and literature at Beijing Film Academy. Some Sort of Loneliness, A Choice (Maybe Not), Crime Scene and Last Words, all produced between 2012 and 2013, feature women in the throes of tragicomic contemporary despair. "It all starts with very little things, small daily situations," says Man Wu. "Then I start to describe them, to look at them from a different angle." In A Choice (Maybe Not), two young women are in a coffee shop, "and one of the girls is a little bit OCD about the choices she makes. She doesn't want coffee. She doesn't want lemonade. The beer is overpriced. The wine's been open for two days. It's a comedy but it's really about the pressure on women to choose. Women in the olden days almost never walked out of the house alone – and now we have all these choices, it seems. But there are so many choices it's hard to tell if you've made the right one or not. And sometimes when you're forced to make a big decision it's easy to put it down to fate, to the inevitable or the subconscious."

Last Words, a monologue which Man Wu acted in herself, examines the notion of choice in a far darker way. "It's a stream of consciousness, a woman talking about suicide and presenting her last words. She's thinking about something [abusive] that happened in her childhood. The core of the film is not about how she develops her obsession with suicide but her recent experience of domestic violence, her struggle with her parents and the restraint she's experienced from her father. It's about how a female wants to have a different kind of life, about her struggle against patriarchy and disappointment and her desperation about her future. She feels that suicide is the only thing that she can do because she's a perfectionist and an idealist – and these beliefs make her suffer all the more. At the end, she looks into the camera and asks, If I kill myself, does it mean I've surrendered to the world?"

Man Wu is committed to focusing on the issue of gender in China. "I have a political view about gender in general and that comes through in my work. Gender issues are political issues. I have a responsibility: I understand how it is overseas and how it is in Beijing and feel I must connect the two, to show that women could be living in so many different ways. We had a women's revolution in China in the 1920s but all this did was release free female labour into the market." In giving voice to the ambivalence, pain and wit of her women characters, Man Wu points out that she is going against society's assumption that "women's feelings and emotions are small and not political."

When it comes to gender, Man Wu "can't say it's going backwards. It's very complicated, how [society] sees single women. It's related to capital and economics. It's also that under the one child policy, girls do feel cherished within their family, they are insulated and protected from the frustrations of gender inequality at a personal level, so many don't understand why they should fight for their rights. But it's important to recognise that a lot of the problems in daily life are actually related to gender. For example I know of a young woman at school who wasn't a virgin. But she was with a new boyfriend and to pretend to be a virgin, she put some [red] colour in herself – and the colour wouldn't wash off the guy! And this was presented as a big joke by the guy's friends. But there's a double standard: girls really are expected to be virgins."

Man Wu was selected to show at the 2013 Beijing Independent Film Festival, has just got back from the high profile Elles Tournent Film Festival in Brussels and is currently directing the Beijing Queer Film Festival, which will be running at various venues across town until December. However, both the Beijing Independent Film Festival and the Beijing Queer Film festival have both been shut down by the authorities on their launch dates in the past. One typically clever strategy for circumventing this possibility has been to screen films on special buses driving around the city; yet another example of the ingenuity which has developed in China as a response to the caprices and controls of those in power.

"I can't leave Beijing," vows Man Wu. "A lot of things are happening here. I see the changes and they're not always good. It's sad to see old buildings being demolished, places becoming more commercial. It's always good and bad – but that's what makes the world interesting. As Dickens wrote in A Tale of Two Cities, 'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.'"

To read my China Flash series of articles about contemporary China, please click here or explore some of the links below:

Lean In Beijing on the new sexism, corporate ambition, marital choices and awesome girls in China

Beijing Night

Film-maker Jenny Man Wu on contemporary Chinese women's wit, pain and ambivalence

Benedicte Bro-Cassard, Beijing fashion photographer, on luxury, sugar daddies and sugar daughters

Kong Lingnan, Beijing painter, on natural beauty and human ugliness

Writer Kerry Brown on the seven elite men who rule a country with Communist roots and capitalist shoots

Writer Zhang Chao on media misogyny, social changes and the pressures facing young Chinese women

ABS Crew: Beijing graffiti artists on legal, semi legal and illegal Chinese street art

My friend writes me a delicate poem to explain the intense Beijing seasons

Even afternoon tea says something about modern, monetised China

Porcelain dolls, bad Samaritans and the law

Beijing storms, turtles and dogs

Two Chinese characters

Hair envy

email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-237051036313736922.post-35195903291978451122014-10-07T08:07:00.000+01:002015-01-08T14:29:35.981+00:00China Flash: Benedicte Bro-Cassard, Beijing fashion photographer, on the Chinese luxury market, sugar daddies and sugar daughters
This is a greatly expanded version of an article which first appeared in Time Out Beijing.

Archive: Marpessa by Bénédicte Bro-Cassard

Bénédicte Bro-Cassard is fashion. Occasionally going by the pseudonym Gabrielle Bonheur (an in-joke for fashionisti - Gabrielle Bonheur was Coco Chanel's formal name), Bro-Cassard is the brains and eye behind the style site Fearless In Beijing. Fearless combines stingingly hip street shots of the highly styled, label-toting girls of Sanlitun with fresh profiles of new designers and sharp commentary on modern China and modern fashion, boosted by all the wisdom gleaned from her thirty year fashion history in New York, London and Paris. Fearless In Beijing currently features in Le Monde, Vogue China, Louis Vuitton's City Guide and mega Chinese tech site Sina.

The roaring 1980s, Alaia and his 'best girls'
by Bénédicte Bro-Cassard

Whether it's scouting beautiful girls on the Chinese capital's streets, covering the kitsch wedding photography industry, hunting down hilarious fakes or finding forgotten rolls of classic supermodel shots in her basement, discovery is the name of Bro-Cassard's game. Beijing is soon to enjoy two exhibitions of around fifty of Bro-Cassard's photographs both from her current Beijing adventures and her 1980s student days at Parisian fashion school Studio Bercot, when she hung out at the ateliers of Alaia, Montana and Dior, shooting the designers and models clowning, preening, draping and creating. I ask why Bro-Cassard almost never features herself in these images and she's adamant: "I have four hundred pictures from my early days and there's only one shot of me. It's with a camera in front of my face, in a refection in a make-up table, when I was shooting one of the girls. I'd have my picture taken with my friends who were supermodels, they'd look at it and marvel, 'Wow. You reject the light.'"

The images are notable for their classiness, the womanliness of the models and the sense of maturity, camaraderie and sleek but unexploited hedonism they exude. Some of the prints have been eroded and nibbled in at the edges by time, but the women are as chic as ever. As Bro-Cassard tells me, "Back then the cabine [the stable of models] was incredibly diverse and not so white on white as it is now, and the 'girls' were aged 17 – or 16 in the case of Stephanie Seymour – up to 34 and older, like Mounia, Janice [Dickinson] or Alva [Chinn], even pushing 40 like [Farah] Zulaikha – and 40 was pushing back hard. I have pictures of Grace Jones and Azzedine Alaia and the supermodels of 1985 playing around backstage. It was truly different then."

Archive: Katoucha by
Bénédicte Bro-Cassard

From those early days in Paris, Bro-Cassard moved to New York where she spent fifteen years as a fashion manager, stylist and sales executive for the likes of Romeo Gigli, Fendi and Anna Molinari, "Back in the days before Sex and the City became a documentary and no longer something to laugh at for entertainment." Next came a move to London, where Bro-Cassard was in charge of international buyers for London Fashion Week. Among her clients were commercialism-savvy design wunderkind Christopher Kane and the crisp, clever Boudicca. A move back to Paris saw her working as a fashion consultant for the Brazilian government, working with them to develop their fashion industry.

A change in family circumstances saw her coming to Beijing a few years ago, after a very brief stopover in Geneva, "where fashion goes to die." In China, Bro-Cassard has witnessed a country in the middle of extreme and rapid transformation: malls springing up on every corner, the breakneck development and expansion of major cities, prestigious French and Italian brands unveiling glossy new boutiques and advertising campaigns, the high taxes on luxury items hardly deterring a young and newly rich populace hungry for everything their parents never had. Bro-Cassard was immediately captivated: "I spent a year studying the streets, going everywhere that there's a market selling clothes, to find out what the Chinese wear, what makes them tick. And I just fell in love with these girls, because they were so cool. I began documenting the girls and the fashion habits of the young Chinese. They're free. It's not even like the Swinging Sixties here. It's the Roaring Twenties, where money can be made overnight. They party, they have fun, there's a curiosity. They're fearless – that's why I named my site after them."

Image from Fearless In Beijing
by Bénédicte Bro-Cassard

Image from Fearless In Beijing
by Bénédicte Bro-Cassard

Bro-Cassard tells me that her appreciation of these young women is genuine. They are not the empty, uncreative consumers they are represented as in the international media. "The gorgeous thing is that they're never vulgar, never cheap. The [pejorative] fantasy of these young Chinese women is that they are logo hungry, stupid rich girls. But I think they're more fun, more clever than that. They take more risks. Then I go back to Paris and everyone's dressed in black."

Despite Bro-Cassard's positivity, I'm disturbed by some of the young women I see in Sanlitun. While some are the cool, creative, independent type that can be found in any major city in the world, others are dolls - which I Freudianly mistyped there as 'fools'. They are in designer labels, perfectly coiffed, photo-ready, made up, silent, styled and accessorised, just walking slowly from one end of the Taikoo Li shopping 'village' (trans: huge black futuristic mall) to the other. They don't sweat, even in the roasting 100-degree summer heat. Apparently they have nothing to do, no studies, no work, no projects. They don't talk or laugh with their friends. They mill about, gorgeous and passive, waiting to be noticed, photographed or picked up - and when Bro-Cassard and I stop them to ask for photographs, they offer themselves up as passive objects to be snapped, without a single word. They don't ask us what blog it is, who's running it, who'll be reading it. They don't tell us anything about themselves as people, nor do they ask questions of us as people, nor do they crack jokes. They're not confident, they're not coy, they don't simper, they don't frown, they don't laugh, they down clown around. They simply pose, like hollow plastic mannequins, inert and endlessly compliant. When we ask one girl to pretend to be texting, because we want to get a shot of her iPhone case – Moschino, rubber, styled to looked like a packet of McDonald's fries, available in the shops maybe only last week – she does, without a word, putting her thumbs to the blank screen and pretending to concentrate. When we say thank you the girls drift away, down the escalators.

Image from Fearless In Beijing
by Bénédicte Bro-Cassard

Where did these girls get their money from? Why are they copying their looks wholesale from fashion magazine spreads? What do they do all day? Beijing is the first place I've seen teenagers walking on the street wearing real Chanel from head to toe. Who are these girls waiting for, going to or coming home from? "Their daddy, or their boyfriends, or their sugar-daddies," says Bro-Cassard. We stop another young woman, striding in spindly gold high heels and a long printed chiffon dress, clearly in a rush. "Er – she was late for a date. That she was being paid for," says Bro-Cassard after quickly snapping a shot.

She tells me not to judge: "Years ago, nobody had food. Twenty years ago, nobody had money. They've had famine, purge, cultural revolution, which is the earth opening up and everyone falling into hell. So there is no concept of nouveau riche. Nobody ever had money. I've been to the countryside in China, it's fucking poor. It's real, it's a favela. I went to our ayi's [maid's] house, it was 2 rooms, no kitchen, no bathroom, far out of the city beyond the ring road, but it has pictures, it as a light. [Internal] migrant workers are even worse off, they're like the untouchables in India. In summer they sleep in the streets. In winter they sleep in parking lots. But because it's China, it's all behind closed doors. I once wandered into the back corridor of a shopping mall and there were people living there, ayis were sitting knitting."

"Whatever money you have, you know that little brass ring is gonna burn your finger sooner or later, so enjoy it while you can. Of 1.4 billion people, only a tiny amount will make it. Because they are so scared, they know they can lose it at any moment. So these girls live to spend. And they have no religion, although the government is beginning to address that: how do you give values to a society that has no value except money? As far as these girls are concerned, they've made it." Bro-Cassard reminds me, "This is the first generation that gets to dress how they please. They are expressing themselves with their clothes. Their mothers were raised by their grandmothers, who looked like their grandfathers."

Image from Fearless In Beijing
by Bénédicte Bro-Cassard

"One thing I've realised, living here," she says, "is that if someone seems rich, he's even ten times richer than you think. Imagine, you're a young woman, your father was just a farmer. He sold his land for a factory to be built on it, now he's worth so much."

Despite this sudden spike in wealth creation, I balk at the gender politics and power structures of the newly moneyed world and the way it has warped girls' and women's lives and led to such demeaning survival strategies. "Men have the power here," states Bro-Cassard. "Girls hang out looking for sugar daddies. This is the second-largest market for plastic surgery in the world, after Brazil. Their mentality is that they need somebody to pay for their life. If you've come from poverty and suddenly your boyfriend or father gives you a credit card with no limit, you burn through it."

Two exhibitions of Bénédicte Bro-Cassard's images will be launching on October 11th in the 798 Art District at Inter Art Centre and also at Galeries Lafayette, both in Beijing. The exhibitions could not have happened without the advocacy, clout support of the Alliance Francaise.

Read Fearless in Beijing here.

To read my China Flash series of articles about contemporary China, please click here or explore some of the links below:

Lean In Beijing on the new sexism, corporate ambition, marital choices and awesome girls in China

Beijing Night

Film-maker Jenny Man Wu on contemporary Chinese women's wit, pain and ambivalence

Benedicte Bro-Cassard, Beijing fashion photographer, on luxury, sugar daddies and sugar daughters

Kong Lingnan, Beijing painter, on natural beauty and human ugliness

Writer Kerry Brown on the seven elite men who rule a country with Communist roots and capitalist shoots

Writer Zhang Chao on media misogyny, social changes and the pressures facing young Chinese women

ABS Crew: Beijing graffiti artists on legal, semi legal and illegal Chinese street art

My friend writes me a delicate poem to explain the intense Beijing seasons

Even afternoon tea says something about modern, monetised China

Porcelain dolls, bad Samaritans and the law

Beijing storms, turtles and dogs

Two Chinese characters

Hair envy

email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-237051036313736922.post-71551729315650673202014-10-07T01:00:00.000+01:002015-01-08T14:30:07.884+00:00China Flash: Kong Lingnan, Beijing painter, on natural beauty and human ugliness

This is an expanded version of an article which first appeared in Time Out Beijing.

O Brambles, O Brambles, by Kong Lingnan (2012)

Indulgence is hardly what one would associate with the prolific, rigorous artist Kong Lingnan, who lives and works in a chic warehouse space in the 318 International Art Village, a Beijing zone so cutting edge and (literally) far out that it's still being constructed by hard-hatted, belly-baring builders. Kong's visually stunning large-scale paintings replicate the eerie, sexy effect of neon tubing. "I was trying [unsuccessfully] to draw portraits, until one day I saw a neon light in front of my window, glowing in the darkness, spelling out the Chinese character for 'spoil' or 'indulge', and it struck me as funny."

Unnatural, electric neon proved to be Kong's natural language, the one she uses "to describe the world." That world contains equal parts terror and beauty. Her style has developed from epic landscapes in which tiny humans are caught up in scenes of male violence (particularly male sexual violence against women), natural disasters and accidental devastation to globular, seemingly abstract images where a bird's-eye view of islands resembles amorphous biological cells. "I don't want to be narrative at all. I want to describe a state," she explains.

Over the last five years Kong's work has made her an art market must-have, a favourite face in Vogue magazine (when photographer Peter Lindbergh recommended her to Vogue China's Editor in Chief Angelica Cheung following a group art show with Kong), a collaborator with the Chinese fashion label JBNY and the headliner of a solo exhibition, Beach, at Beijing's Gallery Yang in the 798 Art District, which ends on 10th October.

When I point out the sinister elements of her work and the conflict they portray between nature and the human world, Kong agrees: "I am very sceptical about all the things we've built. Our culture, our moral standards, our religions. We're building, building, building – and coexisting with nature. A human is just a tiny creature. We can be strong, but also very fragile."

To read my China Flash series of articles about contemporary China, please click here or explore some of the links below:

Lean In Beijing on the new sexism, corporate ambition, marital choices and awesome girls in China

Benedicte Bro-Cassard, Beijing photographer, on the Chinese luxury market, sugar daddies and sugar daughters

Beijing night

Kong Lingnan, Beijing painter, on natural beauty and human ugliness

Writer Kerry Brown on the seven elite men who rule a country with communist roots and capitalist shoots

Writer Zhang Chao on media misogyny, China's momentous changes and the pressures facing young women today

Graffiti crew ABS on legal, semi-legal and illegal Chinese street art

Even afternoon tea says something about modern, monetised Beijing

Porcelain dolls, bad Samaritans and the law

Two Chinese characters

A delicate poem to explain the intense Beijing seasons

email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-237051036313736922.post-35861860704069757222014-10-06T04:09:00.001+01:002014-10-06T08:42:45.234+01:00Straight Expectations: What Does it Mean To Be Gay Today? by Julie Bindel

Julie Bindel puts abusive men in prison. Widely known as a rigorous writer and broadcaster in the mainstream media, Bindel's journalistic career actually grew out of her work as a lifelong campaigner against male violence, work which includes co-founding the law reform organisation Justice For Women. She has written and spoken on a vast range of issues including sex trafficking, the grooming of vulnerable girls, the sex exploitation industry, the duping and usage of women environmental activists by undercover UK police officers, low rape conviction rates, sexual exploitation in Syrian refugee camps, the treatment of women victims in the criminal justice system and lenient sentencing for men found guilty of abusing women. Most recently she has written about new legislation regarding the impact of emotional abuse within UK domestic violence law.

While Bindel often critiques institutions' responses to (or, more often, collusion in and protection of) male mistreatment and exploitation of women, her writing is also a corollary of direct, on-the-ground research into perpetrators' activities which she sometimes conducts in collaboration with international law enforcement authorities, NGOs, governments, lawyers and other bodies working to collect enough evidence to bring perpetrators to justice. She is not just opining on gender from the cosiness of her study; she has seen the whites of abusers' eyes, heard their lies and self-justifications, listened to the testimonies of their victims and withstood the threats that come whenever she, or any other woman, writes about such issues. Her work is all the more vital at a time when the Yewtree investigations into 'historic' sexual abuse by lifelong perpetrators is gaining convictions (of Dave Lee Travis, Stuart Hall and Max Clifford) but laughably lenient sentences, reassuring abusive men everywhere that the longer you abuse for, the more male power, fame and connections you are given by other men and the more victims there are, the less you will punished even if you are convicted. <o:p></o:p>

Appearing well into her career, Bindel's first book, Straight Expectations: WhatDoes It Mean To Be Gay Today?, returns to the heart of her personal and political roots: the lesbian and gay liberation movement, feminism, lesbian politics, anti-gay bigotry and women's and men's emancipation from patriarchal machismo. In the mainstream media it has been billed, and predictably caused controversy, as a report revealing that sexuality can be chosen and a polemic about how people should all decide to go gay.<o:p></o:p>

Straight Expectations is neither of those things. It does not urge readers to act one way or another, nor is every line of inquiry set up to prove or disprove a point. Rather, it's a delicate, nuanced, well researched and multi-layered reconsideration of the history of various social justice movements, a survey of certain commercial and sociological developments related to contemporary life as a lesbian or a gay man and an open-ended analysis of the possible goals of a revived gay politics. <o:p></o:p>

The book represents a new approach to these issues and reveals a new dimension to the author. Readers expecting the vigour, zeal and urgent momentum of Bindel's newspaper articles will be surprised by the tone of Straight Expectations, which is thoughtful, equivocal and accepting of the diverse viewpoints of Bindel's interviewees and research respondents. While underscored by the heat which make her journalism so essential a measured, subtle voice works well in this book. <o:p></o:p>

Straight Expectations covers a lot of ground. Despite its understatement it mounts wholly new critiques of numerous developments, from gay marriage to corporations' recognition of the 'pink pound' (perceived significant disposable income held by lesbians and gay men), which have been touted as signs of increasing emancipation and social acceptability but might actually be manifestations of corporate exploitation, mercenary capitalist encroachment and even conservative political complacency on the part of lesbians and gay men. It is refreshing when such developments, which have so often been glossed with unquestioning indulgence by liberal writers, are examined through a truly red lens. <o:p></o:p>

The first and easiest assumption to topple is that being a lesbian or a gay man has become socially acceptable. Bindel's research, conducted via two surveys which constitute the largest study of their kind, turns up countless personal examples of girls, women, boys and men who have been bullied at school and work, encountered physical violence and extreme verbal assault by strangers and experienced extreme hostility or ostracism from their families as a result of their orientation. While Bindel and her study respondents acknowledge that at the level of political rhetoric, anti-discrimination legislation and media representation (taken in the shallowest terms: lesbian and gay presenters, characters in sitcoms) there has been some progress, she provides plenty of examples of obvious anti-gay bigotry in politics, the media and everyday life to counter the assumption that growing up gay today is no different from growing up straight and presents no particular obstacles. <o:p></o:p>

Bindel is careful to acknowledge that if one takes a global view, the treatment of homosexuals is even more dire and expressed not only through punitive laws, prevention from parenting, non-recognition of long term relationships, extreme stigma, discrimination and ostracism but also through horrific human rights violations like torture, attack and 'corrective rape'. Indeed, one of the ongoing themes of Straight Expectations is that no self-identified freedom movement can operate solely within the bounds of a nation-state – particularly one with a history of supremacist colonial exploitation of other nations. To use one of her examples, gay couples who are campaigning for the right to have children via surrogacy are hardly on the side of dignity and equality if they have no qualms about renting and using the womb of a much poorer, developing world woman, when the UK is full of children needing adoption. Commercial surrogacy is illegal in the UK and numerous other Western European countries because it is considered unethical and beneath a woman's dignity and humanity to be rented, used, paid off and discarded. But it is not considered inhumane for a woman from the developing world to be used like that by foreigners, gay and straight. She quotes appalling racist, sexist and ignorant opinions from the gay male parents she interviews, who bill themselves as freedom fighters (and commercial for-profit service providers) on behalf of gay families who want children.<o:p></o:p>

Bindel's nose for hypocrisy and self-righteous selfishness – sold as defiant self-determinism or gay rights – is what enables the book to go so deep despite being a quick, clear read. She demonstrates that simply being gay does not mean that you are not misogynistic, racist, colonially arrogant and classist; that you do not exploit others; that you like and respect women; that you reject gender stereotypes; that you are not patriarchal, conservative and in all other ways corroborative of the status quo, despite your orientation. She also resists the idea that lesbians and gay men should always be lumped in together as if forming a single group with shared personal and political interests, quoting several interviewees who say, depressingly, that some of the gay men they know loathe women just as much as straight men do.<o:p></o:p>

In the book's deeper central layers Bindel shows that, when seen from a politicised, anti-capitalist, anti-colonial, anti-macho position, many of the advancements of this apparently more enlightened era are actually deeply retrogressive and problematic. She looks into gay marriage, gay conversion therapy, historic gay liberation movements, scientific studies into a possible gay gene, lesbian visibility and the intersection of misogyny, ageism and anti-lesbian bigotry, the commercial exploitation of gay identity and much more.<o:p></o:p>

I won't rehash every line and argument, except to say that Bindel yearns for a return to a politicised movement in which feminism and anti-patriarchal, anti-gendered challenges to the status quo are completely fused and women are equal agitators rather than a tolerated minority. Bindel charts the permutations of various gay liberation movements, showing how effective politicisation, unity and mobilisation have been – most obviously when it came to raising awareness and urging for funding and research into AIDS. She deconstructs the nebulous notion of 'gay pride', a lifestyle concept which has been leached of its political content and can easily be taken advantage of – or sponsored – by companies and brands wanting to show (or claim) that they are diverse and egalitarian when their own staff demographics and workplace practices demonstrate otherwise. <o:p></o:p>

Bindel is cynical – and often very funny – when it comes to the latest step forward for gay rights, gay marriage. She does not understand why anyone, gay or straight, would want to get married. The feminist argument is that marriage is oppressive in itself because it delimits and demeans women; reinforces rigid and stereotyped gender roles; exploits and erases female cleaning, cooking, household management and childcare labour while simultaneously fetishising it; gives primacy to unions which are somehow approved by an all-powerful state; prizes the appearance of stability over a reality of inequality; recommends monogamous coupledom as the only route to lasting happiness; presents itself as the only safe space for the raising of children despite this being untrue; and places the nuclear family structure above all other types of kin group. There is also the inconvenient general fact that the married nuclear family experiment has not worked for straight people because marriage does not work.

Bindel traces several paradoxes when it comes to gay marriage, such as its support by Cameron's ultra-conservative government, and her explanations are subtle and illuminating. Gay marriage has provided an opportunity for a ravenously capitalistic but socially conservative society to make more money while pacifying the renegade elements of its populace. The wedding industry has expanded to include gay weddings and now makes money selling floral concepts, feminine dresses, masculine suits, tacky accessories, salmon-or-beef catering packages, getaways to country houses for the ceremony and other options which are just as cheesy as those chosen for straight people's weddings. All of this has (Bindel's argument goes) shrunk down the indefinable and radical difference of homosexuality into something tame and easily placed, as though lesbian and gay men are exactly like straight people, want to mimic and follow them and be husbands and wives settled in families, just like them, where there is one feminine partner and one masculine partner – so that gendered differences are preserved, regardless of sex, and enshrined in an ancient and deeply conservative social institution. As Bindel writes towards the end of Straight Expectations, "In mainstream gay couples, the [traditional] gender roles are emulated, not rejected. In mainstream straight couples, the gender roles are still treated as the status quo. Gay culture used to challenge this."<o:p></o:p>

There are plenty of people who disagree with Bindel – the writers Paul Burston and Stella Duffy included – and she gives them fair space in the book. She does not undermine their views by hinting that she is secretly correct and they are misguided. This style enables readers to come to their own conclusions, while leaving no doubt about where Bindel's heart really lies. One of the driving forces of Straight Expectations, despite its even-handed approach, is actually something rather romantic: a yearning for gayness to be truly free and truly other, proudly going against the mainstream, liberated from stereotypes of masculinity and femininity, politically risky and sociologically dangerous, exempt from the limiting focus on home and hearth, a radical challenge to tradition and limitation and a positive, heartfelt, happy embrace of rebellious difference with no shame, no constraints and no excuses.<o:p></o:p>

It is through this line of argument that Bindel interrogates the idea of there being a gay gene. So far, there is no scientific proof that a gay gene exists, just as there is no brain scan or blood test that can demonstrate the existence of any "complex trait", to quote interviewee Adam Rutherford, who says the nonexistence of a gay gene is "unequivocal". On this issue, seemingly the crux of the book but actually its least interesting point, Bindel has fine reasoning skills. What she says is hardly controversial:

It is persuasive to think that gay people are 'born that way', appealing to basic principles of tolerance, while reassuring the majority that support for minority rights will not impinge on their own prerogatives…. It reassures people more won't choose to jump ship from traditional society. It is also about believing that gay people cannot help the way we are and therefore should not be on the receiving end of prejudice.

The positive side of the nature, or essentialist, argument… can mean that heterosexuals having difficulty coming to terms with a loved one or colleague who is gay can rest assured that it is not catching; and for those who make the laws, policies and rules, thinking that 'gayness' is an inherent condition means that any sanctions against it are pointless…

The nature line also gives the impression to bigots and sceptics that no one would actually choose such a lifestyle, and that everyone who is gay just can't help it, otherwise they would be straight.

Obviously, the argument that being lesbian or gay is a choice gives the bigots an opportunity to argue that we should be made to live a straight life. After all, goes the logic, if one can choose to be gay, then one can choose to be heterosexual.

Bindel takes a different, playful view: "the possibility that being gay is such a positive alternative to heterosexuality that it is good enough for some of us to choose it." She points out that all of the antecedents of the current scientific search for a gay gene originated from those, like the Nazis, who wanted to identify the gene in order to eradicate gay people, not to prove that homosexuality is natural and real and therefore to be respected, accepted and taken seriously. Bindel is extremely serious when tackling the fraudulent practises of "conversion therapists" who promise troubled gay men and lesbians that they can somehow unlearn, throw over, pray away or teach themselves to reject their sexuality in order to be in socially acceptable alignment with their faith, family or society. She goes undercover to find out about their methods. Her investigations uncover countless faux therapists who are at best "troubled souls" with massive sexual identity problems of their own, and at worst bigots and bullies trying to cleanse their 'patients' of qualities they regard as dirty, sinful or unnatural.<o:p></o:p>

Elsewhere, she uncovers some cringe-makingly bad science, usually hidebound by gender stereotypes, such as the professor who believes homosexuality can be predicted in children by looking at "sissy" boys and "tomboy" girls and the PhD student developing facial recognition methodologies to explain "gaydar". These sorties leave Bindel wondering what a truly feminist gay movement would be like, one freed from stereotypes of masculinity and femininity, in which gay men reject womanhatred and boys' club behaviour and unite with women in fighting the "double whammy of sexism and homophobia" which lesbians face. Her gay politics would be global and just as interested in what is happening in Putin's Russia or in Sierra Leone, India or the Gulf states as the UK marriage market.<o:p></o:p>

She has mixed feelings about campaigns for greater acceptability for homosexuals in notoriously macho, misogynist hierarchies like the police and the army, in which the abuse of and discrimination against women is endemic, both for employees within these institutions and victims of endemic male violence who are going to them for help. She would rather these institutions were exposed and reformed from the ground up than that they simply accepted gay men and lesbians who would themselves conform to fit an overall abusive culture. <o:p></o:p>

Straight Expectation shows that patriarchy undercuts everything including homosexuality with its misogyny, its financial greed, its arrogant celebration of machismo, its abuse and exploitation of women, its blindness to or overt relish of this abuse and its rigid gender roles. It is not just a sensitive history and a call for ethical integrity and revived rebellion, it's also a survey of things as they stand now and a dismayed account of sociological changes that have seen lesbians and gay men move from radicalism to narcissism, from resistance to consumerism, challenge to assimilation, the pain of political struggle to the cosiness of a quiet existence, firebrand feminist politics to a generalised and corporate-branded gay pride in which lesbian women are marginalised or mocked. <o:p></o:p>

There is a final point to be made about Bindel as a writer and it's a question of style, not content. She is hilarious, with an earthy, blunt, universal humour that makes me think of Sue Townsend, Jo Brand, Victoria Wood or dare I say it Pam Ayres, as when railing at "lesbians and gay men who believe they can be 'just like [straight people]' by getting married, having kids and having a weekly row in Ikea." At the heart of Bindel's writing – and providing the key to her warmth – is the stroppy, passionate teenager she used to be, who was and still is appalled not just by the limitations of heterosexual life for women in a patriarchy or men's compulsive and ubiquitous abuse of women but also by smug marrieds generally, boring suburban straights (or, worse, straight-acting gays whose sexual identity reaches its apotheosis in the joint purchase of a peddle-dashed semi in Stoke), provincial discos, cosy and coy country living and generally anything that isn't bolshie, challenging, defiant and possibly leading to patriarchy-smashing argy-bargy. Straight Expectations occasionally gives glimpses of Bindel's formative years and they are beautifully written, sensitive, vivid, funny and soulful – quite different from any of her other writing.<o:p></o:p>

I hope Julie Bindel will not think I'm privileging the solipsistic over the political, the personalised over the collective, when I suggest that in addition to her campaigning and journalistic work one future book of hers could be a brilliant, hilarious memoir. In the meantime, Straight Expectations is an essential read.<o:p></o:p>

Straight Expectations: What Does It Mean to be Gay Today? by Julie Bindel is published by Guardian Books. <o:p></o:p>

<o:p> </o:p>

firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-237051036313736922.post-81454976658068586922014-10-05T00:30:00.001+01:002015-01-08T14:30:57.734+00:00China Flash: Writer Kerry Brown on the seven elite men who rule a country with Communist roots and capitalist shoots
This is a greatly expanded version of an article which first appeared in Time Out Beijing.

Kerry Brown has been a China hand for two decades now. Formerly head of the Asia Programme at Chatham House in London, he also worked for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London and Beijing and is now Executive Director of the China Studies Centre at the University of Sydney. He has gained expertise and shared his insights not only in diplomatic politics and academia but also in the literary world, speculating on the future of Shanghai in Shanghai 2020 and collecting voices from across China in Carnival China, an essay collection reflecting the country's recent social, cultural and ideological transformations.

Brown returns to Beijing this month to discuss a project that may constitute the riskiest move of his career: The New Emperors: Power and the Princelings in China, published this year by I B Taurus. The New Emperors examines the culture of the ruling Communist Party and the personal and professional histories of the seven men elected to the Standing Committee of the current Chinese Politburo in 2012. Brown describes an insular network of wealthy, strategic careerists whose existence is dominated by an all-consuming political culture which absorbs all their ambition but isolates them from the lived reality of the country.

The New Emperors is a fascinating, subtle and timely insight into the most delicate relationships: those between the rulers and the ruled; between politicians' personal ambition and adherence to the Party; between Communist roots and capitalist shoots; between what is asserted publicly in theory and practiced in secret; between stated ideology and private values; between the mechanics of control and strategies of evasion and subversion; between the major cities and the provinces, local and national; and between the privileged minority and the struggling majority.

Brown reveals a world in which it is possible to rise to the top of a massive communist organisation while remaining firmly within the patriarchal boys' club and collecting lucrative business stakes, innumerable off-the-books perks, plentiful sexual exploitation opportunities, shady accomplices and a diversity of ideologically, politically, financially, socially, culturally and morally dicey interests along the way. These guys wear their inner and outer hypocrisy as easily as the regulation black hair dye and heavy tailoring which render them deliberately identical in the public eye.

The book hasn't been translated into Chinese and probably hasn't been read by the 'princelings' and 'new emperors' themselves. However, given the targeting of those within China who write critically about politics, I am skeptical when Brown tells me the only risk he has undertaken in his work is 'an aching hand from typing so much'. When he arrives in Beijing for an event at the Bookworm on Wednesday 15th October, his discussion of The New Emperors will necessarily include issues which the Party deems sociologically sensitive. In advance of that conversation, in which I will be Brown's interlocutor, he shares his thoughts on China's past, present and future.

Your first visit to China was as a teacher exactly 20 years ago. How have you seen it change in that time?

The China I lived and worked in 20 years ago was on the cusp of its great economic awakening: here had been reform for over a decade, then the shock of 1989, the withdrawal of many foreigners and the end of the relatively liberal era of politics in the 1980s. The city I was based in for two years, Hohhot in Inner Mongolia, was pretty sleepy and represented the 'half awake' atmosphere that prevailed at the time: lots of qualified expectation and hope [which was] still weighted down by the unfortunate events of the last few years. There was one ersatz fast food place in Hohhot, a sort of local rip-off of Kentucky Fried Chicken, then large swathes of the city that were pretty makeshift and ramshackle and looked like they could be blown away in a strong gale.

If you visit Hohhot today the whole place has been rebuilt almost from scratch. Materially, on the surface, China is dramatically different today compared to then. But in the habits and thinking of the people, I think the change has been less dramatic than we think. Networks around you [which enable you] to get by in society were important then and they remain so today. The only difference is that in those days the most powerful person in the city seemed to be in charge of the local station ticket office, because it was so hard to get train tickets. These days, it must be the local Louis Vuitton boss who is the person everyone wants to know, or the director of the Inner Mongolian Apple outlet.

Have you also witnessed a transformation in the way the rest of the world views China?

The world outside could largely ignore China in 1994. I remember speaking to an eminent academic in the UK back then, after I got back from China after two years living there. When I suggested we might need to study China's language and society more and prepare for a future in which it was a more significant global player, he laughed aloud and said, "Well, people have been saying that for two hundred years." It would be impossible to make this sort of dismissive comment so sweepingly now. But I suspect the same old misgivings and misperceptions of China as some kingdom of otherness still prevails, despite the fact that its people, culture and impact are in our daily lives outside of China much more deeply than they have ever been before.

 What do you think underlies the Western stereotype of China as avaricious, inscrutable and alien?

Stereotypes of China have always carried this slightly unsettling element of inscrutability and unknowability. Films and plays in the past, like the notorious Fu Manchu figure from the 1930s, distilled this. It's odd that these ideas can still linger when you think that in the UK, US and Australia, ethnic Chinese have been part of our communities for well over a century and a half.

Perhaps some people feel a deep need to have these distorted but dramatising images buried in the recesses of their imagination to liven their lives up. But it is a very deliberate and perverse act to maintain in a world where China and its people are in fact so visible, accessible and knowable.

 You have engaged with China not only as a writer but also as a diplomat and an academic. What is it that draws and keeps your interest?

I find it to be a world of surprising surprises. It is a place where the things I expect to find startling often feel very familiar - like relating to people, despite the cultural and historic differences. Things which I expect to find familiar are often baffling – [for example] I have never really worked out what many Chinese really think of the outside world.

The New Emperors focuses on the seven men who essentially run China. What is these men's remit?

The seven men in the current Chinese Politburo are best seen, as I interpret them, as in charge of the big vision or strategy for their country. They sit almost like the board of some massive company, signing off the broadest general directives but living in a zone where administrative or specific policy implementation is left to others. They are, in many ways, the guardians of the values and legacy of the Party. We forget that in this context their individual aims and ideas have to be subsumed within this entity to which they owe everything and which they must faithfully serve: the Communist Party. The Party is the strongman in modern China, not Xi Jinping.

 What kinds of lives do the members of the Communist Party's upper echelons live?

I suspect [their lives] are dominated by calculation of who they can trust and who they must be wary of. Theirs is a very insecure and often pretty merciless political culture. And once they enter this realm, they can never leave it - not willingly, anyway. In that sense, it is an extraordinary cage they are in.

 How did they rise to power?

They rose to power by accruing political capital across different constituencies and networks in the party. Former leaders, particularly figures like Jiang Zemin, [comprised] one of the key groups amongst the [various] constituencies the current leaders had to recruit to get where they are. In the 2012 leadership transition it was clear that in the end, as a kind of circuit breaker, Jiang and other senior retired cadres had a consultative role. This might have been no more than nodding through one candidate or pausing and damning another with faint praise.

[The seven men] have reached their current position by making many friends and avoiding building up enemies, but also by avoiding binding commitments that marry them to interests that they have to satisfy when they finally reach the summit. In that sense, these current leaders have shown, mostly in provincial careers, the ability to serve but not belong. They carry out the Party's mandate, but they cannot be the servants of anything except it.

 How do the current Politburo Standing Committee members benefit from their power and do they share these benefits?

Of course, having a link with someone elevated to the Standing Committee of the Communist Party of China is a great asset and plenty of people overtly - or more often than not covertly or subliminally – try to leverage this in their business or other work. One day we can probably work out the dollar value of having a powerful authentic link to members of the political elite. But the general rule now seems to be that those who have such a link preserve its value by letting others allude to it and broadcast news of it while they keep silent.

 You describe the indifference you witnessed among ordinary people in a Beijing hotel when the latest seven were elected. Why do you think they were so apathetic?

I suspect people felt disengaged by the 2012 leadership transition in China because it was something decided in ways that were very remote from their daily lives. This was not a universal franchise election where at least there were campaigners trying to engage with people, get their attention and wrestle their vote out of them. It lacked that link.

The current political system tries to do too much with too little. In the future, power will need to be shared out more widely. At the moment it is concentrated in the hands of too few, and they are unable to really continue making the quality of judgments that people in this society are increasingly demanding.

 Walking around Beijing I am always surprised by the visible wealth of many of the young people in certain areas. Where does this wealth come from?

The Party has created a society where almost anything can now be monetised. Perhaps that is the meaning behind the words of the Plenum last year: the 'perfection of the market system'. In China, this means today that everything is in the market, from relations between people to education and marriage; there is no area of life that does not involve some sort of financial transaction. The puzzle for many in the manic market of China today is not why there are so many wealthy people, but why poverty still exists. To get rich is now glorious, and normal. I am sure the wealthy elite in cities or elsewhere in China are genuinely puzzled by how it is even possible to be poor in China now.

 How do the communist and capitalist aspects of the country coexist?

Communism provides the elite with a common ideological and moral language that they can talk to each other in and concepts which can unite them and which derive from China's recent history [my addition: even if they live in a way which is completely and cravenly counter to the ideology, morality, conceptual framework and nationalistic devotion which they pretend to share]. For everyone else, this is like Latin in the medieval Christian church: something only the priesthood understood but which the rest of society didn't need to understand or know. They just had to take on trust what they thought was being said, and get on with their lives. The parallels between the Catholic church and the Communist Party are quite striking in many ways. Probably a good subject for a future book…

 How would you categorise China? A capitalist country with a totalitarian core? A bureaucracy with a communist rationale?

I would categorise China by admitting it resists all categorisation. In some subtle ways it's a unique system because of its scale, speed and complexity. It is [also] clear that our external categorisation of China carries little weight within the country itself. I was at a discussion on 'fragmented authoritarianism' with some Party officials and foreign scholars some months back. When the phrase was finally translated into Chinese, the Chinese officials looked genuinely perplexed. We have still failed to find a term for China or a framework in which those inside and outside the political culture here both agree on what it actually is.

What are the principal misconceptions the West has of China?

I think the West, or principal figures in the West, fail to see that while the Communist Party may well not be particularly loved by many Chinese people, when it appeals to the desire for China to be a rich, strong country it speaks a language that most people in this complex and often highly uneven society find appealing and unifying. We underestimate the desire for many Chinese people to have a strong status for their country - that is as much an emotional as a political desire. Underneath the surface, unity is lacking in China - it is a society where change has been too fast, where mobility has been huge, where people live in a place where they were not originally from and where cohesion is very fragile. This is a society where there are simmering frustrations and the need to create a sense of unity that doesn't just end up being a shrill nationalism is very important. That probably involves the state disappearing even more from people's lives as they seek new and more creative ways to become modern, global citizens.

Do you think that foreign countries criticise China for things that they themselves are guilty of? I'm thinking of nepotism, political corruption, extreme capitalism, too-fast development, commercialism, excessive police/army/state power, opposition to grassroots movements, surveillance culture…

There are a lot of double standards and hypocrisy with some of the international criticisms of China, just as there is a lot of defensiveness or wariness in the response to these criticisms by Chinese officials and elites. As the world's top emerging economy, however, they will just have to put up with attacks like these. It comes with the territory.

Kerry Brown's site: here

Publisher I B Taurus' site for The New Emperors: here

Reviews of The New Emperors in The Telegraph, The Wall Street Journal, The Times Higher Education supplement, The Guardian and The Financial Times.

To read my China Flash series of articles about contemporary China, please click here or explore some of the links below:

Lean In Beijing on the new sexism, corporate ambition, marital choices and awesome girls in China

Film-maker Jenny Man Wu on contemporary Chinese women's wit, pain and ambivalence

Benedicte Bro-Cassard, Beijing fashion photographer, on luxury, sugar daddies and sugar daughters

Kong Lingnan, Beijing painter, on natural beauty and human ugliness

Writer Kerry Brown on the seven elite men who rule a country with Communist roots and capitalist shoots

Writer Zhang Chao on media misogyny, social changes and the pressures facing young Chinese women

ABS Crew: Beijing graffiti artists on legal, semi legal and illegal Chinese street art

My friend writes me a delicate poem to explain the intense Beijing seasons

Even afternoon tea says something about modern, monetised China

Porcelain dolls, bad Samaritans and the law

email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-237051036313736922.post-64306433443588717582014-10-03T01:00:00.000+01:002015-01-08T14:31:36.643+00:00China Flash: Writer Zhang Chao on media misogyny, China's momentous social changes and the pressures facing young Chinese women today
This is a greatly expanded version of an article which first appeared in Time Out Beijing.

It took an earthquake to make Zhang Chao a writer. She is now an acclaimed journalist with nearly fifty thousand followers on Wechat and Weibo and is celebrating the release of her book Silent Golden Age, published by Xiron in October. Six years ago, she was staring tragedy in the face. "In May 2008, on the day of Sichuan Earthquake, my mom was having surgery. Thousands of people had died in this disaster and I was still waiting for my mom to wake up. That's when I decided to ignore my fears of failure and criticism and start living my life to the fullest."

She always wanted to be a writer, but "having any kind of dream can be kind of terrifying." Yet this terror is the source of her insight. In her sharp, punchy writing Zhang examines her own post-80s and 90s generation, which is "living out their golden age, but not having their voices heard by society. Young people, especially young women, are caught between their own dreams and society's expectations of them. I find it interesting how people choose, how people face heartaches and hardships, how people fight against and cater to society."

Despite her success on social media and the highly Netty habits of today's young Chinese readers, Zhang maintains that it is not important for 21st century writers to use social media and that is not writers' own responsibility to increase their impact: "[Chinese social media networks] WeChat and Weibo and Facebook are merely platforms, and are not that different from traditional publishing. Things online can be very misleading, especially in this day and age, when information can travel so quickly. Even if a million people read your article it doesn't mean that it was good. For writers, what matters the most will always be the compassion and thought reflected in your work, everything else is a bonus. As a writer, you should focus on content - reach and social media is for the publisher."

Describing her beloved Beijing as "the only city that can see all of my scars," Zhang is inspired by China's fast-transforming capital. "When I read E. B. White's Here is New York, all I could think of was my experience in Beijing. The first time I came to Beijing was 20 years ago. Back then, the city only had two subway lines. I moved here after graduate school, and since then I've lived in five different apartments, changed jobs twice and added about a thousand people to my phone contact list. The city saw me grow up, saw how I got lost and found my way back, how I fell and stood up again. Beijing knows the wounds and healing that came before."

Zhang's articles cover everything from food to football, social justice to sexual equality, love and sex to the arts and culture and everything in between. "What my more popular pieces have in common is that they focus on female independence and empowerment," she says. "Most of my readers are young, intelligent, well-educated professionals. They are pushing a social movement here to encourage our generation of women to challenge tradition. I use my personal experience to prove that all limitations only exist in our head. We have the power to change culture and tradition."

Despite her ambivalence about social media, Zhang's influence is rooted in the impression that she is communicating directly and candidly with readers who are peers and contemporaries: "The stories I share, they've been happened to them before. I just help them say what they want to say, because I am one of them."

Zhang has suffered from the misogynist backlash which seems to be an endemic and very telling feature of online life all over the world, especially when women writers address misogyny. "The most criticism I ever received was after publishing my thoughts on Eve Ensler's TED Talk 'Embrace Your Inner Girl'. What I didn't expect was the mockery and verbal abuse from some male readers. They made me realize that in China, many men and women are far away from being equals, and female independence can be a very dangerous thing to these men, because they're not ready to share the power or to give up any control."

Zhang's ambition is to examine the "momentous" social changes China is undergoing and their effect on ordinary people. "Both the unrelenting spirit and weakness in humanity are being shown up more obviously than before. Materialism, idealism, collectivism and freedom are all big words which are [actually] deeply integrated in people's real lives. I want to write the untold stories, so my readers can remember what China was and understand what it will someday be. I'll keep writing until the day I die, that's who I am."

To read my China Flash series of articles about contemporary China, please click here or explore some of the links below:

Lean In Beijing on the new sexism, corporate ambition, marital choices and awesome girls in China

Beijing Night

Film-maker Jenny Man Wu on contemporary Chinese women's wit, pain and ambivalence

Benedicte Bro-Cassard, Beijing fashion photographer, on luxury, sugar daddies and sugar daughters

Kong Lingnan, Beijing painter, on natural beauty and human ugliness

Writer Kerry Brown on the seven elite men who rule a country with Communist roots and capitalist shoots

Writer Zhang Chao on media misogyny, social changes and the pressures facing young Chinese women

ABS Crew: Beijing graffiti artists on legal, semi legal and illegal Chinese street art

My friend writes me a delicate poem to explain the intense Beijing seasons

Even afternoon tea says something about modern, monetised China

Porcelain dolls, bad Samaritans and the law

email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-237051036313736922.post-81847688675867971542014-10-01T00:30:00.001+01:002015-01-08T14:32:20.944+00:00China Flash: ABS Crew: graffiti artists on legal, semi-legal and illegal street art
This is an expanded version of an article which first appeared in Time Out Beijing. All images by and (c) ABS Crew

Deep in the corporate heart of the Central Business District, under the approving eye of a strangely young government representative, a gang of guys in white jumpsuits, industrial respiratory masks and black rubber gloves is painting fierce designs onto ten of the city's free shuttle buses while an increasing crowd of workers on their lunch break take photos and film their work.

The gang is Beijing's ABS Crew, who since 2007 have been bringing graffiti culture, hip-hop, film-making and breakdancing together in a successful and classically Chinese combination of countercultural styling underscored by mainstream business acumen. ABS Crew - who go by the names ANDC, Scar, Noise and Seven- own a shop, host cultural events, work with major companies on corporate branding and graphic design, consult with big business and undertake public art commissions. They even sell ABS Crew merchandise. In the next few months alone they'll be painting at a major music festival and working on a commission in Sanlitun.

Crew member ANDC explains, "Graffiti is very new in China, maybe only ten years old. Young people had to research and seek out the work by studying other countries' graffiti culture online. When we started, we had no spray cans, just factory grade stuff you couldn't paint with. We started off in different cities and found each other by uploading our work on the Internet.

But now, young guys are into it, more people are joining in. When we started out, we were studying at university and spent half our time working [in unrelated jobs] for big companies and the other half of our time doing graffiti. Now we do it full time. But we need more money for the culture, because more people want to learn how to do it, but don't know how. We use business money to create a real culture and we make it available for everyone. We have a lot of plans. In China, if you know a lot of people, you get a lot of business."

ANDC points out that graffiti occupies a rare position in China: "It's harder and more illegal in other countries – graffiti-ing buses is illegal in Europe. But in China graffiti is half legal, half-illegal. There are certain areas where it's okay to do it. This bus project is for the Central Business District's art festival. We know the government leader for the festival and he's very young, he's not an old man, so we were talking with him about how to do fresher projects [and he agreed]."

This appearance of cultural openness is somewhat misleading. I'm talking to ANDC less than 2 hours after the police raided a major Japanese company's annual sushi-and-cocktails party in epicentre-of-Beijing-cool Sanlitun, saying it was too noisy (but possibly just seeking a kickback) and a week after they raided a music venue, forced gig-goers to undergo mandatory urine tests for drugs and deported any foreigners who tested positive. Two nights ago, groups of silent, uniformed guards appeared at each corner of the intersection closest to my house, armed with machine guns.

While ABS Crew may be pursuing a lucrative corporate strategy these days, ANDC still makes sly reference to their shadier work, done "on a real street, in the night. It's about wanting to tell people something. We do artwork that's a social commentary and we add our crew's name."

To read my China Flash series of articles about contemporary China, please click here. or explore some of the links below:

Lean In Beijing on the new sexism, corporate ambition, marital choices and awesome girls in China

Film-maker Jenny Man Wu on contemporary Chinese women's wit, pain and ambivalence

Benedicte Bro-Cassard, Beijing fashion photographer, on luxury, sugar daddies and sugar daughters

Kong Lingnan, Beijing painter, on natural beauty and human ugliness

Writer Kerry Brown on the seven elite men who rule a country with Communist roots and capitalist shoots

Writer Zhang Chao on media misogyny, social changes and the pressures facing young Chinese women

ABS Crew: Beijing graffiti artists on legal, semi legal and illegal Chinese street art

My friend writes me a delicate poem to explain the intense Beijing seasons

Even afternoon tea says something about modern, monetised China

Porcelain dolls, bad Samaritans and the law

firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-237051036313736922.post-49050137087482058352014-09-29T09:39:00.001+01:002014-10-06T03:51:14.788+01:00From Jane Eyre to Clarissa Dalloway, beware your classic heroines
This article was originally commissioned by The Guardian, pegged to The Secret Life of Books: Jane Eyre, which will be broadcast on BBC4 on Tuesday 30th September at 8.30pm. Watch it here online until Friday 10th October.

A clip from The Secret Life of Books: Jane Eyre
(c) BBC and Open University

Jane Eyre, sex maniac. This was one disturbing conclusion I came to when rereading Charlotte Bronte's classic Victorian novel for the BBC4 series The Secret Life of Books. Briefly: Jane Eyre is an unwitty, unpretty orphan who teaches at a country house and gets a social leg-up and a much needed leg-over when she marries her master, the Byronic Mr Rochester, but not before the plot disposes of his mad Creole first wife Bertha and gives Jane financial independence through a last-minute inheritance.

I first read the book as a teenager, adoring it as a thoroughly satisfying story about a disadvantaged nonentity who gets everything she wants by relying on brains, willpower and integrity. Plain Jane doesn't use sexual wiles to grease her way through the Victorian class system, nor does she flutter and dissemble, pretending to be weaker than she is. She is a lone force who neither bends nor breaks, despite occupying a world in which the best she can hope for is to be mocked, marginalised and exploited. Her outward self-control, contrasted with the searing perceptiveness and passion that the novel's first person narrative reveals to the reader, make Jane both complex and compelling.

When I reread the book, however, I was shocked by its violence, amorality, bigotry and perversity. Jane/Rochester is not a romance, it's a sado-masochistic freakfest. When Jane clocks her new master's brooding glare, two decades of tamped-down sexual frustration explode onto the page. Rochester's a boorish, sadistic, patronising sexual predator and Jane is an abused child who has been neglected all her life and grown into an enraged masochist fuelled by raw survivalism. She looks down on the uneducated servants in the house, vilifies Bertha as dark and monstrous and sneers basely at the women who flirt openly with Rochester while herself reacting to his every growl with a shudder of naked lust.

Bertha rages in the attic, Rochester thunders up and down the stairs and Jane masturbates in her room. At one of the novel's crisis points Bertha rips Jane Eyre's wedding veil, out of all the things she could have laid her hands on, and I begin to suspect that she's only mad in the American sense of being very angry. These alternative readings of the novel have been explored by Jean Rhys in Wide Sargasso Sea, which tells Bertha's story, and Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca, which creates a Rochester-like figure in the character of Maxim de Winter and teases out his malevolence and untrustworthiness.

I emerged from the pages of Jane Eyre with my early, simplistic admiration for Jane shattered and my esteem for her radical creator Charlotte Bronte massively enhanced. Wondering how my two readings of the same classic could yield such different interpretations, I turned to Samantha Ellis's How To Be A Heroine, a recent tribute to the great canonical women characters. Ellis's sensitive and witty analyses reflect the power classic fictional heroines have not only to inspire but also – as in Jane's Eyre's case – to endlessly surprise, even horrify.

Some characters have so much influence that they bleed from writers' pages onto babies' birth certificates. Katniss, the hero of Suzanne Collins' rugged and beautifully written Hunger Games trilogy, has inspired girls' names in the past year. I'm looking forward to lots of little Maleficents being born nine months from now, prompted by Angelina Jolie's brilliant, stylish, feminist, Bechdel-test-passing, rape-metaphor-having noir fairytale. And what about some Medeas in the maternity ward, after The National Theatre's recent, brilliant adaptation?

Still, I am wary of unquestioning heroine-worship, particularly when it's tinged with nostalgia for our formative reading years. We might admire Scarlett O'Hara's strength but Gone With the Wind is deeply troubling on slavery, race and class. Austen's Elizabeth Benet has qualities in abundance but her potential is squandered tragically by the boredom and nothingness of her life. Clarissa Dalloway is a terrifying warning about what happens to an intelligent, amenable woman if she doesn't produce anything for herself but merely goes from place to place being fabulous. The real Woolfian heroine is the yearning shapeshifter of Orlando, Woolf's love letter to Vita Sackville-West. Wilting Woolf sadly wasn't a heroine for voracious Vita, but that's non-novelistic, messy reality for you.

Ultimately, characters cannot be divorced from their fictional context or the real social context of their creation, nor can they be rinsed of their bigotry (or their creators') and held up facilely as mythic survivor-paragons. For this reason I find the 'perfect', cataclysmic ending to Jane Eyre disturbing: the 'mad' foreign first wife violently dead, the house burnt down, its patriarch reduced by injury and Jane rejoicing grotesquely to be his grovelling nurse and domestic dominatrix for the rest of her days.

email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-237051036313736922.post-10792081511059904282014-09-21T07:18:00.000+01:002015-01-08T14:33:35.709+00:00China Flash: Even afternoon tea says something about modern, monetised Beijng

Afternoon tea at The Opposite House, in association with Jo Malone

This is a greatly expanded version of a short write-up which first appeared in Time Out Beijing where I did a brief stint as Deputy Editor. To read my China Flash series of articles about contemporary China, please click here.

Finally, an afternoon tea that smells as good as it looks. Opposite House, the chic Sanlitun hotel, is launching a month long celebration of perfume and pastries, scent and scones. In association with British lifestyle brand Jo Malone, the hotel will be serving an afternoon tea inspired by Jo Malone's Peony and Blush Suede collection at 3pm every day from 22nd September until 24th October. Hosted at their sleek, warm-toned Mediterranean restaurant Sureño and designed for elegant 'ladies' who care as much about fashion taste as food taste, the experience includes a vial of Peony and Blush Suede perfume and a voucher for an arm and hand massage at Jo Malone's Beijing boutique.

Obviously it feels nice to spend a couple of hours slotting flavour-bomb pastries into one's mouth in a flatteringly lit restaurant at a hotel full of attentive staff and beautiful patrons while a shoot for an international fashion magazine goes on upstairs, as it was the day I went. <o:p></o:p>

The tea itself is as classy and considered as the fragrances and scented candles Jo Malone is famous for. I am treated to delicately sliced sandwiches whose bread is baked on-site, filled with tender crab, gutsy smoked salmon and creamy mozzarella; a colourful assortment of miniature cakes including a delicious macaroon that melts into a crush of crumbs and strawberry goo and a bright drum of citron tart; a soft peony-infused cream pot that comes with its own little bone china teacup and edible flower; and best of all, the golden, home-baked scones sitting like a line of tanned knees, rugged on the outside, soft on the inside, served with strawberry rose jam (again made on-site), organic acacia honey and Devonshire clotted cream. My cream was as runny as petrol, but never mind. The whole thing was fab.<o:p></o:p>

"Everything is imported," the Chinese person I'm with assures me. That is the new China: everything is imported. The country which is famous for its manufacturing and export for foreign companies has absorbed and internalised the value those brands place on themselves. What is considered good in China is foreign.<o:p></o:p>

Afternoon tea is part of a Beijing trend for dainty, English-style pastimes. Or not so dainty: I am considering running a campaign against the cheap, sugar-reeking patisserie and bakery places that have opened up across the city, their displays piled with breads, brioches, biscuits, cakes and tarts all of exactly the same beige carb colour. Like the rest of the world, China's youth are taking on an American style processed diet of over-refined, high carb, high sugar, high corn syrup, sponge-textured junk that's making them fat and giving them heart disease and diabetes in the space of a single generation, assisted by an increasingly sedentary lifestyle plugged up with video games, Net surfing and mobile phone chatting.<o:p></o:p>

Back to the tea.<o:p></o:p>

"The hotels don't [usually] do bilingual flyers," says my companion, showing me a leaflet for the afternoon tea, which is in both Mandarin and English. "In Beijing it used to be the foreigners that had the money. Now it's the Chinese that have it. Beijing has the richest people in China."<o:p></o:p>

"Where does the money come from?" I ask.<o:p></o:p>

"A lot of it's new money. There are provinces with coal."<o:p></o:p>

"You're talking about land sales and the licensing of mining rights."<o:p></o:p>

My companion nods.<o:p></o:p>

"They make money like water flowing," she says.<o:p></o:p>

The afternoon tea sits alongside a relatively recent fad for heavily iced multi tier cakes and Disney princess wedding dresses, usually combined with plasticky perfect, unwittingly kitsch Stepford photo shoots to prove that an immaculate investment – I mean a momentous sacrifice – I mean a loving union – is taking place. The era and customs these trends reference never existed. It's all a cartoon, an inauthentic, retrogressively feminine, Americanised fantasy about a historically hazy England where decorum ruled and social rank was set, stable and (in reality) stifling. <o:p></o:p>

There is also a roaring trend for highly trained 'English butlers' over here. That's one of the most lucrative of these 'lifestyle' jobs. I quite like the idea of the rich Chinese employing Little Englanders (ordinary Joes from bog standard Brit towns) to apparently confer some class and style but actually to be their dogsbodies. <o:p></o:p>

"You have to understand that even ten years ago, Beijing was completely different," says my companion. "These malls you see are being built after the hutong [traditional neighbourhoods with narrow lanes and black curved-slate tiled roofs] were demolished. I was here when the last family was evicted to make this development. That's happening all over the city. It's not a question of whether the hutong are beautiful, or characterful, or not. This development is 'progress'."<o:p></o:p>

The Opposite House opened six years ago, the same day as the Beijing Olympics. It's part of the new Beijing, the one that will probably become a single huge mall with internal streets and its own subway system. The hotel is in what is known locally, with heavy euphemism, as 'the village' – an enormous luxury shopping, food and lifestyle complex whose formal name is Taikoo Li. There are Balmain, Alexander McQueen, Carven, Balenciaga, Versace and Miu Miu boutiques. All empty. A 24 hour Starbucks. Beautiful girls everywhere, clicking on their phones, wonderfully dressed but with nothing to say, sugar daughters waiting for sugar daddies.<o:p></o:p>

"I find the sight of these girls so depressing," I say. "They're so wonderful, so beautiful, so well-dressed. But I don't see them laughing or joking. They don't look like they're having a good time. I don't get it. And what do they do all day?"<o:p></o:p>

"You only have to look at China's history. Concubines."<o:p></o:p>

I say nothing. The Orientalist obsession with forbidden cities, palace compounds and the concubine system of institutionalised sexual exploitation neatly skips over the 'revolution' that was designed, deliberately, to break down the idea that women were objects to be bought, reared, sold, used and exchanged for sexual labour. Instead it put forward the idea that women could be used for any labour whatsoever.<o:p></o:p>

"A lot of the girls in universities are being kept," says my companion.<o:p></o:p>

Again, I say nothing. It is not true that "a lot" of female university students are being sexually used, dressed, accessorised and paid for by the exploitative men they believe are their boyfriends and providers. But there is certainly a minority of younger women, highly visible around Sanlitun in particular who are like beautiful, precious-breed strays sniffing around melancholically for a new owner. The fact that they are visually striking makes them seem more numerous than they really are. The truth is that the majority of Chinese girls and women study and work and work and work, while withstanding pressure to court and marry and breed. And then they work and work and work at being a wife and mother and daughter and daughter-in-law, in addition to their other work.<o:p></o:p>

"You know the new trend is for etiquette classes?" says my companion. "Even three week courses at finishing schools in Switzerland? Because the new Chinese rich are not sophisticates. They have to learn it all. They have no manners. They don't know how to do anything."<o:p></o:p>

In this new world anything, even social skills, can be monetised and sold back to you. I have a (Chinese) friend whose cruel but lucrative side business is to give extremely over-priced wine and gourmet food tutorials to her newly wealthy compatriots, who believe anything she tells them.<o:p></o:p>

At Taikoo Li there's an Apple store whose glowing Old Testament apple logo (Eve bit the apple of temptation and iPods poured out, damning humankind and blighting the earth) is so aggressively huge, hanging heavily over the complex, that I often mistake it for the moon when I'm walking home. Opposite Taikoo Li is a stretch of nasty-looking bars with skinny young men outside, hair spiked, dressed sharply in Korean pop style shrunken suits, trying to entice people inside. Next to the bars is a mammoth zone of international embassies with fierce young guards keeping watch, clicking their heels together, chests out, buttocks taut. This morning I saw just three of them marching down a regular street in odd-numbered formation, silently, left, right, left, right, legs straight and high and in time, eyes ahead, like automata.<o:p></o:p>

There's also a Soviet era diplomatic residence compound that's like a suburb in itself, housing the families of the diplomatic staff attached to all the different countries' embassies. It's built along classic Chinese/Russian communist-chic lines: huge boxy living room, high ceilings, oddly thick walls between the master bedroom and the adjoining room, either for sexual discretion or to contain the bundled wires and strategically threaded mics needed for clear tapping and surveillance. <o:p></o:p>

"The place is enormous," says my friend from [Feministania], "yet whenever there's another family also from Feministania they put us in the same tower of the same block. They want us to talk to each other. With the families from all the other different countries, we are polite, we talk about the weather. With other people from Feministania of course we talk about politics."<o:p></o:p>

"Assume everything you're saying is being heard. That's what I was told when I arrived at my office," said another friend, who works across politics and global finance.<o:p></o:p>

To walk through Beijing today is to negotiate an ever-spreading grid of malls filled with Western European and Scandinavian lifestyle brands, nearly all of them associated with making over the body in some way. They offer clothes and jewellery, scent and makeup, all priced painfully high to accommodate the luxury goods tax. Nearly all the creams and body lotions, including underarm deodorant, contain whitening products and are called Lunar Glow or Pearl Shine or Moon Caress or somesuch. It's best to look pale, untouched, dewy, delicate: a conflation of racial and gender judgements. Darkness is ugly, it means hard unfeminine work in rural areas, it means you're not the preferred Han ethnicity but one of China's many racial minorities from a far-off region, here to do menial or manual labour, having zipped everything you own into a checked plastic cube-bag and brought it on the train from one of the western border areas that bleeds into India or Nepal or even one of the mysterious barbarian –stans.<o:p></o:p>

"You're dark and you have tattoos," said someone to me when I arrived. "Here, that means you're poor. Provincial poor." <o:p></o:p>

Before I get to the Apple store in Sanlitun on my way home I pass one of the slickest buildings near my office. When I first saw it I thought it was a nightclub or a karaoke place. It's a plastic surgery clinic called My Like. Its logo is the outline of a mermaid swimming up the side of the white building, with big bazongas and flowing hair. China's one of the largest markets for plastic surgery globally, alongside Brazil and Korea. When the sun sets the gleaming white clinic lights up with lines of blazing neon pink.<o:p></o:p>

Back to the tea.<o:p></o:p>

Those aspects of the afternoon tea experience which were not directly within The Opposite House's immaculate control fell short. To be blunt: the Jo Malone fragrance was laughably small. It was exactly the same as a sample you can beg from any woman at any beauty counter at any bog-standard outlet from Chengdu Airport to an Idaho mall. When I got home, me and my roommate – a lifestyle photographer who has a wine fridge filled with rare perfumes worth tens of thousands of dollars – screamed with mirth when inside my ribbon-tied Jo Malone bag we discovered….another, much tinier ribbon-tied Jo Malone bag, which contained….what looked like a Jo Malone matchbox… which contained what could only be called a 'vial' of perfume if looked at through rose-tinted binoculars by a pathological liar. <o:p></o:p>

I had been a longtime admirer of Jo Malone, both the woman and the brand she built single-handed. I am shocked that a marque of such apparent sophistication would do something so unstylishly tight-fisted that my disgust is superseded by ridicule. The lavish booklet that accompanies the 'vial' (written, tellingly, all in Chinese apart from its headings, to court that new young rich generation of capitalist aspirants) actually has an entire page entitled 'The Art of Gift Giving', showing a male model holding an abundance of normal-sized boxes filled with goodies. If only someone at Jo Malone had followed their own advice.<o:p></o:p>

My favourite Jo Malone scents are Pomegranate Noir, 154 and Red Roses but everyone will have their preferences. I would suggest that any fragrance brand wanting to match the culinary skill and presentational dedication of the Opposite House offer either a genuinely medium-sized wardrobe of multiple scents or a single large perfume of choice to customers who have paid for something special. They – we – are not to sign up, pay up and then be palmed off with something a princessy toddler would get in a novelty gift bag at going-home time. <o:p></o:p>

Looking at the insultingly small offering, I wonder if there is some cultural disdain behind it. Do companies think they can fob off the Chinese with these minuscule trinkets because the Chinese will be happy to get their hands on something, anything, a Western brand gives them, no matter how meagre? Do they think the Chinese are so stupid and so desperate for a little acknowledgement by an English-branded company (which is actually American-owned: Jo Malone was bought by Estée Lauder in 1999) that they'll be grateful for this pathetic sop? Equally, is China so in thrall to a fantasy version of the Western 'lifestyle' that it will overlook homegrown enterprises, no matter how nascent, to court an established brand that does not reciprocate its interest or its appreciation?<o:p></o:p>

The Opposite House are already in talks with a range of (Western) brands to work on collaborations for 2015, while gearing up for a second major pairing this autumn: from October 13thto October 24th they partner with Brit designer Paul Smith for a business set lunch, also at Sureño, with a menu devised by prodigal chef Laia Pons Gonzalez. Paul Smith will be giving away a typically quirky notebook patterned with musical notes, a key motif in the label's collection at this year's Paris Fashion Week.<o:p></o:p>

It's a good idea for The Opposite House to host experiences alongside fashion and beauty brands who match their standards and style. However, those brands will have to step up instead of donating some samples they found in the back of the cupboard and putting them in fancy bags with a ton of marketing material thrown in to add insult to injury. The people who come to The Opposite House are chic and wealthy enough to have entire shelves of properly packaged, full-sized products by brands even more elevated than Jo Malone and Paul Smith. Those same people are well-connected if not outright famous in the very sectors in which the brands wish to maintain prestige; if an experience fails to live up to promises or expectations, they'll walk. <o:p></o:p>

The Opposite House host a non-branded afternoon tea throughout the year. Although the flavours are slightly different it's just as sumptuous, just as delicious, just as stylish and just as affordable as the Jo Malone collaboration. Western lifestyle brands who want to get in on the 21stcentury capitalist China act must match The Opposite House's quality and generosity or risk looking commercially cheap and culturally nasty by comparison.

email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-237051036313736922.post-29632104379737785942014-08-18T00:14:00.001+01:002014-08-18T00:14:38.645+01:00Moment of Curfew
One of my fractions: new fragmented fiction.

At eleven the night city would tense and hush, would flinch silently for a moment. Then the low groan of the curfew siren looped wide, lassoing the skyline. The siren could be heard, like a drunk's moaning complaint, from end to far end of the city. The power flagged briefly and the high line train screeched and slowed, pinching tight on its electric rail, then picked up again, nosing between skyscrapers. The buildings' mirrored facets reflected the siren sound, breaking and scattering hard pieces of it, chopped edits. All the TV, video game, phone, cinema and ad screens cut out and the word CURFEW emerged in stocky black from the jittering peppercorn pixels. There was a stiffly braced clang, an industrial shudder. Then corrugated metal shutters descended over each house window and shopfront and ground to the bottom, where they locked with a blunt tchickk. Office buildings were armoured in rusty scales, the lower metres wearing bright graffiti hems, a technicolour lacework of names and expletives.

At the same time, the globe lights in the good neighbourhoods and the stuttering bulbs in the bad, the strings of red chilli-shaped fairy lights in the markets and the fluorescent strips in the nail bars, betting shops and chicken shops snapped on. The city didn't empty out so much as atomise, split into concentrated pieces: the curfewed streets, haunted by watchmen, crossed warily by odd parties of permit holders; the taxis, trains and buses, the light in them the colour of weak whisky, each commuter gripping their bag tightly; the metal-sealed buildings and the hot, noisy privacy within.

firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-237051036313736922.post-51162683045271662212014-08-16T00:00:00.000+01:002014-11-16T20:50:43.678+00:00Inside: the power of books in prisons

This is in response to justice secretary Chris Grayling's ban on books and other items being sent to prisoners. This article has also been picked up, here, by the human rights and civil liberties organisation Liberty. For more details on Grayling's measures click here and also here and to sign a petition protesting them please click here. The writer Leah Thorn, who has a decade's experience doing close outreach work in prisons, has granted me an incredibly informative, moving and trenchant interview about prison reform, inequality, incarceration and prison culture here.

I do outreach work in prisons and also in detention centres and I have seen first hand how powerful and important books are to prisoners. Book are vital, not only in providing enrichment for inmates but as a way of connecting with others to talk through, challenge, inspire and provoke debate in a rewarding and constructive way. In all the institutions I have visited, book groups, reading groups and writing groups exert a strong pull on prisoners, who show themselves again and again to be dedicated, committed, passionate and insightful in their work and in their dealings with me and with each other.

A literary culture creates the space for civilised, meaningful relating, for social development, for questioning and self-questioning, learning, self-improvement: all the things a truly constructive prison system should represent. I have seen virtually silent prisoners linger around the edges of a group and then, through a few comments and some close reading, gain confidence, develop their skills and showcase their talent. The books are not just a source of education but also of entertainment of the most enriching and deepening kind. They are, in fact, an essential tool in tackling the poor levels of literacy and the accompanying frustration, low self-expectation, daily obstacles, narrowed opportunities and the intractable economic and social deprivation and desperately limited horizons which contribute to an environment in which petty but repetitively (almost compulsively) committed crimes are almost an inevitability. I am not talking about 'being soft' on rapists, child abusers, batterers, thug murderers, predators and woman-killers but about lifting up and liberating that great miserable body of the prison population: neighbourhood burglars, car thieves, petty hustlers, smalltime crooks, scrappers and scufflers, drug pushers who are addicts, teenage or early twenties wannabe gangsters, holders or passers-off of stolen goods. For these types, prison can be an opportunity either to become grossly influenced by malign individuals even further down the road to moral and economic corruption - or to gain some skills, judgement, backbone (as opposed to bravado) and promise, which can be taken out into the world upon release. Reading skills can contribute to ensuring that, in time, released prisoners might build a stronger and better life for themselves than they had before their sentence, not because of an increase in something nebulous and romantic like dignity but because literacy skills are vital to worldly progress.

As with all teaching, through the collective experience of reading and talking about reading, the prisoners I have worked with have taught me much more than I could teach them or they could teach themselves without the structure and focus of a book to anchor them. Certainly, we all learned a thousand times more in a couple of hours spent together daily than we would have during whole afternoons spent on the landings [where the cells are] watching daytime TV.

Furthermore I have been told directly by women prisoners with initially low literacy skills how fundamental reading has been to them. One woman told me, "My mum didn't know how to read or write, I didn't know how to read or write, that was just the way it was. So I taught myself in prison."

There is a further point, and it is gendered. I am extremely alarmed by the cruelty and punitive malice of Grayling's proposals for women prisoners with children and the suggestion that children cannot send their mothers parcels.

The overwhelming majority of women prisoners are 'inside' for non-violent crimes. The process of incarceration is mentally traumatising in itself and additionally has grave real-world consequences. In virtually all the cases that I have seen, women prisoners had been their children's primary carers and guardians, with secondary care provided by grandmothers and other female relatives. With the central source of stability and care removed and in many cases moved far from families' home towns, if female relatives cannot take on the childcare responsibilities then families are broken up, young children are put in care and a new cycle of deprivation, vulnerability, exploitation, damaging instability, lack of opportunity and circumstantial predisposition to offending begins.

We can see from all this that it is often the supposed cure, not the crime, which creates deep and long term trauma and is a key factor in the pressing issue of women prisoners' mental health and self harm. Incarceration for crimes which are more often than not the result of economic deprivation, abuse, inequality and lack of support inflicts mental wounds, drags an entire family even further down socially and creates the ground for yet more crimes to be committed - out of survival, out of necessity and out of pain.

The sense of isolation in a prison is extreme and is made perversely worse by the sheer numbers of other prisoners, guards and civilian staff. The entire non-prison world is referred to by prisoners as Outside, and the prison described numbly as Inside. Incarcerating people in a way that is mentally violent as a means of punishing non-violent crimes does not work and destroys everything, inside and out, mental and physical. There is little stimulation in a prison except for basic skills learning, a few hours of classes per day, helping out as an orderly, working in various prison areas such as the 'servery' [kitchen and canteen] or packing boxes of goods to go between prisons, sitting in front of daytime TV, idle chat and destructive scheming which is usually the result of boredom and depression. In such a context books are a humane necessity, vital for the intellect, for processing and sublimating the emotions, for socialisation, for education and for development - not a form of empty entertainment to be handed out like sweets to those who behave well. It is a fallacy that prison life is cushy, although the routine and the utter predictability and slow demarcation and regimentation of time may be comforting for those whose outside lives feel insecure, emotionally raw or unsafe. Treats, in the form of everything from letters to books to clothes and sachets of perfume or a nice top, are rare and treasured.

Receiving gifts and messages from their children and having something to talk to them about on visits - something like a story from a book - is many women prisoners' lifeline, their only source of sustained warmth and hope from the outside world. A chat about a book, gifted to a prisoner by her child, may be the only thing which makes a prison visit less frightening for that child. The prisoners pay this token of love and kindness back at Christmas time when they record stories on CDs for their children to listen to.

I hope that Grayling changes his mind and seeks more effective, more humane, less petty and less malicious ways of reforming the prison system.

For more on my prison work see this report by the Prisoners' Education Trust, this from English PEN, this also from English PEN and Rape, Refusal, Destitution, Denial on my outreach work with asylum seekers and refugees, many of whom had experienced detention and imprisonment.
firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-237051036313736922.post-8651028515699101232014-05-17T11:30:00.000+01:002014-05-20T12:29:48.593+01:00Leah Thorn, the poet and activist facing and transforming the lives of women in prison

Further reading: Inside: the power of books in prison, written by me for human rights organisation Liberty and based on my own prison work.

I wanted to highlight the work of a heroine of mine, the poet, activist, performer and prison worker Leah Thorn, who has granted me an exclusive and in-depth interview, below. Given the UK government's latest measures to restrict parcels, including those containing books, going into prisons, we desperately need the action and advocacy of individuals like her to convey and address the reality of life in prison, especially for women. Some of her work with women in prison has been captured by the film-maker Suzanne Cohen in the highly acclaimed documentary Beautiful Sentences, which can be viewed here:

Leah also gave a TEDxWomen talk on incarcerated women and the transformational power of poetry, which can be viewed here:

She is currently making a film of her poem Shhh! which, she tells me, "is about sexism and the continued need for a feminist revolution" and will be submitted to poetry and film festivals upon completion. The film is being made by Second Shot, a production company at the men's prison HMP Doncaster, where Leah spent time filming and talking with the men about issues the poem raises. As I write this, on 4th April 2014, Leah is giving a performance and talk about women in prison and the power of poetry as part of the Wise Words Festival in Canterbury. Later in the year she will be teaching a six week summer course at Canterbury Christchurch University, entitled What Does The F-Word Mean To You?

Leah Thorn photographed by Suzanne Cohen
Image taken from Leah Thorn's site

Following the government's extremely unpopular new measures regarding the prison system - please click here to read the official response to protests against these measures - I asked Leah more about her experience of working in prisons:

 How long have you been working with women in prison and how did you get into it?

I've been working in prisons with the Anne Frank Trust for about eight years. My commitment to women's liberation means I focus a lot, but not exclusively, on the incarceration of women

Do you see the issue of women in prisons as a feminist one?

Completely. Women make up a small, and consequently ignored, minority of the overall prison population: 4.8% in England and Wales. The starkness of women's imprisonment keeps me rooted and alive to the rawness of sexism, male domination and misogyny and more aware of the lived experiences of working-class Black and white women.

I am uneasy about quoting statistics that are freely used to designate incarcerated women as 'the most damaged women in society'. Diminishing a woman to a number denies her resilience and ability to survive and serves to distance her from women outside of the Criminal Justice System. However, the figures clearly show how incarcerated women have been targeted and controlled:

53% of incarcerated women have reported emotional, physical or sexual abuse as a child, with a similar proportion of women having been victims of domestic violence

31% of women prisoners have spent time in care as children

40% of women in prison left school before they were 16

46% say they have attempted suicide at some time in their life

30% of women entering prison require drug detoxification.

Certain populations of women are more vulnerable than others to being criminalised. For example, Black women are four times more likely than white women to be incarcerated and frequently receive longer sentences for similar crimes.

One in five women in prison in England and Wales are Foreign Nationals, technically those who do not have a UK passport. A significant number have been coerced or trafficked into offending. I have worked with women whose only experience of England has been a Customs hall in an airport, a court and a prison. I have witnessed the bewilderment, loneliness and fear of women unable to speak a word of English, who have no-one on their prison wing who can speak their mother tongue. It can take days to find another woman who can interpret and explain what is happening.

Two thirds of women in prison are mothers of young children and many of the women I work with spend their sentence desperately concerned about their children's care and whether they will lose parental rights. In any one year in England and Wales, 17,000 children are separated from their mothers by incarceration. Only 5% will stay in their own home. The others will be cared for by family members or put into foster care.

Despite public outcry, pregnant women are still put into prison and four babies a week are born to women in prison. It is hard to see a woman locked in her cell hours from giving birth, alone and exhausted. Sometimes a prison officer is designated as a woman's birth partner but it often happens that the woman gives birth when that officer is not on shift. Women do not give birth inside jail except in medical emergencies and women are no longer restrained with handcuffs when giving birth, although some women still fear this. However, the women is usually on an open maternity ward with constant bed watch, which means having two officers either side of them for their whole stay. At present there are seven specialised mother and baby units in England - there may well be fewer by end of the year - and newborn babies can stay with their mothers for between 9 and 18 months.

Older women are the fastest growing age group to be imprisoned. Last year in England and Wales, 368 women aged 50 or over (including 55 pensioners) were jailed, an increase of 139% in that age group. Many are primary carers for disabled or elderly dependants.

Dishonesty is the biggest reason for women's incarceration. More than two thirds serve time for non-violent offences such as shoplifting, welfare benefit fraud, employer fraud and receiving stolen goods. Research on mothers in custody found that over a third said they offended because of 'a need to support their children', with single mothers being more likely to identify a lack of money than those who were married.

There is also a strong likelihood that women's offending is prompted by their relationships with men. Coercion by men can form a route into criminal activity for many women.

Women entering prison are likely to be serving short sentences. In 2012, more than 4,500 women entered prison to serve sentences of 6 months or less. More than half were given sentences of 3 months or less, whilst more than 1 in 10 were sentenced to 4 weeks or less.

Of course there are some women in prison who have committed violent crimes against adults and children and I never dismiss what their early experiences and resultant undealt-with distress have led them to do. Many have committed violence under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol and many perceive their offence as retaliation on a society that has not protected or valued them. However, their treatment in the Criminal Justice System is unlikely to help them face what they have done and move on.

What kind of work do you do with women in prisons?

I am a white older woman, who goes into women's prisons as a spoken-word poet and as a women's liberation activist. For two years I was writer-in-residence in a women's prison and I now run poetry-for-empowerment projects across the prison estate, most recently with women who self-harm and with older women. I also speak out as a poet/performer on issues of women's liberation and incarceration.

In my workshops I support women to express their thoughts and experiences through discussion, individual and group writing activities and listening and performance exercises. I encourage the women to share their writing, not for literary critique but for the sense of connection they get from the recognition and appreciation of others.

During my prison residency, we devised poetry performances to mark events such as International Women's Day, Black History Month and Holocaust Memorial Day. Poetry performances were also taken into workplaces like The Cleaning Academy or the crafts workshop or to the Education Department. It was inspiring to see women flourish into powerful performers, whilst their audiences changed from being reluctant and suspicious to being engaged and moved. It was affirming for the poets to experience their work being so well-received and applauded.

Poetry anthologies were compiled and edited to validate the women's creativity and thinking, including the book 'release' which was written by, and for, women in prison who self harm. 'release' contains poetry, women's stories and a feminist exploration of self harm and the book has been circulated by the Ministry of Justice to all women's prisons. One prison returned the books saying they did not have a problem with self-harm and several prisons expressed the view that the women's stories were 'too graphic and potentially upsetting'. This is ironic, given how graphic and upsetting self-harm is for the women who do harm themselves, as well as for the women around them and for the staff who have to deal with the consequences.

Do you feel that this work is effective and why?

The workshop space provides one of the very few safe places in the prison for women to express themselves truthfully and with emotion. The nature of creativity enables women to remember who they are as individuals, not as 'offenders'. And, unsurprisingly, having warm human connection helps raise self-esteem and self-confidence and build trust and openness between the women.

What are some of the personal stories of women you've encountered that stay with you and provide either hope & inspiration or a cautionary tale?

Here are a few things that are firmly in my memory:

A few women who have committed violent crimes will be held in isolation, locked up for 23 hours a day, with the remaining hour spent alone in a high walled courtyard. The isolation can obviously exacerbate feelings, and acts, of rage. So one woman I worked with had been in these conditions for six years, because the prison (with the best will in the world) could find no alternatives. She could only be unlocked if six officers were present and this treatment increased her rage, which in turn 'necessitated' further restrictions of freedom. It was clearly a self-perpetuating cycle. I am not saying that poetry was the answer, but I do know that for the two years we worked together, her levels of self-harm reduced. And as she began to open up about her childhood and teenage years, she began think afresh about herself.

I spent quite a lot of time on Healthcare, connecting with women through locked doors and that is a very strong memory for me. I witnessed a woman being put onto the Healthcare Wing, as she was shaking and crying hard and it was deemed that her mental health was 'deteriorating'. Here was a woman who was responding in a rational way to incarceration. Yet instead of being offered more human connection, she was restrained and forcibly taken by officers to a bare cell and locked in by herself for 23 hours a day. She could be heard throughout the prison screaming 'Is there anybody there?' and 'Can you help me?'. This of course brought up painful feelings for other women and for staff, as well as being devastating for the woman herself. I do not know how I would cope were that to happen to me.

As a safeguard against accusations of sexual abuse, I was taught in training never to get physically close to a woman and never to touch her. There are times, though, when I decide to put my hand on an arm or even hold a woman and because the outcomes have been positive, [ie she has not harmed herself or she has not need heavy medication], I have never been stopped by officers. In fact, there are some officers who will give physical comfort when it is clearly needed.

Lastly, in order to have access to all areas of the prison without an escort, I carried keys as a writer-in-residence. This meant wearing a heavy black belt at all times, with a pouch attached that contained the keys on a thick metal chain. I was worried initially about the difference this would make to the relationships I could make with the women. I did not want to be identified with the authoritarian aspects of the prison and locking up and unlocking women from their cells or Wings was a hard experience for me, especially when they thanked me for locking them up. However, I soon realised that listening and encouraging and respecting them overruled the strangeness of one of us having the power to incarcerate the other. The women were so ready, and eager, to give and receive warmth.

Why did you choose this issue on which to base your TED talk?

I chose to focus my talk on incarcerated women, feminism and the transformational power of poetry, mostly because issues of sexism and male domination are so starkly apparent within the setting of women's prisons. And also because TED talks can advocate individualistic solutions, rather than putting forward a wider political perspective on issues. I wanted to make sure there was some good old Second Wave non-liberal analysis on the day!

I explained how the Criminal Justice System plays a key role in framing and sustaining the oppression of women. It is important to acknowledge this form of social control and view it as an issue for women's liberation for several reasons:

The Criminal Justice System provides a lens through which to view the many ways women are punished for the impact on them of sexism. Working class women, and particularly Black working class women, are disproportionately represented in the system. The Criminal Justice System is wider than imprisonment, but I focus particularly on the incarceration of women as issues of sexism, male domination, racism and classism are so starkly apparent within the setting of women's prisons.

The social conditions that fuel women's routes into prison, such as poverty, isolation, harassment, substance dependency and abuse (along with the emotions and mental health challenges that arise from these conditions) are often intensified by the experience of incarceration. On leaving prison, most women go back to the same conditions as when they entered but with the additional distress of their experience of imprisonment.

Ultimately, the threat of containment and restraint gives ALL women the message 'This is what happens to you if you speak out or act out'.

Community solutions are more effective than incarceration in helping women turn their lives around and in diverting women, and particularly young women, away from criminal activity before they start offending.

You have now worked in the US and the UK women's prison systems. What are the main differences between them?

I write from the perspective of living in England, the 'lock up capital' of Europe, where 45 out of every 100,000 people are in prison. Thanks to a Winston Churchill Travel Fellowship, I have had the opportunity to see first-hand the female System of Corrections in the United States, the carceral nation of the world with 724 per 100,000 of the general population imprisoned, although these statistics may need revising later in 2014.

Sexism is sexism and there is a universality to women's narratives. Once a safe creative space is made, women tell hard stories, eager to share with each other, often for the first time. The stories and poems I heard from incarcerated women in the States were interchangeable in the similarity of their detail and emotion with those of women in England. In both countries I have listened to poignant poems and monologues on themes of domestic violence, sexual abuse, drug and alcohol addiction and involvement in prostitution.

However, there are differences between the US and the UK in the treatment of incarcerated women. In the UK, there is a groundswell of alliances to end the incarceration of women. One example is the Corston Report (PDF), commissioned by the then Labour government in the wake of a series of deaths of women in custody in Styal Prison. The remit of Baroness Corston's investigation was to address the need for 'a distinct, radically different, strategic, proportionate, holistic, woman-centred, integrated approach'.

The report makes a powerful case for diverting women before they get into prison and providing them with support and resources to help them deal with the results of sexism, poverty and racism. It costs £38,000 a year to keep a person in prison in England & Wales. When women are imprisoned, there are the additional costs of ensuring their children's well being and maintaining family life. For a woman to attend a women's community centre for one year costs £1,900 a year per woman. These projects will support her to look at her 'offending behaviour' in the light of the hurts she has experienced as a woman and give her practical support to deal with financial, legal, relationship, addiction and emotional challenges.

One of the first successes of the Corston Report was to stop the regular strip searching of women - 'Regular repetitive unnecessary overuse of strip searching in women's prisons is humiliating, degrading, undignified and a dreadful invasion of privacy. For women who have suffered past abuse, particularly sexual abuse, it is an appalling introduction to prison life and an unwelcome reminder of previous victimisation.' However, strip searching of women prisoners is still common practice in most North American states.

Unlike the United States, there is no regular shackling of women in the UK, nor blanket use of uniform. There are also routine schemes in UK prisons that, although very limited, do go some way to supporting women - eg Storybook Mums, where women write, illustrate and record stories for their children; Toe By Toe, a peer literacy scheme; Listeners, offering emotional peer support; and programmes to support women who have experienced domestic violence or prostitution.

Of course this exploration of issues needs to expand to include experiences in countries other than the UK and the US, including those that have a different perspective on incarceration. For example, Scandinavian countries and some indigenous communities in New Zealand and Australia focus increasingly on the social and economic causes of offending rather than on the punishment of the individual. Prisons are being closed and support provided in the community.

Within prisons there is a real need for gender-appropriate training for staff with a particular emphasis on respecting women, understanding abuse and developing awareness of responses to trauma. Well-supported accommodation is needed on release, to break the cycle of repeat offending and custody and through-the-gate services are key. Women may leave the prison clean of drugs after detoxing inside but they come out onto the streets often unmet by anybody, with £40 that the government gives them and a see-through sack with all the possessions that they brought into the prison. Many will have lost their accommodation and many of them will be over 50 miles away from family and friends. They come out and either want to take drugs immediately or despite their best wishes they go back to their previous 'haunts' and acquaintances. Many are very vulnerable to men's distress. It was not unusual to say goodbye to a women and hear her say 'This is the last time I'm coming to prison'. Within a month, she would be back in my poetry group, feeling like a failure.

I have read and witnessed you speaking very passionately and knowledgeably about this issue. How did you professional history lead you to this point?

I came to Women's Liberation through my job in anti-sexist youth work in the early '70s. Feminism informs the way I see the world, the way I live, but if I'm honest I did become discouraged seeing the gains of the Second Wave dismantled and appropriated. Working in women's prisons has completely brought me back to myself, re-fuelled my passion for a feminist revolution.

And of course there is always a personal story behind the action. Everywhere I go, I go with an awareness of being a Jewish woman and with the strengths (and challenges) that arise from my identity as the daughter of a Holocaust survivor. In my early twenties, I began to understand the role of by-standing in the death of my German grandparents and I decided I would never willingly be a bystander. My prison work is part of that commitment. In prison, I employ useful skills I learned from being my mother's daughter - like, how to stay calm (or appear calm) in the midst of chaos and panic or how to use humour to lighten potentially dangerous situations. Working in prison means coming face to face with all that is wrong in the world and I want to 'fix things', [tikkun olam], with all that is rational about that, as well as all that comes from the urgency and unbearable-ness of seeing suffering up close, stark, stripped bare.

Leah Thorn can be contacted by emailing email@example.com

firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-237051036313736922.post-7004025977781788002014-05-04T12:39:00.000+01:002016-03-08T22:25:13.852+00:00Patriarchy, we need to talk about vulval itching
Inspired by Jeanette Winterson's Guardian article, Can You Stop The Menopause?

I am writing this while pissing Samurai swords. When not pissing swords I'm managing to piss shards of broken mirror, whole arrows complete with tips and ends, crumbled chunks of pebbledash and the occasional streak of razor wire. When not doing that I'm taking as many cranberry tablets as I can fit in my mouth and drinking pints of nettle tea, dandelion tea or cold water with bicarbonate of soda mixed in.

I have cystitis, obviously. Very common, very discomfiting. It occurs, or threatens to, whenever I'm dehydrated. The last serious attack before now was at the end of 2012 when I had a glass of vinegary red wine in a restaurant and went to bed without needing the bathroom. By the next morning my bladder had filled with crunched glass.

The 2012 cystitis attack and the health issues that followed have made me think about the connection between external events and internal manifestations, mental pain causing physical pain, the mirroring of psychology and physiology. It also shone a light on some GPs' apparent ignorance of this connection. I had never got cystitis just from one glass of wine and a missed bathroom visit before, but certain events I experienced had clearly weakened me, worsening my susceptibility to illness, the frequency of illness and the severity of illness. They left behind a trace of vulnerability operating at a very deep level.

I went to the GP to get some antibiotics for the cystitis. She gave me a five day course of something so strong that it gave me thrush. I'd never had thrush before and assumed that the antibiotics hadn't worked and that my cystitis had worsened. I went back to the clinic and was assigned a (very nice) man I'd never seen before.

"I was wondering if it might be thrush?" I said in passing.
"Do you have any discharge 'down there'?" he asked, looking embarrassed.
"No." There was just an extreme discomfort, tenderness, soreness and swelling and a sense of tingling, weeping, sizzling allergy, as though the skin had suddenly become live.
"Then you don't," he said with relief and gave me a further three day course of cystitis antibiotics despite there being "no blood, no proteins," in my urine.

Secret hint to gentleman GPs: if you're calling it "down there" while exuding very strong aversion vibes to actually looking "down there", you may be in the wrong profession. The antibiotics sent the thrush over the edge and led to extreme discomfort and feverishness for six weeks. It was so bad that in the middle of a voiceover recording a colleague said to me in concern, "I can tell that something's not right."

Like so many women facing dismissal of our instincts, derision for our opinions, contempt for our knowledge and aversion for our bodies, I got the correct advice from other women. Discharge doesn't always happen with thrush, which has a range of symptoms. A colleague who'd been hospitalised for long stretches was told privately by her nurse that antibiotics often caused thrush through their brutal destruction of the good bacteria in the gut alongside the bad. She recommended taking probiotics and probiotic yoghurt. Various women's health forums suggested topical and natural remedies – natural yoghurt again, a heavily diluted tea tree oil solution, garlic or swallowed garlic capsules – all of which worked to ease symptoms. Then there's the anti-thrush diet which many women said had permanently cured them. Zero sugar, zero carbs, no booze, no caffeine. Booze and caffeine to be reintroduced in small amounts a couple of months later.

I tried it. It stopped the thrush dead within three hours.

How can GPs not know about these simple, natural solutions? I'm not talking about flower remedies, homeopathic pills, exotic herb concoctions or casting spells at the full moon, just basic changes to diet and the topical application of ingredients with known antifungal and antibacterial properties. How can GPs not know the full range of symptoms of something as common as thrush? How can they be so cavalier about prescribing antiobitics which have such a strong effect?

The next time I went to the doctors was for a routine smear test and met lovely Dr Newman.

"They really need to redesign these things," I commented dryly, in so many ways, when it was all going on with the duck (my term for a speculum).
"And it'll be a woman that does it, I'll tell you that," she said.

Love a flash of feminism in a medical professional. I told her about the thrush and instead of throwing pills at me she told me not to take antibiotics as it would just make me resistant and instead to drink as much water as possible to flush it out. Although she did make a little racial error when recommending a follow-up health check to my mother. My mother was about to go to India and suggested that Dr Newman give her a letter to take to a doctor there.
"It does need to be someone who speaks English," said Dr Newman.

Dr Newman, some tiny tips. India's doctors all speak fluent English and usually at least two other languages besides; India's medical expertise is so great that Indian doctors and surgeons are employed globally and are indeed famous for their skill; and India's best hospitals and specialist research units are world class. You seem to be under the impression that we are about to go to a village health station under a palm thatch in the middle of nowhere to talk to a shaman holding a feather and a rusty shaving blade. We are not.

Incidentally the worst/best place I was ever recognised was in the middle of a smear test, by yet another doctor at my local health centre where morale is obviously so low that they change their entire workforce about twice a week.
"Haven't I seen you on TV?" said the woman.
*Insert duck.*
*Open duck*
"Yup. Maybe," I stiffly conceded.

Anyway, I sorted it out. But in the long run I've found it disturbing that my usually equine constitution has become so sensitised. The thrush flared up again last Christmas after a few mince pies too many. This was exceptional: I don't usually eat sugar or major carbs but certainly never worried when faced with the odd plate of pasta, a dessert or a cup of coffee.

I am struck by the years of crumbling physical damage caused to me by an injury that was emotional and psychological: the thinning hair (which I write about, with handy remedies, here); the nagging stress acne which never quite goes; the way a simple cold now becomes five days of bed-ridden temperature; the loss of muscle mass; the terrible triggering, which I describe here. I am literally weaker than I was before, unable to run as far, lift as much, build as much bulk or work out as intensely as I used to.

Before, I had never understood people who claimed that non-physical issues like unemployment, over-work, being in the wrong job or experiencing a family dispute had 'destroyed their health'. I thought the phrase was melodramatic, Western-privileged and narcissistic; people worldwide who survive natural disasters, famine, pandemics and wars do not go on about it ruining their health. They don't have the luxury.

Having survived the last five years, I see now how it is possible. Instead of following GPs' concentration on treating symptoms rather than causes, we must embrace an idea of total health, which does not make a stark distinction between the soul and the body and accepts that one affects the other. Emotional pain becomes physical pain while emotional strength boosts physical strength. Happiness, caused by social factors, supports numerous health factors.

I didn't make the connection between the events and the effects until I went to get a verruca sorted out at the chiropodist.
"I got it from a shared hotel bathroom in New York. You see. Never travel cheap," I said. I nodded down at my toe. "There's loads of them. It's like a mushroom forest."
"It's to do with your immune, you know," said the woman.

That explained it in a flash. The colds, the hives, the zits, the thrush, the fatigue, the muscle turning to flab, the feeling of being dogged by weakness and ill health. It is sad that events from five years ago should have such deep effects as to disrupt and sicken the very fibres of my being so that bacteria, infection, disease and germs can drag me down. I feel defiled by what happened and this feeling is vindicated at an observable, cellular level.

When I think about what happened one image comes to mind: that of being struck at the core with an iron bar, straight through with one strike, of a strong and elegant column being broken into pieces by a stranger who came out of nowhere. And then being torn open, gutted, eviscerated, thrown away and left to die.

You cannot put a shattered column back together. You must accept its destruction, accept your own annihilation and the success of the destroyer. You must walk away from the debris and start again. It is sad that the rebuilding process is not just professional, not just emotional, not just social but must also be physical and carried out in the most gratingly basic way. And it bothers me that a person is able to do this to other human beings and thrive in success, social regard and happiness while his victims are demolished publicly, privately, psychologically and physically.

Further reading:

Emotional violence and social power (trigger warning)

Triggered: on trauma, survival and perpetrator impunity

From despair to hair: the hidden link between emotional abuse and home haircare remedies

On despair

firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-237051036313736922.post-88870257281896560882014-04-09T16:06:00.000+01:002014-08-12T20:09:17.673+01:00"Never forgive. Never forget." 80+ homespun mottos for a wholesome existence.
Lucrezia Borgia meets Mother Teresa? Gandhi meets Machiavelli? A Chinese restaurant fortune cookie automated fortune printing machine meets the Ten Commandments? Here are my guides to life, inspired by Regina Brett, Oprah and Harper's Bazaar magazine's Words of Wisdom page.

Listen to what your body's telling you. It'll save your life.

Judge people by what they do, not what they say.

Natural justice always prevails in the end. It takes a long time but it's evisceratingly, disembowellingly thorough. Don't bother with revenge if anyone's deliberately hurt you. Never forgive. Never forget. Mentally, take out a contract on their life. Then forget about it. Concentrate on healing and being happy. When the karma happens, you'll know. It will be permanent. It will be annihilating. And yea verily, you will be satisfied.

Never judge by appearances. You can't tell a single thing about a person's character, background, mood, values, opinions or history from their appearance. Not a thing.

If it feels good, in a calm and happy and at-peace way, it is good.

If it feels bad, or intense, or charged, or extreme, or agonising, or ambiguous, or so exhilarating that you're on the brink of total insanity, that's because it's wrong.

Be friendly to everyone once. How they react after that will give you the measure of them.

Do what you love. You don't have to turn it into your main career, but keep it in your life whatever else happens. Try to get a career which is roughly in the same area as what you love: either a different job in the same industry, or a different industry but using the same skills, or a different role with the same outlook, or something totally contrasting but attracting the same general type of person. Then, one side of your life with stimulate and inspire the other.

Never lie, never play games, never pretend, never deceive. Deception tears something fundamental in the fabric of the universe.

Being picky about food as a grown-up is a sign of ego, not healthiness.

Never knock the pleasures of a regular pay cheque.

If your life's reached an impasse, learn something new and substantial. I mean like mastering a new language or getting a motorcycle licence. Not learning fantasy 1950s housewife cupcake crafting skills.

You will never regret doing a job that makes things better for people in general rather than making money for your bosses.

Don't be a martyr. Remember that 90% of all charity volunteers are women of all colours and backgrounds working themselves to the bone for free and 90% of all charity bosses are white men paying themselves a businessman's salary. Labour should be paid. Don't act like some drivelling female masochist and say it's fine. There's doing good, then there's good old fashioned sexist labour exploitation.

If you can, save half of everything you earn. Divide these savings into three. One third is for long term life savings. One third is for paying tax if you're self-employed. The other third is a travel treat fund for you to see the world in style and comfort.

Everything in life is dominated by vested interests so maintain a healthy scepticism about your bosses, authorities, heads, management and other ruler types. Be polite whenever they address you, but don't believe anything they say.

The corporation's always bigger than the individual. If you try to take on a corporation by yourself, it'll crush you. Even if you win a moral victory at a tribunal stage, you will lose your career. Line up a Plan B that doesn't feel like a consolation prize, then try to change the system to make things better for everyone else.

Exercise a little bit every day, doing something you enjoy. It feels great and you'll sleep really well.

Support groups are very nice but directly exposing, fighting and challenging inequality are fantastic.

Your pet cat is nowhere near as interesting as you think. I don't care what it did/ate/caught/sicked up today. The shifty way it slinks about makes my skin crawl.

Don't surf the Net, it'll dissolve your brain. Log on twice a day, at noon and four, for half an hour each time, to check your emails, look up specific things and go over the headlines of whatever newspaper you prefer to read. If you need to be email-responsive for work, set up your iPad or iPhone in a far corner of your study or your desk and glance at it once an hour.

Graphic novels are not the Messiah.

If there's a story you're burning to write or any other creative project you're desperate to pursue, do it. In the evenings. Don't give up your day job to do it.

Don't self-publish your junk or put your crap iPhone film on the free Net for everyone (ie. no-one) to see. That's for losers, freaks and desperados and the people who've made it that way are a tiny proportion of all the ones that tried. If you want to be a book writer with a longstanding career you need a proper agent, a proper publisher/crew/distributor, proper deals and proper marketing.

You can use Amazon. You can complain about Amazon. But you can't do both.

Just surviving long term in the arts, culture or media is an achievement in itself.

It's great to be freelance but it's also good to be in part-time regular professional alliance with major institutions whether they be companies, universities or the BBC. So if you can get yourself a regular gig, do so.

In work and life and love and creativity, don't be influenced by passing trends or swayed by what other people are doing. By the time you've worked up a passable imitation the moment will have passed.

Don't talk about yourself all the time. It's not interesting. Ask other people about themselves.

Trust the universe generally. But more specifically, especially if you work in my field: don't trust anyone.

It's not gossip. It's passing on important news.

It's hard to be instinctive or predictive about situations, but trust your instincts about people you're dealing with in the medium term. If something strikes you as odd, it's because it is. Listen to alarm bells and heed your red flags.

Don't give attitude to B because you're upset about A. If you're upset about A, do what any decent normal person does and cry in the toilet. You'll feel better.

Don't flirtybanter with people whose job is to serve you in shops, restaurants or bars. At best it's tacky, objectifying, patronising, arrogant and exploitative. At worst it's sexual harassment. And it's something they have to put up with all day, every day, in addition to their work duties.

Don't sext or go back and forth on the text with people you're 'dating.' It's not sexy. It's cheap, it's tacky and if they're doing it with you they're doing it with a dozen others. Show a little bit of class and self-respect if you can.

Bullies aren't cowards, they're deliberate, simultaneous and serial abusers who are brave, confident, entitled, experienced and have massive egos. Don't turn yourself inside out trying to explain away or come to terms with the actions of bad people you've encountered. They're just arseholes.

Accept that in every year you'll waste £1,000 on something or other, usually a non-refundable booking, a lost deposit or a big-ticket item you're not allowed to return. I call it my Annual Idiot Tax.

If you think you're being paid less than your peers, ask them straight-up what they earn. It's very hard to not answer a direct question. Even if they don't really want to tell you, they will. You'll lose friends but you'll gain the bitter knowledge that you're being paid less than everyone else because you have a filthy taint in your pants. Call it the Woman Tax.

Never argue back and forth with chippy strangers on the street, in shops, in queues or in businesses. It's a waste of time. Take the high and humorous road instead, it's a truly snooty mindgame that'll leave you feeling fantastic.

When sexually harassed, always look delighted, immediately go right up close to the perpetrator, invade their personal space, put your arm around them, stroke their face and engage them in bright and intimate conversation at the very top of your voice, asking them if they want to be your friend, where do they live, what's their name, where they work, how old they are and any question you can think of. Draw in anyone else who may be nearby. Then tell them all about yourself, your hobbies and your family. Invite yourself to Sunday lunch at theirs, perhaps. It's always hilarious when you finally break it to them: "You know why I'm talking to you so much? It's so that when I call the police I can give them a really, really good description of you. And I now have your DNA on me, from where I patted you on the head, so I can give them that too, and they can keep it on record. Although I have to say, you see up there? You've been standing in front of a CCTV camera all this time and I'm sure it's got a lock on you by now. And now if it's all right I'm going to take a photograph of you because you're so lovely and friendly and I'm going to remember you for a long time and show it to the police and put it up on the Internet." Turns out they never wanted to be friends in the first place, at all!

When I gave up make-up and alcohol I suddenly noticeably had a load more money in my wallet to be spent on food and travel and fashion magazine subscriptions. Just saying.

Skincare products give you acne. Acne treatments give you acne. Face flannels and exfoliating brushes give you acne. I had total red onion, chilli beef and pepperoni pizza sore purple acne all over my face and got rid of it by splashing it twice a day with warm water and taking a good multivitamin. No scrubbing with the towel either. It calmed down within a month and I had glowing, perfect, balanced skin within two months.

Once you start wearing designer clothes you'll never go back.

Rich people, of either sex, never have cheap shoes or cheap luggage, ever.

If you're going to whistle-blow, tell the hidden truth about something or expose a network, be ready to leave it permanently and say goodbye to that phase of your life or career and everyone in it. Even if people agree with you privately, they're not going to stand up and take the bullet with you.

Even so, never protect wrongdoers. The silence of witnesses actively supports perpetrators and enables abuse. When someone breaks the silence, eventually all the toxic matter comes out. Always out the abusers you know.

If you notice something as a passer-by in daily life that strikes you as unjust or unequal, always make a complaint, write about it or flag it up in some way. At the bottom of the complaint, write, "I am going to publicise this even in the case of non-response." You'll feel better, and eventually complaints do add up and shift things.

Never do anything when you're angry. Don't confront anyone, don't fire off an email.

That said, if you're not the panicking type, sometimes when you're angry, you say exactly the right thing.

If you can't decide what to do about something, go for a long walk and the answer'll come to you.

If someone at work says something a bit insulting or 'off' and you immediately want to answer back, instead say and do nothing. Absolutely nothing. Just look at them gently. Perhaps raise an eyebrow. Merely wait. The situation will magically reverse itself in your favour. Then, if you can, gather your things and leave in silence. This will become a cherished memory.

Don't grovel, apologise for yourself, downplay your work or behave submissively, it's nauseating.

Don't be a man-worshipper or -enabler, it's pathetic. It's toxic. And it's not mutual.

If any girlfriend tells you they suffered abuse, believe them. Survivors don't lie. In fact they usually downplay what happened.

After your two years of work experience, shadowing, body-of-work building or interning, don't do routine everyday or regular work for free. If you do, you're telling the world you think you're worthless. Sometimes however, unpaid one-off appearances at public events are worthwhile. Be strategic in choosing which ones.

Study what fascinates and challenges you, not the subject you're easily good at.

Be friendly, it makes life interesting and joyful.

Bad people are brilliant actors and fantastic liars. But they always drop hints about themselves. If something strikes you as odd, ask a direct question.

Never get involved in interpersonal bickering, petty politics or in-fighting. Especially not online. It's a waste of time.

Don't mess people around by making appointments and then cancelling or continually changing them. Not at work. Not in your personal life. It'll mark you out as a skeevy, unreliable two-face.

Don't go on about how stressed or how busy you are. You're not.

Carbs, sugar and caffeine give you thrush. Antibiotics also give you thrush. Alcohol, sugar and caffeine give you cystitis. And then there are those times when it's clearly God's punishment for having sex.

Cranberry tablets, gallons of water and nettle, lemon and ginger, dandelion or fennel tea are all miracle cures for cystitis. At the same time, a standard brand painkiller takes the edge off while you sort it out.

One and a half glasses of rosé. Or two glasses of champagne. Or one Martini. All with food. That's enough for a lovely buzz and not so much that you'll end up with your head down a toilet, your stomach in your mouth, your lipstick on your chin and a little bit of squirted out pee on your skirt.

If you're hosting a party and you want to take it to another level just go around with a tray of tequila shots, salt and cut limes.

When you learn a new language you wake up your brain, unlock a new part of the world and discover a new culture, history, landscape and an entire population of potential friends.

Enjoy, learn, grow, earn, survive and be practical, but forget about bogus concepts like career and success. Life isn't a game that you can win. Nobody's following or cares about your individual career trajectory, which is an illusion.

Power relationships are obvious. Look at who's doing the drudge work and who's having long lunches and casual meetings, who looks tired and who looks breezy, who's being paid more and who's being paid less, who's taking the credit, who has room to manoeuvre, who gets the perks and who doesn't, who's being promoted and who isn't. It'll all be clear as day, right in front of your face. Analyse any situation by interpreting what you witness.

Celibacy feels completely and utterly fantastic.

Romance, sexuality and sexual love are not that important or interesting. Friendships, colleagues, artistic collaboration and parental love are richer.

Do what you enjoy, pay attention to what's around you and relax in the moment.

You can become friends with colleagues but you can't become colleagues with your friends.

Give money if you want. But never lend money. You won't get it back. Asking for it back'll leave a bad taste in your mouth, perversely.

You're never going to be rich and famous. 0.00000001% of people on the planet are rich and famous. They may not be nice. They may not be good. They may well not be happy. So don't torment yourself about 'making it' in your industry.

Liars and cheats don't change. They're nasty people of bad character. Everything they say is a lie, everything they do is part of a game.

Know that your sin will find you out. Luckily that goes for everyone else too.

Change with the times. You can't live at 35 as you did at 25. There comes a point when you have to stop hanging out, shape up and get your life together, whatever that means for you. For some people it's settling down, for others it's travelling the world, commencing the big project, getting the PhD or making a career change. But you have to change because nobody wants to be the oldest swinger in town.

There are those people who, like me, don't particularly want children or mind the prospect of never having children. Then there are those people who are absolutely hotly 100% adamant that they will not have children and who actually hate and, weirdly, fear children. These people had miserable childhoods, hate and feel anger towards their parents and are terrified of replicating their own history. Don't let them put you off if you're undecided.

Agonising relationship drama is a sign of toxicity, not passion, whatever the relationship.

Marriage is a nasty trap and the nuclear family was the world's shortest lived social experiment.

Don't splurge out huge amounts of career or general life information to people you've just met. It's cheap and unwittingly backfiringly revealing, and you don't know what they're going to do with the info you just gabbled out of your mouth in a desperate bid to please.

It's true that your real friends reveal themselves in a crisis and fair-weather friends disappear. But fair-weather friends are great to take to parties. Think of them as party pals. Not everyone has to be gathered around your bedside when you discover you're dying of herpes or whatever.

Self-hatred is a boring, destructive, curiously narcissistic waste of time. Do something for or with others instead of constantly thinking about yourself.

Home is the place you heal, replenish, create and feel completely safe, completely yourself, joyful, permanent and replete with promise. Even if you never had that or don't have it now, you can create it.

firstname.lastname@example.com