Why I'm a feminist Wings Over Scotland fan

To be honest, I started writing this post a couple of months ago but I didn't have the guts to finish it until I read this amazing blog post by Wee Ginger Dug. He really inspired me to get a move on and publish this, so here's why I'm a feminist and also a dedicated reader of the site Wings Over Scotland and a supporter of its founder, Stuart Campbell.

Some readers will be aware of accusations against Stu Campbell of 'transphobia, homophobia and misogyny'. I won't get into the first two claims too much since I think that conversation is for gay people, such as Wee Ginger Dug, and trans people too, but as a life-long feminist and someone who has taken part in feminist activism over the last few years I can say that Campbell isn't a misogynist in my eyes. Of course, like all of us he's been raised in a patriarchal society and he has doubtless internalised some misogynist values, as have we all, but his behaviour in public life is nearly always laudable and, in my view, always at least excusable.

At the risk of going on about trans rights when I said I wouldn't, the only criticism I'm going to link to here is that published on the A Thousand Flowers blog concerning Campbell's misgendering of Chelsea Manning. This article, unlike some of the others against Campbell, is based on the evidence of a Twitter conversation and never descends into mindless vitriol. It's the most fair-minded of the criticisms against him and there was one line that particularly stood out for me on the subject of misgendering and trans rights:

We know by now, surely? We know, don’t we?! Apparently we don’t. 

I would just add, 'no, we REALLY don't'. There are communities of feminists and activists who share a detailed and nuanced understanding of trans rights, but outside of these right-on pockets progress continues to be limited. I think Campbell's lack of knowledge is completely unsurprising given his background  and hardly constitutes an incitement to violence; to me, if anything, it suggests the need for awareness of trans rights to be taught in school (I certainly never heard trans people ever mentioned in my school, let alone their rights) and for greater awareness throughout society of concepts like misgendering and the use of pronouns.

His defensive response to being corrected has probably caused as much ire as the original tweet, but it's hardly news that people act defensively when challenged on the internet. Only one side of the conversation is shown on the A Thousand Flowers blog so we're lacking context. Either way though, I think this kind of reaction is something that we, as feminists and as people living in a society, should think about. People don't like being told how to express themselves. There is a debate to be had about how we can promote equal rights and discourage microaggressions without becoming the language police. And this isn't a 'more flies with honey' appeal, it's because there's something a bit totalitarian about judging people on their failure to adopt your language wholesale. A human being is not a sum of all the things they've ever posted on the internet. I study English at university but I don't think you need to have an in-depth knowledge of the subject to realise that treating a person as a text is dehumanizing and in this case has led to efforts (albeit counter-productive efforts) to dismiss someone's life work, to kick someone out of public life and render them verboten on the basis of a handful of out-of-context comments. Remarkably only a handful, given that we are talking about a white, male, videogames journalist who has been on the internet basically since it became available for public use. I've been on Facebook for ten years and I'm pretty sure that if someone were to trawl through my posts in the same way as Campbell's have been analysed they would find many things that could be read as sexist or homophobic, especially when taken out of context. It's a pretty bland life on the internet (or off it, for that matter) that leaves no traces of controversy anywhere in its annals.

There's also something a bit worrying about calls to boycott Campbell's site. Now, if you don't like the tone of the website or if you find Campbell's statements elsewhere to be unacceptable to your politics then fair enough, don't go on his site. But I've been recently made to feel by a couple of people that I'm somehow less of a woman or less of a feminist for failing to adopt their position. It's worth pointing out that there are no ads on Campbell's site for third parties, so he doesn't get paid by the click. He only gets paid if you actively donate money to him or buy his merchandise. It seems like the only reason to 'boycott' the site, therefore, is that it's not your cup of tea (a personal decision that you're totally entitled to make) or because you don't want to stroke his ego. The second reason seems to be cutting off your nose to spite your face - I personally don't care about Campbell's ego and the thought of giving it a wee electronic stroke now and again isn't going to put me off perusing the best and most thorough analysis of the media narrative that we are lucky enough to have in the debate, despite the slightly creepy imagery that I've just used. I feel like that's my decision to make and, once again, I think we should consider our position when we find ourselves proscribing other people's behaviour so closely when no harm can come of using this website.

So, finally to the Wings Over Scotland website itself. I consider this website to be one of the safest spaces for feminists on the internet. Seriously. When allegations about 'misogyny' on Campbell's part first came out I was concerned. I've read pretty much every article on the website for the past 5 months or so, I check it nearly every day, but could something have slipped my attention? My first reaction was to go to the website and search for Johann Lamont's name. Anyone who has spent the shortest amount of time as a feminist on the internet will know that nothing brings out the sexist abuse like a female politician on the 'wrong' side of the debate. However, criticism of Johann Lamont based on appearance or gendered language is notably muted on the site. Not only that, but when one ventures below the line the comments are remarkably short of gender-based criticism. There are a few examples of people saying 'hey, where did my comment go?' so my suspicion is that, rather than Wings readers being universally gender-blind or at least too polite to mention it, Campbell is doing a great job of moderating the website into a nice place to be. This is on a website that had advertising pulled from the Glasgow underground after a single complaint that the site (the site mind, not Campbell himself) was 'transphobic' and 'misogynist'. You can see why Wings fans were a bit miffed about the injustice of that, especially given that the advertising was paid for with their money.

You might think 'okay, so the guy isn't a bigot. But still, why have you spent all this time defending him, don't you have better things to do?'. Well the answer to that question is probably, but I couldn't help myself. I have never met Stu Campbell irl, but when I do I'll be shaking his hand. I am utterly grateful to him for the work he's done. Over the last few months his site has been one of the best resources for me as a campaigner and as a fledgling nationalist. The site is funny, and moving and passionate - partly because of the distinctive tone adopted by Campbell, one that some of his critics seem to have confused with a wish to make the site all about him. It's well-researched and referenced and accessible. Basically, the site represents part of the future of Scotland that I want to see. Let's remind ourselves (or, in case any of those folk are reading who proudly say they don't visit Wings while lambasting those of us that do, here you go for the first time):

On gay marriage and the SNP:

This blog can think of no greater tribute to bestow on any government than that it’s prepared to lose votes, and considerable numbers of them, to do the right thing. We salute it without reservation.

On feminism:

It's traditional when one is male and advancing supposedly-controversial arguments like this to proclaim oneself to be a feminist. Well, I'm not. I despise all forms of sectarianism and discrimination and I always have. I'm an egalitarian – I believe men and women of all colours and persuasions to be fundamentally and self-evidently of equal worth and merit and entitled to all and exactly the same rights.

Of course, I would love it if everyone understood the goals of feminism and proclaimed themselves unreserved allies - but being for equal rights is my second favourite choice. This is the man who has been subject to so many, many accusations on the internet over the last wee while in the name of feminism. I can't remember such vitriol ever being aimed at David Cameron from the feminist community, even though his policies are closing rape crisis centres, and leaving women unable to feed their kids, and getting rid of public sector jobs that would otherwise be giving security and decent pensions to women in Scotland. This is why critics of Wings are thought, by some, to be unionists in varying levels of disguise. Why else would Wings be your target? He's just a normal guy with a very special website. Don't use it if you don't want to, but please respect my choice to consider him a friend. He's helping us get closer to a Yes vote, to childcare that doesn't cost an arm and a leg and a would-be career. Towards a society that doesn't target women by bringing in policies that specifically discriminate against them. I see Scottish independence as a step towards a more equal society, and I know Wings does too from all the hours I've spent on the site. Campbell is an honorary ally in my eyes, whether he likes it or not, and there's a pint with his name on it if he ever finds himself with some time on his hands in Dundee.

Anti-Englishness, or 'what about teh menz?'

As a feminist keeping a weather eye on the independence debate it's very interesting to see some derailing tactics often deployed against women raising their ugly heads against Yes voters as they try to get their points across with little help from the mainstream media - except for the Sunday Herald, we love you!

One can read the 'cybernats' attacks as analogous to dismissal of feminists as loud/angry/unfeminine: 'How dare you disrupt the polite conversation being had between the nice, powerful men? Please do be quiet, your self-expression and attempts at equality/democracy are unseemly.'

But another more interesting analogy is one that I'd like to make here; whenever I hear an argument about anti-Englishness I think about those uneducated knee-jerk misogynists and dedicated trolls who derail feminist arguments with cries of 'what about teh menz?'

For anyone unfamiliar with the 'what about teh menz' argument, people who hold this viewpoint argue that feminist discussions should be redirected to talk about the problems faced by men. So, if you're having a conversation about unequal pay, for example, a 'what about teh menz' man will enter the conversation to claim that entry level jobs (such as waiting tables or being a secretary) are easier for women to get. What about the problems men face?! These people seem incapable of understanding that a conversation among women about feminist issues might not be the best place to unpack the pros and cons of masculinity. It is the job of the patient feminist to explain gender relations to this interloper, backed up with reports, facts and figures. Or she can tell him to get lost, do his own research and stop whining once he realizes he's being a massive tool.

In the regularly resurrected straw man of anti-Englishness the Bitter Together campaign have found their 'what about teh menz'. Let me explain how I see these arguments as analogous.

In the UK being English is a more privileged position than being Scottish. Or Welsh. Or Irish. We can probably zero in further and argue that being Thames Estuary English and the accent that comes with it is the most privileged background for a citizen of the UK to occupy, geographically. Thames Estuary English people are the implicit audience of BBC broadcasts (as opposed to those of us who get 'the news where you are' - not where the BBC is in London, presumably), and many broadcasts are delivered to them in their own accents. This is the default state in the UK, the assumed citizen, as men occupy the default gender under patriarchy.

One might ask whether the privilege of being a Thames Estuary English person applies in Scotland. Well, there is significant evidence for this. Alasdair Gray was lambasted for his comments about the 'colonisation' of positions by English people and I think that his point holds some truth (even if some people feel that an artist using a metaphor to discuss a heated political issue is wildly inflammatory). Listen to episode 65 of the Scottish Independence podcast featuring George Gunn, he makes a similar point. It isn't surprising that English privilege is still alive and well in Scotland; the Scottish cringe is well-documented and it's easy to imagine an English candidate coming across as more worldly-wise, more confident. It's probably easy to feel more confident when you've grown up nearer the centres of power, when your culture hasn't been sidelined as parochial. It's also worth remembering the ridiculously low life expectancy in parts of Glasgow, even compared with areas of similar deprivation in England.

And then we hear Better Together complaining about anti-Englishness from the Yes camp. I am yet to come across any of this sentiment, despite my many hours of following the #indyref hashtag on Twitter or the many new people I've met on Facebook and irl through the campaign. That's not to say such sentiments don't exist, they absolutely do, but these feelings are more often than not confined to the football pitch. James Foley and Pete Ramand point out in their book Yes: the Case for Radical Independence that English-born people are the largest 'minority' group living in Scotland but yet there is very little evidence of physical violence against them when compared to the number of racist attacks against people of other nations.

For Better Together to imply that Yes campaigners are bullying English people or stoking hate against them is as childish and dangerous an argument as those men who argue that their problems and needs should be at the foreground of feminist debate. In both cases the privileged party has to realize that, for once, it isn't all about them. Just as feminists need space to discuss the issues most pertinent to women, Yes campaigners - and Scots in general - need to use the space opened by this referendum to discuss our problems and how they might be solved, whether or not we get a Yes vote in September. Anti-Englishness should and must be called out if we come across it, but when it is being used as a pawn in Better Together's campaign strategy (assuming they have one) it should be dismissed as the dangerous nonsense it is - and as an attempt to silence a group whose needs have been too often marginalised in the past.

The importance of 'coming out' and visibility

There's an article in today's Scotsman in which Louise Batchelor describes how she 'came out' as a supporter of Scottish independence. Louise isn't alone, many people find themselves talking about their public support of independence in this way. I've read this phrasing many times online, and I recently had a conversation with a close female relative about starting to talk about the Yes campaign with friends and work colleagues and she readily identified with this kind of feeling.

It's quite bizarre when you think about it - there are just as many people yet to make up their minds as there are people voting Yes, and yet undecideds are not depicted as odd or unusual. There are almost as many of us as there are No voters, in fact. I'm inclined, once again, to lay part of the blame for this feeling on the media as they represent support for the status quo as the 'default' state and anything that deviates from that support as, well... deviant.

However, as well as the attitude of the media, this feeling in the air, to me, exposes the deeply conservative nature of the No campaign and of the unionist argument more generally. It seems to me that they don't just want to preserve the union, they also seem to advocate a socially conservative, conformist position. There is an assumption on their part that the default state is the proper state, they ask the question that Jeanette Winterson used as the title of her memoir - Why Be Happy When You Can Be Normal?

There are two things in particular that I think the Yes campaign and all of us in the movement can learn from this. One of them is that we need to think about this idea of 'normality' and what we want to do with it. We could go about trying to reframe the debate so that the Yes position is the 'new normal' - one could argue that this is what the SNP have attempted with the gradualist approach expressed in the white paper and in their intentions to keep the monarchy and the pound. However, I think it's more important to make this about happiness than about normality. Instead, we should embrace the plurality of our country, and reject the idea of a conservative, unimaginative normality. If everyone is respected for their individuality and for the positive way that they contribute to the community then there is no need for the kind of conformism that the worship of normality imposes.

The second thing that we should take from this is the importance of visibility. When your beliefs are attacked you shouldn't hide away in shame. We should take a leaf from the traditions of gay pride and marches like Reclaim the Night or Slutwalk, we should look at the recent visible celebrations of gay marriage in England (coming not soon enough to a Scotland near you!) and celebrate our joy and excitement at the possibilities of the future. Get your badges on, your Yes wristbands, change your Facebook cover photo or just acknowledge and celebrate your position; not with the intent of making such celebrations 'normal', but in order to do away with conservative normality altogether in favour of the plural collective and of all our varied visions of what an independent Scotland could be like. After all, Why Be Normal When You Could Be Happy?

Feminist Fights and the Independence Debate

I'm an academic and English Literature is my main area of study (but another post on the English/Scottish Literature difference at a later date!). As the referendum debate has developed I started to realise that I hardly know any Scottish history, I'm so unaware of the culture of this country I call home. So, in an effort to remedy this I picked up James Robertson's And the Land Lay Still (2010). It had a 'As heard on BBC Radio 4' sticker on the front and, as someone still very much infected by the cultural imperialism of 'Britain', that was enough to convince me it was to be my window into this strange world we call 'Scotland'.

Honestly, I couldn't have made a better choice. The novel takes its title from an Edwin Morgan poem and consists of a series of stories that, together, build up a picture of twentieth-century Scotland. For someone who had never heard of the 'tartan Tories' (that was the SNP's nickname back in the day), the Scottish Liberation Army blowing up post boxes (really!), or that Margaret Thatcher voted to support a woman's right to choose it's been a history lesson in the form of a massively engaging literary novel.

Anyway, what has this got to do with feminism and the independence debate? Well, the connection between the two has been in my mind for months but not expressed in any of the many blog posts or newspaper articles that I read. Until I came to this passage in And the Land Lay Still:

"A conference was held in Glasgow, in the theatre behind the Mitchell Library. A Saturday in July 1983. Three weeks earlier Margaret Thatcher had won her second General Election, routing the Labour Party under Michael Foot's leadership. The conference organiser had a big question for those attending: 'Which way now for the Scottish left?'...But on the day some were even unhappy about that designation. They felt that the adjective somehow betrayed the spirit of the noun it described. Someone was selling copies of a poster that said SCOTTISH WRITERS AGAINST THE BOMB. On it were the names of dozens of writers opposed to nuclear weapons on the Clyde. An argument started. 'Oh, you can't say that.' 'Can't say what?' 'If you say "Scottish writers" you're excluding other writers who are also against the Bomb. That's parochial, that is.'... A fight almost broke out." (And the Land Lay Still, 530-1).

Anyone reading who hasn't had much experience of feminist spaces might still be scratching their heads as to why I've just quoted this slab of a passage, but I think if you've spent much time in feminist spaces (particularly online) you'll be more than aware of similar debates. This passage is set in 1983, but some of the same debates are happening now, as we face the referendum. And, I think, we who have cut our political teeth in the world of feminism are well placed to tackle these kinds of issues, given that we spend a lot of our time thinking about them.

The equivalence, in this passage, of Scotland with 'parochialism' is very much what feminists are accustomed to experiencing when they support women-only spaces, or anything-only spaces, in feminism. There is a lack of understanding on the part of mainstream thought. Surely, if you're fighting for a cause, you want as many people as possible to follow you? This is how we think under a democracy, where numbers are everything. It's the same when someone picks a campaign to work on. There are always those voices asking how you can focus on Page 3 when FGM is such an issue? Or, what's the point of having a woman on a bank note when two women a week are being murdered by their partners?

But sometimes, numbers aren't everything. Sometimes the exclusion of dominant (male) voices can be conducive to that. The same goes for other feminist groups, who choose to restrict their membership by race, or colour, or political affiliation or whatever. There's not just strength in numbers, there's strength in having people around you who understand.

And sometimes, you see an issue where you can make a measurable difference. And maybe it's not going to destroy patriarchy by the time you're done, but you can achieve something, however small, and build on that success. And the wonderful thing is, your campaign does not damage other feminist campaigns with different messages. It makes them stronger.

The other thing to recognise here is the potential for a multiplicity of voices and positions. As well as SCOTTISH WRITERS AGAINST THE BOMB, or 'Feminists for Independence - no men allowed', there is plenty of space for other groups to be formed. WRITERS AGAINST THE BOMB and 'Mixed Gender Feminists for Independence' will also garner a wide following, and can do so without stepping on each others toes, but with mutual support and respect.

This is one of the things that the feminist movement has in common with the independence movement. In grassroots organisation we understand that 'different' doesn't have to mean 'in opposition to'. Realising and expressing our identity doesn't mean we want to crush or silence the 'other'. We make our own spaces, but we also try to make space for others. This is what I think people miss when they ask the SNP to come up with all the answers, to promise (and sign on the dotted line) what will happen if we vote Yes. You can't really blame people for this, when you're accustomed to decisions made through party politics you expect to choose things from a menu rather than get in the kitchen and roll up your sleeves - you also expect to be lied to, so that whatever a politician promises you'll never be satisfied. We should all realise that no one can promise us anything, and certainly no one can make us believe - if you want something done then you can take the first step towards making it happen. Start a campaign, knock on some doors, start a Facebook group or a conversation with someone you suspect is on your side. You will find support, there's a whole country out here to help you out; sometimes you just have to be the first one to raise your voice and say what needs to be done.

Feminism and Scottish Independence - 6 Months to Go

This post is the one in which I explain what kind of things you can expect from this blog over the coming months. I'm a feminist campaigner and an academic. I'll also be voting Yes in the coming Scottish referendum. There are many thoughts about these topics all over the internet, but I haven't seen some of my own positions reflected in the debates as of yet, to the point where I've finally decided to put my reputation where my offline mouth is and start to write some of them down. I'm going to write about what feminism has to teach us about the Scottish referendum, and the future of an independent Scotland. Feminist campaigning and activism has taught me a lot (although I'm by no means an expert!) and I want to put those two worlds together to see what we get. I haven't heard enough from feminists on the topic of independence, though I know many Scottish feminists are fellow Yes voters - so I'm going to give some of my observations here. You almost certainly won't agree with everything I write - but the internet is a big, beautiful diverse place and you're welcome to write your own blogs representing your point of view if you feel the need. Here we go!