Can we be something more honest than “woke”? I’ve been thinking a lot about the performativity of all our politics recently. I am worried. An MP describes people as ‘a funny tinge’ and to be a “good” person you have to perform outrage/ridicule, though I’m sure many of us funny-tinged people feel nothing deeper than an eye-roll. It’s not that deep. And by not that … Continue reading Everybody wants to be ‘woke’ but who wants to be honest?
Content warnings: discussion of rape, victim-blaming, sexual abuse, child abuse. After first avoiding all news relating to the sensationalist and provocative headline, ‘British Pakistani men are raping and exploiting white girls’ I’ve decided to throw my hat into the fray over Sarah Champion, Labour’s shadow secretary for Women and Equalities (which women? which equality?) writing a piece for The Sun (who does that?) in light of … Continue reading Sexual abuse survivors deserve more than us blaming brown men
EDIT: disclaimer that this is from my perspective in Britain and primarily about rhetoric here and in other Western European/North American contexts. The hijab, burqa, burkini, FGM, ‘honour killings’ and ‘forced marriages’ are familiar tropes when it comes to thinking about migration and Islam in ‘the West’. Their prevalence represents the slippage between ‘women’s rights’ and questions of national borders and religion, reflecting the way … Continue reading Why are we obsessed with Muslim women?
Content note: mothers, mothering labour, mentions of biological essentialism. This post goes out to every mother and to every woman who looks after a family or cares for other human beings. It goes out especially to every single-mother, every non-white mother and every young mother. To every mother who is shamed for not also participating in waged work alongside being a mother, and for every mother … Continue reading To the Mothers and the men they raise
The Brown Hijabi 