I’ve been involved in women’s rights for a couple of years, and have been involved in some confrontational and contentious stuff, but what I have noticed is that it’s the little things in my personal life that I find the hardest. Compared to giving pornographers or the police shit, you’d think that something like not shaving my legs would be easy…well not so…
I really struggle to feel comfortable exposing my hairy legs at work, in front of certain family members and when starting an intimate relationship. I like my hairy legs, and in a certain way I’m kinda proud of them, but still I feel their exposure takes courage. It seems like such a trivial thing, but I suppose it is telling to the extent of oppression of the female body. I’m fine exposing them infront of people I don’t know, but it’s when breaking out of the confines of body oppression to people who matter and who have a certain perspective of me, that’s when it takes courage for me. I think this is because in my reality, I would be sticking my neck out as a non-conformer around people that matter or people who have the power to affect my life and therefore I have to deal with the consequences of people thinking that I am strange or a ‘wayward’ female by stepping away from the confines of a sex object.
I really struggle being open about being a lesbian at work. This is one thing I am ashamed of- part of my job is to stick up for people’s rights in the face of social injustice, but to fight for my own I find hard. I think that because I’m from a working class background, it worries me the prospect of losing my job as I’m not privileged enough to be able to manage if I got the sack. Sounds irrational as I know there are laws to protect me as a lesbian, however this thought remains as a censor to my coming out as me at work.
I am very much anti-classist and anti-materialist. However, I am still shamed about my own poverty. I feel too ashamed to invite some people to my house because they are middle class and/or have expectations about standards of living. I keep telling myself, the only people who should be ashamed about poverty are rich people. But still at the back of my mind I feel shame.
One thing I have learnt is that you can fight for other women’s rights, but it is equally important to liberate yourself and to really *live* your politics by carving out a life for yourself from the confines of oppression and living as a free woman. I always felt that my life was insignificant to the cause of women’s rights- it didn’t matter that I wasn’t out at work, and that I was a closet feminist and anarchist, cos I was involved in campaigning for change. However, I have changed my mindset in thinking that my life is seperate from the politics I fight for. My life is political. If I can fight for other’s rights in the workplace, but not dare face up to injustice in my own workplace, then what change am I making..? If I am anti-classist, but dare not invite friends home to my shitty council flat as I am ashamed of being poor, then what change am I making and what values am I upholding..? I suppose what I am saying is that we can change the world one step at a time, and it can start, not necessarily with mass protests and law changes, but with being open about our beliefs to everyone in our everyday life and thereby courageosly deconstructing oppression immediately around us. Demanding that other rich people respect my lifestyle and home despite being poor, is a powerful statement. Demanding that people accept I am a lesbian, especially in arenas of power such as the workplace, again is a powerful statement.
I am continuously trying to break free from the above controls and to be true to myself, but as I said, it suprises me that class shame, body shame and shame of my lesbianism still get to me.
11 Comments
September 9, 2008 at 3:32 pm
Just wanting to express my appreciation for what you are doing here Charlie. Thanks.
September 9, 2008 at 5:43 pm
Hi Charlie
As you have discussed in this post, as well as the first one you posted on your new blog, it is one long continuous struggle just to be free, and i completely relate to what you’re saying as regards that. I personally don’t think none of us will ever be truly free, as it’s not in capitalism’s best interests. The working class is capitalism’s shitpile, it’s members keep the machine ticking over, whilst the middle classes and middle class wannabes (working class with superiority complex) get to manage the said shitpile. The 5% at the top, the ones who own everything – get everything. And that’s the way it works, like one big all encompassing blood-sucking pyramid, with only room for a chosen few at the top.
I really like your style and approach of writing, by the way. You’re very honest – there’s no sugar coated bullshit with you. You speak as you find, like myself; one of the few traits working class women are allowed to indulge in that our middle class peers aren’t(or more to the point don’t know how), ha! They don’t do it, and don’t like it when we do.
I’ve been in feminist groups and at conferences and it’s always the same plummy voiced, university-is-everything, middle class equivocal, fake snobby faux feminists whose mean awful daddy has paid for all of it, plus all the rent, who give you a look that says “we are just tolerating you, after all we’ve got a piece of shit MA that doesn’t actually earn us anything, but still proves we are cleverer than you and will therefore proceed to look down our noses at you.” Maybe it’s time they formed a yahoo group or a friggin conference or something entitled “The white middle-class straight(or in denial) bank-rolled by our hateful fathers til age 35 snobby feminist group” Disclaimer: MCW’s(mid class wannabes) allowed after an audition on their acting skills – to see if they can act like us, monkey says monkey does etc…… Now this would piss alot of people off, but it needs to be said.
Charlie, don’t be made to feel small or like a failure by any of these jumped-up snobs – you’re worth ten of them. Everything you’ve got you’ve earned the hard way yourself, one thing they can never say, it’s all been on a plate for them. So you live in council flat; i live in a housing association flat. At least we’ve got our own places, and i’d much rather be living in my situation than in my sister’s, who lives in a biggish private house married to a prick who makes her miserable 24/7. Her’s is not a home it’s a gilded cage. But this is what some women do, trade their own happiness for materialism, then sneer at women who don’t have as much, who weren’t as clever as them, who haven’t “married up”……. Just thank God you’ve got a home in this current climate, espesh a social one which is a shitload cheaper, fuck the stigma. It shouldn’t be this way, but there is a massive housing shortage, all thanks to capitalism, and houses are vastly artificially over-priced. There is no way i’m saddling myself with a load of debt in the form of a mortgage just so i can call myself a “homeowner”. God, what is it with the English? As for your friends who are all probably paying seismic mortgages/rents or living at home still, consider it a litmus test when you ask them round, of whether they are worth being friends with. Good friends don’t make you feel like shit, only false judgemental ones. I think this all comes back to what i stated earlier, that the middle classes see their way of life and thought processes as the default setting for all, that we all should be and all want to be just like them. This is because they believe themselves inherently superior, and their egos depend on this feeling of superiority, even though it is fake as fuck – just like them really!
Keep up the good posts x
September 9, 2008 at 6:52 pm
Wow Charlie, what a warrior you are! You remind me of the goddess Artemis. I really wish you well, there is no greater conflict than that which rages between the conditioned mind and the truthful heart.
The honest heart will lead the way.
I identify with your struggle. I am honored to share in it. You will rise, as we all will, triumphant!
Keep with it
September 11, 2008 at 6:07 am
I agree with Alex. You Go Grrl!!! I’ve seen women with hairy legs who don’t seem to give a flying fuck and I love it, pity its so rare. Unfortunatley I’m too affected by body image and lack of self esteem to follow suit, but it makes me smile to read this! Never stop!
September 15, 2008 at 9:15 pm
[...] http://charlielittle.wordpress.com/2008/09/08/its-the-little-things/ [...]
September 22, 2008 at 10:15 am
You just said everything I think Ruth H…..
September 22, 2008 at 11:51 pm
I have similar issues too, particularly my being poorer than most of my friends / associates. I used to go to other people’s houses and feel terrible because I didn’t have a pool or eight bedrooms or a cleaner. But it depends on whether you are impressed by money. I quickly learned not to be and my relationships fell apart with those people because I wasn’t buying in to their lifestyle and they were not about to descend in to mine. I really think it is about judgement. If you’re out there doing and trying to change things – and you think it’s the best course of action and that everyone should probably be doing it – then the bar changes and you judge people differently. I found I judged myself differently too. Other people tended to follow. Who cares that you can barely make the rent and your house is small and you eat a cheap brand of baked-bean when you’re trying to change the world?
September 23, 2008 at 2:47 pm
Well that makes a minority of two of us anyway!
October 6, 2008 at 6:40 am
I know what you mean!
I also don’t shave, but yet I hate it when I catch myself being self-conscious about my hairy legs. It’s not that I’m ashamed or embarrassed to be a feminist, but our culture’s beliefs and values have been so ingrained in our minds that it’s hard to override our initial programming.
Same thing when I eat chocolate cake at night. When I talk to younger girls, older women, anyone– I’m always emphasizing the importance to “love your body” and “don’t change just because a guy thinks you should look that way.” And yet, when my family eats midnight birthday cake, I still feel guilty. Despite all my feminist values, I *still* feel “gross” for eating all that sugar and my gut reaction is “oh no, I’m going to get fat.”
It’s terrible…I try so hard to practice what I preach, but our culture is so deeply instilled within us that it’s a fight to keep it in check.
February 17, 2009 at 4:58 am
Hi, Charlie!
My name is Keri, and I stumbled across your blog, as part of an assignment for my feminist thought class. I thought that this particular post was very intriguing, as I, too, am trying to live my life as a more “open” feminist. Though I am not a lesbian, and, therefore, do not have to worry about being true to that aspect of myself, I oftentimes find myself doing things that don’t necessarily reflect my feminist viewpoints, simply because those things are more “acceptable,” by society’s standards. I am very happy, however, to find that there is at least one other person out there in the world, who is inflicted with the same dilemma, because that tells me that there are more people willing to admit their faults, and actually do something about changing them. Way to go!
March 4, 2009 at 1:55 am
hey all
] and when screening a new guy I ask them if they look at porn and if they do I simply let them know what they pick to do is vile and no real man would do such a beastly thing. And off they go 
For me it is hard even to say “yes i am a feminist” because i have been called that as an insult. I never wavered in my opinions and i share them when ever the opprotunity is given. I do find i hard to date guys because they have an issue with me not dating guys who take part in that most vile “activity” called porn ,and me fighting for the rights of women [and animals but thats another story
but i will say that it gets harder when i really like em and then i find out that they lied or I was not asking because I didnt want to hear the answer I knew i would get. But thats life, we cannot take the easy road, then we would be just like everyone eles. So i am so glad to hear all of this freeing and being free. I am the only 19 year old feminist that I know , well actually the only one I know period!so this is really helps me stay strong in my fight and know that I am not the only one.
Thank you for your posts and fights
God bless