iSSue 15
THAT’S WHAT SHE SAID
TWSS team profiles
Likes: recycling, poetry and matured men. Dislikes: Bristol’s inablity to recycle black plastic, Shrek movies and the Triangle.
We’re only five months into 2018 and it’s already been a mad one for feminism in the public eye. The sensation caused by the ‘Time’s Up’ campaign at the Oscars back in March showed us all how much feminism has moved from being a rogue rhetoric raved about by a few key ladies to the forefront of cultural conversation, and into the mouths and minds of many of the most famous individuals currently walking the planet. However, it also showed what a long way we have to go in terms of turning that rhetoric and those grand, symbolic acts into positive realities for the women and other individuals still taking shit every day from the white/cis/het patriarchy. TWSS is here to hear and amplify all your ongoing intersectional feminist angst that shouldn’t be, but really is, still a part of modern life. The bad times ain’t over yet, but as long as they’re here, we’re going to be around, kicking up a fuss, too. So here’s our latest fuss: TWSS Issue 15.
familiar
Love, Fran and Emily
Summer 2018 2018 Summer
Editors’ Letter
The Pursuit of Women:
Romantic or Predatory?
ILLUSTRATION BY EVE BURKE-EDWARDS
By Emilia Andrews
It’s a common trope in books, films and TV shows that women are pursued by men out of romance - think Ted and his blue horn throughout the nine season long pursuit of Robin in ‘How I Met Your Mother’. It tends to go a little like this: man asks woman out, woman says no, man continues to pester woman until she eventually says yes, as she is so wooed by his relentless advances and grand romantic gestures. There are times when the commitment shown by this can be considered romantic, but this is situational and dependent on how the person being pursued actually feels.
Of course, this idea of man pursues woman primarily applies to heterosexual couplings and the dynamic is likely to vary in LGBT+ relationships, but the notion itself remains extremely prevalent in our culture and inevitably feeds into our ideas about the dating world. From an evolutionary perspective, it makes sense that a man would need to pursue a woman in order to prove his worth and demonstrate his commitment. Like a peacock flashing its feathers, a man would have to prove that he had the desirable traits that would make him a good breadwinner for any children he may potentially father.
issue 15 // Summer 2018 In a world before contraception and more liberal ideas about single motherhood, a woman had to be certain that the person she was entering into a sexual relationship with was going to stick around, so she wouldn’t be left to care for his child alone. The problem with this argument is that it doesn’t apply to our modern dating world, in which one night stands and the rise of casual relationships differ from the evolutionary objective of finding a mate who will father your children and provide for your family. The predatory culture of pursuit is particularly prevalent in nightlife culture, wherein a woman is expected to stand or dance in a sultry fashion, waiting for a man to come to her. The pack culture which some men subscribe to - in particular, going out ‘on the prowl’- imagines the primary objective as men finding and pursuing women. It is rarely considered that a woman might want to approach a man she is interested in, and instead she is expected to be flattered by any man’s attention. This outdated idea prevents women from having the confidence to actively seek their own desires and is telling of the wider landscape of gender roles, which still largely dictate that men are expected to be ambitious and do anything to obtain what they want, while women are expected to be more hesitant and remain ‘in their place’. Admittedly, there are times when men are perceived as being ‘creepy’ for continually attempting to obtain a woman’s affection, but often, society views men who pursue women as ‘romantic’. Meanwhile, a woman who pursues a man is often viewed as ‘crazy’. This, again, is evidence of society’s expectation that women should be level-headed at all times, while men are allowed to think with their libidos, and are considered romantic if they act from the heart, even if their heartly desires are entirely unrequited.
Either situation, whether it is the man or the woman repeatedly going after somebody who is clearly uninterested, can be regarded as being more predatory than romantic. There is no romance in the pursuit of a person who clearly does not want to be pursued. Then there comes the much-asked question, ‘is she just being coy, or does she actually want this man to stop pestering her?’ Maybe the fact that this needs to be asked in the first place reveals more about the way in which society values how women feel. When pursuit in the name of ‘romance’ is prioritised over how comfortable the other person feels, boundaries are crossed. This relates to the ‘non-verbal cues’ which were described in the Aziz Ansari case; even if somebody doesn’t explicitly tell a person to go away, the message is still present and should be respected. This is not to say that men should never go up to women and start talking to them. If people didn’t talk to one another, the possibility of people entering into new relationships - both romantic and platonic - would be dramatically reduced. As with any human interaction, men just have to be aware of how the person they are talking to feels about the interaction, and know when to back off - i.e. when the other person appears uncomfortable. If the other person is interested in continuing the interaction, that is normally clear enough to see. Women also need to be made to feel not only that is it okay to say ‘no’ to somebody who approaches them, if they are uninterested, but also that they can be comfortable with pursuing what they want, too. ‘Romance’ doesn’t always have to be a case of ‘man goes up to woman’ - instead, it can be a woman actively attempting to fulfil her own desires, while both sides respect one another’s reaction to the interaction.
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This Kid Is Alright
Words and illustration by Rivka Cocker
I have two mums. My nephew has five grandmas. The most ‘nuclear’ thing going on in my family is probably an outing to a CND march to protest nuclear weapons. Growing up as the child of lesbian parents, one of the weirdest things I’ve come across is ‘new’ research findings reporting that children from same-sex families achieve just as well as children from heterosexual families. To me this comes as absolutely no surprise. Does the non-heteronormative gender and sexuality of my parents really make me that different? I was pleasantly surprised after a quick Google search to find a study stating that I, as a
child of same-sex parents, am likely to be more socially aware and have higher self-esteem than heterosexual-parented peers. I’m amused by the idea of academics researching children who grow up with two mums or two dads finding that, SHOCK HORROR, they aren’t all that different. Put crudely, the presence of a middle-age penis (or any age penis for that matter) in my household doesn’t affect my academic ability. I think my parents would appreciate me saying here that they aren’t separatists, in fact some of their best friends are men!
ker
The expression ‘my mum’ is one I use interchangeably for both mums. I realise this may be confusing for my close friends, although I do think they enjoy the ‘can you guess which mum I’m talking about?’ game. Uni friends, though, who haven’t yet had the joy of meeting the radical duo, or acquaintances who don’t necessarily know that I have lesbian parents, must think I have a multifaceted double-personality super-woman for a mother! Which I do ‘she’ just happens to be two people. And yes, I know what you’re thinking: Mother’s Day must be double the work, but it all equals out when I can chill out on Father’s Day – or even crash my friend’s Father’s Day celebrations (e.g. dinner in Chinatown one year at a restaurant owned by the man who claimed to bring bubble tea to the UK. Thank you bubble tea man: men aren’t completely useless it seems). Someone once asked me what it’s like having two mums. I laughed, because it’s ‘like’ nothing. Nothing different, if that’s what they wanted me to say. It is, for want of a better word, ‘normal’ to me - and how could it not be? I haven’t known any other way, so there’s no way for me to fairly compare growing up in any other family set-up. Plus, where would we be without queering social norms? Whilst writing this article, my flatmate asked me how, in the earlier years of my life, my mums dealt with other children questioning my family. I think that the answer lies in the spatial patterning of the LGBT+ community. Proudly born and raised in Stoke Newington, Hackney, I have come to learn that I live in what I like to call a lesbian hub. This meant that I was brought up in a strongly established lesbian network (they all know each other!) with many other children who have
2 mums or 2 dads or some other amalgamation of parents. My friend and her mums used to hold ‘2 mummies parties’! In this way, and in this community, having 2 mums was celebrated, and I never felt different to the other children in my class, even if Italian food brand Barilla claims that I am not part of a “classic family” (boycotting homophobic brands must come from my enhanced social-awareness). Being raised by two women undoubtedly helped shape me into the feminist I am today: Princess Smarty-Pants was a frequent bedtime read, to say the least. The countless fairy stories I insisted we read may have struck my parents as less empowering, and it might have taken a few years of tongue-biting through my princess and Barbie phases (never Bratz, I was faithful - and not into oversized heads). Through all the DIY science kits, lack of ballet classes and ugly ‘boy’ trainers I reluctantly wore through my childhood, pink remains my favourite colour. Oops. Growing up, I’ve learnt that all feminists are different, and that even if I was raised by two women/two feminists (not to mention the older sister), I couldn’t resist holding onto a few gender norms. Taking all this into account, I can honestly say that my brother, sister and I are lucky to have grown up under a roof with two women of the house, and this doesn’t make me different to any other woman.
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When I think of familiarity, I think of the many places that have become home to me over the years, but I also think about how maybe that has diluted my sense of ownership and membership of a single place. My grandmother could easily define her identity and values, according to the experiences that had shaped her growing up in the post-World War Two South of France. She could speak the local dialect, work on a farm and make many a meal out of scraps when times were hard. She loved her town, her family and going on pilgrimages to Lourdes once a year. Her sense of home and belonging to that place was always straightforward. In contrast, her granddaughter finds it hard to even define the concept of home. Over the course of two generations, globalisation has intrinsically changed the shape of my family tree. I understand that for some parts of the population, access to travel has always been readily available, and therefore development of it came as less of a shock. However, where I come from, unlimited travel was always seen as a ‘rich man’ type of behaviour; travel was something you did out of necessity, or to visit your family. You would go to visit someone you knew, not to stay in a hotel somewhere far away to have an ‘experience’. The discovery I made as a young adult - that it is possible to travel for fun - hasn’t stopped being thrilling and exciting for me yet.
By Garance Pellet
ILLUSTRATION BY MAEGAN FARROW
Sometimes I think of my grandparents, who grew up on the same street, and whose entire world was as big as the area they grew up in. Even the idea of moving to another city seemed foreign to them: the concept of another country was absolutely terrifying. When my mom announced to my grandmother that we would be moving to the United States, she reacted like we were leaving for America like an Irish family from the 1840s, departing on a boat and never coming back. She declared stress-induced diabetes soon after.
issue 15 // Summer 2018
Though now I get the privilege of feeling at ease in different places, I also have to get used to the fact that I don’t fit in or belong anywhere anymore. It’s a jarring experience to always be on the outside of any culture you might want to be part of - to always be reminded that you don’t belong. But if you decide to embrace it, it can become the most liberating of feelings: it feels like finally cracking the code of the human experience. People feel so comfortable with consuming the products of a fast globalised world; we love eating spicy food and imported fruits, we love our music to be influenced with foreign sounds, and we want to dress in similar fashions to people living thousands of miles away from us. Yet, we don’t want to lose our sense of familiarity with where we live. We want to consume the culture, but we don’t want to see the people. In a time where travel is the easiest it has ever been, we want goods to be shipped our way but never be in contact with the person making these objects. My grandmother feels as though her area is becoming unfamiliar to her, and fears for a loss of what she calls ‘identity’. This notion is one I’ve never understood, as many places have become familiar to me over the years, and I don’t see change as a thing to be afraid of, but another natural aspect of life. I want to scream at her that of course the places she knows will change, and that none of these places define her like she thinks they do - but how do you explain that feeling to anyone? The feeling that, for me, country or area don’t matter more than any other random privilege you may be attributed at birth. It is easy for me to believe these things, and to have them reinforced by the echo-chamber of my friends, but it is so much harder to put such ideas into words and to communicate them. My experience will never be my grandmother’s, but I guess I have to appreciate the way that she imagines the world - and the way that I do, too.
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cry silent tears, until I’m shaking and the room is spinning. My head hits the ground. It is a familiar pillow that provides no comfort. I lay curled up in a daze, half naked on the floor, a damp towel around me keeping me loosely
tethered to reality. My stomach moans, and yet the thought of
food makes me weak and nauseous. My fingers fumble with the fibres, the softness slightly reassuring but I still can’t focus. My cheeks are wet and numb; I have no feeling in my face and my toes are slowly turning blue, despite the warmth of my bedroom. My dead, empty eyes, coloured by dark shadows, stare into
a void. There are no thoughts running through my mind. I am empty. I’m a shell of a person
being pulled by the strings of everyday routine and the people around me until I am alone. But I
am always alone. The only voices I can hear are the echoes of my self-hatred, self-loathing and self-love arguing with each other, creating a static buzz to which I trudge on. I am not alive. I am merely existing.
There are half empty packets of pills hidden away in my bedside drawer. The glass surface is covered in smudged fingerprints and used tissues, from the
moments I forgot how to breathe in the middle of the night. But night blurs into
day and my hands instinctively reach for my throat as I gasp for air, and all I can feel are the streams of salty tears that roll down my cheeks, my lips and on to the floor. My nose drips and my ears ring. My face begins to tingle and I slide slowly off my bed, onto the floor
where I curl up for a short while. This is where I belong. The rough, harsh fibres of the carpet tickle the soles of my feet, and I brush my hands up and down my thighs until they start to turn red. It’s the only colour I know alongside the blues that swirl around me. My arms stretch out and with my hand I take a used tissue to my face and wipe. There is no particular method to removing the wetness from my face.
As long as it’s all gone. I put my hands on the rough carpet and push myself back onto my bed. I shake my head, take a deep breath and pop a pill in my mouth. It doesn’t take much to swallow it down.
Page 10
By Aniqah Rawat
difference between night and day. Sleep is a forgotten dream and I
Remembering How to Breathe
Days blur into one another. I can no longer tell the
Behind closed doors I am a mess. My hair is thinning and full of tangles and hasn’t been washed in days. My bones poke out and are full of aches that stab and
wane throughout the day. My skin is dull, the only colour coming from the redness of my blemishes. I can barely hold my own weight. But
when I am in the sunshine: I
smile, I laugh, I sing. I am the image of perfection that I think the world wants
to see. And the world believes it. I keep trudging on, despite the thoughts that occasionally trickle through my mind.
Days turn to months, summer has passed and I still wear a forced smile. My face aches with the lies it tells. Home is now two places. I am no longer suffocating from the stifling expectations of a familiar place. A
new start. New people. A new face. My own face. I don’t feel so alone
anymore. There may be moments where the cold creeps in, and the tension in my body pulls me to the ground, but I have become more attuned to my body. I am familiar with the sensations that lead to a high, and those that inevitably end with a crash. But I no longer care about how my bones stick out, or the hair that grows above
my lip and on my legs. A
breath of fresh air. In through my nose, and out through my mouth. I listen to the sounds around me: the traffic that rushes by, the
ringing of a bell, birdsong in trees and the rustle of leaves as the wind blows. I listen. I hear the voices of my friends, the voices of the people who care enough to
help me wipe off my painted face, and for the first time in while, I genuinely
smile. I only saw myself through my harsh eyes, but through theirs, I realise I am so
much more. I am not broken, I am not irrelevant, nor useless. I am strong and caring, and I am slowly learning one of the most important lessons of life:
Illustration by Francesca Newton
self-acceptance.
THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY GALATEA
By Eleanor Tarr
While the word ‘familiarity’ often carries pleasant connotations, anyone who studied OCR English Literature at A Level will remember that their seventeen-year-old selves were familiar (no pun intended) with the Gothic. In the Gothic realm, the ‘familiar’ is not favourable or pleasant: it’s disturbing and unwelcome - and this applies as much to gender roles in the modern world as it does to any other cultural phenomenon. The Gothic thrives on unnerving its readers. Sigmund Freud’s 1919 essay ‘The Uncanny’ (an analysis of E.T.A. Hoffman’s short story ‘The Sandman’) argues that the uncanny is ‘that species of the frightening that goes back to what was once well known and long been familiar’ - essentially, people are unnerved by what seems too familiar, whether that familiarity brings to the fore unwanted memories, or whether it represents something that is a bit too human. Although Freud was writing a hundred years ago, his ideas of the uncomfortably familiar strikes a resounding chord today. We’re living in a technological world where people can strap their smartphones into headsets and live in virtual reality, and where CGI has revolutionised what is recognised as familiar or strange in cinema. Even more impressively (and so, even more frighteningly), human-like robots - androids - are becoming a reality. This year, in February, it was announced that a lifelike android called ‘Erica’ was to replace a news anchor on a Japanese television station. Erica has been called ‘creepy’. Why do we find non-human things with human attributes ‘creepy’? Hoffman’s ‘The Sandman’ offers some answers: the titular character steals the eyes of naughty children, a premise that’s terrifying because humans put a high price on our eyes, since we believe that we see the world differently to animals (and intelligent robots, too). As such, human-like robots are ‘creepy’ because they appear human - and therefore, familiar - but do not have that crucial element of human eyes - that soul, that identity, that envisioning of the world surrounding them.
issue 15 // Summer 2018 But Erica isn’t really an ‘android’. Some Classics boffs will know that the term ‘android’ borrows from the Ancient Greek ‘andros’, which means ‘man’. So, what about female human-like robots? Those, technically, are ‘gynoids’ - and ‘gynoids’ are not simply the female equivalent of ‘androids’. Often, they’re inherently sexual objects.
Illustration by Sophia Marshall
The main character of the Channel 4 TV series Humans, Anita, is a female robot; though initially bought by a family as a guardian for their children, the father of the family later uses her for sex when his marriage turns sour. Erica, too, is not only a functional robot: she’s also been built as a beautiful woman. If a robot’s only job is to read the news or provide childcare, why does it also have to be physically attractive? Why is there always an inherent expectation that gynoids must be subjects of human (male) desire?
While no ‘sex robots’ on Anita’s level exist at present, recent advances in artificial intelligence suggest it’s not a distant dream. The discomfort you might feel at this is, of course, a result of familiarity: these ‘gynoids’ seem to possess the human eyes - that soul, that humanity - that we place such a high value on, but, in being treated as sexual objects, are refused that identity. And this treatment, too, is unnervingly familiar: the expectation placed on a woman (robotic or not) to exist solely to service male desires is, for the human woman’s experience, all too relatable. If technological (and moral) obstacles can be overcome, there’s a possibility that, while the modern human woman enjoys more emancipation and freedom than her historical counterparts, the ‘gynoid’ will take her ‘traditional’ place as man’s perfect helper and sexual provider - a narrative straight out of the Gothic, displaced to dystopian future. Gynoids could easily become twenty-first century Galateas, for twenty-first century Pygmalions. How much will these frighteningly familiar gender roles play into the structure of future societies - and what will their real implications be for the experiences of human women? Are such changes really advances, or could they be thinly-veiled regressions? How familiar the future could become remains to be seen.
Vignettes By Anjum Yasmin Nahar
1 The ends of my trousers were wet and sad when I got to your flat. I peeled them off and buried myself into your duvet. You got in next to me and we were like a two-pack of plums. Very ripe but not quite ready for sale yet. Your auntie called and you started crying. The rain outside stopped knowing it was your turn. It stayed silent so that we could talk for hours that night. I stayed in my knickers and didn’t put my trousers back on. 2 I pulled on your puffy coat and you opted for big sunnies and fur. A marshmallow linked arms with a Hollywood starlet And they strolled down to Stokes Croft. In juice glasses at the cafe, Segments of orange and chunks of ice bobbed like they were high. I took a sip and the foam on my mocha buzzed. Our drinks were continuing last night’s party But without the techno music.
3 You were a thrifty purple fairy last Halloween. Glitter all over your face and a charity shop wig. I attempted a playboy bunny. No space in the bed, we slept on top of each other. Entangled arms and legs — you couldn’t tell Where the fairy ended and the bunny started. I took big sniffs of your perfume that night. One too many spritzes of CK One, I reckon now. And in the morning I woke up smelling of you. 4 Skincare shopping was on the agenda that day. You were recommending tiny little bottles of things. Something in Space NK compelled you To tell me your biggest family secret. I listened whilst contemplating buying an eye cream.
Illustrations by Nia Jones
“how do you feel about the fact that your religion doesn’t value women?” Some key terms for infidels. Just kidding. I come in peace. Alimah: A female Islamic scholar (sadly, not my title). PBUH: Peace be upon him. RA: RadhiAllahu ‘anha - may Allah be pleased with her. Hadith: A collection of the sayings and actions of the Prophet (PBUH) - strong Gospel vibes. Bismillah Ar-Rahman Ar-Rahim: In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful. Insha’Allah: God willing - usually something you hope will happen. For example: Insha’Allah you will not be Islamophobic. Insha’Allah we will overcome white feminism. “How do you feel about the fact that your religion doesn’t value women?” I was presented with this question in my GCSE Philosophy and Ethics class from a pasty, freckled girl, who for the purposes of this piece we’ll call Poppy. Poppy was the school feminist, if you will: the girl who’d tell you how to do gender equality the right (white) way. My 15-year-old self was perplexed. Poppy had attacked my brain, promoted me to Alimah, and made me feel so small all in one morning. Eventually, I gave a tepid answer - ‘I don’t really know?’ Future me was disappointed. Muslim women everywhere were disappointed. Even Poppy was disappointed - though, of course, not particularly surprised. And the class continued. This question is not casual morning small talk, and requires a whole book to do it real justice. It was also a deeply leading question. She should’ve said “Islam hates women, huh,” shrugged her shoulders, and walked away. Now, I realise that it would take years of unlearning imperialist and Orientalist views of my religion, and the discovery of intersectional feminism, before I could give an adequate answer to that question. Since it’s been almost 6 years since that happened, let me try answering it now. A good starting point for what Islam does or doesn’t ‘do’ is to refer to the life of the Prophet (PBUH). Context-wise, we’re talking late 6th or early 7th century Arabia, so let’s not pretend women had the rights they do now: society was rife with female infanticide, and very few women held positions of power. At this time, an older, widowed landowner proposes to a younger man that she employed to work in the business she owns. This woman is Khadija (RA), a literal boss, and her employee was the Prophet (PBUH). As the first wife of the Prophet (PBUH), she was the woman to support him through his revelations, and one of the first people to convert to Islam. An essential female icon in the Qur’an, she goes on to become a prominent community leader. Khadija (RA) is an example of a deeply valued woman in Islam.
ot be
Men are dying rapidly at war, and many women are ending up widowed or abandoned. Other than Aisha (RA), all other wives of the Prophet (PBUH) were divorced, widowed, or women that had escaped captivity. Marrying these women was a way of providing for those who were otherwise thrown to the margins of society, rather than an act of misogyny. The Prophet (PBUH) also called the birth of a girl ‘a blessing’, and extended property, marital and inheritance rights to women. Aisha (RA) took a major leadership role in collating the Hadith, and became a strong leader in religious and political matters. In their genesis, most religious traditions were actually anti-establishment and subversive - like social justice movements today. More generally, Islam is a religion built on the idea of equality of everyone under Allah: “And whoever does righteous deeds, whether male or female, while being a believer - those will enter Paradise and will not be wronged, [even as much as] the speck on a date seed.” (Qur’an, 4:124). Bismillah Ar-Rahman Ar-Rahim - a phrase used before beginning any important task - describes Allah as ‘Rahman’ and ‘Rahim’. Both these words find their Semitic root in r-h-m, conveying the tenderness of Allah - with a more literal meaning of ‘womb’. A womb doesn’t make a woman, but it is important to note how central this aspect of conventional femininity is to Islam. To understand how Islam went from this progressivism to being notorious for its supposed oppression of women, we need the help of politics and colonialism. Enter white man. Anti-Muslim rhetoric can be traced back to Orientalist views of the ‘East’ in the heydays of European colonialism - right down to neo-colonial Islamophobia, the anti-Muslim racism we see today. The pervasive image of submissive women, hidden away in the harems under the oppressive thumbs of barbaric Muslim men: this trope has been reproduced so many times that someone ought to claim rights and reap the royalties for its rerun. The stereotype was conjured to justify the attempts bring ‘civility’ to brown savages back then, and to bring education and ‘democracy’ to foreign, ‘underdeveloped’ nations today. Apparently, the capital gained from the exploitation of resource-rich countries where said Muslims happen to be is a mere by-product of this noble quest. What a cute coincidence. I’m not going to claim that you never see misogyny in the Muslim community like all societies, the patriarchy persists there. But consider our largely capitalist world, in which inequality, including that of gender, is a lucrative business. Now consider a religion that is not supposed to be a system of political, corporate or imperial governance, but a peaceful way of life for all people. Which is most likely to encourage the devaluation of women? In fighting the patriarchy, I, too, want the empowerment of oppressed genders everywhere, in all communities - but you can’t comfort my gender with one hand and slap my race and religion with the other. If your activism against one inequality (gender) perpetuates another (racial), then what is it achieving? As for Poppy, she may or may not get to read this piece. Insha’Allah sister, may you find your way out of the devilish jaws of white feminism. Ameen. By
Almas Talib Illustration by Calypso Latham
Giving Up the ‘Gram As the plane juddered back down onto the runway of Heathrow Terminal 5, I breathed a sigh of relief as the little 4G icon re-appeared in the top right-hand corner of my Iphone screen. This was January, and I’d just returned from a two week holiday in Qatar. We’d spent our final day on the beach, where a picture was taken of me: back to the camera, wading through the calm sea towards an impressive city skyline, that I remember thinking was supremely insta-worthy, or at least would be once enhanced by the warm and peachy hues of the obligatory ‘Valencia’ filter.
In a way then, Instagram can be viewed as one expansive, digital canvas - upon which many different ‘artists’ in their various forms, are free to project their ideas. However, the accessibility of social media makes it easy to forget that the pictures appearing on your feed have, like any other work of art, often been edited significantly before being put on display for the world to see; angles, lighting and cropping allow the poster of the picture to shape exactly what their followers see, and therefore any online presence is always, to some extent, a construct.
It was this picture that I’d posted just before boarding the flight, and as we hit English soil, up pops that tiny orange speech bubble of validation: 112 likes, nice followed by that familiar feeling of satisfaction. Yet, as I made my way through customs, the realisation hit that maybe, just maybe, 7 hours of waiting for 112 virtual compliments, constantly refreshing my feed at 30,000 feet, on the off-chance that the outer troposphere would supply a blip of data, actually wasn’t all that productive/healthy/okay. So, by the time I walked through the exit doors of the airport, my Instagram account had been deactivated, and thus began my unfiltered life.
And, this ability to have control over our own online presences can be truly liberating! Take the ‘selfie’ for example, which is created under the rare conditions of only our own gaze, can be edited and filtered (or not) in accordance with our own preferences, and which once posted, tends to result in some self-loving feels. Yet for some reason, whilst this meticulous editing process is something I was always able to recognise in relation to my own posts, for some reason it was subconsciously disregarded in my viewing framework of others’; scrolling through fitness accounts, logic was temporarily abandoned, and I would forget that a picture of a smoothie bowl didn’t necessarily equate to a diet based solely on chia seeds, kiwi and goji berries, or that abs can definitely be made to look more prominent with good angles and lighting.
Don’t get me wrong, four months on, having ‘looked at life from both sides now’, this piece is as much about celebrating Instagram as it is about questioning it. Instagram is undoubtedly the most aesthetic of all the notable social medias, showcasing beautiful people, beautiful places and beautiful things. Scrolling through the search results of home and interior hashtags has for a long time been one of my favourite pastimes, and on those gloomier days of English drizzle, I often found inspiration in the travel accounts I followed, with their emerald-green lakes and sparkling sunsets. Some of my favourite artists and illustrators operate mostly via online gallery spaces, and therefore I was only exposed to them because of the Instagram ‘Explore’ page; this is often the case, and the mass following offered up by Instagram has undoubtedly been revolutionary in providing a platform for up-and-coming young artists, photographers, bloggers and musicians from less formal artistic backgrounds. For these reasons, and many more, Instagram really is a goldmine of creativity.
We all know deep down that social media is one extended series of ‘best bits’, but it’s still hard not to compare our own lives to the ones we spend so much time invested in via our phone screens. By admiring and idealising versions of people, places and things that are always, to a certain degree, filtered, we inevitably open ourselves up to self-criticism. A picture never tells the full story, even ‘stories’ don’t tell the story, and real life can’t be cropped, manipulated or enhanced. Prior to deactivating my account, I went down the route of trying to reclaim my feed. The creative authority granted by the app cuts both ways, and it is almost as easy to control what
issue 15 // Summer 2018
you see, as it is to control what you put out for others to see. Undoubtedly my most pivotal discovery along the way was that of the Body Positivity movement; Instagram is home to so many beautiful people of all genders, carving out a space for bodies that are not given adequate representation in mainstream media, and it really is a wonderful thing to be a part of. By following these accounts, not only was my timeline filled with content that I found genuinely inspiring, but my feminist identity was enriched and Instagram became about something more than simply aesthetics. For me though, years of immersing myself in an extended visual narrative of other people’s edited lives had resulted in a pervading sense of anxiety and inadequacy, that I only realised fully after stepping back from it. Modifying the content I was exposed to improved my experience of the app, but those feelings only fully disappeared after severing all ties.
Words and illustration by Emily Godbold
Instagram is amazing, but it is also a fallacy. There is a real sense of liberation in tapping that ‘deactivate my account’ button: the illusion shatters, and suddenly you find yourself grounded back in your own reality.
The things that constitute the ‘everyday’ for an individual are made up of innumerable objects and actions - aspects of our lives that, most of the time, we barely notice. The everyday, if we’re lucky, is beautifully mundane, facilitated by the cultural and personal routines we’ve established for ourselves. Within our own private worlds, some objects will be used for leisure, some are necessary for acts like eating or exercising, and some are perhaps valued for their sentimentality, rather than any utility. The likelihood is that we rarely think about how and why we value these things, and often their value only becomes truly apparent when decontextualized, or removed altogether. Even if we choose to break from routine, or to uproot ourselves, we can selectively bring along the objects that we feel are integral to us and our experiences. Consider the way in which a plastic bottle floating in the sea can be representative of our wider environmental problems - or how specific childhood toys can evoke so much emotion. Tamagotchi just released a twenty-first century upgrade to their iconic toy, and because there have been such technological advancements since the initial distributions in the noughties, its success as a product will lie predominantly in its sentimentality. Many objects set off feelings because of the people, experiences or concerns that they represent. They might evoke feelings of calm, of happiness, of negativity. Proust wrote that “We think we no longer love the dead because we don’t remember them, but if by chance we come across an old glove we burst into tears.” This phenomenon is not limited to any particular culture - every person across the world, irrespective of gender, culture or race, will have their own private mundane rituals, and their own everyday objects that have particular personal connotations. On this basis, it’s unsurprising that photographic campaigns of disasters or iconic events so often focus on singular objects. They show toothbrushes, a child’s teddy, a set of books; the power of these photographs lies in familiarity of the objects depicted. In the teddy, we see our own
childhood toy, in the clothes we see our clothes. People are humanised through mundane objects. Our emotional responses are activated; the object unites us with the anonymous users, because it reminds us that we are the same. When a person is displaced, circumstances often prevent much packing, and so most of the ‘things’ that help hone their identity are abruptly severed from them. To remember who you are and when you come from is significantly more difficult without the visual and physical cues that exist all around us in our everyday lives. A cultural identity is constructed over centuries, influenced by experiences both significant and near-incidental. As such, when a person is displaced without the things that facilitate their identity, their sense of self is compromised. Many of us have a cup of coffee every day. Sometimes it’s absolutely necessary; often it’s an opportunity to meet with friends, or to relax. The apparently trivial cup becomes, in reality, intrinsic to our sense of calm and happiness. Its mundanity facilitates our normality. In many cultures, the preparation and drinking of coffee is near-ceremonious, and similarly essential to social occasions. In some countries, such as Ethiopia - the heartland of coffee-drinking - the process of a coffee ceremony is ornate, with specifically designated utensils and an elaborate structure. Such routines, facilitated by everyday objects, also often reflect many of the gendered and social constructs to be found within the wider society. But when a person is forcibly or circumstantially severed from their home, many of the features necessary to the ritualised performance will be lost. How can the coffee be made without the cups or the beans? Who will take the place in the ceremony that a mother once took, or a brother, or a friend? Maybe the entire process is too emotional to perform without loved ones’ presences. The coffee ritual is just one small example of the way in which experiences that are ‘everyday’ to a
Even if people do find the courage or practical equipment to re-enact parts of their ‘everyday’ lives, one of the central ways in which anti-refugee groups or authorities continue to dehumanise people is through the removal or destruction of familiar objects. It’s well known that in the Calais ‘jungle’, French police systematically ruin the belongings of people seeking asylum. This manipulative act is designed to disrupt familiarity and normality. The deliberate destruction of personal possessions borders on psychological abuse - when objects are removed, the routines and structures facilitated by that object are simultaneously destroyed. This is why art therapy projects so often focus on dealing with objects, enabling the participants to reconstruct, whether literally or figuratively, the things that used to be integral to their identity. People must process not only the loss of such things, but the loss of the part of themselves that was enabled by the inanimate items.
Illustration by Rosa Stevens
by Tessa Lloyd
Cruel acts like the destruction of personal property must be expressly forbidden by authorities or other groups, for people cannot thrive, and cannot be themselves, without a sense of normality. Displaced individuals must be allowed - and encouraged - to bring the old ‘everyday’ into the new.
The Power of the Everyday
given culture can become endowed with immense value once removed. Communal activities like these are utterly ingrained in the collective consciousness of a given community, and are therefore vital to the reconstruction of that society, even when displaced.
An OrdinaryByAche Eva Kennedy
In quiet moments where I curl up in my dressing gown, eat toast in front of the telly, I want to be at peace. That little voice that says ‘you’re not attractive now’: she’s only whispering. Have you ever sat next to someone and watched your thighs spread like butter across the couch? ‘You are so chunky’ my little voice remarks in case they’re thinking it too. Puffy-eyed, matted hair, eating breakfast in mismatched pyjamas, ‘thank God no-one can see me now’. Trying on an elegant dress only to stare with horror at someone gross in the mirror. ‘You’ll never be the desirable girl you are trying to buy your way into being’. You know that feeling, you know that ache. Perceiving how we look to others, it’s the craft of being a girl. The shame in ‘realising’ we may look undesirable in a particular situation. Failing. Pretty, an imperative measure of success. Page 22
‘As if being attractive to men is important?’ I say righteously, but those words don’t satisfy the craving. I still light up as you call me ‘fit’. How perverse. Time, all the time we’ve wasted dwelling on our image, trying to fix what is already splendid, beating up what is already so bruised. In a bundle you receive all the hours of your lifetime that you have spent thinking about your appearance, what would you do with it? Every Bristol girl could have second gap year.
y
Let’s put away this thinking like Christmas decorations in January, disgusted we’ve left it there so long. And I blame you, and you, and you for every time you focused on a woman’s looks, cementing the importance of it into my head. You were older than me, you should have known better. And why did he get to judge so carelessly, perpetuating this hurt while seeming far above judgement himself. I am a person. How dare you reduce me. We’re fired at from all directions but the most humiliating wounds are the slow cuts from loved ones when our armour is off. What we face makes us stronger than him and him.
lllustrations by Jenny Scotland
We’re chasing a mirage attempting to meet beauty standards. There’s no happiness here, we must leave. When I take back my physical body from your gaze, what do I do with it? It’s strange, it’s just mine. It’s quite lovely and strong. Seeing ourselves through the eyes of others is an impulse that can’t be broken over night, but we can shift how we talk to ourselves: our internal dialogue matters, it’s where enduring change buds.
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By Martha Price University is a completely new space: not just the studying, but the people, the lifestyle, the city. It can be both overwhelming and underwhelming - but somewhere in the midst of all that change is a chance to craft an entirely new identity. With unfamiliarity comes a lot of opportunity for creation. It’s easy to seize this without much consideration, and push yourself to shed old parts of your identity. No one would know if you suddenly developed a new extreme hobby or dress sense, political view, vocabulary. And while there’s nothing wrong with this - and self-driven change can be for the best if it comes from a good place, with self-love at its root - it can also be damaging. On top of being in unfamiliar surroundings, it can make you unfamiliar with yourself. When I came to university, I was determined to rid myself of the image I’d developed during school. I wanted to be the complete opposite, and forced myself to do everything I could to make this happen - but instead of achieving a shiny new self, I ended up feeling very lost, as well as missing out on things I knew I would have loved - all for fear of not being the student I envisaged myself as. This unfamiliarity might be an unavoidable part of the university experience, and often, change is inevitable. But the process can be confusing and frightening, especially in the swaps
between home - where we might be one
person - and uni, where we’re another. We can feel ourselves fragmented and disorientated. We are our own harshest critic during times like this. Someone recently told me that I wouldn’t treat a friend the way I treat myself, and that comparison really resonated. Although accepting the potentially unfamiliar is an honest and realistic way to engage with the university experience, it’s important to find something that makes that less overwhelming than it could be. Using the metaphors of healthy relationships with others (of any sort) to identify ways to better cultivate the relationship we have with ourselves is good way to to strike a balance which enables steady, pressure-free self growth. In seeking to positively change yourself, it’s important to set your own pace for that change. Be patient with yourself when what you’re aiming for hasn’t set in instantly. Get to know your true likes and dislikes - without apologising for them - and allow them fluidity and impermanence. It’s definitely a trial and error process, but taking proper time to learn about yourself is really healthy. Take yourself out, and find places you like or things you like doing. Then do the things you like again, and not the ones you didn’t, or find a new one to add to your list. Little things
like this can make the biggest difference, and there’s nothing that has to be static about it. The learning process is something to keep up.
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The importance of this translates into bigger things, too, like making decisions about life after uni. Answers to those sorts of questions are expected almost instantly - but being patient can help make the decision-making process less intense. Taking inspiration from others can provide a massive source of strength: friends, a society, a good book. Having something else to support you, as well as yourself, is always reassuring.
Taking time to adjust to the unfamiliar parts of ourselves is something we often forget to do, and allowing yourself a healthy unfamiliarity can be good. Be excited to find out who you are, and who you might become. At the same time, retaining some familiarity in the unfamiliar is comforting - above all, learning to spend time with yourself, for yourself, is a worthy investment.
ILLUSTRATION BY ROSA STEVENS
None of this is necessarily new advice. But using the notion and direction of healthy relationships is a good starting point to justify the self-care many of us are quick to deprive ourselves of as
we learn which parts of ourselves we accept, and which we want to develop - as well as allowing the constant natural growth and change we might experience while in the throes of uni life.
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POEM AND ILLUSTRATIONS BY MAEGAN FARROW
Collapsed will always mean something else to me now Collapsed buildings Collapsed plans Collapsed people Collapsed people strikes a cord A cord stronger than any word Any word that can describe how I am Present but not really thinking or seeing These words themselves are empty, hollow shells Soon they will collapse into themselves as well And become nothing more than something destroyed Destroyed Not a word I like to think Describes her there beside the sink Heart heavy, chest heaving, Praying in the lift that she is still breathing I cut my hair Because I saw her in the mirror every morning I cannot bear To remove the necklace I wore to her funeral Averting my stare From her bathroom floor I see her there I close the door Every memory tainted with the sight of her on the floor Nobody speaks to me about her anymore I don’t want to forget To forget her smile or our Laughter To forget how important she was to me To forget the earthquake that shook Me to my core Knocked me over and held me down No plans for the future No way to say That I can’t bear to think about tomorrow Or a year from now Or a decade Without her here My plans have collapsed Like her Collapsed will always mean something else to me now Collapsed buildings Collapsed plans Collapsed people
A Call to Lads By Francesca Newton
What is it about men in multiples? Why do I passionately advocate for female friendships and strut down the street with a group of ten pals like we’re in a trashy teen movie, but squirm if I’m alone and see more than about three post-pubescent men moving in my direction? ‘Lad culture’ has got a lot of bad rep in the last few years, thanks to the wonders of sexist/racist/homophobic sports chants, screenshots of tasteless or downright creepy group chats, drunken brawls, or, on a more serious level, allegations of sexual harassment, rape, and physical violence. Lad culture has been condemned. Those things are what make me uncomfortable about packs of men. That is why I squirm. But homosocial relationships between men don’t have to be that way. Psychologist Jonathan Shay has done a lot of research into homosocial groups, particularly within the army – the most conventionally ‘masculine’ setting of them all – and has come out with some positive news. Close unity amongst men both contributes to their efficiency as a group (although maybe this isn’t so ‘positive’ in contexts where the aim is killing), and, more than that, helps to protect them from psychological injury, limiting their susceptibility to combat trauma or PTSD. For those living in a system of aggressive hegemonic masculinity, as we do, where men often struggle to express their feelings when struggling with psychological damage or trauma, anything that helps protect them from that damage is a good thing – right? Obviously, protection from psychological damage is a good thing – both for the individual himself, and for the others who are sometimes at the receiving end of any violence resulting from trauma. But other researchers also tell us that homosocial relationships between men can be seriously damaging.
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For one thing, they’re primarily formed in contexts which encourage hypermasculinity – the army, sports teams – and therefore end up becoming a kind of echo chamber for hyper-masculine behaviours, attitudes and thoughts. Groups inherently encourage adherence to collective norms and values, meaning that exclusively male groups – sadly, and unsurprisingly – reinforce the demands placed on its members to be ‘manly’, which, conventionally, reads as follows: non-emotional, physically dominant, brave, competitive, stringently heterosexual, and, to an extent, violent and aggressive. But for another, it’s not that men aren’t capable of forming close emotional bonds. If anything, the opposite is true: the emotional attachment formed in groups of men can be incredibly strong – often more intense than that that exists in female friendships. Although the homosocial relationship between two men may be heavily emotional, resulting in serious ramifications for one if something were to happen to the other, this does not mean that the men within that relationship are emotional themselves. Expressing emotion, of course, is conventionally a sign of ‘weakness’, and hegemonic masculinity is inherently hierarchical. A homosocial group may form an emotional network – essentially, like a family – but, as mentioned, the hypermasculine context of that network often means its norms and values are warped, and as a result, those groups are often prevented from benefiting their members the way that they could. For most of us, our value-judgement and morality systems are influenced primarily by our families, but also by our friends, experiences, and the strictures of general culture. In forming a homosocial family, relationships between groups of men often overturn learned value-judgement and morality systems, and adapt them to their own hypermasculine values and norms - particularly in conjunction with hypermasculine contexts. This is why exclusively masculine groups are so often the ones found saying, chanting or performing things that are culturally-taboo and/or frankly abhorrent for the rest of us – in the homosocial group, proving ‘manliness’ becomes the priority over all other systems of thought. It’s kind of like brainwashing. What this all suggests to me is the limitations that male homosocial groups have for their members’ wellbeing and improvement. Women are frequently expected to provide the emotional labour for men’s development, because, basically, relationships between men are so often co-opted by the conventional demands of masculinity. The only way for men to combat this is to be aware of it – hence rants like this. If every group of ‘lads’ includes one woke guy capable of recognising, resisting and calling out hypermasculine thought-systems when they arise, maybe then we’ll see a difference. Platonic male relationships have a lot of benefits to offer those who take part in them. This is a call to lads: it’s time to start using your powers for everyone else’s, and your own, good.
Illustrations by Amy Knox Page 29
D A T I N G
In the Post-Internet Age
By Maria Paradinas
The World Wide Web has weaved its threads into all aspects of modern life, and dating is no exception. Tailored perfectly for a generation hooked on instant gratification, social validation and a healthy supply of notification induced-dopamine, dating apps are the best and worst thing to happen to us. The best because they very successfully fulfil their function - hooking users up with thousands of people in their area who are all looking for someone new to meet. This is increasingly necessary for our fast-paced lifestyles, in which productivity and work output is highly prioritised. The truth is that many, especially those who work full-time, don’t always have the spare hours to go out and meet new people. Dating apps perfectly solve this problem. They literally serve you thousands of people, conveniently essentialised and packaged into two-dimensional digital bundles to be judged ‘hot’ or ‘not’. They can also connect you with people that you would never otherwise meet, and meeting somebody completely distinct from the circle within which you move can be exciting and refreshing. They’re also the worst – what makes people attractive can range from the way they talk, the sound of their voice, their mannerisms, their walk - all of this is lost when a living, breathing human being is represented on a digital profile.
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Dating apps have their positives and negatives, and like all things should be used responsibly (if you’re swiping mindlessly and compulsively for hours you may need to check yourself). Used by the socially timid to the extroverted, they offer a simple and direct way of chirpsing at home or on-the-go. Bumble seems to have righted all of the wrongs of previous dating apps. Matches expire if messages aren’t sent within twenty-four hours of each other, which keeps the conversation going and eliminates those who you weren’t interested in enough to speak to. Also, within heterosexual matches, the woman must message the man first, toppling the normative man-pursues-woman stereotype and empowering women to reclaim sexual agency. Bumble not only empowers women when dating, but it also gives them the power when networking and making friendships through Bumble Bizz and Bumble BFF. Conecting digitally is the future, and Bumble’s progressive attitude situates it firmly at the forefront.
Illustration by Eve Burke-Edwards
With the media already putting so much pressure on men and women to look perfect, dating apps feed off of this, relying heavily on our judgment of appearance. Also meeting someone who you’d otherwise never set eyes on isn’t always a good thing – if you’re not moving in the same spaces because you have nothing in common, conversation can run dry when you meet irl.
Starring:
Cover by Rivka Cocker
Maria Paradinas, Emily Godbold, Anjum Yasmin Nahar, Rivka Cocker, Francesca Newton, Amy Knox, Nia Jones, Maegan Farrow, Aniqah Rawat, Tessa Lloyd, Rosa Stevens, Eleanor Tarr, Sophia Marshall, Almas Talib, Calypso Latham, Eve Burke-Edwards, Garance Pellet, Emilia Andrews, Martha Price, Eva Kennedy and Jenny Scotland
