Suffragettes attack the post! Yet again my brilliance strikes at the core of patriarchy...

Last week I had the pleasure of attending the talk Fe:MAIL – a history of how the suffragettes attacked the post to really ‘get their message across’ (if you’ll excuse the pun). The talk, given by the Scot Dr Norman Watson at the Women’s Library, explored how our suffrage ancestoresses managed to destroy around 8,000 letters during their attacks on post-boxes during the years 1912 to 1918, when WW1 paused the movement and women finally set about running the country themselves for a change.

“But how?” I hear you ask. “Not – how did they run the country – but how did they attack the post-boxes?"

Well, that’s a very good question.

They used ink, pots of ink to be precise, whose corks had been craftily loosened so that when a young lady, incensed by social and political inequality, really had just ‘had enough’, she could throw the ink pot into the post box where the dark liquid would slowly trickle over its contents. Envelopes from the time show that they really did get quite, quite black. As a result people missed their mail and the campaign gained publicity, although it must be said that the postal campaign hardly endeared the public whose correspondence was destroyed; it was a risky move to encourage wider support for the women’s cause.

On a lighter note, postcards (again you must excuse all my witty puns) were also jolly useful to the suffragettes. They ‘postcarded’ comrades about upcoming meetings (sometimes using suffrage code) and sent postcards depicting recent events to raise support for the cause (clever Kodak produced photographic ‘postcard’ film which meant the campaigners could produce images of events within hours). Two suffragettes even travelled to Number 10 as ‘human letters’, i.e. wearing placards, but the patriarch prime minster Asquith described them as ‘dead letters’, or rather letters that were lost, and refused to read them. Oh and it is also probably worth mentioning that they smashed up quite a few post offices too, using stones and hammers- but no one was ‘hurt’.

Dr Watson, a journalist, doctor (in the academic sense that is) and all round renaissance man, has taken it upon himself to explore the history of the suffrage movement in Dundee, and to great effect. For instance did you know that Winston Churchill was the MP for Dundee (isn’t that queer?) and when he gave a speech to his constituency in 1908 the stealthy Pankhurst sisters decided to send him a message (again, another pun) by dropping a pile of slates onto the roof above the patriarch’s head, ruining his address. Hurrah women!

But what the talk really brought home to me was the importance of the suffrage movement at a regional, rather than simply at a national level. The attacks on the postal system really brought this home (unlike those poor inky letters). The attacks on mailboxes were carefully coordinated throughout the country and required the team work and in-depth planning of women’s organisations in all towns and counties, so that their ink pots went flying all the same time in order to create maximum publicity for their cause. Watson bemoaned the lack of research into the activities of WSPU across the country. Indeed he inspired me to research the herstoy of my own town to be entitled, The Feminists of Wo-Hampshire.

HOW TO 'INK' A LETTERBOX

Below I have included a short guide for any of you thinking about ‘inking a letter box’ in protest, although one must remember that it is awfully hard nowadays what with those awful CCTVs everywhere.

(1) Ensure you are carrying a muff in order to disguise your ink.
(2) Ensure the cork in your ink pot is loosened but not totally removed (you want the ink to slowly trickle down the letters), and you should probably carrying a hammer for good measure, possibly some explosives.
(3) Make sure no one is about when you chuck it in, however be sure to choose your time carefully, usually just before the patriarch postman is scheduled to collect.

Run away, fast, after you’ve posted your little protests surprise

Posie Rider: My life as an Activist

Now as you'll all know I am descended from a long line of female activists dating back to William the Conquerer's consort Matilda de Ridier IV, so after reading said article in the Observer today, which considers why women are better campaigners than men, I feel that, as an obvious voice of authority in such matters, I am total liberty to extrapolate.



Lady readers, we all know that women make far superior campaigners because:



a) women have and still shoulder the burden of man's prejudice: "we are the Jews for all seasons" as my Aunt Lilly used to say. As a result we are forced to take to arms in order to defend our lot and thus demonstrate our skills.



b) women represent the future of humanity.



c) (the obvious) women are better than men.



d) the media trust women more than men, mainly (and this is scientific fact) because we have longer hair.



e) most women are too stupid to understand anything, rendering them incapable of activating against anything compesmentus. As a result any female initiative seems more impressive than in really is. In fact sustained female efforts to effectively act in unison in the name of politics is extremely rare when you consider the woman:political cause ratio. Of course many women have attempted to master the group dynamic but often land up lost in large out of town supermarkets, or in cat fights over what colour paint to use on thier activist posters. Some can't even open their own front doors.



I personally am dead set against violence - "the pen is zen, the sword is fraud,'' as my Aunt Lilly used to say. You'll be able to see from my letter writing campaigns against the very sexist Ricky Gervais and the bigot sports presenter Chris (I can't even remember your surname) something from the BBC, that these campaigns have indeed proved most effective and will no doubt go on to change the course of humanity itself.



In the mean time I have a lovely afternoon planned making a courgette tart. Melody is coming over later and we're going to play scrabble. Toodles xx

Police brutality all too familiar?

Over the last week, we have seen two instances of shocking police brutality. Against both the G20 protestors and the Tamils, horrified at the violence in their ancestral home, police have used force and violence against peaceful protesters, utterly disregarding the safety of the public and their rights to gather and demonstrate, all in the name of maintaining the status quo. Am I disgusted? Yes. Am I surprised? No. It looks all too familiar to me. Remember, all yea who take the vote for granted, the Suffragettes were considered radical and subversive once too.

Spot the odd one out...

It's this one.

Great Article!

http://www.ontheissuesmagazine.com/2009winter/2009winter_publisher.php


Read the above- puts a line through post-feminism. We need visions not lipstick!

Feminism in 2009 - Go Fourth!

It's the New Year and time to Go Fourth for Feminism! You'll be relieved to know that I did take a day or two off of campaigning over the winter break to gorge myself on cheese and crackers, but now I'm back and fitter for the fight than ever. And what better way to shift a couple of Christmas pounds than grabbing a hammer and smashing patriarchy? Lift, and smash! Lift, and smash!

So it's a new year and so much is still to be done for Feminism before we leave the noughties altogether and I hit (whisper!) 38.

100 years since Joan of Arc was beatified in Rome, 100 years since Alice Huyer Ramsey became the first woman to drive across America, 2009 is hardly a big centenary year for Women. But we can make this year our own by making it the year that Fourth Wave Feminism was launched in the UK and spread across the globe like a tsunami. Have you seen Akira? Imagine the blob Tetsuo expanding to engulf Tokyo. Now imagine me doing the same with patriarchy. Pretty impressive, n'est pas?

But a brave new ideology needs some intellectual wrangling. What's more, it needs RULES. At a drinks party last weekend, glowing from the convivial atmosphere and one too many Gin Fizzes, I found myself trying to describe the four waves of Feminism to an Homme Non Partisan (that's one-off from a chauvinist, the kind who says "I think women should be equal with men but there's no need for Feminism anymore". Well, I say there's no need for you anymore. Now leave existence, petit homme!) .

Explaining Waves One to Three was a doddle, but when I came to Wave Four, I found myself a little lost for words. For the solitary architect of Wave Four to be so at a loss in describing her own revolutionary movement was a far from acceptable predicament. I've now sought to right this on the blog, having provided him with a link to follow at his own leisure.

So, Barry, this is for you.

Fourth Wave Feminism is not merely a rebranding of the Third Wave. This is no Pasta Hut gimick. Fourth Wave Feminism aims to resolve the empty soul-searching of Third Wave Feminism and return us to a juicy state akin to the passionate militancy, de jure inequality-bashing and sharp-tailoring of the First Wave. This is What a Suffragette Looks Like is our motto. The Second Wave was all well and good and the Third Wave had it's moments, but I say we are now in a stage akin to a Late-Third Wave, where even Feminists have lost the plot.

For educated and 'experimental' sex-positive practitioners, developing ideas such as gender queer, womanism, transgender and that-sort-of-thing, life couldn't be better. But outside of educated and bohemian circles, women who are encouraged to be sex-positive are being pushed into cycles of self-denigrating oppression no more fulfilling than the submissive existence of a Playboy Bunny.

Sex-Positivity only works when you're doing something terribly unusual and if you've read an awful lot of Judith Butler. For everyone else, it's a massive mixed message that leads to twelve year olds in G-strings and teenage girls who want nothing more than to be dishonoured on a dance floor by a stranger.

The Third Wave was about personality politics and individual choice, under the auspices of consumer capitalism. It began innocently enough. "Yes, I can be a Feminist and buy lipstick", women cried. Indeed, I personally swear by Dior #999. Then came the likes of "I can be a Feminist and get breast implants." Serious? I'd say that's less easy to call. Why do you need those breast implants? Do you feel as strongly about the breast implants as you do about Feminism? Didn't think so.

By the time we reached, "I can be a Feminist and be masturbated by robots on the bonnet of a pink Chevy for cash and on film," we knew things had gone too far. Why? Because Feminism isn't the same thing as doing exactly what you like. Feminism is about asking why it is you like the things you do and then deciding whether those likes are truly original to yourself, as far as is possible in any society. Feminism is as much a critique of individual desires as it is of the societies in which they flourish. Treating each degrading and vain desire as if they are equal to noble or uplifting wishes is cynical, damaging and idiotic. What's worse, it's making someone a lot of money somewhere, probably in the head office of Ann Summers where you buy your candy handcuffs and cherry scented lubes, foolish woman!

Finally, fundamentally, Feminism is about improving the quality of life of WOMEN. Anything that conflicts with that is not Feminism. That is being a hedonist, an egotist, a sadist and a pornocrat. Feminism can't be all those things, silly!

So, this is not a manifesto. It's a reconnaissance mission. The Femifesto will follow, once I've really worked out what I'm up against. Watch this space!

I heart Andrea

Morning Lady Readers. I am researching for my latest publication 'I've lost my Arm, A Magazine' and have decided that the first issue 'New Wave Suffrage: This Time it's Personal'
(Spring 2009) will be dedicated to my militant sister Andrea Dworkin. This woman means business. If any of you can share any loving memories of Andrea please write in: you can do an opinion piece.

Here's a quote:

Sitting with Ricki, talking with Ricki, I made a vow to her: that I would use everything I knew, including from prostitution, to make the women's movement stronger and better; that I'd give my life to the movement and for the movement. I promised to be honor-bound to the well-being of women, to do anything necessary for that well-being. I promised to live and to die if need be for women. I made that vow some thirty years ago, and I have not betrayed it yet.

– Andrea Dworkin, Heartbreak: The Political Memoir of a Feminist Militant, 122.

Go Sister! Getting together with Melody Wittgenstein and some others from the editorial team this weekend So expect some more news here on MY blog (slash on the website too)

Hugs and Pugs xx

Did someone say Prostitute?

Well hello there ladies.

I just found this article 'online' from the Independent: the writer called Sophie Morris, is accusing US of sponsoring prostitution. Now, I tell you straight up Miss Independent (up-your-self) journalist: WE do NOT encourage prostitution. You wouldn't catch me dead wearing a Playboy bunny t-shit. In fact I was one of the main campaigners in a key subsidiary of the 'Ban the Bunny' Campaign, known as 'Harrow the Hare'.

http://www.thefword.org.uk/blog/2007/09/bin_the_bunny

Here are some of my thoughts on the article (which I would have written much much better than her):

1. "Victoria Andrews, 31, owns the lap-dancing club Aqua: Lounge in Southampton. She started dancing with friends when she was studying. "I went to audition with a group of housemates and we all got the job," she says. "It suddenly became more real, but we all made some cash on the first night and thought, 'Wow. This is great.'"

Posie Says: Do I really give a damn what Victoria thinks? She's a bloody prostitute for god's sake.

2. "Every sexual aid, every accoutrement, every raunchy negligée and multicoloured condom, has been freed from its restrictive hothouse and allowed to blossom in the open air. Sex is now on every high street, not just in the seedier areas of town. Have we reached sexual enlightenment? Categorically not. Deviant behaviour is as rampant as ever, and prostitution itself remains, in effect, illegal. But demand is on the up, out of control even. Do the people paying for it think that because we can talk about it pre-watershed, the moral arguments surrounding it have dissolved?"

Posie Says: Oh Fuck off Sophie! No one gives a shit what you think. Why are there so many question marks? It makes it look like you don't understand. Oh sorry, I forgot, YOU DON'T!

Men endorse this kind of behaviour, not women. And the women that do are too stupid to think about why they are doing it. That's why my brand of New Wave Suffrage shall be calling for a ban on sexual merchandise and castration for anyone consorting with sex workers (including women). Bin the Bunny? Why not Burn the Bunny?

3. "She (Sam) also has a theory about the people who use prostitutes. "Who's the punter? The punter is everyman. And why is it growing? Because they're disassociating from themselves sexually, and from their emotions. It's an expression of self-hate. Men who go to prostitutes, no matter how much they think they are functional, are people who can't be honest with themselves about who they are. When you scratch the surface and start to ask questions about their emotional relationship to their own sexuality, you find big dark holes."

Posie Says: Right on sister! I agree with you, you should know, you are friends with Emma Thompson (refer to article: click blog title for link).

I would go further to question exactly what men are trying to cover up here. I have a sneaky feeling that as society increasingly evolves men are starting to realise that in fact women are their intellectual superiors. Perhaps it is not only the uncontrollable male libido that is driving prostitution? If you follow this line of argument you might conclude that it is also fuelled by a male acceptance of immanent puerility?

4. Oh and the opinion of the 'lovable' Sebastian Horsley:

"Contrary to what those foul feminists will tell you, the prostitute is not a victim," he says. "If you talk to them, and I've met thousands (in what capacity, Sebastian? ) they don't often find themselves victimised and exploited, but the middle-class intellectuals who formulate their opinions for them tell them that they are (So, if the innocent, gentle middle-class intellectual is capable of forming the opinions of a zesty prostitute, who else is, Sebastian?). There's a whole rescue operation going on at the moment made up of social workers, community leaders and politicians, and it's in their interests to find suffering. There is exploitation, but there is exploitation in all industries."

Posie Says: I want you dead, Horsley. You. Have. Been. Noted.
cf. "I've met just thousands of them and they're really happy", well Sebastian, I've met 4 of them and they were miserable. We talked about the price of baked beans.

5. According to Samantha, there's now a growing number of women who hold down professional jobs and go on the game at the weekend. These women are not on the breadline, nor are they feeding a drug habit. No – their behaviour is a tragic indictment of obsessive consumerism. Whither a woman's sanctity when there's a new pair of Manolos and a trip to Chiva-Som in the offing?

Posie Says: Again I agree. These types of women are little more than spoons for the ladling of an almightily bitter soup, the foul blend of capitalism, poverty, poor education, sexism and inherent stupidity. Grab a gun and look for further details in first issue of I've Lost My Arm.

6. A summary of recommendations from the Home Office report "Tackling the demand for prostitution" (published 19 November):
* Make it an offence for people to pay for sex with someone who is controlled for another person's gain.
* Run a campaign aimed at sex buyers to raise awareness about trafficking for sexual exploitation.
* Amend the offences of kerb-crawling and persistent soliciting to allow prosecution for a first offence.
* Launch a national anti-kerb-crawling campaign and support forces in reducing street prostitution.
* Introduce closure powers for premises linked to sexual exploitation, allowing police to restrict access for up to three months.

Posie Says: Me and the New Wave Suffragettes will help you Ms Smith! And we'll knock off a few of those Belle de bloody Jour types too. Grasping wankers.

I've Lost My Arm! A feminist magazine that shows other feminist magazines where to get off!

Sub-vexted and on the 'Verge' of tearing out my eyes (and my ovaries) in despair at the miserable quality of reading material available to the discerning feminist, I've done what any self-respecting lady writer with half a minute to spare would do, I've launched a magazine! Or, vagazine(!). I mean, it's not technically launched yet, the time for that will come when we're all lounging at the Groucho with a Pernod n' Rosso in one hand, a copy of I've Lost my Arm in another, a hammer tucked into a coat pocket.

In the meantime, I'm on the lookout for SUBMISSIONS from discerning lady writers - are you far too intelligent to pander to the pitiful standards of contemporary publishing? Are you disgusted with the screaming irony and so-called consumer 'choice' of post-feminism? Are you just a bit too old for so called 'third wave' feminism, does it make you go 'ooh, er'? Are you willing to save a post-feminist, even if it means killing them? Then this is the magazine for you.

I'm looking for challenging, articulate writing. I'm looking for women who would wield a weapon to fight for their rights. I'm looking for a massive Arts Council grant. Can you help?

The theme of the first issue will be: NEW WAVE SUFFRAGE - A MANIFESTO.

Check out the website (click post title!) it's up and running and will soon be unfurling with ideas and features like an attack flower.

Any thoughts, email me: posierider@gmail.com.

I, glorious, return!

Good morning lady readers!

A metric-fuck tonne of apologies for my absence, but due to a rather unfortunate incident with a bottle of Martini Rosso, an argument with an ex boyfriend and the unfortunate presence of a disposable pink bic razor, I've been hospitalised for the majority of the summer. It was nothing too serious, just the sort of thing to be expected from a sensitive Lady writer such as myself, and really all that time sitting around in a white nightie getting pumped through with diazepam gave me time to think, write, compose, touch the windows, plait my hair and so forth. I haven't been so creative since mama left me in Poppins in Uxbridge that weekend with a bottomless coca cola and some crayola!

One of the best presents I was gifted with during my time in the Women's ward was not a Blackberry, which would have been helpful, nor the Bible which a group of bastard Gideons planted on my sleeping chest, I can only assume, when I was out cold that last week in July, but rather the fabulous Femmes of Power, a book about a lot of very well turned out lesbian Ladies (apologies if this isn't the correct term, I'm so useless with gender theory even though my Auntie invented it and really I wish we could all just get along!) in the most fabulous states of dress. I thoroughly enjoyed perusing this volume, made all the more sensational by the reaction of the facile Jackie in the bed next to mine whose awful grunting fiance insisted on visiting every afternoon and staying for the entire permitted visiting hour. I mean, how pathetic is that? They can't have been more that 23, and it came as an utter shock to me to find out they were engaged. I mean, it was all well and good in the past before women were liberated to get married young, they had precious little else to do! But now it just smacks of desperation. Jackie and I had a rather heated discussion on the subject when I felt obliged to point this out to her, and perhaps if I hadn't called her a foolish strumpet she might have listened to my advice a little closer, but needs must when the sexist thrives and besides, I simply can't be calm when I see a woman uselessly giving over he entire being to a man, let along a dope like this Keith!

However, I calmed myself by reasoning that in terms of the lifespan of individuals such as Jackie and Keith compared to the rest of us, it makes perfect sense for them to get married that young when they're clearly going to die much younger that we are, around 50 I expect. Like the peasants I learnt about in A Level history, before the death rate was practically halved by improved health care. I said to myself, Posie, if you were going to die at 50 I'm sure you'd have thought about getting married at 23!

Although, judging by the standards of the hospital, I can't be too sure! Of course it was a private clinic close to my home in North London but the media really should stop reporting on the state of NHS hospitals and draw attention to the fact that hygiene issues are not limited to public health facilities. Honestly at the rates we were paying I hardly think it's much to expect that the staff be clean.

Oh dear, I digress! The point I was hoping to make concerned this wonderful femme book, which appalled Jackie to no end. She seemed never to have met a lesbian, a feminist, or in fact any other woman unlike herself. This was remarkable, not least because the beautifully adorned women who featured in my book looked not a great deal unlike those Jackie poured over in her daily doses of Heat! magazine and the rest. Except of course mine were much, much, better.

This got me thinking: what is the thing that connects women as diverse and myself and Jackie? Surely not just our presence in a close observation psychotherapy ward! Perhaps it is rather how we look, or how we are seen not just by each other but by men and other Women. Is it that we both put on mascara everyday even though we were strapped into a hospital bed and dressed in fashion's equivalent of a white bin bag? Why is it that whatever Women do, they have to feel they look good while they're doing it?

Since I've been out of hospital and subjected to the gaze of North and North West Londoners alike, I've started to feel a little concerned with my appearance, but not in the way you might think! I've stopped wearing make up, I now tie my hair into a mundane pony tail and limit myself to the jeans-and-a-nice-top school of dressing. Awful! I'm not sure how long this will last, the reaction so far hasn't been particularly dramatic but perhaps the potentials are revolutionary, we shall see!

At least I'm comforted by the fact that that much time off solids means that I'm now really incredibly thin.
.

Warning to all Women!

I call on you not to respond to the vile adverts Avon (cunt killer) cosmetics are bringing out next week! They are really bad because those women that sell us lipstick are just undermining our bodies. Yes i have a body, I'm perfectly happy with my body. But I AM NOT perfectly happy with my brain.

Sell me brain lipstick- books and puzzles and rap. I will happily buy it from you at my door, you with your silly silly little basket. But do not leave out my brain!

Women should start thinking about their heads more than their faces.