The Hand Mirror and I.

I was invited to write over at the hand mirror!!
The thought process in my head was quite interesting...
“The hand mirror? But... they are real bloggers”
“I can’t write well enough/frequently enough/ politically enough”
“What if they don’t like my writing after a while?”
“Oh my god, I can’t write with a group, I’m TERRIBLE at cooperating”
“Why is my chest hurting?”
Ok - I’m joking about the last one, but I was pretty wound up!

Until now, I have never really considered working with a group blog. I started writing to have a creative outlet for myself. I carried on because I love it, it makes me more aware of current events, my thinking and understanding of the world around me is evolving, and I have met some AWESOME people. The people who come to comment are most welcome and appreciated, but I almost resent the fact that I have to think about the readers before I click post. This is for me dammit!

If it was just about getting along with people, having a drink and writing a pro-choice banner, I could blog with any group of the women I follow on twitter and I would love to write with everyone I admire, but it isn’t as simple as that.

I asked for a wee bit of time to consider things because as honoured as I was, I did have a lot to think through.
Does what I write reflect on the other bloggers?
Does what they write impact on my (admittedly already shite) image?
Do I have to stand by any key concepts beyond equality and human rights?

It seems really simple to have a group of like-minded people all sharing a space but it really isn’t.
I don’t want to be edited or moderated.
I want control over my own article’s commenting, and I do not want the responsibility of moderating anyone else’s.
I don’t want to police anyone else’s politics, and I don’t want mine changed or muted.
If I get myself in a pickle and people are mad at me, I don’t expect the group to support me, and if someone else gets their foot in their mouth and I don’t agree with what they have done, I don’t want to have to be their support crew just because we share a space.
(Demanding bitch eh?)
Tricky stuff all round.
I love reading the hand mirror because they often raise questions I haven’t thought of. They keep me up to date with feminist news and issues. They provide a community of bloggers with their blog role and busy comment sections and I love finding new gems in there.
The key element I admire about the hand mirror is the fact that each writer is different, and they don’t always have the same opinion or stance on something.
And they don’t expect each other to.

That’s why I said yes.*


*Disclaimer – I will still be writing here, this is my home and I have grown proud of it – leaks and all.

Hijack!

I had a few scary insights yesterday.
For ease of reading they will be split into different posts.

Number one was when I rocked up to the “Fire Paul Henry” demonstration outside TVNZ yesterday.
I was confronted with a medium sized (there were more people reporting, than in the protest) group of men frothing at the mouth, and occasionally into their beards yelling aggressive slogans into loud-speakers.
Most of them were carrying placards; few of them were related to the actual cause.
They were socialist union protesters and the boards varied from focused comments on the topic “Fire Paul Henry Now!”
To bizarre mixes of other campaigns. “Unions unite NZ; Ban racism.”
The slogans being yelled were loud, enraged, and frankly a bit scary.
There was plenty of spit flying through the air as aggression rang strong.
I leaned against a lamp post beside the media and eavesdropped.

“Good god, it’s the same banners and nutters from the protest last month, they just stuck 'fire Paul Henry' at the bottom”.
“Where are the normal people?”
“Clearly its only people who do this shit for fun that are enjoying getting up in arms about it”.

I watched and counted for around 30 minutes.
Over THIRTY FIVE people arrived in the area, stood on the outskirts, looked sad and left.
Most of them were wearing NZ t Shirts (as I was) and I suspect had planned to join the protest.
That would have not only doubled the numbers but also given it some credibility with Jo Public.

I suspect, like me, that they had no intention of standing by and allowing PH get away with marginalising yet another group of people and were making the most of the sway of public opinion to make their point.

To arrive and find that what you had thought was a human rights protest had three people from a human rights organisation (thanks to Global Peace and Justice Auckland) and a loud majority of angry, red faced, purple nosed, politically motivated men.

I don’t mean to undermine what they were doing. Every protest needs someone with a loud voice and a solid chant, but it was just too much to cope with, and it came across as them getting their rocks off being angry about something (could have been anything?) and undermined the fact that the issue is one affecting a wide range of Kiwis, not just the usual campaigners.

I was too scared to go and stand in the group.
One- I’m not a biggy for blatant aggression and you could smell the testosterone coming off the man nearest to me.
Two – I had no intention of being photographed or filmed by the media under a “socialist NZ” banner. I don’t like to parade my politics, and certainly don’t want to parade someone else’s!!

So after thirty minutes I admitted I was a coward, and fled.
Dinner did not taste good and I suspect the bitter regret flavour in my mouth was impacting on the butter chicken.

In case you were wondering, the insight was...
Im a coward.