Festivals: A Feminist Issue?
This may be an odd way to open an article on a feminist website, but I love Robert Smith. I’m one of the five people in the world who bought that giant B-sides and rarities four-disc special edition CD when it came out in 2007. So when I heard that the Cure were doing a two-and-a-half-hour set at this year’s Bestival, I packed my camping reservations in a rucksack and duly set off on the Friday to catch the last of our declining summer on the Isle of Wight – and my very first festival. So it goes.
There’s nothing that takes us back to basics more than camping. Take away the shower, the clean toilet, the puffs and powders and that whole sleep thing and you’re playing on a level field. Or are you? After the first set, I watched as scores of men took to the fence, whipped their genitalia out, and relieved themselves with an efficiency almost amounting to elegance. Then a girl and her friend approached, one providing coverage to the other. Barely had she begun to unzip when a (female) security guard magically materialised – you can’t do that. Use the portaloos, please.
Now we can argue endlessly about the acceptability or otherwise of whipping any species of privates out in a public place, but surely if we’re going basic for the weekend, we should all be as basic as each other? As for the portaloos themselves, well – the feminist implications of in-conveniences for the ladies have already been discussed in this very publication, so I won’t repeat them, but I will ask you to consider what happens when those using urinals also share the cubicles with those for whom this is not an option. And the queue-length that implies. All in all, I ended up feeling my experience had been inferior to my male companions’ on account of my sex (and, in the case of the security guard, because of my gender, too). But others have had it worse…
Managing events on this scale, however much it may be a British institution, comes with all kinds of questions around safety, both onstage and off. The dominant concern must always be to make people feel like they’re living dangerously, when in fact they’re safe as the proverbial houses. That’s how you deliver a great live experience. No-one wants to feel on-edge all weekend, but no-one wants to feel mollycoddled either. After all, the teenagers who trash Reading Festival each year are trying to get away from their parents, and it’s surely a given that any festival is riddled with drugs. Who cares?
Festival Republic (who manage Glastonbury and run Latitude, Reading, Leeds and the Big Chill) took this thesis to its logical conclusion in 2010 and significantly scaled down their police presence from the outset. The resultant spate of thefts was accompanied by a gang rape on the first night, and a second instance on the second. On-site, the organisers responded with that old chestnut about women not going around the site unaccompanied. Oh! There’s that gender thing again.
I find this particularly galling because there was a suspected instance of rape in the campsite I was staying in myself on the Saturday night at Bestival. It seemed to be a case of domestic abuse, but it’s the height of irony that a festival attended by 30,000 people could be seen as a ‘safe’ space to take this toxically private crime outside its eponymous home. It’s even more ironic that these crimes against women are occurring at events that are almost synonymous in many minds with the image of one very famous female – Kate Moss, whose ‘festival style’ was recently voted the most iconic festival fashion moment of all time, beating Jimi Hendrix’s tasseled white Glastonbury shirt. Rarely was it more truly spoken that one is never so alone as in a large crowd.
The live events sector is a multi-million pound one, and despite this year’s setbacks (and the state of the economy more generally), it’s still a growth industry long-term. Illegal downloading and the resultant changes to the music industry’s economy will only make live music events of all sizes more important over the coming years. And with Beyonce this year becoming the first female headliner at Glastonbury in 20 years and women like Kate Moss and Sienna Miller leading the style stakes, there’s clearly a female voice coming through. Yet, as unpleasant as it undoubtedly is to admit, when something goes wrong, it’s often the women who suffer – festivals are the perfect rape storm: scantily-clad girls (whose hemlines do not but may be perceived to = consent), large groups of drunk men (our neighbours serenaded us with a beautiful rendition of ‘Get your rat out for the lads’ at four in the afternoon on the Saturday), crowds that can easily separate you from your party, softly-softly security, copious amounts of drugs and large open spaces where people may hear your scream but probably won’t realise, care about, or be in a state to deal with, its urgency. There’s been evidence that some live events companies are listening, of course, and I don’t want to suggest a doom-fest of misogyny either – but with the industry set for the boomtimes to come, I’d like to be assured that festivals aren’t a feminist issue.
Unsung Heroes: ‘Stagecoach’ Mary Fields
When you think of the Wild West there are a lot of names that spring to mind, half-mythologised figures straight out of the legends of the American West. Wild Bill Hickock with his gambling, Calamity Jane, Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp shooting things up in Tombstone. One name that may not come to mind but really should is that of ‘Stagecoach’ Mary Fields – the most hardcore postal worker of the last 200 years.
Mary Fields was born into slavery in Tennessee sometime around 1832, the exact year being uncertain. Not too much is recorded about this phase of her life, other than, apparently, a fondness for physical altercations and bad homemade cigars. (Let’s just stop and consider what a badass figure Fields must have cut, standing six feet tall, well muscled, and puffing away on a cheap cigar.)
It’s a few decades after the abolition of slavery in the US that the really interesting part of Fields’ story begins. Around 1884 she moved to Cascade, Montana and sought employment with a group of Ursuline nuns there. She signed on to do the heavy labour – hauling freight, stone work, carpentry, that sort of thing. She stayed here for a while, eventually becoming forewoman.
One somewhat apocryphal story from this era tells of Fields’ freight wagon being overturned and attacked by wolves. Fields holed up in the wagon overnight, keeping the wolves at bay with her rifle and revolver, bringing the cargo in safely the following morning. Whilst this story may or may not be accurate what is undeniable is that the Great Falls Examiner (the only paper in the area) records Fields as being the cause of more broken noses than anyone else in town. She had little patience for the often inappropriate ways of men in frontier towns, and no problem with defending herself.
Why did she leave? Well, remember that fondness for fights? Yeah, she ended up having a gunfight with a coworker. He had complained that she earned $2 more than him, despite her being black and female. She dealt with this the way all sensible people deal with workplace disputes – she tried to shoot him. She missed on the first shot, a gunfight broke out, the bishop’s laundry was damaged, and Fields found herself out of a job.
So Fields moved on, applying for a job with the United States Postal Service. She was around 60 at this point, and being a mail carrier was not an easy job. Riding between frontier communities, living on the road in all extremes of weather, dealing with outlaws and wild animals; this was not a job for the faint of heart. But Fields impressed in the interview, being the fastest applicant to hitch a team of horses, and so the job was hers. This made her the second woman and the first African American woman to work for the Postal Service.
So reliable was Fields, living up to the postal service’s unofficial motto of being stayed by “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night,” that she picked up the nickname ‘Stagecoach’. Along with her mule, Moses, she spent the next decade or so carrying mail out to frontier outposts and remote mining posts.
In the winters Montana gets some serious snow. On more than one occasion the trails would become impassable to horses because of the depth of snow drifts. When you’re pushing 70, there’s snow too deep for horses to pass, and miles to the next outpost, you stay at home and drink by the fire, right? No, of course not, not when you’re Stagecoach Mary Fields you don’t. She pressed on through with the mail over one shoulder and her rifle over the other, walking up to 10 miles between outposts and depots to ensure the mail arrived on time.
Everything has to end eventually though, and around 1902 she retired from the Postal Service to settle down in the town of Cascade. The nuns helped her buy a laundry business, but she never really enjoyed working there. Her two loves by this time in her life were the local baseball team, for whom she often grew flowers, and drinking in the town bar, still smoking those homemade cigars.
Just because she’d settled down, though, doesn’t mean Mary Fields lost any of the grit and pugnacity that had served her all her life. One customer, according to stories, failed to pay his laundry bill on time. Fields, drinking in the bar, heard him talking outside. Excusing herself from her drinking companions she stepped outside and decked him with one solid blow to the jaw. She may have been in her mid 70s by this point but Stagecoach Mary Fields was not a woman with whom one messed. The satisfaction of seeing the guy laid out, so she said, was more than worth the price of the laundry bill.
In 1914, after a hard-lived life, Fields’s liver finally gave out. Her neighbours buried her in Cascade’s Hillside cemetery, and for a while her birthday was an unofficial holiday, with the town’s schools being closed to celebrate her.
For further reading on the West’s toughest postal worker you can check Robert Miller’s The Story of Stagecoach Mary Fields (though be aware that it is a short piece aimed mostly at children, and can be horribly expensive to find). She’s also mentioned in Cheryl Smith’s Market Women: Black Women Entrepeneurs Past, Present and Future and Jessica Ruston’s nicely illustrated Heroines: The Bold, The Bad And The Beautiful.
Ta Very Much From BadRep Towers
Thank you to everyone who came to our party, and who reads, enjoys, and interacts with our site. It’s been a great year and we are dead pleased to have met so many great people.
Our party was a blast. Most of all, we were glad to see such a mix of genders there. (In the first half hour the bartender commented, with obvious interest, that there were “kind of a lot of dudes for a feminist party”. Then our Steve walked in wearing a badge which read I WROTE THE ONE ABOUT JU-JITSU OLD LADIES1. I’m not sure what the bartender thought by the time we put the Lady Gaga/Ghostbusters mashup on the stereo, but he looked, at the very least, intrigued, so I call victory.)
Thanks to reader Matt who had this made as a surprise for us!
Also this, which is part of what it says on our business cards. And cheers to Gideon, who brought chilli gingerbread for everyone! :D
Our own effort: we do not do this 'cake' business by halves. If you're gonna cake out, DO IT WITH CAPS LOCK. A caps lock cupcake is cruise control for cool.
Next time, we'll try to have more veggie/vegan/gluten-free options along. And we will try not to hoover up all the veggie Percy Pig sweets before the party has started. Ahem. ;)
Thank you again for all your support.
:)
– Team BadRep
Penny: Computer Girl Hero
Ada Lovelace Day is here again, and this year Finding Ada are asking people to blog about women in science, maths or tech that have influenced and inspired them. A woman who helped make you what you are today. So, bending the rules a little, I’ve chosen Penny from Inspector Gadget.
Penny had a bigger influence on my interest in computers at a formative age than any other woman or girl, real or fictional. Full disclosure: I am a web geek, not a computer geek. Happily, I get to do web stuff for my job and combine it with one of my other loves: working for gender justice. And I think I can draw a pretty direct line leading from Penny to computers to the internet to my career. Plus, of course, the privilege of having access to a computer from an early age, and a reasonably tech-enthusiastic dad.
Penny vs Robot Panther
Bitch magazine beat me to it earlier this year with a Pop Pedestal dedicated to Penny, so I won’t reinvent the wheel. Besides, any of you who were children in the 80s will probably remember the set-up anyway. In brief: Penny is the smart, brave, sensible niece of roboClouseau Gadget, possibly the world’s least threatening cyborg. With her dog Brains (a bit of a proto-Gromit) and her entirely badass secret computer disguised as a book, it’s basically Penny that solves all the crimes that her well-meaning but incompetent uncle is tasked with. Here’s a clip of Penny in action, saving her uncle from a robot panther (about 7 mins in):
Needless to say, I thought she was wicked.
While doing my research for this post I discovered that there was a sequel to the original series called Gadget and the Gadgetinis, set a few years down the line when Penny is in her teens. Penny is still awesome, still rocking the bunches and still in trousers. She now has a laptop rather than a book, and she’s a fully fledged computer wiz and robotics expert: it turns out a ‘Gadgetini’ isn’t a geek cocktail, but rather a tiny droid version of Inspector Gadget that Penny has created to help the now Lieutenant Gadget with his crime fighting and generally keep him out of trouble.
Where are the girl geeks?
Thanks largely to the unstoppable advance of the internet into every aspect of our lives, the idea of computers being a ‘boy thing’ is slowly on the wane. Every child growing up in the UK now will use a computer at school, probably also at home and then at work. That doesn’t mean the stereotype is dead, not by a long shot. There is some good news: since WISE (Women into Science, Engineering and Construction) was created in 1984, the female uptake in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) has almost doubled. Which brings it to the truly gargantuan figure of 14%. Oh. Worse still is that this figure has remained constant for the past decade.
One of the big obstacles in changing the gender balance of the IT industry is the lack of role models for girls. This post on the fantastic Sociological Images blog brings home the importance of role models in undermining stereotypes, for girls in particular. There are some brilliant initiatives, groups and campaigns in addition to WISE – Digital Women’s Club, Girl Geek Dinners, Girl Geeks, Girl Geeks Social Enterprise, Women Who Tech – but what I think is crucial is getting techy girls and women in front of children, without comment and as part of the cultural products they consume already. Although Penny was quite a radical character, I was oblivious because I hadn’t learned yet that computers were a ‘boy thing’. Computer Engineer Barbie is a start, but I suspect we’re going to need a few more than that.
Computers and Me
Of course, I didn’t end up working or studying in STEM, I ended up in (lightside) marketing. But working with the web is where I am happiest, and I think I owe a little slice of that happiness to Penny. Because back in 1980something I wasn’t fazed when I first found myself facing an Amstrad. I was entranced. At primary school I loved our BBC micro, even when I had to play maths games on it. And when dad brought home a Mac Classic loaned from work, I was in love. Later, I’d stay up all night at the weekends playing Myst or Civilisation or Lemmings, even after my friends and I had discovered the joys of getting drunk and falling over in fields in the middle of the night.
My friends at that time were all girls (not deliberate, they were just the only group that would have me) and had not the slightest interest in games. After the first round of blank faces I never mentioned them again. Computer games, it turned out, were for our little brothers. It was only when I started going out with a computer geek and hanging out with his friends that games and computers became an acceptable topic of conversation. Then I arrived at university, got my first laptop, discovered the web and never looked back. In my first office job after uni they offered me the chance to do a bit of website editing and I grabbed it with both hands.
Being comfortable with computers, being excited about the possibilities of technology, and being unafraid to jump in and try is what has brought me to my dream job (via some less dreamy bits of helping other people set their Out of Office, of course).
Of course, as a child I never dreamed of managing websites or running social media campaigns. This job didn’t even exist 10 years ago, so how could I have known? And to be honest, ‘Communications and New Media Manager’ would have sat a little oddly beside ‘astronaut’, ‘poet’ and ‘knight of the round table’. But I think what I got from Penny was a curiosity and confidence about technology that meant when the world wide web arrived in my life, I was ready for it.
That Book
Something that made me happy while I was googling away for this post was the number of other women saying ‘oh, I loved Penny, I would have given anything for her computer book!’ I like the idea of so many people’s joy when they got their first laptop tinged with the memory of Inspector Gadget. Someone has made a screensaver to help you pretend that your laptop is the computer book. And best of all is this: a computer book made for a Penny-worshipping daughter by her dad. What? No, I’ve just got something in my eye. *sniff*
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Reader Sinead M sent us the following short post last week. If you’re part of the Pro-Choice Push Back, we think it raises a point or two that we shouldn’t forget. Read and spread around if you can – we’ll owe you one.
As a right-thinking feminist, or an engaged human being, or a person who occasionally glances at the news, you may recently have heard about Nadine Dorries’ proposed amendment to the Health and Social Care Bill. It would have provided something deemed ‘independent counselling’ for women seeking an abortion. It may well have made you feel irritable for a while.
It was an amendment so controversial it succeeded in distracting rather a lot of attention from the substantive bill, which could probably have borne a little scrutiny itself. The public reaction in the UK to the Dorries amendment was loud and it was largely scathing. A woman shouldn’t have to argue or debate with independent counsellors before availing herself of her legal rights, and any move towards such a position must be opposed.
The amendment was soundly defeated, and we all continued to live in a country where women are permitted to have reproductive rights without begging for them. Hurrah.
But imagine a world where Dorries’ amendment was passed, and then, if you’re brave, imagine a world where reproductive rights were rolled back entirely. It’s like a John Lennon song, but completely different. Now imagine living in a theocracy, or the remnants of one. Imagine finding out you were pregnant and knowing you didn’t want a child and having to accept that legally, the only thing you could do is leave your country and find one that could provide a safe and legal abortion, carried out by people who have had medical training. What sort of dystopia is this, you ask?
This is Ireland, of course, a one hour flight away. It’s where I grew up.
Abortion is illegal in Ireland. If you want one, you will need to obtain one in Britain. Simple as that.
It is a law, like so many, that discriminates on the basis of personal wealth and privilege. If you have options, education, confidence, access to a computer and a credit card, you can book an appointment for a private abortion in the UK and then you can book a flight. But if you don’t have these things you will struggle. Let’s be clear about this – you will require money. A return flight is the better part of one hundred pounds. An early abortion will cost about four hundred pounds. A later term abortion, all the more likely if you have struggled to access services or figure out how to book or fund an appointment without assistance or support of any kind, will cost significantly more.
My pet charity is the Abortion Support Network, which I discovered eighteen months ago during the inconvenient eruption of Eyjafjallajökull and the subsequent Great Ash Cloud of 2010. The resulting disruption of flights was a nuisance to many, but to those who had booked a private abortion in the UK, it was potentially disastrous. Forced to rebook their appointment and their flights, and in some cases forced to now book a later term – and therefore more expensive – abortion, many found themselves in desperate need of financial assistance. The Abortion Support Network supplies a non-judgemental ear, but more importantly, practical help: a place to stay in a foreign country, assistance with booking flights and appointments, and, crucially, money. It is hard, in a country with legal abortion and a national health service, free at point of delivery, to comprehend how important this can be.
I have always thought that maybe someday I will get to raise a quiet glass to Irish independence, should they choose to stop relying on Britain to supply basic medical services to Irish women. In the meantime I’ll toast the ASN. If you believe in reproductive choice and that a woman shouldn’t be
forced to pick between carrying an unwanted pregnancy and a backstreet abortion, please consider supporting them.
- http://www.abortionsupport.org.uk/
- On Facebook
- On Twitter
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- Sinead M ran away from Ireland shortly before it was eaten by a tiger, and lives in London where she continues to rant about her old country to anyone who will pretend to listen. She sporadically rants in writing at http://findesomething.wordpress.com.
Yesterday we posted Part 1 of our interview with anti-cuts activist Roxanne, who told us some pretty unsettling stuff about her experience of being arrested – read it here.
On with Part 2, then.
Let’s talk about UK Uncut as a movement. Do you reckon it’s pretty equally gender split, and if so, do you reckon acting as a collective helps achieve this more effectively?
“I wouldn’t feel confident commenting on the gender split in UK Uncut – I’d be referring to tens of thousands of people across the UK. However, in terms of active groups working within the UK, the majority are dominated by white males. But this is why we need to be talking about cuts in terms of gender: to encourage women to join the frontline.
“I do feel that acting publically as a collective has strengthened the movement and UK Uncut’s message – the cuts are something that everyone should be concerned about and everyone should be acting against. However, it is still true that certain vulnerable groups within society are to be hit in ways that the more privileged may not be. Disabled people are losing their Disability Living Allowance, poorer students have lost the EMA that they and their families rely on, and some women will no longer be able to work because they now have to care for elderly family members or young children. I strongly believe that highlighting the different ways in which the cuts fall should spur people into action, on behalf of themselves or those less able, instead of acting in some divisive way. So what if today we’re standing up against cuts to childcare and you don’t have or want children – don’t you want to protect those in society who do?
“These aren’t just issues for women, because protecting women and vulnerable groups is in the interest of the whole of society.”
Have you found any women’s protest movements around the world or in history particularly inspiring?
“There are so many instances of women’s protest that inspire me consistently. At the moment I’ve been reading about the experiences of Assata Shakur and Angela Davis, and find myself inspired by their unrelenting power (and their incredible writing!).
“I am inspired by the endurance of the women at Greenham Common, and the physical strength of the four women who destroyed a Hawk fighter jet with hammers that was being sold by the British government to East Timor to be used in the government’s illegal occupation of the country. I also recall an image of a row of Zapatista women standing in line with their faces covered but still wearing these incredible bright dresses – and that image alone inspires me. But closer to home, I am inspired by the women close to me and the support we provide for each other.”
What would your advice be to young women reading our blog who are concerned about the impact of the cuts? Maybe they’ve never been on a protest before. Perhaps they’re even a little nervous to start – do “clicktivism” and hashtags and so on make a difference in themselves?
“Well, I wouldn’t say hashtags aren’t worth anything – that’s how UK Uncut started! But my advice to anyone nervous to get involved would be that anything that is worth fighting for is going to be a little scary, so that’s even more reason to give it a go. It’s scary because there is so much at stake. The kind of action UK Uncut takes is a great way to get involved. It’s fun and creative and there is always space for people to choose their own style of action, and meet other people who share the same views.
“Although other types of protest can be effective, I believe that direct action is necessary in any situation where other avenues have been exhausted and shut down. And that is the situation we are in now. For example, the reforms the NHS is facing weren’t in the Conservative or the Lib Dem manifesto, and this coalition government is not even acting on behalf of the majority vote. So how is it fair that these radical changes are being made to a health service that Britain should be so proud of achieving, but is instead determined to destroy, without a say from the public who use it?
“The leaders in charge of pushing through the bill do not have the population’s interests at heart, are not interested in what we want or what we have to say. But this is our NHS – we rely on it, and we must protect it.”
Is it hard for protesters to keep momentum going in the face of these cuts? What’s next for you?
“The groups organising actions every week across the country keep momentum going. This issue isn’t going away, the cuts are already being felt, and the fight against them will continue.
“UK Uncut have just announced the next day of mass action, called ‘Block the Bridge, Block the Bill’ – 2000 people are already attending on the Facebook event, and hopefully will be showing how serious they are about not losing their National Health Service by transforming Westminster Bridge into hospitals, medical lectures, and a space to share stories about the NHS.
“On October 12th, the Lords have one last chance to amend the Health and Social Care Bill in Parliament before it is voted on again, and we have one last chance to show that we won’t lose our health service. So join UK Uncut on October 9th and take part in the fight against the cuts!”
Thanks again to Rox for giving us her time.
- Visit UK Uncut’s blog
- Follow UK Uncut on Twitter
So. March For The Alternative hit Manchester’s Tory Party Conference last weekend, and this weekend there’s more direct action on the way.
In the era of headlines like RAGE OF THE GIRL RIOTERS, what’s it like for women on the front line of anti-cuts protesting in the UK right now? Roxanne was at that first sit-in at the London Vodafone flagship store on 27 October 2010 – out of which a nucleus of energy exploded into the movement we now call UK Uncut.
Hey Rox, thanks for talking to us. What do you think is the struggle for women in terms of the impact of these cuts? Obviously “women” aren’t a monolithic or homogenous group, but is there a distinct fight?
“The full scale of the public sector cuts fall in a way that is unbalanced in terms of gender. Women make up most of the public sector jobs being cut, women rely most heavily on public services and on certain benefits that are being cut, and where vulnerable people like children, the disabled and the elderly are stripped of their governmental support, it has historically been women that step in to bridge the gap and become carers.
“The cuts attack services that women depend on in order to live ‘equally’ with men, services that are there to compensate for existing gender inequalities – Rape Crisis centres and helplines, SureStart and childcare benefits. These are not privileges. Many women rely on these services. Without them, the progress that past generations have made by fighting to get us this far is being unnecessarily sacrificed. The cuts will push us back in time in terms of women’s rights and equality.
“I don’t believe the struggle is distinct – this is a fight that everyone should be fighting – but we should be aware of what we are fighting for and what we, as women, truly stand to lose. The message out there is not clear enough yet – as these cuts fall, they will cut through the progress women have made.
“The problem is, because of existing sexism within our society and a scepticism towards ‘feminism’, it is still so hard to have conversations about women and the inequality we struggle with. I believe we need more and more great acts of exciting and inviting civil disobedience to get people thinking seriously about gender and the cuts.”
Have you found that the police and the media have treated you differently as a female protestor?
“Not so much the media, but the police yes. Of course. In the most extreme sense, my personal experience of being arrested was interesting in terms of my treatment as a woman. The fact that I am young and female was repeatedly used against me, as a way to make me feel inferior. Of course, that’s often what the police aim to do with any arrestee; to intimidate and isolate. But after talking to male activists, it seems to me that the treatment is often different if you are a woman in custody.
“I was arrested by a woman. She commented frequently on my appearance, asking things like, “Do you never brush your hair?” and when I was asked if this was my natural hair colour, she pulled at my roots and answered on my behalf, “No.” A friend of mine was arrested at the same time, and the woman arresting her was even worse. She searched through her backpack, pulled out a pair of underwear and pulled a face like she was disgusted to be holding them. She stretched them out and waved them in the faces of the male officers around, who seemed genuinely embarrassed and uncomfortable at the treatment this woman was giving my friend.
“It wasn’t any better when I was in the cell. I was not allowed to use my own tampon, and when I asked for a new one I was told the police station didn’t keep any. I was then given one hours later, which I had to use until I was released after 24 hours. Why don’t police stations have to stock tampons? They have to go out any buy you food if you have special requirements. I was also told I had to be watched closely as I inserted the tampon, which I later found out did not happen to other female activists in different stations. Taking away human rights as basic as this seems like just one more way to reduce an arrestee to a more helpless and regretful position.”
So how did this all get started for you, and is anti-cuts action your first foray into public protest?
“I was involved in environmental activism before UK Uncut, and that is where I learned about the use of direct action as a political tactic. I also learned how to use the consensus model of decision making which empowers each individual to have their say and play an equal part in the movement. These skills have been invaluable to me in every action I have been involved in.
“I felt that I had to do something to try and stop the government cutting the services that I am most proud of, that society’s most vulnerable people rely on to live in this country. I used to be proud of the structures we had built here to support our population- we built the NHS when we had a bigger deficit than we have today. We should all be proud of such universal services, and we shouldn’t give up the fight and watch as they are all sold off to profit-making companies.”
Come back tomorrow for part 2 – more from Rox, why Block The Bridge should be your next demo, and how to get involved with protesting the cuts. Thanks to Rox for giving us her time.
- Visit UK Uncut’s blog
- Follow UK Uncut on Twitter
[Gamer Diary] BadRep goes to Eurogamer
Yessir, that does say VIP!
That’s correct, folks! I trundled my way down to London last Thursday to insert myself into a world of new and upcoming games, developer sessions and general geekdom. What’s even better is that Eurogamer were kind enough to give me a press pass to do so, and now, my dear readers, you get to hear all about it!
First of all, this post right here is going to be a general look at the whole experience, and I’ll give you some insight into what else I have in store for you in later posts. Simple as that, really! Shall we get started?
As I had to travel down from our second city in the morning I didn’t get into the Expo until close to midday. Even so, with a little ticket with the words “Press Pass” on I still got in without issue (even if they did give me the wrong wristband). My brother had come along for the Thursday and was already inside, so I had a task trying to locate him. In the end I gave up and darted straight to see Rage (coincidentally, so did he) as I am a mild id Software fanboi… don’t tell anyone!
After that I went to visit Special Effect‘s World Record Attempt and did my practice run – you’ll be hearing more about this in a dedicated post – in which you have to complete a racing track using nought but your own eye movements. These guys were there trying to raise awareness for gamers with disabilities who need modified controls to enjoy the world of gaming. Very admirable, indeed. I had a nice chat with one of them on the Friday and I will be urging you all to give them a shout however you can.
After a bit of milling around I headed up for my interviews with Trion Worlds on their games Rift and End of Nations. I had a good hour between the two and some interesting responses to questions, but you’ll have to wait for the interview posts to hear more about that.
Over the course of the two days I also got round to playing quite a few of the big names like Skyrim, Mass Effect 3, Battlefield 3 and CounterStrike: Global Offensive, as well as some of the more family-suited games like Sonic Generations and Ratchet and Clank All 4 One. You’ll get to hear what I thought of all the games I played in my round-up post, which will include a series of mini-reviews for your delectation.
Another excellent facet to the Expo was the Indie Arcade and the Retro section – in which there was Wolfenstein 3D on no less than a Jaguar – where I had great fun playing with games I hadn’t seen in years on consoles and arcades that are likely part of someone’s private gaming museum. This and EG’s Game of the Year for the past decade wall were a genuine pleasure to see.
Also upcoming from my experience at Eurogamer there’ll be a post on what I think about the prevalence of oversexualised women as a (meagre) excuse for marketing at these events – what does this say about how marketers view gamers? – with interested snippets from an overheard conversation between two stall workers (they weren’t being all that covert about the chat, either!).
Onwards to meet your heroes of geekery!
Another piece I’ve been brewing for a while, but held off just in case I could corner someone from id Software after their Developer Session to ask them about it: Dystopian Beauties. Ever noticed how almost all the women in the post-apocalyptic world are pretty stereotypically hot? What happened to all the ‘normal‘ women, hmm? Is there some sort of “Kill the Trolls” global event that occurs simultaneously with the collapse/destruction of the world? I will be exploring the many possible explanations for this.
On the overall experience front it was pretty great for me as a first time Expo-goer, with a few snagging points: the demonstrable exclusion of female gamers in the marketing; the assumption (several times) that I was clearly “new to FPS genre” or “new to war games” (so tedious) on the basis of what I looked like and the assumptions stall reps made about a) my gender and b) my personality; the ridiculous prevalence of consoles on the playable games – I am a dedicated PC gamer and trying to play things with thumbsticks drives me up the wall; and, finally, the fact it cost me £6 for a sausage in a roll and a bottle of water. Otherwise, the punters were all very friendly with each other and it was a good environment full of like-minded individuals that I really enjoyed.
But what’s that, you say? A competition? Why, yes! Yes there is a competition! I have gathered a few little goodies at the Expo to give away… but more on that later my eager chums! For now, I will have to leave you with feverish eyes filled with the fire of excitement – to be continued, fellow travellers…