The way we were

I've held off from saying much online about the latest celebrity-outing as a sexual predator, but the Harvey Weinstein furore has got me thinking about the past - my past. Interestingly enough, my first reaction was to reflect how it's always the really ugly, unattractive guys - just run over in your mind the names that surface and see if you agree. I can recall that time in the 1960s when I asked my mother how a man like Robert Boothby could attract anyone; I seem also to recall that her answer contained a reference to the aphrodisiac of power - the idea that a powerful man could always have his way with a younger partner. Clearly I was not entirely convinced of that; I do recall my 20-something self finding him utterly repulsive.

But actually that's not the whole story. The thing is, when we were young we were expected to be grateful to be fancied by ... well, by anyone. That's part of the sad truth. When I was in Primary 7 - that is, 11-12 years old - we read comics like Romeo (always had the lyrics of a current pop song on the back) and Valentine (had photo-serials instead of comic strip ones - I never liked it as much). The stories were always about a girl attracting some personable bloke by changing her hair or removing her specs, thereby looking more appealing and less brainy. There were columns devoted to pleasing a boy by allowing him to talk about himself - even down to the questions to ask him. And the girl always, always had to wait to be asked.

We joked about it too. There was a teacher in my secondary school whom we avoided as having "wandering hands". Remember that one? But then I remind myself that he was deeply unattractive. Would we have made the jokes about him if he'd been fanciable? There was the unknown man who chased me and two pals along the road, exposing himself as he did. We could hardly run for laughing - though the fact that we were encumbered with violins and (god help us) a cello didn't help. We were interviewed by a policewoman after that; one of my pals was the daughter of a high-ranking policeman. So they took it seriously - we didn't. Why was this?

Remember the cattle-market dances? Girls down one wall, boys facing? And then waiting to see if some pimply youth would ask you to dance, thereby sealing your fate? I went to about two of these: that was enough. And I was lucky. I had a very strict father who had been a secondary teacher all his life, and I'm eternally grateful for the way in which he restricted me and what I did. "Use me as an excuse if you like, he would say - you're not going." Until I was 18 and had passed all the Highers I needed for Uni, I wasn't allowed out to random parties. Imagine how much I hated him at the time, and how thankful I was each time I heard of what had happened at the parties I missed. I wasn't allowed to go hitch-hiking with my pals, nor on cheap, vaguely-planned holidays in Greece. So actually I was never assaulted on the deck of a Greek steamer in the middle of the night, nor on a hotel roof where it was cooler to sleep. And yes, these things happened.

But what of the life of a woman after she's left the protection of her family? (and I know some women aren't protected at all - I'm talking about myself, really) Someone else mentioned the oft-heard question: "Is he bothering you?" And we had to devise ways to avoid being "bothered". Remember, this can include a whole range of behaviours - the sudden hand on the thigh, the tongue down the throat when even a peck felt offensive, the lascivious wolf-whistle from some bloke down a hole in the road. And in the 60s we were never told that it was fine to tell the man what we really felt - rather the reverse. It was regarded as perverse to object to any of it. You made some excuse and wriggled out of the situation, or you let it go on and ended up raped. I was never raped, but I know people who were. They didn't call it rape; they euphemised the whole situation.

Where on earth am I going with all this? I think I'm looking at the sense of entitlement that men have had since time immemorial, and which the women of my generation hadn't climbed sufficiently out of the pit of submission that women had always lived in. So when I hear the current stories about the way famous men have been exposed for the promiscuous predators they are (and it's only famous men - the ordinary tosser in the street just goes on his ghastly way, presumably) - when I hear these, it's like hearing of people waking from a centuries'-long sleep and talking about their nightmares. But they are the nightmares on whose fringes I lived in my youth, and they feel familiar.

Even the best of men - and I'm fortunate: I know many such men - can't know this past as people women my age do. Can't know the present hell that too many women still inhabit. But it's not going to improve unless women occupy the confident upper ground that men have walked since they emerged from the slime; until all women feel the equal of any man they meet and bring up their sons to know this truth; until every girl is imbued with the powerful sense of self that circles her with the armour of confidence; until the Harvey Weinsteins of this world are slapped down the moment they show their true colours.

And until we can be sure that such men will never, ever, become the president of the most powerful nation in the world.

Women and men and trains - and Jeremy.

I clocked Jeremy Corbyn's thought about women-only compartments on trains but didn't dwell on it until I read Kelvin's post and tried to leave a comment (it was eaten by gremlins so I'm doing it here instead). So - would this be A Good Thing? Or is it too reminiscent of purdah and all that western women associate with such seclusion: veils, burkahs, kinder, küche, kirche ...? And I considered my immediate reaction, and tried to reconcile it with the person people think I am, and this is what came bubbling to the surface.

I don't travel solo much on public transport these days, but one of the pensioner-like things I do is use the bus from Dunoon - Glasgow. It's free, it takes you on the ferry without your needing to get wet on the pier, it drops you in the centre of town, you can doze off on it and not be taken past your stop. But nowadays I either sit on the outer seat of a pair, or sit beside another woman, because of an incident a year or so ago. Dear, sensitive reader, picture the scene:

I am sitting on the bus which I boarded in Dunoon with about seven people. I am in a window seat, looking out in a dwam at the wet road when we stop to let people on in Gourock. A tall man - not fat, just tall - of about 70 sways up the aisle and crashes down in the seat next to me. He lands half on top of me, to be accurate, squashing my arm and pressing his own arm into my right tit. I wait for him to apologise and move. I go on waiting. I stare at him. He smiles, complacently. I point out that he is too close for comfort, but he makes no move. I tell him he's invading my space and I want him to get out of it. He scoffs, and moves very slightly. He then begins to complain in a loud voice about unreasonable women, until I tell him I'm going to make a scene if he doesn't desist.

I take refuge in Twitter, in which medium my niece saves the day by making me laugh aloud. (Annoying man finds this discomfiting and I am glad). She has coined a phrase to describe her pet hate on public transport, for it is younger men with  lava crotches that give her the most trouble. And happily annoying man isn't going all the way to Glasgow and I am freed from his clammy presence.

Kelvin in his post talks about the need to deal with violence against women, and I agree with him. But neither my Annoying Man nor my niece's spread-legged travelling companions are being overtly violent - they're just behaving in a way that none of the men in my own circles would ever behave. They wouldn't be in my circles for long if they did. But they represent two distinct classes of public transport-users: throwbacks to a past age and present-day strutters (you know the walk?) who still think they are the dominant species. The former are likely to think it's all right to address women as "dearie" if they complain, and the latter to use Anglo-saxon monosyllables every second word in conversation as well as hogging all the available space.

None of which is actually threatening - or is it? And yes, in a way it's less threatening as one becomes frankly old. But if I had to take an evening train alone, as I used to when I caught the 11pm from Edinburgh to Glasgow in my student days after a concert, I'd love to have the choice of a women-only carriage. And if there were to be such a thing, I'd use it. Every time. Even though I feel ashamed of writing that, even though it seems a betrayal of the equality I have worked for all my life, I know it's true.

And maybe it's because Jeremy Corbyn is my generation that he knows it too ...

Weighting

It always strikes me, in the

bright morning light

how the line on the cheap bathroom scales stops

always just short - or just long? -

of the magic figure that says

goal achieved. But I tell myself

and anyone else who will listen

that there’s a whole two big bags of spuds 

gone already

melting as by magic

from the bits a friend called

stout

what a potent word, that

 - stout - 

 and though the skinny form

of the almost-anorexic 

(a word we didn’t know, then)

will never again be smoothly taut

nevertheless that almost-line

makes me feel a bit of me

has beaten the clock

and drives me on:

another bag?

©C.M.M. 06/13

1984 revisited : Greenham Common

Greenham Common Peace camp
Originally uploaded by goforchris.

The last act in an extraordinary year came in September, when word came that the Greenham Common Peace camp were inviting women from all over Britain to come for a day of meetings and action at the Cruise Missile base on the Common. By this time I had returned to full-time teaching, but I still had relative youth on my side and beside ... they had come to our base, and Sheena (from Dunoon CND) and I felt we owed them. All these years later, I can still call up vivid flashbacks ...

It is a fine evening, that Friday in late September, when Sheena and I drive to Glasgow to meet a bus in George Square. We leave around teatime, by which time every seat in the bus is taken. All these women, and one black labrador (gender unknown) I have a rucksack full of strange little bags of food - marmalade rolls and a boiled egg (breakfast), more substantial cheese sandwiches, fruit and so on for lunch, bits and pieces of cake, dried fruit, juice, water - and hope that we will indeed stop at service stations as promised for the missing meals. Our first stop, however, is a traffic jam in the Borders. Most of us take the opportunity for a comfort break by the road in the lee of the bus. It's all very bonding. We drive through the night, sleeping in snatches like Eliot's Magi.

We arrive in Newbury, Berks, at 5.30am. The bus drops us at the main Gate, where we can see tents and signs of not-your-average-camp in the old sofas beside small fires. By this time I feel dreadful as a full day's teaching followed by very little sleep catches up on me. Someone puts up a blue tent and invites me to lie down. When I waken again it is light, and there are voices outside. Sheena brings me a cup of hot water, boiled over a wood fire. It tastes like Lapsang Souchong and I begin to feel better. I crawl out and eat my breakfast sitting on a battered leatherette armchair as the sun slants over the camp.

We spend the morning roaming the narrow paths which follow the perimeter fence. Elizabeth, an elderly Communist lady with dyed red hair (not like mine - hers was orange) becomes incensed when a young soldier berates me and Sheena for a couple of dykes. She shrieks at him about his parentage and we drag her away. This is, after all, a peaceful protest. We are terrified by the sudden appearance of two police people on massive horses which take up the entire path, forcing us into the bushes to avoid broken toes. They laugh at us and go their way. We come to another small camp, and a painted notice telling us:

Wimmyn: don't sh*t on the Common. Sh*it in the pits.

There are no asterisks on the notice, but this is a family blog. We talk to soldiers through the wire, to policemen, to some RAF types. There are things hanging on the wire fence - baby shoes, photos, paper doves.

We are invited to join a group of women for some tea. They show us their 'benders' - tents supported on bent saplings which return to being trees when the canvas is removed. These are easier to dismantle in a hurry when the slurry-spreader comes: apparently one of the more effective means of harassment practised on the camps. We follow the fence round, and come to Blue Gate. There the thought of the Common's pits defeats us, and we trot down the road to a small pub where, alone of all the pubs in the area, the landlord welcomes Peace Women. I realise a long-held ambition and ask for "A pint of your best bitter, please". We discuss the level of stamina required for life at the camps, in the light of the fact that we're ducking out after a morning. We head back up the road.

We meet some women who came to Dunoon for the trials and whom I had last seen eating tomatoes in my back garden. There is a scene of great warmth and rejoicing, and we join them in a circle round the entrance to the base to sing songs together. There must be about 50 women there, and we share stories. By this time it is quite warm, though I realise that I'm in the kind of survival mode which prevents me from removing any layers. I feel very grubby and wonder if I smell.

The bus comes back for us at 6pm, 13 hours after leaving us, and we head off into the evening. I lie on the floor with the black labrador (sign of how desperately tired I am) and sleep all the way to Southwaite Services, where I am sufficiently revived to eat bacon and mushrooms. 4am sees us back in a George Square which is still alive with Saturday night, and we drive round over the Rest and Be Thankful, arriving in Dunoon shortly after 6am.

That evening the BBC carries the brilliant drama-documentary "Threads" and I become aware that I feel better because I've tried to do something. And every time I've viewed that film since - it's been a valuable resource - I remember that day, these women.

Women's work?

Yesterday Kimberly sent me this wonderful photo as a possible image of women's ministry. And yesterday I read this:

"The risen Christ gave Mary Magdalene a commission. 'Go' is her mission, and 'tell my brethren' is her commission. A commission, to publish the first news of his rising, and as it falls out, of his ascending too.
The Fathers say that by this word she was by Christ made an apostle, nay 'an apostle to the apostles themselves.' An apostle, for what lacks she? Sent first, immediately from Christ himself; and what is an apostle but so? Secondly, sent to declare and make known. And last, what was she to make known? Christ's rising and ascending. And what are they but 'the gospel', yea the very gospel of the gospel?
....
The first gospel of all is the gospel of this day, and the gospel of this day is this Mary Magdalene's gospel, the prime gospel of all, before any of the other four. That Christ is risen and upon his ascending, and she the first that ever brought these glad tidings. At her hands the apostles themselves received it first, and from them we all.
...
So was it ... that Christ finding her where he should have found (the other apostles) and did not, (is fain) to send by the hand of her that he first found at the sepulchre's side, and to make himself a new apostle. And send her to them, ... to catechise them in two articles of the Christian Faith, the resurrection and the ascension of Christ. To Mary Magdalene, they and we both owe them, the first notice of them."

And which contemporary feminist (with, admittedly, a penchant for quaint archaisms of language) wrote this? Sorry, men. It comes from a sermon of Lancelot Andrewes, preached before King James I at Whitehall on Easter Day 1622.

So ... what took you so long?