“Equality is not a concept. It’s not something we should be striving for. It’s a necessity. Equality is like gravity. We NEED it to stand on this earth as men and women.”

Whedon in response to every journalist who has ever spoken to him. (Source: The Wellington Young Feminists Collective)

We NEED equality. That’s an incredible statement. It’s those capital letters which impress me – ignore that it’s a now-rich white guy saying it and look at the passion in those words. He’s saying that equality is not optional. It’s not something for only people with too much luxury and free time to turn their attention to.

And he makes it clear that this belief comes from his parents teaching him that the rights and respect we should give to ‘people’ don’t only apply to straight, white, cis males who behave in approved ways. It certainly doesn’t immediately stop applying to 51% of the human race – all other human beings get those rights as well. Why is this concept so revolutionary after all this time? Why are we having to campaign to stop homosexuality still being illegal in so much of the Commonwealth, for a start?

I certainly feel equality as something we ‘need’. I’m unable to hold my head up as a man while my country treats people in all the bigoted, ingrained ways it still does. It seems blindingly obvious to me, but in my case didn’t come from sentiments in the home growing up, or from the attitudes of my parents (who keep surprising me with how socially conservative they are). Yet the UK is far ahead of many others: I’m visiting Belgrade (the capital of Serbia) right now and the government recently decided not to allow a Gay Pride march because they wouldn’t be able to protect the marchers from massive violence. At least they’re not one of the countries handing out prison sentences, or death sentences.

Making a statement that I feel personally affected by inequality against groups I’m not technically part of is usually the point at which I’m told I’m not allowed to have an opinion – that I just have ‘White Middle-class Guilt’ for example. Well, there’s nothing wrong with that guilt as long as it leads to campaigning and action instead of the typical corresponding middle-class ‘slacktivism’. The idea that those outside of the group in question shouldn’t feel strongly about an issue would mean that straight people can’t be against homophobia – it’s ridiculous. And Whedon says so:

The misogyny that is in every culture is not a true part of the human condition. It is life out of balance, and that imbalance is sucking something out of the soul of every man and woman who is confronted with it.

The imbalance affects him, and everyone else. Equality isn’t something to be sorted out after we tackle the other issues of society, it’s not an optional nice-to-have on top of the cake, it’s an urgent and real NEED which affects the whole population.

Whether or not you think Whedon succeeds in promoting gender equality in his movies and TV, that speech is still stunning. Every time I post the link new friends find it for the first time and are awed, and others feel the need to pass it on once again. Five years later and it still needs saying, so (almost exactly a year after that first BadRep post I made on it) I wanted to quickly share it in case we have even one or two of you who will see it fresh and feel inspired.

In less feminist-focused recent Joss news, he’s just filmed a version of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing in 12 days with a lot of his friends, which means people like Amy Acker (Angel‘s Fred) and Alexis Denisof (Wesley) as the lovers Beatrice and Benedick. Nathan Fillion and Fran Kranz are in there too. Oh, and he didn’t tell the press until shooting was finished, when it got ‘casually’ mentioned on Twitter. I’ve been a fanboy of his work for a while now and still can’t watch those two leads in the last season of Angel without blubbing, so the chance to see them in romantic roles is exciting.¹ Also, he’s formed his own studio to make micro-films, and has a supernatural romance called In Your Eyes already planned. And then there’s his horror-comedy “Cabin in the Woods” starring the guy who played Thor and Whedon peeps Fran Kranz, Tom Lenk and Amy Acker again, which was actually completed years ago but will be released by the now-bankrupt MGM in April 2012. But you knew that already.

1. For an extra frisson of excitement there’s the mystery of whether Joss can actually stand for characters to be happy, or whether he’ll just re-write Shakespeare and kill them all. You never know.

In the meantime, here’re some relevant links, some of which throw the baton to you. If you’re feeling like revolting, now’s the time…

• Block The Bridge, Block The Bill, 9th October: “On Sunday October 9th, join UK Uncut on Westminster Bridge and help block the bill. On one side of Westminster Bridge is Parliament. On 7th September, MPs in the Commons voted for the end of the NHS as we know it. On the opposite side of the bridge is St Thomas’ Hospital, one of Britain’s oldest medical institutions. If the bill passes, hospitals like St Thomas’ will be sold to private corporations, the staff put on private payrolls and beds given over to private patients. Despite the government’s lies, this bill represents the wholesale privatization of the NHS and, with it, the destruction of the dream of comprehensive healthcare provided equally to all. We will not let a coalition of millionaire politicians and private health lobbyists destroy our NHS. Be on Westminster Bridge for 1pm on October 9th and together let’s block this bill from getting to our hospitals.”

  I work at one of the hospitals UKUncut are talking about. It looks no better from the inside. We’re having our birthday party < 48 hours before (you're totally invited! see below!), but I will be hauling myself out of bed for this. Readers, join Team BadRep as we revolt against both Torygeddon and our inevitable shared hangover in one giant last stand.

• TUC March For The Alternative: 2nd October
• All Out: our new favourite campaign. “We are organizing online and on the ground to build a world where every person can live freely and be embraced for who they are. Gay, lesbian, bi, transgender or straight, we need you to go All Out to build this historic movement for equality.” The page on Alice N’Kom, Cameroonian attorney and activist, is particularly inspiring: “I’m 66, and in ten years of defending LGBT people in Cameroon, it has never been this bad.”
• WomanKind Worldwide’s Overseas Aid Mythbuster: “Print off this page, put it in your bag and next time you hear someone complain about the UK giving money overseas challenge them with the facts.”
• Say Yes to Gay YA: authors Rachel Manija Brown and Sherwood Smith on young adult fiction and sexuality: “The overwhelming white straightness of the YA sf and fantasy sections may have little to do with what authors are writing, or even with what editors accept. Perhaps solid manuscripts with LGBTQ protagonists rarely get into mainstream editors’ hands at all, because they are been rejected by agents before the editors see them. How many published novels with a straight white heroine and a lesbian or black or disabled best friend once had those roles reversed, before an agent demanded a change? This does not make for better novels. Nor does it make for a better world.”
• COME TO OUR BIRTHDAY PARTY ON OCTOBER 7! We wanna meet you! Find out more and RSVP here!