Part 2: The Many Trials and the Long Journey

Yesterday this Bird found herself complaining about the complaints department, and was forced to pause for a dry chuckle. Repeating a catalogue of mistakes, misjudgements and misconceptions, I felt is was time to share the joke that is the local police force. Let me make this clear, this Bird has made every attempt not to be anti-police, after all they are only human; it's just that the police make it very hard for me not to be. I would be here all evening, (as I just have with one of the force's finest), if I related to you every detail, so I will regale you, dear Reader, with just a few choice highlights.

So, a message for the boys and girls in blue:

'Restorative Justice' is not appropriate in domestic violence situations. If a person has been persecuted, abused and violated by another, putting the two of them in a room together to 'negotiate', with no trained support, no counseling and no admission of guilt from the perpetrator will result in pain, torment and fear for the victim/survivor, will perpetuate the abuse, and will make the officers involved complicit in that abuse. A harsh conclusion, but true.

Secondly, a Traveller's home is NOT a 'holiday caravan'. This is offensive on so many levels.

Thirdly, if you boys and girls are too fearful to go onto a Traveller site, then perhaps you should try being a bit nicer. We only really bite when provoked.

Last but not least, being passed around a current total of around a dozen officers, spending time and energy repeating stories of events afresh every time, is exhausting and unhelpful. An assigned officer who stays for the duration is essential for avoiding undue distress, and for getting anything real done.

After nine months of telling, demanding and sometimes pleading, nothing has been done to protect this Bird or her family from a horrible, stressful and exhausting situation. For a victim/survivor of abuse and harassment, this dramatically increases the sense of isolation, and exacerbates feelings of helplessness. Repeating stories of abuse and violence brings up distressing emotions and memories causing yet more trauma for abuse survivors.

Boys and girls of the British police service, I'm sorry to say this but you have made a proper dog's arse of helping us out.

A Fairy-tale in Several Parts: Part I

After the impulsive rant of the last post, this Bird has been unusually lost for words. After gently easing open the lid of this particular can of worms, I hurriedly shut it tight again for the fear that this would be enough worms for a serious case of indigestion: however, dear reader, after a lead-in like that this Bird cannot disappoint you.
The hardest thing is knowing where to start: in ancient times, when women were first intimidated by cavemen seeking to assert authority, with the centuries-long persecution of the Roma and other traveling people, or last week when I nearly lost my rag completely with the last in a long line of incompetent coppers.
I don't have the figures, but I know that far too large a proportion of women experience domestic violence in their lives. This violence doesn't just affect the woman herself, it affects her family, her children and sometimes friends and colleagues.
Once that woman has found the strength and resources to get herself out of that situation, in a world where those resources are scarce, she still has not reached the end of the journey in many cases. Especially when the perpetrator of violence is also the father of their child. This man has rights of access, rights of parenting, and the child has a right to a chance with a relationship with their father. This Bird is not denying that there maybe other kinds of partnerships that experience domestic violence, but this situation is the only one where continued contact between the perpetrator and the survivor is deemed, not just necessary, but a legal and moral obligation. In this Birds humble observations, it seems there are very many women who tolerate what others may term abuse, and see it as the price that has to be paid for the benefit of their child, and do this long beyond the point where the relationship with their partner has ended.
Because, for the sake of their children or families many women do not complain about low grade abuse, when the situation does reach a higher level (which inevitably it does as the perpetrator pushes for more control), they finally resort to involving authorities, police and solicitors , as did someone very close to this Bird.  The added blast that rocks this precarious boat is the ambivalence and patronizing attitude with which such a stand is received. Forced to recount a traumatic and emotional story over and over again as she is passed from one bunch of  uncomprehending male beat coppers to more of the same, each re-telling seems to add a layer of patronization  and a further pat on the head from each well-meaning copper ; "..there there...you tell it to us over and over and in the end you'll forget all about it and we won't have to deal with the paperwork". 
Getting more personal now, over the last nine months of navigating the foggy waters of the British police and legal system, the abuse still goes on: harassment involving 38 phone calls in a day, a tirade of vilely abusive emails and texts,  and the destruction of homes and property. The effects this has had and is continuing to have on the family and the child are exhausting, complex and difficult to cope with.
These Birds will not take this, laying down or otherwise. Every time we meet these barriers, we will fight to be heard: for us, and for every woman out there who is dealing with the Squish-head dad phenomena. We will not apologise for wanting the best for our loved ones and our families. More to follow...................................

Watch this space .. . .. ... . . .

This Bird has a beehive in her bonnet. I would like to warn you, dear reader, that things are about to go postal. Having ranted here, and raved in fields (much more fun than raving in my living room), I have reached a point where the personal has become yet again the political. After nearly two years of dealing with a situation that involves the trivialisation of domestic violence, the complete misunderstanding of a Traveller life-style, and the patronising complacency and incompetency of Her Majesty's Police service, this Bird has decided that enough is enough. Over the next few weeks, this Bird will name and shame, interrogate, denigrate and declaim all that decorum has rendered subterranean. This Bird knows that now is the time to speak the truth. Watch this space very closely........

uk plc

It's been a crazy time, so a bit slow on the old political hot-line this week, but this Bird has been fuming for the last few days over the budget and the surrounding corporate babble. Forgive me if I am wrong, but I had always believed that the purpose of government was to represent and take care of the needs of the people it represented. Having heard countless talking heads comment on companies high-footing it out of the country, to be lured back by tax breaks, this Bird could be forgiven for thinking that UK plc really existed. There are some facts that need to be considered: even the deficit of the government is not that of the people, so the deficits of banks and other corporate entities are definitely not our problem. As a large portion of government debt is owed to the Bank of England, it is debatable whether it is a deficit at all. Private enterprise is just that...... private. The government is not a corporation. UK plc is a myth created by private enterprise to embezzle funds from our pockets in yet another scam.
I implore you, dear reader, to ignore the myth. We do not get a share in the profits of private enterprise, so we are not liable for its debts, and neither is the government. The banks are not too big to fail, they are simply too big too fail whilst remaining private enterprises. Do not pass go, do not give your cash, services, health and education to private enterprise.

Shop Local

This Bird is possibly in need of a blue rinse and twin-set, but I have been fondly musing on the subject of the local shop. Hardly a hot political issue, one may say, but the more this Bird contemplates the idea, the more it seems to represent so much that is being lost in the daze of capitalist consumerism and the breakdown of community. Far from being the idyllic village shop, our local is for cheap Stella, cigs, pot noodles and chocolate. It has, however, a magical back shelf. The shelf is tiny, yet somehow whatever obscure item may be needed in a hurry it's lurking there. This is not the most magical part of the shop, though. The couple who run it scrape a modest living, working long hours. They know all the regular customers by name. They know which customers are on the scrounge and which ones are genuinely single mothers that will pay for the pint of milk tomorrow but have to feed their kids today. When a lonely neighbour lost her much-loved dog, they asked after her every time they saw her and made a point of chatting to her whenever she came in to make sure she was ok. When the local teenagers come in they don't need to check for ID because they've known them all for years. To sum it all up, they know the local community, and they care. Stick that in your bag for life, Tesco.

Happy Valentine's Day

With the commercial con of Valentine's Day over, this Bird's heart can now turn without cynicism to thoughts of true love. I want to share the story of a friend of mine, a big-hearted and loving woman who deserves the best from life. Philippa has wife in the States, who's daughter from a previous marriage knows her as 'Mum', but under US federal law, unlike a heterosexual couple, her wife is not permitted to sponsor her to move to America. They are both fighting tooth and nail to change this heart-breaking and discriminatory law, with endless brave interviews, campaigns and lobbying.

The link below will tell you more than I can of this perplexing legal situation, but the story I want to tell is the one I have seen with my own eyes. This Bird has the esteemed honour of playing in a band with Philippa. She is passionate, talented and full of life. She lives much of this life, however, via webcams, mobile phones and 'facebook'. Her relationship with her wife, Inger, is so real and present I already consider Inger a friend, although I have never met her. Philippa regularly rings her during band practices, and we will play a new tune to the phone to see what Inger thinks of it. We have group phone conversations full of laughter. She also chats regularly with her daughter, helping with homework on the web cams, and even checking that she's tidied her bedroom.

I also see Philippa on the bad days: the days when all she wants in the world is to hold her wife in her arms because she has had a bad day; the times when her daughter has her first day at a new school and she cannot be there to see her at the school gate; the times when she comes to band practice bleary-eyed because the time differences mean that if she want to talk with her wife after a full day's work she has to wait up until 4 a.m.; the times when, despite the soul-deep love she has for her family, she wonders where she can find the strength to carry on. She does carry on, and I have the utmost admiration for Philippa and her wife for their courage and commitment. Even when the fight for legal change is won, Philippa will face a move 5000 miles to another continent, away from family, friends and the life she has known, to be with her family. This alone would be an act of tremendous courage for anyone, but for Philippa this would be the happy ending to the story, a sobering thought.

This Bird cannot help but wonder that, if the US government is so afraid that family values are becoming a thing of the past, surely anyone willing to make such a determined effort to keep a family together should be heralded, not discriminated against. After all, what couple could show more commitment to love and family?

Click on the title of this blog, watch the short film, and I challenge you not to shed a tear.

Happy Valentine's Day x x x x x x

http://www.shewired.com/Article.cfm?ID=25890

Love and Hope

Mubarek has gone, and Egypt is cheering. It gives this Bird an overwhelming sense of faith and hope in humanity. The American government has been fearful of change, of chaos and disaster. The Egyptian people have shown that they are far more successful in their bravery and tenacity at removing dictators and creating democracy than they could ever be. Compare this heroicly peaceful revolution with the American government's attempts to overthrow oppressive regimes: Iraq, Afghanistan, .........................
Whilst only a privileged few ever know what machinations go on in the clouded turrets of power, this Bird had the privilege of speaking several times in the last couple of weeks to relatives in Cairo, some of the few civilian Westerners who chose to stay. They have told me about the incredible spirit and generosity of their Egyptian neighbours: the so-called 'vigilante' groups running neighbourhood barricades, peacefully and bravely protecting their families and friends from secret police and looters; the local people who inundated them with loaves of bread when they happened to mention they were running low; the open arms which they, as white Westerners, have been welcomed by the community when they chose to stay. This is in such stark contrast to the paranoia of some powerful Westerners unable to support the revolution because of fear that Egypt may become an anti-Western state. This is lesson for all of us in love and courage. Maybe if Egypt decided that it didn't want to be governed by a Western-style state prioritising power and might, they may be able to to show the West a thing or two. I wish them all power in their attempt to create a true democracy.

Keep Talking

Further recent conversations with friends have reminded me of many conversations over my life: a friend at 16 telling me of being raped by her father; a friend telling me of rape by a lover, too young to fight back or argue; a friend telling me of a night spent in a cell, arrested for assault because she dared to fight back against a man trying to rape her in her own home; a friend that cried while telling me of a year of repeated rape by a partner that left her unable to take another lover for many years. These are just a few of the stories this Bird has listened to.
'The government estimates that as many as 95% of rapes are never reported to the police at all. Of the rapes that were reported from 2007 to 2008, only 6.5% resulted in a conviction, compared with 34% of criminal cases in general.' (taken from http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/mar/13/rape-convictions-low)
Say the word 'rape' in any group of women, and a chaos of stories and emotions result. Not one of the stories this Bird has heard resulted in report, let alone conviction. These women do not tell their stories except to trusted friends and the occasional sympathetic stranger. They feel shame, that they did not fight back, or that they did something to deserve this; they feel guilt, at being victims when their feminist principles tell them they should be strong; they feel fear, of the people that do this, that may do this again, but maybe more they feel fear that they may have to re-live and repeat the event in their minds again and again if they do not struggle to suppress the memory.
Imagine we were talking about burglary. Imagine that 95% of burglary victims felt too dirty, scared and ashamed to report the crime. Imagine if victims of burglary were told that if they were going to flash their new car around they deserved to have it stolen. Imagine..................... stinks, doesn't it?

Feminism is Dead. Long Live Feminism!

It's been a long time with much better things to do than writing here now I no longer have to off-load the traumatic experience of the Pub, but the world at large continues to provide examples of irritating stupidity and damaging and deranged thought processes.
I have had conversations with a couple of female friends recently who declared that there was no need for feminism any more; after all, women are now completely equal to men, aren't they?
I answered with as much evidence as I could muster from the top of my head on pay differentials, domestic violence, lack of female government representation, and disproportionate childcare and housework labour divisions, but as I was putting these otherwise intelligent Birds straight, I found myself realising that it had been some time since I had actively flown the feminist flag outside conversation, so I decided to do a little sat-on-my-arse internet research in place of getting out there and actually doing something.
I typed feminist into Google, and got a shock. After the worthy but now several years out of date 'F-Word' site, and the Guardian, the next entries were all for blogs. Digging into the blog world I found lots of blogs using the word feminist. Blogs that contained the most vitriolic, misinformed bollocks I have ever had the misfortune to lay eyes on. This Bird was truly terrified. Take a look for yourselves ...........................
http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Evils%20in%20America/Feminism/feminism_is_evil.htm
http://theantifeminist.com/
http://forevermale.blogspot.com/
Women, though I claim you all as sisters, wise or naive, please do not be so ridiculously complacent. The fight is still on. Challenge these sickening falsehoods wherever you find them.... comment on the blogs, argue back on the street, and fight in the bars with wisdom and wit as the weapons of choice.