Some thoughts on #NUSDSC13.

It feels strange and a little ironic to say that I’m too sick to go to NUS Disabled Students’ Conference 2013, but it’s true: I’ve been coming down with something since Friday evening, powered through to make it to day two of StudentFems 2013, and last night I was awake until 4am with a rasping throat, high temperature, and swollen tonsils. Joy!

So, with the possibility of actually making it up to Manchester for the rest of the conference shrinking hourly, I thought I might at least write something about it. So here are some thoughts, unformed and perhaps illness-addled though they may be.

I’ve struggled with identifying myself as ‘disabled’ for some time, since I’ve never been disabled in the sense of receiving DLA or having a blue badge. But given my poor health over the last year (a long illness followed by post-viral fatigue) and the fact that I’m now an intermittent stick-user, it’s now pretty much a no-brainer that yes, I am definitely ‘disabled enough’ for the purposes of the NUS DSC.

It’s been my experience that the Disabled Students’ Campaign has been a lot more visible this year than in previous years, and I think that’s fantastic. I was pleased by the DSC’s release of mental health booklets for activists: reminders of why and how to take care of yourself, even when they seem blisteringly obvious, are sometimes incredibly useful when you’re caught up in the whirlwind of campaigning. Talking about mental health – and the unpleasant toll that fighting oppression as part of your daily life can take – is so, so vital and I’m glad that something like this exists in an official capacity. I know I burnt myself out quite hard in the third year of my undergrad, and I wish I’d had more of an understanding that sometimes it’s okay to stop and take care of yourself. Another thing I liked (on a similar theme of getting people talking about things) was the day of ‘coming out’ as disabled – dozens and dozens of student officers and activists publicly discussed their disabilities on blogs, Twitter, and Facebook, some for the first time ever. I was impressed by the bravery and honesty on show – and also, by some of the critique that took place: the reminder that actually, people shouldn’t feel as though they are obliged to be ‘out’ about their disabilities, or to provide a list of diagnoses to prove their validity. While for those with invisible disabilities, ‘coming out’ is an important way to get a conversation going about stigma and assumptions, for people with more visible disabilities there’s the opposing problem of people defining you entirely by your disability: in which case, ‘coming out’ becomes moot. (Perhaps it seems strange to be in favour of the day and also to support criticism of it: I think that much of its value was in how it started conversations, and that certainly includes the conversation criticising or problematising some of the ideas behind it.)

Both of these happened under Hannah Paterson, the current Disabled Students’ Officer, who is running for re-election. Unlike most of the elections for NUS’ Liberation campaigns this year, this election is contested – Matthew Reuben is also in the running. Personally I think that’s brilliant – an election should be an election, not a coronation! (When I was re-running for my position last year I actually encouraged someone who was considering running against me, on that principle – but obviously, there’s quite a difference between a voluntary committee position and a paid full-time officer position…) So, on the topic of the election: I think Hannah has been excellent this year, and I’m sure if she is re-elected she will continue to do a great job. But at the same time, Matthew is an amazing activist and someone I’ve considered a good friend for quite a while now – he’s smart and compassionate and I’m sure the campaign would also flourish in his hands. So, I would in all honesty like to wish both the candidates good luck – both of them have the potential to take the campaign to new heights.

Everyday Sexism, everyday feminism

Last week I attended a talk at King’s College London given by Laura Bates, the founder of the Everyday Sexism Project. It was by turns upsetting and inspiring.

For anyone who hasn’t heard of it, the Everyday Sexism Project is a website which gathers together user-submitted accounts of the microaggressions faced by women (and people who are read as women) in their daily lives. If you don’t face those things, reading the site is an eye-opener – if you do, then it’s a saddening reminder of how the world tries to grind down those who don’t fit into the narrow standards of acceptability for the socially-policed categories of gender. Go forth and read it, but have a video of adorable puppies on stand-by for when you need some light relief.

Part of Bates’ talk dealt with the story of how she founded Everyday Sexism. She described the dawning realisation that the things she put up with day-to-day – the barrage of unsolicited gendered comments on one’s body shape, employability, attractiveness, mental prowess, clothes – weren’t happening to just her. Hearing the stories of other women and realising how deep this went was what inspired the founding of Everyday Sexism. I find this project particularly exciting because it works on the same principle as the early feminist practice of the consciousness-raising group, but uses the technology of today to amplify it almost beyond recognition. The consciousness-raising groups of the 60s and 70s were where many women made their way from thought to action, famously realising that ‘the personal is political’: as with Bates’ own story, hearing first-hand that it’s not just you, that it’s all taking place on a systemic scale. With social media platforms being what they are, now someone doesn’t even need to find a group to attend in person – thousands and thousands of personal accounts of the drip-drip-drip of sexism are just a few clicks away.

The other section of Bates’ talk dealt specifically with sexism and ‘lad culture’ at university – apparently every Fresher’s Week, the site is inundated with accounts of ritualised sexual humiliation and predatory sexual behaviour: sports team initiation rites including stripping and miming fellatio; themed parties which expressly encourage female students to dress in revealing clothing (‘pimps and hoes’, ‘rappers and slappers’, ‘tarts and vicars’, etc); older male students playing games over how many Freshers they can fuck (extra points for virgins or underwear-stealing). All of this was notoriously epitomised in the loathsome website UniLad, though I’ve seen it in union-specific publications too… On a somewhat more positive note, the NUS Women’s Campaign has commissioned researchers from the University of Sussex (two organisations which of course I have a personal connection with) to perform research into lad culture. And Bates herself did end the talk on something of a positive note – in the Q&A session at the end, she talked about some success stories, where women who had been reading the site stood up against street harassers or sexist comments.

I’d also like to take a moment to be incredibly gleeful about KCL’s blossoming feminist community – and indeed, the state of student feminism in London more generally. Things seem to have come on so far in such a short space of time! In my first year at King’s College, I joined the excellent KCL Sexual Politics society, the LGBT Campaign, and the London Student Feminist Network – but in my second year, most of Sexual Politics had graduated, the LSFN seemed to disappear, and so I focused on being the Welfare Officer of the LGBT Campaign. In my third year, thanks to the dedicated work of one of the sabbatical officers, the students’ union finally brought in Liberation Officers – the Women’s Officer, the LGBT Officer, the Ethnic Minorities Officer, and the Disabled Officer. I became the Women’s Officer (and stuck with my Welfare position on the LGBT Committee). I had a budget of £75 for the entire year, very little union-based support (I didn’t even have the authority to book rooms!) and had to build a campaign from scratch (unlike the LGBT Officer, who was able to link in to the existing campaign). The group I led was small but dedicated: my favourite of achievements were a well-attended confidence-building and self-defence session from the London Centre for Personal Safety (who, despite their focus on ‘prevention’ of assault, are not in the least victim-blaming), and an eating disorders awareness campaign that raised £800 for b-eat. Still, it was something of an uphill struggle.

So, to come back to King’s College and see that there’s now a feminist society with three hundred members – KCL FemSoc, headed by one of the amazing students from my old Women’s Group – and that there’s a well-supported Women’s Officer with a seat on Student Council and an actual budget… well, it’s amazing. Despite the upsetting content, I spent the aftermath of the Bates talk – which was given to a packed lecture room – feeling quite elated. I’m also incredibly happy to see that there’s a new London Student Feminist Network, and it’s organising a grassroots conference next weekend! There’s still time to register for it if you’re a student feminist in or around London: I’ll be facilitating one of the workshops there, and it would be great to see this conference packed with activists on its first year. And on a similar note, registration for this year’s NUS Women’s Conference (to be held in York on 5th-6^th March) has been extended until February 20^th – so if you’re at a union that hasn’t registered a delegation yet, there’s still time!

What began as a reflection has ended as something of an exhortation – just like in my last entry, albeit in a very different sphere… Perhaps that means something about how thinking about one’s history ultimately leads back to this moment right now; or more probably, I just get excited about a lot of things that are happening. 😉 And I am, most definitely, excited: student feminism is alive and well in my old union (and in my more recent union as well, with Sussex FemSoc launching a regular feminist rock night) and I’m glad to still be playing some part in it.

Extra links:

Laura Bates at The F-Word on Everyday Sexism
Sara Child on consciousness-raising groups
The website for the ‘lad culture’ research
KCL FemSoc on Twitter