The Cerebral Mum

While I was getting ready for university this morning, I had CNN on in the background. Blah blah… Pope mobile… Blah blah… Sexual abuse scandal… Blah blah… White House… And then Bush says…

“…end the Dictatorship of Relativism…”

WTF?

So off I go to school, with my course readings for today’s philosophy tutorial, wondering if Bush has any idea what that phrase means, and if he thinks we need a War Against Relativism to complement the War Against Drugs and the War Against Terrorism. (Although, if the enemy of his enemy is his friend, he could join forces with the terrorists for this new fight.)

On the train, I start my reading… about Plato’s Theory of Forms and the philosophical life. After weeks of struggling to engage with a text full of unacceptable premises and metaphysics, there was some meat there of more interest than “rational” arguments for the immortality of the soul. And my head was full of ideas (I think I sketched out 3 different books in my head during my reading) so…

I miss my train station and go all the way into the city.

Okay. No drama there. The tram I switch to goes through the city anyway and I’d left early. I board and begin reading the supplementary text. It is painful. Reductive, meaningless quibbles about words, pretending to elucidate while saying nothing. Yawn. So I throw that back in my bag and pull out Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil. Ahh… Nihilism: That other alternative to the absolutism of Plato and of the 2 millenia that followed…

I go 20 minutes further down the tracks than I am supposed to.

I get to my history lecture on time. Why do we always pay attention to the Hollywood Ten rather than the 1000s of civil servants who got the same treatment under McCarthyism? I reckon there is a thesis in the little, unsexy people. Oh, and Gary Cooper was a dickwad.

Anyway.

I move on to my philosophy tutorial, to discuss The Forms - those pure essences which cannot be perceived with human senses and which the objects and qualities we experience in our “reality” are but shadows of. We talk about Beauty. If two people disagree about an object’s beauty, can both be right? According to Plato, no. Beauty exists as an absolute. If one cannot recognise it where it exists, it is a failure of the mind. Someone must be wrong. According to most of us - living, as we apparently do, under the Dictatorship of Relativism - beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

(Curiously enough, that proverb is a bastardisation of Plato’s words in The Symposium - “beholding beauty with the eye of the mind” - where he was saying anything but what we mean by it today.)

After a quick trip to the library to get some reference materials for my research paper, I get on the tram - which is late, then slow - but I manage to get off at the right stop and board my train. Which is late and then, almost home, stops altogether. Between stations.

Through the window in the dark I see the driver on the tracks, then the police. Great. After a while we move on to the next station. The police walk passed the carriages toward the driver and we hear an announcement…

“We apologise for the delay. We had.”

Er? Whatever the problem is, I guess it’s none of my business.

I make a phone call. B will come and pick me up so I disembark. Over a policewoman’s radio I hear, “…man on top of the woman…” Curiouser and curiouser. An ambulance is parked on the verge of the tracks and a police car is blocking the road. An announcement is made that the train has stopped in order to divide the carriages. (Yeah, right.)

B arrives, and I go home, still wondering about the contextless Dictatorship of Relativism. So I look for a transcript online and discover the phrase is not Bush’s, but The Rat’s. (Note: choosing to respect people’s private beliefs does not necessitate respect for the Papacy.)

Ratzinger said in 2005…

Today, having a clear faith based on the Creed of the Church is often labeled as fundamentalism. Whereas relativism, that is, letting oneself be “tossed here and there, carried about by every wind of doctrine”, seems the only attitude that can cope with modern times. We are building a dictatorship of relativism that does not recognize anything as definitive and whose ultimate goal consists solely of one’s own ego and desires.

So, to escape my relativist, liberal freedom (which, apparently, is a perversion of the idea of redemption) should I go with Plato’s Forms, or Ratzinger’s Christ? (And don’t those possessives speak to how much I currently suffer under The Dictatorship?)

Also interesting, given today’s history lecture on the Cold War, are the passages there (and in an earlier address) about the particular “winds of doctrine”. Methinks someone is still suffering from a Red Scare.

To sum up though, I went to university then came home.

Who the hell knows where Bush was going.

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I’m trying to put my finger on it.

I was disappointed to find that both my subjects’ tutorials this semester are being led by female academics. What is that about? I’d love to be a female academic myself, so why do I think I’m somehow getting less out of them? To a certain extent, perhaps it has more to do with who I relate to rather than stereotypes. Then again, just saying “who I relate to” in such a way (ie; meaning males) is stereotyping. Isn’t it?

Can some of it be excused by personal experience? I prefer male doctors, for example. My experience with female doctors have been that they are either to emo or in-my-face or trying-to-connect when all I want is bald science, or too snarky or chip-on-their-shoulder or sour. Now those are some awfully destructive, endemic stereotypes. Perhaps they really were like that, but perhaps my perceptions were influenced by the culture I am surrounded by.

My current doctor, incidentally, is female and I really like her. She’s Chinese. Does her different background effect the way she relates, or do I relate to her differently? (That’s an even more concerning question!)

I have similar “experiences’ with females in wide range of roles. Even traditionally “female” roles. Like nurses. I loathe most nurses with a passion.

And even just generally, I prefer the company of men. With the exception of my blogging pals, I have few female friends. Occasionally, I love a “girly” get together - I’m a fairly girly girl and I have 7 pairs of pink shoes - but too much female company and I begin to dislike my own sex. I can only take so much.

In part, I think it is because I have a “masculine” mind and, statistically, more males than females think and interact the way I do. (Yes, I do think that there are statistically significant differences between the sexes, even though that tells us nothing about any single individual.) I have a sneaking suspicion, though, that I also like to be not so much one-of-the-boys, but the woman who runs with them. Because I “fit” very well, but I also have a point of difference and therefore get special treatment. That’s not a very admirable reason for what is essentially prejudice.

Or is it prejudice? Where is the line between prejudice and preference?

There is no self-loathing in play here. I share the “flaws” of my sex which irritate me in other women and I have no desire to be other than what I am. My “femaleness” informs everything I do and think. I experience the world through my female body. It generates meaning. I find it valuable.

Perhaps it is the complementary nature of “sex” differences which attracts me to the company of men. There are characteristics I admire which I find more frequently in males than I do in females and don’t think that is uncommon. (This applies in reverse as well: There are many men who prefer the company of women.) Still, I find it problematic.

Because I’m a feminist.

I’m not a “feminist, but…”: I’m 100% pure, unadulterated. So how does that compute with my “sexism”? How do I resolve those two leanings? My feminism is obviously not a female bias. It is a combination of broader principles and my female experience.

I think this post is opening a very large can of philosophical worms. I think I need to define my feminism again. It isn’t something I have intellectually considered for a long time. Is it a label that I have worn for so many years that it is no longer meaningful?

It’s time to make this area of my social conscience conscious once more.

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There wasn’t going to be a Valentine post from me, because no matter how in or out of love I am, I’ve never been a fan. But when it’s VD, you really do have to say it. And now you can.

Anonymously.

If there’s someone who doesn’t know how you feel about infected them, send them an e-card from inSPOT. There is a large selection of designs and a drop down list of STDs to choose from.

You know, just to make it personal.

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I was tagged by Child Person From the South for the 7 Random Things meme.

Last time I did it, it was fairly lighthearted but I think in order to respect the tags that have made their way to me this time, this one will need to cover some less fluffy details.

Number One

As a child abuse survivor, I don’t like to call myself a survivor. I think when I left home and began to deal with my childhood, the idea that I could be a survivor and not a victim was a powerful one, and one that helped me. But after a while it became something that felt restrictive as a label, that gave too much prominence to just one aspect of my history. It made me feel shrunken and defined, not just by myself but by the baggage of the assumptions people make when they know “what happened”.

I don’t want to be a “survivor”. I don’t want all my emotions and opinions and character traits to be seen through that filter. I want to be seen as a whole and not just a part. Whether I’m a survivor or not, it is just not all of me and it does not colour all that I am as a human being.

Number Two

I’m not sure that this counts as a random factoid, so let’s call it a random opinion: The result of child abuse is a powerful knowledge. It’s knowledge that is gained in the worst of ways, but it is gained nonetheless. I have the ability to recognise abuse, to recognise it in it’s early creeping, insidious forms: In the danger zone, where the dynamics of a relationship can, even without intent, become harmful. My instincts are finely honed. And I respect them.

I don’t think I can fully explain it in this amount of space, but if a child abuse survivor defines something as abusive which you can’t see for yourself, their opinion should be listened to as one of authority, not disregarded as an overreaction based of their personal history. Survivors are perfectly capable of distinguishing between their abreactions and their knowledge themselves. It is nobody else’s job to psychoanalyse them.

Number Three

And this leads us to something fairly obvious: I don’t like being psychoanalysed and I need to be respected. Those two things get in the way of me using the knowledge I have to help others and that seems selfish to me. I find it difficult to discriminate between my personal needs and a social obligation. I have not been able to find the defining line and I am pulled in opposite directions. I often feel guilty about it. About not doing enough.

Number Four

There is another dividing line I find difficult to define: I do not like the idea of Caspar ever having a step-father. This is purely theoretical of course, because at this stage I have no interest in having a relationship, but it is possible that this won’t be the case for the next 20 years. I’m not sure exactly how much this lack of openness is due to my statistical knowledge of the prevalence of abuse by non-biological parents, my own experience of abuse by a non-biological parent, my general lack of need for a relationship or my general parental protectiveness that allows no room for someone to take an important place in my son’s life without any guarantee that they will always be there for him.

The answer, of course, it that I can only make such choices if the situation arises, but I find it an interesting question nonetheless.

Number Five

I am not surprised by the prevalence of abuse but I am constantly surprised by people who read abuse statistics and disbelieve them. I won’t go into the statistical and data collection methods used because this is supposed to be about me, but leaving aside the big maths? All I have to do is add up how many people in my life - family and friends, young and old, male and female - who have been been victims of child abuse, child sexual abuse, who have been assaulted, beaten, or raped - to realise those numbers are not an overestimate.

Even taking into account that like attracts like, and that it isn’t surprising that my particular world would have an overpopulation of people who have had similar experiences and would talk about it with me, those numbers are not an overestimate. My personal numbers are far higher.

Number Six

Writing number five just then… I am angry. I’m angry at the level of ignorance there is about this issue. I’m angry at the head in the sand mentality. I’m angry at society’s inability to make the connections. I’m angry at the sensationalisation of the issues in the media which allows people to always see child abuse and sexual abuse as “Other”. I feel like ranting. I guess I am ranting. At who? I don’t know. But I still feel like smashing people over the head with some unpalatable facts.

Number Seven.

And writing number six just then… I feel powerless. No matter how I rant or what I do, I can not change things. Everything I know, everything I have learned both through experience and study, is useful only to help victims pick up the pieces. That’s something. But it isn’t enough.

It simply isn’t enough.

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Quite a while ago now I mentioned that I was working on setting up a new charity. We’ve just got the domain name sorted out and hopefully it won’t be long before I’ve got the site up and running. In the meantime, I’m going to tell you a little bit about it and ask anyone who is interested to start knitting.

As you know, my mother was working in Afghanistan recently as a teacher. Things are hard there with the war/occupation/whatever you want to call it. Things are harder in winter. While Afghanistan is an arid country where summer temperatures of 45-50c are not uncommon, in winter it is a very cold. In Kabul the snow can lie for 2 or 3 months and in some places it lasts beyond the vernal equinox. Temperatures of around -24c are the norm. The people there need warm clothes and too many do not have them.

The following letter was written by one of my mother’s students from Kabul.

Now, one can see only the sparkling white mattress laid everywhere. This joyful sight is not long lasting and is suddenly shattered when one thinks of the hundreds of thousands of families who can’t afford to buy fuel for heating.

One starts to abhor snow when one sees child peddlers or beggars running after cars, attempting to persuade those inside to buy their goods or give them some money. It is painful to see women in wet burkhas following cars and begging. One hears stories about families who sleep to cope with starvation, and yet cannot sleep because of the cold.

Children are stood in traffic, hands pulled into their sleeves as an alternative fashion to gloves, their sleeves white with snow. They run, many of them, after cars. Their faces appear at half misty windows, shuddering and begging, Khyrat Bedeh, their breath frozen on their lips. Their eyes tell the tale; they have not had breakfast; their skinny faces show clearly that they have had no food for an unknown period. Their torn jackets complain; they cannot protect them from the snow and cruel cold. Snow falls constantly and covers their hair, then slowly dissolves, changes to drops and slides down, freezing again before they hit the ground.

Some people think of snow as an elixir that helps them triumph over the fear of drought, but snow, for all its beauty, makes some people cry. Cry for a father whose children cry for food and a little warmth. Cry for a mother who begs out in the cold to bring food to her children, while her children cry at home for their mother to be with them. Cry for a mother who squeezes her tiny baby under her jacket to keep him warm, but can’t do anything to feed him. She, herself has not eaten enough, how can she feed her baby?

I can’t cry anymore. Help me cry for a family who live not in a protective shelter, but a tent with many holes in it, camped on a wet piece of ground, crying for enough food and dreaming of a little warmth.

Yes, these parents dream too. They are ordinary people and dream as we do. However, we have much more and dream of a better tomorrow. They dream for today. They dream of bread for their children. They dream of a time when their children are not hungry, and are warm. They dream of a time when they can look at each other knowing their children are satisfied.

It is some time since I first read this letter but reading it again today, it still makes me weep. The charity we are setting up does not require anyone to contribute money, but for those who have the time and would like to help, we are asking you to knit. Socks, beanies, scarves, jumpers, anything… Everything is needed.

At this stage, the items will need to be posted to an address here in Melbourne but we are in the process of organising a collection point in London as well, and hope to set up more collection points in the future. We have arranged for all the garments to be distributed in Afghanistan by Save The Children.

When the site is running, there will be more details available but if you are willing and able to help, please start knitting now. This winter has already descended. We are really hoping to be able to make the next one different for a lot of people.

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You might be thinking I’m referring to my lack of substantial posts lately, but I’m not. I’m going to talk about weight which, unless you’re saying the “right” things, is somewhat taboo. At the very least it is a subject which has been perverted beyond all meaning by politics and political correctness. I’m even going to tell you my weight. In fact, many of my weights. It’s changed recently.

When I got pregnant, I weighed 55kg. It was the least I had weighed since I was 14 and had ovarian cysts. Because of the cysts I was put on a very strong Pill and weight gain was the side effect of it. After that my weight averaged out at about 59kg. In hindsight, that’s a ridiculous number to be unhappy with but I didn’t like the way I wore it; all in the lower half of my body, still with a tiny waist which only served to accentuate what was below it. This made it hard to find clothes which fit properly and it made my legs, which have never been shapely, look like logs.

A high school friend, in passing, made a comment about my “smiley knees”. I have never shown them since. Changing schools in Yr. 11, a boy called me “Airport”, a term he thought described the width of my ass. You could land a 747 on it. Yes, that comment stuck in my mind too.

Those comments, however, weren’t the cause of the eating disorder I developed when I finished high school. No; my mind was already ripe for them. I was already hungry for weapons to use against myself.

When I was pregnant though, I gained 30kg. And I didn’t care. Only toward the end did I feel like a whale but really, does any woman make it all the way without feeling like that? I doubt it. That picture is me at 5 months. Apart from the fact that a slash of lipstick might have made me look a bit more “blooming”, I look awesome. And I felt awesome, in spite of being so often tired.

All those hormones really changed my attitude toward my body, not just intellectually, but subconsciously as well. They reprogrammed me. Although I’d had the bulimia completely under control for 3 years, I hadn’t entirely rid myself of all the obsessive thought patterns which were part of it. Why? Because those thought patterns are not just part of a disorder. They’re normal. I was just like an average Jane, who says out loud those numbers don’t matter but feels a little relief when they take a dive and a little shame when they go up.

While I was pregnant I decided that when Caspar was born I wouldn’t concern myself with “getting back into shape” for one year, that I would let my body find its own balance, something I had not allowed it to do for a very long time. That year was over on the 16th of October. I weighed 69kg, 10kg more than I did when that stupid boy called me Airport and 15 kgs more than the heaviest “goal” weight I had ever had.

On October 16th, after 9 months completely free from worrying about it and an entire year where I excused myself from judgement by numbers, it was the simplest thing in the world to continue trusting my body even though it was far different than the ideal i had carried with me for so long. And I have no intention of ever “getting back into shape”. Why would I?

The other day I read…

Everyone is sexy. Everyone is attractive. It is an attitude. A state of mind.
A decision. _{Magneto Bold Too}

I agree with that. I’ve stated as much already; at length, with science and psychology to back it up. We all agree with that, don’t we?

Or do too many of us just say we agree while invisible rats silently eat away at our self-esteem even as we mouth the words?

Right now, I seem to be getting thinner. I weigh 64kg. I did nothing to “achieve” this and I’m not going to let the loss suck me into trying to “achieve” more. Wherever my body finds its equilibrium is fine by me. But I do have a question for whoever is reading this.

Did you even once while reading through this list of numbers make the comparison? Did the comparison make you feel bad? Or good? Or angry? Or relieved? Or irritated? Or defensive? Or whatever.

Did those numbers that mean nothing suck you in?

I’d like to think they caught no one out, but I wouldn’t lay my money on it. As a society, as women, we have a long way to go. And I hope we get there soon.

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I don’t normally post videos but this is extraordinarily powerful. Think about it.

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