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?

What Do Women Want... From Independence?

The coalition government's attitude to women amounts to an attack and aims to put women back in the home with no way out. Whether this is a conscious ideological decision, or a cumulative effect of various insensitive policies is uncertain; but I've long realised that it's a waste of time trying to figure out whether coalition ministers are evil or just deeply stupid - it's much more useful to spend energy fighting them, rather than trying to understand them.

The coalition have threatened to scrap the Public Sector Equality Duty (which aims to protect women and minorities from discrimination in the public sector) by characterising it as nothing more than red tape, a stance criticised by the Fawcett Society. The Fawcett Society have also produced a report on the impact of the coalition's austerity agenda on women. Reduced public services, the attacks on disabled and unemployed women who often have caring responsibilities to deal with while trying not to be sanctioned; these things badly impact the mental and physical well-being of women across the UK.

On top of this, last week a report by HMIC showed the extent of failures by police forces in England and Wales when dealing with domestic abuse. Domestic abuse is being treated as a non-crime in a society where women are struggling to make ends meet in their present situations, never mind as they try to exit a relationship, or rebuild their lives and the lives of their children. At the same time the Department of Work and Pensions have announced Universal Credit as part of their evil/ridiculously ill-thought-out welfare reforms; this means that one payment per month would be paid only to one member of a household. So while in previous years women in abusive relationships, or women in relationships with men suffering addiction issues, could rely on child benefit payments and their own job seekers allowance to put food on the table, that can no longer be the case under Universal Credit. When two people on benefits are in a relationship and living together they must decide on a single claimant. This surrender of fiscal autonomy would be challenging to people in a healthy relationship - in an abusive relationship we can guess who that claimant would be and the consequences could be grave. This renders women on benefits financially dependent on the man of the house, a sickening consequence of Ian Duncan Smith's plans.

The signs are that many of these problems in Scotland could be eased or eradicated by a move towards independence. We would be able to formulate a more ethical welfare system, hopefully one that takes account of the need for autonomy in romantic relationships and recognises the rights of people on benefits to have such relationships without having to give up their financial independence. Policing, already devolved from Westminster, has been recognised as more sensitive in tackling domestic abuse and a move towards a more socially just society could mean more funding for domestic abuse services, as opposed to the severe cuts taking place under the austerity agenda. Also, the Scottish government's policy on childcare has become a flagship policy of the independence debate and will result in more women with the choice to work, more women with financial independence.

The choice would seem to be a clear one for Scotland's women, but yet polls show that women are far less likely to vote for independence than men. The reason for this is not obvious. Some, including Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, argue that this is because women care more about their children's future than fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants patriotism. But even so, when one looks at the evidence it seems that the children of an independent Scotland will have child care and early years support; they can rely on a safe, nationalised healthcare system; their society will be more equal and more fair than it would be if we remained in the union.

I suspect the opinions of women might be more unionist (for many the default position in the debate) because they have less access to the facts. Women with caring responsibilities, with jobs, and with little time to spare scouring the internet for the facts on independence might be less likely to hear the message that screams loud and clear from alternative media - this is your chance! Seize it with both hands!

A breakdown in the polls seems to show that uncertainty is the greatest differentiating factor; women are more likely to be uncertain about the risks of Scottish independence than men. Again, this could in part be caused by women having less time to access alternative media, though a full analysis of the psychology of women and 'certainty' in a patriarchal society would be interesting. For the purposes of this current debate it might be worth simply remembering that we all know one thing's for sure - if you want something done properly, you have to do it yourself. Grassroots involvement and direct engagement are the keys to making people feel empowered and to making them confident in their own ability. If we have that confidence then we will be sure of independence's success, and sure of our power to weather the risks. It's not about appealing to women as a special interest group, it's about equal involvement.