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.

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.