Check your privilege

Recently the very awesome Shelagh McKinlay introduced me to the concept of ‘checking your privilege’.

It’s been rattling around in my brain for the past wee while, and I like idea increasingly as time wears on. 

It’s like a less fun version of the playing a game as a straight white male is the easy option analysis which I have mentioned before.

However, less fun may also equal more practical and inclusive.

So, at the risk of being entirely subjective but without suggesting this list will be comprehensive in any way shape or form, or that the order of factors means anything (at this stage), or that in and of themselves these characteristics hold merit or not, I would like to start a collection of characteristics for which you should ‘check your privilege’. If any one of these things applies to you, then when thinking about the impact of your words, deeds or opinions, stop for a moment to consider walking in the shoes of a person without that privilege. The more of the characteristics you can apply to yourself, the more you should be considering others without those privileges before you offer your thoughts, opinions, actions, to the world. In my opinion. 

I’d be interested in comments, additions etc.

Check Your Privilege

White

Male

Straight

University educated

Finished high school

Employed on a permanent, full time contract

In a (loving, nurturing, caring) relationship

Able-bodied

Mentally healthy

A home owner

On the electoral roll

Solvent

Attractive

Good family relationships

A licensed driver

A passport holder

Have experienced travel abroad

Physically healthy

Part of a network of friends

Access to the internet

Own a mobile phone

Own a television

Own a laptop or tablet device

Have taken a holiday away from home in the past 12 months

Happy Birthday Prozac!

In recognition of the 25th anniversary of Prozac the media have been engaging in their customary ‘analysis’ of medication for depression.

Browsing the BBC website (as you do), I clicked through to this article, hopeful that 25 years on the state media provider would offer a pleasantly less than critical appraisal of a drug that has treated millions of unwell people.

Ha! More fool me.

So then when I saw an early evening tweet from Scotland Tonight asking for experiences on Prozac, I decided to bear witness, and let them know that my experience has been wholly positive and that Fluoxetine is a drug which corrects a chemical imbalance in my brain and enables me to function in a way that was impossibly difficult without the drug. (It’s not easy now, but it is undoubtedly less difficult).

They didn’t acknowledge my tweet, so I tweeted a couple more responses, variations on a theme. And then they did read out the first tweet on the programme. But it started me thinking, and weighing up the coverage.

And, medicating for depression is still seemingly unacceptable. According to mainstream media, and the internet (if you don’t look hard enough). I have lost count of the interviews, reportage, websites, blogs, whatever, that I have read that claim that ‘talking therapy’ is the best solution, and even if drugs do work, folk should still be talking. Talking talking talking.

But what about being listened to? Which brings me back to my tweet to Scotland Tonight. I thought about their non-acknowledgement and asked them (again via twitter) how they felt about asking vulnerable people to share experiences via a public forum and then not even acknowledging the testimony. They didn’t respond to that. Now I know this is stretching a point, but don’t request information from people who admit they are struggling with (amongst other things) self confidence, and not give them the appreciation they will be subconciously asking for by providing that testimony.

And… maybe talking isn’t always the answer. In fact one of the major symptoms of my depression is avoiding conversation, and certainly talking to a stranger about my feelings was not something I was even half prepared to think about, for fear of a complete collapse. So I took Prozac for two years before I was even slightly ready to consider talking about my mental health. And then it was essential that I was taking the drug whilst I underwent the CBT. And then there was no way I was going to survive without CBT if I wasn’t taking Prozac.

Which all goes to say – This is a drug which stabilises me. It isn’t something I ‘use’ for fun, or as an alternative to thinking cognitively about my behaviour. It’s the first time in my life that I’ve felt stable. Not normal. Normal is not something I aspire to, I just want to be able to function in society – to be able to engage in small talk, to have self-confidence and to leave the house of a morning. I wish I had found it years ago, decades ago frankly, and then I wouldn’t have lost so many friends or missed out on so many experiences because I was too anxious to leave the house and interact with the world.

So, I have a request. I know some people don’t find that Prozac suits them, and that some people’s experience is worse than awful, and that there have been suicides linked to Prozac. BUT, for some people it is a life saver, a hugely positive alternative to a life of unexplained sadness and anxiety. And I worry that it is hard to find those positive stories, and that the media skew their reporting against what is, at the end of the day, a massively succesful treatment. There are caveats, as there are with all medications, but I just wish I could see or read one story that accurately reflected my experience.

Oh and, please don’t employ the pejorative ‘use’ in relation to Prozac. No-one ‘uses’ chemotherapy or drugs to relive the symptoms of alzheimers. They take a medication to relieve their condition. And so do I.

Thoughts on the welfare state

What I think the welfare state exists to do: At its most basic, the welfare system is a safety net. It is meant to provide financially for those who find themselves in need of financial assistance. Additionally, it ensures equal access to essential services – the most obvious of which is healthcare. In providing financial support for parents, it recognises that bringing up children is expensive, and in making that support widely available, it avoids stigmatising the poor. (As an aside, this is a major reason for supporting universal benefits like free prescriptions – it is acknowledged that restricting access to services to only those who are poor enough to qualify dissuades many of those who need the support most from accessing it. Free school dinners are the best example – where the children most in need did not take up the opportunity because they were bullied and singled out by their peers.)

On another level, the welfare state brings about equality. Or at least it used to, and in my view ought to. Being able to buy better healthcare, improved pension provision and elite education is not new, but reducing the level of state provision to the extent that people are forced to supplement privately is, I think, not how the system should work.

We are told that benefits available through the welfare state must be restricted because of the expense. And then that perhaps more than two children per family should not be financially supported, or perhaps we should only be able to claim benefits proportionate to our contributions.

Frankly I don’t see the welfare system as being responsible for deciding how people spend the money they are allocated. That’s akin to the old system of donating a percentage of your income to the church, and being penalised if you didn’t.

But that’s a matter of principle, not of practicality. Practically, one could restrict what welfare benefits are spent on. Indeed some areas already try to do so by issuing vouchers rather than cash. Which is incredibly patronising and restricts people from exercising the freedom to choose which brand of milk they buy and where, and is essentially control freakery to the nth degree.

So here’s some ideas and suggestions I have – politicians can steal them if they wish to, I don’t mind.

1. If you start to restrict benefits based on contributions you are essentially creating two classes of welfare recipients – those who have had the opportunity to be paid an amount that has resulted in decent contributions, and those who have not. Have nots I am thinking would include the young, women, immigrants, under-educated people, and people with disabilities. Haves would of course mostly be white, middle and upper class men. Don’t go down this road.
2. A living wage would solve many of these problems. Work would, as is so beloved of the politicians, ‘pay’. And, contributions would increase as wages increased, thus ensuring there was more money in the system.
3. Job Seeking needs to be reformed for the 21^st century. There aren’t enough jobs to go around, so it can’t be assumed that everyone who isn’t working is lazy and feckless. Equally, helping people into work does not mean checking that they have accessed more than a set number of websites a week. It’s about confidence building, skills development, networking, and broadening interests. From the outset. This for me is a fundamental reform that would change the character of job seeking and would mean that the unemployed were still given chances to improve their situation whilst unemployed, rather than just applying for endless dead end jobs with 1000s of applicants for every vacancy.
4. Volunteering is a good, and necessary part of the world of work. Many charities and not for profits rely on volunteers. And voluntary work should be beneficial to the worker as well, through skills development and experience gained. But voluntary work needs to be reclassified. Firstly, it isn’t just practical, care giving work (although of course that is a vital aspect of voluntary work). It is also intellectual, desk based contributions. Secondly, it isn’t always work that would go undone if the volunteer were not there. Sometimes it’s freeing up paid staff and providing interesting and valuable experience for the volunteer (rather than say stuffing envelopes or filing). Thirdly, and most importantly, it is work. Important, valuable, necessary work that should be seen to be just as important as paid work. And therefore, supported where appropriate by the state. There should be a minimum wage for volunteers, accessed by the employer, provided by the state, where the employer meets certain standards of income vs expenditure, work planned and provision of training and support for their voluntary staff. Is this subsidising charities? Quite probably, but in doing so it is also providing experience and training, and in the current environment I think it could be beneficial to both overworked non-profits and unemployed people.

I’m not going to go over the arguments about higher tax rates for six figure salaries, or banker’s bonuses, or tax avoidance. If you haven’t figured it out yet, I support high taxes, think bonuses are unnecessary, especially when your salary is already stupidly high, and when you get them whether you do a good job or not, and I think the law should be tightened to mean tax avoidance is impossible.

Oh, and what the welfare state isn’t: It isn’t responsible for the behaviour of sociopathic controling individuals. Being in receipt of benefits is no more an indicator of behaviour and character than being wealthy. 

And what it shouldn’t be: It shouldn’t be a means of distinguishing between ‘them’ and ‘us’. We are all who we are, and we are all just trying to make this trip around the sun. 

#indyref

I spent a really interesting and intellectually stimulating day today discussing the draft legislation for the Scottish independence referendum. Quite what I had done to deserve my place around a table of expert academics I am unsure, but oddly my lack of specialism (if you will) made me feel more at ease to engage and interact with the discussion. 

This was doubtless also partly because two of the esteemed academics made a point of greeting me by name and enquiring as to my wellbeing. They didn’t have to do that, but it was really nice and polite of them to do so. 

And the rest of the day was equally good natured. There were often moments of laughter, and a general sense of a willingness to listen to analysis and ideas and to consider the thoughts and experiences of others around the table. Which I am sure also helped me feel relaxed enough to participate myself.

A large part of our conversation was about how to ensure the referendum is truly an act of general participation – a deliberative referendum. And we considered the state we are in – where much of the referendum has already been decided behind closed doors, including the question and the franchise. So what do citizens actually have left to influence? 

But we ended on a hopeful note – that what Yes means and what No means are still actually very much up for debate. IF the campaigns and political parties will listen.

And this is my concluding thought: We spent 6 hours having a considered, thoughtful conversation about how to ensure this is a fair and decisive referendum, with a result that citizens have confidence in. We may not have come to a consensus, but it was a useful, good-tempered, informed and informative discussion, which improved my understanding.

And such discussion seems to be wholly unavailable to the general public. Instead the opposing sides sling insults at each other, try and shout their version of the facts louder, and generally assume we will somehow trust them with our future. Meanwhile the media twist the words of commentators and make useful contributors uneasy and unwilling to put their heads above the parapet.

Frankly, I’d be much more inclined to trust the people round the table today with Scotland’s future. They showed each other respect and courtesy and considered the arguments presented to them with careful thought. Something I don’t think anyone would suggest our politicians or media are prone to doing. Which is a shame, because they might learn something, and they would definitely be less distasteful to the general public. And then the public might start to trust politicians again. 

Until then… “we are where we are”

Scunnered

Depression is a funny thing. It changes your behaviour in ways that you don’t necessarily put together, and then one thing can just discombobulate you completely. 

For me the key indicator is napping. I love to nap, but when I want to use sleep as a means of avoiding thinking or doing anything, it’s a sign I’m struggling.

Of course just to screw with me, during the night I have these incredible anxiety dreams. I’ll be in a position where I am really anxious to fix something, or get somewhere or find something, and just not be able to. It’s exhausting and I wake up tired and worried. They can get quite cinematic. I’ve been in a hostel trying to find something, in a stately home cleaning a piano (I only cleaned the piano, I was meant to clean the whole house). Last night was much less interesting – my glasses kept falling off my face and the lenses had shrunk / frames grown so I couldn’t see properly even when I kept them on. 

Anyway, I’m fragile. So discovering a company I ordered a journal from had accidentally charged me for someone elses (very expensive) subscription as well as my (very cheap) one has really thrown me. In a way I’m relieved. It explains why my bank told me I didn’t have sufficient funds to withdraw money from the hole in the wall. And I’ve spent the last two days wracking my brain to work out why that should be when it looked as if I had more than enough money available. And I called the company and they’re sorting it out as a matter of urgency. 

But it’s now 30 minutes since I made the phone call and I’m still shaking. I just want to go back to bed. To hide in the comfort of sleep and not hear the worries jostling for space in my head. 

But I won’t. I’ll persevere. But it’s this debilitation, this ease with which an okay day becomes a trial, it just wears me down. And I just wish I could have a badge, or an emoticon, or some way of letting people know that what feels to them like normal is an herculean task for me.

A twibbon that explains: It took all my energy to get out of bed, so even the smallest of things feels like climbing Mount Everest. I’ll get there, and you probably won’t notice how much it took out of me, but it is such an effort. And sometimes, the tiniest puff of wind can push me all the way back down the hill. And then, I’m scunnered. Because I already used all my energy just getting up…

 

Dear ConDems…

So here we are, the day after April Fool’s Day, and it looks as if we have all been fooled. Because the reaction from the ConDem Government to all the protests and marches and petitions and column inches over the bank holiday weekend is… “You’re talking rubbish.”

Which is where / when I just start to despair. Because if protest is met by ‘oh that’s just stupid’, then we aren’t going to get very far. Even when I was questioned from the most ridiculous of positions whilst working in the environment sector, I respected the questioner and responded with information for as long as I could bear to reply to a position that never altered, no matter what arguments I offered.

But I never, ever, ever claimed the people who disagreed with me were talking rubbish, or were lying. And I behaved that way for political reasons, but also because it was polite and reasonable and equitable and respectful of the opinions of others.

And then I had a boss who decided just to dismiss people who disagreed with us. Which made my life easier (in that small respect), but didn’t help me hone my arguments, or ensure that I was absolutely as informed as I could be about current opposition.

So I guess what I’m saying is… This government at Westminster, today, of all the days they have screwed up, today they lost me completely and made me veer towards outright revolution. Because to not even acknowledge and debate with your critics is a sign that there is no substance in your argument. And to resort to insults is tantamount to bullying.

Dear Coalition Government,

You do not represent me. You do not make any effort to engage with me, or people like me, or groups who I agree with. You are no longer valid in my eyes. I shun you. I refuse to recognise your authority.

Yours sincerely

Juliet Swann

£53 a week isn’t the challenge

I don’t disagree with the petition calling on Iain Duncan Smith to stand by his words and live on £53 a week. I have general problems with online petitions, but this is not the blog post where I talk about that.

My problem is this. No-one should have to live on £53 a week. Not even IDS. I understand we are trying to make him appreciate the implications of his actions, but it won’t work.

Because no matter how it happens his experience would start from an advanced position – like a handicap in golf. He would always be ahead of the folk who actually have to try and live on £53 a week. And even if he was living in a housing estate in Sheffield (or elsewhere), it wouldn’t be the same. Because the problem isn’t with folk being suddenly thrown onto benefits, it’s with the complete inequality in the system. I should know. My partner is currently on JSA. We’re fine, and we will always be fine. For a number of reasons which aren’t important but which others don’t have at their disposal.

So yeah, go ahead, petition IDS to live on £53 a week. But the tens of thousands of people who have signed up, I ask you three additional things:

1. Let political parties know you would pay more tax to have the system work. (And yes, I know a bunch of wealthy folk should pay more tax, but so should most of us, and the thinking that most of us don’t want to is what has got us into this mess).

2. Vote.

3. Start questioning the economic ‘understanding’. It is wrong.

The challenge isn’t to IDS, it’s to all of us. And it isn’t a challenge to sign an online petition. Or to march against austerity. It’s to use our voice, through the ballot box, but also by speaking out, by offering alternative interpretations than the neoliberal press offer, and by joining up arguments. Because it also isn’t about one benefit, or about the bedroom tax, or about pensions. It’s about an ideological dismantling of a social good. And if we don’t start fighting back, by actually stating out loud, continually that this is the case, we will lose the battle. And by fighting back, I mean fighting against ALL political parties. None of them are challenging the status quo. None are presenting a genuine alternative model. Even the pro-Indy parties in Scotland pretty much tout the same model, just in a smaller state.

And until that happens I won’t be signing any online petitions. Because I don’t want some tinkering at the edges change. I don’t want a TV programme about IDS living on benefits. I want a revolution.

Feminism isn’t failing… the gains are being kept from us

This article in the Guardian reporting the findings of an IPPR report has been bouncing around my brain all day.

My first reaction was that it wasn’t news – of course women with less of other advantages than other women will have seen fewer advantages from improvements in gender equality. That is something that has best been captured in this awesome, and now well known metaphor from author John Scalzi: Straight White Male: The Lowest Difficulty Setting There Is.

But the central premise niggled at me – the idea that this continued under-representation and greater levels of inequality amongst working class women is a failure of feminism itself.

Feminism has tripped itself up at certain stages in the fight for equality, and continues to do so. But as a movement summarised in a single word it is not responsible for the ridiculous levels of inequality between working class women and men any more than it is responsible for levels of inequality between working class women and middle class women, or disabled women and able-bodied women, or gay women and straight women.

Those continued expressions of ‘difference’ in how society treats individuals and by extrapolation groups of similar individuals is an entrenched failing of humanity, not of feminism.

Feminism works to try and address gender inequality. And on its best days it does that across sections of society. It has bad days, just like we all do, and is no weaker for it, indeed in some respects it may be stronger for recognising when it has failed women.

But the reason why working class women and middle class women are more unequal than their male counterparts is because of the inequality between men and women, and between classes, and that is a symptom of a relentlessly capitalist patriarchy that values production and money ahead of family and caring (regardless of which sex is doing the production or the caring).

Femisim hasn’t failed women. Society fails anyone who doesn’t fit into the neat box that is easiest to manage, control and profit from. It’s why Native Americans & Canadians are still under-represented in North America. It’s why Aboriginal People in Australia and New Zealand still fight for equal treatment. It’s why gay men and women don’t have the same rights as their straight neighbours.

And, for all that I support positive discrimination and will stand and fight for legislation that entrenches the rights of all people to be equal, it’s a culture change that is needed before we will be able to genuinely achieve equality. And that culture change is, I fear, a long long long way off. And that’s not feminism’s fault either. Infact feminism, just like LGBT campaigners, and Rosa Parks, and Martin Luther King, have probably each omitted a ‘long’ from how far off it is. Unfortunately the people playing the game on easy are more interested in downloading the cheats than they are in ensuring that they aren’t the only ones with the easy option.

I vote for fallibility

I’m currently reading ‘A Life Too Short’ – a biography of the German goalkeeper Robert Enke. After a lifetime fighting depression, despite his success and the love and support from his wife and friends, he threw himself under a train at 32.

And a few days ago I finished reading ‘The Dinner’ by Herman Koch which details the dismantling of two families over the course of a meal, but is actually about how they have treated each other and their children in the years before this moment.

What they have in common, in my view, is a recognition and reporting of how fragile we are, and yet how all the time we are expected to be if not perfect, then at least normal, in the eyes of the world.

But who is the judge of that? And why do we continue to allow this measurement to persist when it destroys some of our best and brightest?

“Being professional means supressing emotions, carrying on.”  - Is a reflection from A Life Too Short.

I think we lose some of our most talented individuals, in every field, because we expect no weaknesses. Weakness to me equals acknowledgement of others weak spots, equals empathy, understanding, comradeship.

And dismissing difficulties only brings more trauma. Appearances are not everything, at either end of the spectrum. I vote for embracing fallibility.

Leaving a long-term relationship

So I was reading some stuff for work today, and it referred me back to a survey that was published over a year ago. And it’s all kind of depressing, in the context of Scotland being in the midst of an unfinished debate about whether we want to be an independent country or not.

Because what frustrates me is the degrees of separation. We are where we are, and by all accounts most Scots aren’t 100% satisfied with where we are, so they would like a bit more power to be located at Holyrood.

But then if you talk to local decision makers, they’ll tell you Holyrood is veering towards centralisation and what we need to reinvigorate democracy and engagement is more local decision making. And to be fair, we are one of the most centralised nations on earth.

But then, only a third of Scots definitely want independence. So basically, 66% of us are waiting to be persuaded.

But persuaded of what? And this is the crux of the current debate. That no-one will quantify what the future holds. And to some extent no-one can. Because it does depend on whom we elect in a future Scotland, regardless of our constitutional status.

And then you look at the opinion polls from England. Man they hate us. They think we leech off the state (much like the immigrants they despise), and they think we should only spend our own money. And for all that I like to think there are regional variations, it turns out, not so much. There’s a slight wavering towards Scotland being nice the further north you get, but only very very slightly.  

And then the report that led to all this – which was inspired by the West Lothian Question – and did do a good job of trying to point out that it isn’t really a problem – is the McKay Commission. Which recommends that English only laws should be subject to a majority of English MPs, even though all MPs should get to debate and discuss.

And all I can think is that this just plays into the hands of the nationalists and UKIP. England resents Scotland. And English laws shouldn’t even risk ever being influenced by Scottish MPs (even though this rarely happens). Surely the simplest, neatest, most elegant solution is independence…

Now, I amn’t decided on that, but I’ve always been one to leave a relationship before I’m left.     Because if I’m going to move on, I’d like to decide on that. And not risk being hurt by your rejection.