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Last night, I was drawing away at my desk with Radio 4 on in the background and idly chatting to my boyfriend, who is in Poland at the moment.
A Moral Maze came on the radio, aiming to address the moral challenges around the government’s Troubled Families initiative, in the wake of the government’s ‘Broken Britain Tsar’, Louise Casey, suggesting that women in these families should be financially discouraged from having more children if they are struggling to cope at present. This comes off the back of Eric Pickles saying we’re too politically correct to lay blame where it belongs, which is with the troubled families where recidivistic criminality and truancy endures across several generations.
It is, they suggest, a moral failure of the families who languish on benefits that they do not lift themselves out of antisocial behaviour and state dependency.
In this Moral Maze, it was said more than once “we all know who these families are” when panel members asked for clarification on whether they were discussing troubled or troublesome families.
The criteria for being regarded as a Troubled Family are that a family has five or more of the following seven traits:
- Having a low income
- No one in the family who is working
- Poor housing
- Parents who have no qualifications
- The mother has a mental health problem
- One parent has a longstanding illness or disability
- The family is unable to afford basics, including food and clothes
Source: they’re outlined in this Independent piece.
However, the Moral Maze‘s panel also discussed some very loaded terms like “serial fatherlessness” which seemed to point quite firmly to where they apportion the blame for this supposed crisis.
Of course, like most government statistics, the figure of 120,000 families in the UK meeting this definition is disputed, with most attempts to replicate the research finding far, far fewer families than in the initial research.
The panel didn’t seem to pick up on what seems to be glaringly obvious to me as a major issue with the defining traits, focusing instead on whether poverty caused families to struggle to the point where adhering to social norms was difficult or whether the families themselves were essentially lazy or immoral enough to drive themselves into this situation. There are obvious echoes to the description of “feral youths” we had a year ago when the country was ablaze with rioting.
To me, the most pernicious aspect of the definition is the bias against disabled people, particularly against disabled women. Since it’s far harder for disabled people to find decent education or well-paid employment, and since depression and other mental health challenges are incredibly common among disabled people (perhaps because we’re being told that our problems are our own moral inadequacies?), it seems like a given that most families where one or both parents are disabled are automatically well on the way to being labelled as problematic.
In fact, if you examine a family where neither parent is ill, disabled or has mental health problems, they must meet all five of the remaining criteria, but a disabled family where the mother has mental health issues need only meet three of the five non-health-related factors to be labelled as problematic.
If you then add in the idea that the mothers in troubled families should be discouraged, perhaps financially, from having more children than they can afford or cope with, we’re worryingly close to a programme of eugenics that disproportionately targets disabled and mentally ill women.
The discussion on Moral Maze didn’t pick up on this point, seemingly assuming that it should be taken as read that ill-health and impairment, whether physical or mental, constitutes a problem for society.
It’s a disturbingly regressive idea that in order to end poverty, you end the poor, and one that should be challenged with passion at every turn.
Reading through earlier government documents relating to this, however, paints a different picture to the one now being presented by ministers. The definition there ran:
- First, examine families where either there is proof of the child having committed a crime or where a member of the family has an ASBO or similar charge around social conduct.
- Secondly, identify families where a child has been regularly excluded from school, has 15% or higher unauthorised absence or where the child is regularly truanting.
- If families meet one of the two, then examine if no-one in the family works or is in post-compulsory education (one of those NEETs – Not in Employment, Education or Training).
- After examining these identifying factors, local considerations may be applied where families meet two or three of the above factors exist and there is cause for concern.
These local considerations can include:
- Where a family member has been in prison in the last year, where the police have been called out regularly, where the family is involved in a gang or where they are prolific offenders.
- Where a child is on the child protection register or where the local authority is considering taking the child into care.
- Where a family member has long-term health problems, particularly:
Emotional and mental health problems
Drug and alcohol misuse
Long term health conditions
Health problems caused by domestic abuse
Under 18 conceptions
Now, this list of issues seems problematic, but less so when you take into account the idea that these should only be considered once it’s established that there are problems with criminality or where the child is not attending school often enough. Worklessness is given less priority than these and health problems such as alchoholism are even less relevant.
Source: this Troubled Families Programme PDF from March 2012.
I think that the shift from what this document describes to the seven traits of unsuccessful people defined above and communicated by ministers more recently is incredibly telling in determining the underlying ideology at play here. Rather than say that criminality and absence from school or the structure of employment, education or training are the main challenges facing families and requiring intervention, we’re left with the impression that there are wickedly immoral, lazy people, primarily the poor, disabled people and single mothers, who are tearing apart the fabric of the country.
The original notion – that families who are troubled and troubling through antisocial or criminal behaviour, where children are being denied the life chances that education provides, could do with additional support and intervention to assist them in re-introducing structure to what can often be a chaotic and fraught existence – seems sound. To turn this into yet another attack on poor people, disabled people and women just seems like a moral failure of government, and that, I think, is far more likely to tear the country apart.
- Described as ‘suave’ by Simply Knitting Magazine, Howard Hardiman is a writer and artist who makes comic books about lonely badgers, dog-headed escorts and disabled superheroines. He lives on the Isle of Wight and collects jigsaw puzzle pieces he finds in the street.
www.howardhardiman.com
www.thelengths.com
www.thepeckhaminvalids.com
Emily Carroll
She’s pretty well known, but deserves a mention anyway. I love the glimpse into (predominantly female) costume history I get from Draw This Dress – a shared project with award-winning fellow illustrator Vera Brosgol. Her Valentine’s day comic last year, Anu-Anulan and Yir’s Daughter, featured a lovely romance between two women (well, one’s a goddess, but anyway). Folklore-influenced The Hare’s Bride has a beautiful Carteresque simplicity to it. I love her work, and you should too.
Sarah Gordon
I mentioned Sarah in the last post – working as colourist, she’s one third of The Peckham Invalids team along with Howard Hardiman and Julia Scheele. Her blog is a great read and her art is beautiful. The above wonderfully snooty lady is her own take on one of the characters from the comic. She says: “I’d like 2012 to be a year where I stop hiding all my personal/story work in my head, notebooks and sketchbooks and get it out onto… the internet”. That really struck a chord with me, because my own situation is very similar.1 So I wanted to cheer Sarah on. Hope that’s not too weird. Uh. Yeah! Go Sarah, from a total stranger! And now, dear reader, you must go and Do Similarly.
Patrice Aggs
Thought I’d go a bit more longstanding – Patrice is pretty established, but she is also awesome, so if you aren’t familiar, here she is. Her work is soft-edged and has a kind of instant, gentle appeal – she’s done a lot of popular children’s books and resources for schools, but has a lifelong passion for comics. She’s worked with Philip Pullman and Horrible Histories and on The Snowman (CHILDHOOD NOSTALGIA WIBBLY ALERT) and has signed up to draw a story for new children’s weekly comic The Phoenix. Hurrah for getting children into comics! (TANGENT: Check out this sword-wielding art for one of the other stories. I’d have loved that as a kid. I hope the story’s as good as Neill Cameron’s art makes it look.) The other reason I want her on this post is she’s apparently quoted here2 over on Ladies Making Comics as follows: “Do-it-yourself is far duller than do-it-together. We need to champion each other. Drag the male-dominated blinkered attitude into the dustbin.”
Wise words indeed.
Marc Ellerby
“Chloe Noonan is a monster hunter, but she doesn’t have any powers. She can’t beat up bad guys, she can’t run without getting a stitch. She’s kinda flakey and really not bothered about saving the world. Plus she has to get the bus everywhere. I know, right?!”
I love Marc Ellerby’s clean lines and eye for detail. His monsters are bloody excellent – you can feel how much fun he’s had dreaming them up. Also, no one draws an unimpressed glare (a favoured expression of mine, naturally, as a Strident Feminist Blog Editor) quite like him. So of course, I’m now madly in love with Chloe Noonan, his wonderfully indignant teen monster hunter heroine. She’s amazing. She hurls bombs at monsters and plays in a band whilst loudly cursing both vocations and her schoool-friend sidekick is pretty cool too (also, female: BOOM BOOM BECHDEL BUST). Check her out. Buy the comics. DO IT NOW. That is all.
You know, I still don’t think I’m done. There is so much visual awesome out there. There’s a huge stream of female creators and artists and a rich seam of great heroines, characters, and attempts at inclusive projects out there. They need shouting about as much as possible. While we’re here, though not all my choices on this list are female creators, the women who work in comics, for example (and I know I’ve I’ve not really differentiated ‘illustration’ from ‘comics’ here, but anyway) give the lie to defensive statements on why women are so frequently left off panels at events, and so on. They’re around. You just have to look around you.
For further inspiration for the budding artists out there, I leave you with this photo of Patrice Aggs in action.3
More soon.
- I’ll get around to talking about the team and what we’ve been drawing at some point. I want to talk about these awesome people first, but if you’re curious, trumpet-blowing will happen. I’m, er, shy.
- At least, I think this is a quote? I wasn’t completely clear, if I’m honest. But it’s great advice, either from her, or inspired by her work. So there you go.
- If you took it, I hope you do not mind. I haven’t tracked down the image rights, but if it was you and you can let me know, I will credit you or remove it if you’re not digging my use of it, and so on.
Illustration – or, as Wikipedia rather charmingly defines it, art created to elucidate or dictate sensual information – is really important to me. It’s basically what I would do all the time if I had my way. And I’m not the only arty person on Team BadRep, either, as you may know. One of the things I’ve enjoyed most about being part of this site, in fact, is the opportunities it has raised for me to discover new illustrators from around the world, including feminist Gond tribal art and east Indian Mithili art. As I write this, I’m awaiting my copy of Sita’s Ramayana from Tara Books, so I’ll be talking about that on here soon.
This, though, is a quick post about illustrators I’m especially digging this minute. Each of them has done some work that I found interesting and beautiful with the added dimension that it also got my feminist braincogs turning, or straight up made me smile.
I’ll probably come back to this topic every so often, but to start with here’s some people you should check out.
Tiitu Takalo
Based in Finland, and mainly working in Finnish, but her art is powerful enough that you don’t need to be fluent in Finnish to love it. I interviewed her last year about her work and her feminism – read it here. I am fangirlishly proud that this site is on her links page, I can tell you! My favourite thing she’s done is probably Keha (The Ring) which is about growing up, falling in love, and boxing, but her zines are also beautiful.
Howard Hardiman
What Lengths would you be prepared to go to?
So I met Howard at a small press art fair Markgraf and I had a stall at, and I picked up issues 1 and 2 of his comic The Lengths. It’s now on issue 5. In his own words (quoted here), “…it’s a comic based around a series of interviews I did with male escorts working in London a few years ago and tells the story of Eddie, one young escort… who’s struggling with trying to do the job while craving both the adventure it offers him and the prospect of a relationship with an old friend”.
It is also very good. It’s a thoughtful, introspective comic, meandering poignantly through ideas around sex work and attitudes to it, selfhood and masculinities. I really like his decision to portray all the characters as human/dog hybrids. It just works.
On another tack, Howard’s also writing The Peckham Invalids, talking of which, scroll down!
(Oh, and according to his site bio, he’s been described by Simply Knitting magazine as “suave”. This has really only made us dig him more.)
Julia Scheele
There’s a lot about Julia’s work I love – short mini-comics like this and this, for example. I’d recommend following her work generally, but I’d particularly recommend The Peckham Invalids. I have issue 1, and it’s off to a promising start. The entire premise is a Bechdel-busting pile of badass, and features women from a range of ages and backgrounds, y’know, having their stories told, and stuff.
In 1906, as Britain surges on a tide of industrialisation driven by the brave innovations of the boldest and the best, Ms York has opened the doors of her modest home in Peckham. A group of poor, young, ill-educated, disabled and abandoned girls found their way to her and under her auspices are learning about the power they have feared the most in the world of oppression and stark inequality: their own.
So, to recap: a comic about disabled teenage superheroines in 1906 Peckham. My interest is hugely piqued, my hopes are high, and the art is looking great.
- Julia’s Art Blog
- thepeckhaminvalids.com
- Sarah Gordon, who colours The Peckham Invalids – also a talented artist
Cat Mariner
“I’m pretty sure that tiny, irrationally furious, pompously indignant animals are the funniest things on the planet.”
And who are we to argue?
Cat’s just launched her Etsy store this week, which is great, because the image above is surely the greatest alt-Valentines card imaginable (although Snails In Love… Totally Gross is surely a contender). I am particularly jealous of her command of facial expressions, and particularly enamoured of this image of the rainbow creatures that live in puddles.
I am in the process of loudly petitioning her to produce a picture book or a comic. Pray add your voice to the clamour, and purchase a card on your way out.
I’m going to stop there because it’s late and I have to sleep but please do check these people out, gift them your money and tell your friends about them.
There are more people I want to tell you about, but I think I’ll style it out into a second post!
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