I was 21; I’d been politically active for a couple of years and made some decisions. One was that I wasn’t going to ‘hold paper clips for evil’ (that’s the exact phrase I used in my head). This had been relatively easy, because up till then, apart for some administrative work, most of my earnings had been from babysiting and nannying.* I needed money, so I went to a temp agency to see if I could get any admin work.** I’d thought about what I’d do if they offered me something I found repugnant, and I decided I’d pretend I was busy. I was really excited to get my first job, excited and nervous. I was to type plans for an architecht – that sounded OK I thought, that sounded compatible with my politics. Everything was going fine until I got there and I was given the plans that I was supposed to type.<\/p>\n
They were plans for a prison.<\/p>\n
I could have left, I would never have worked for the temp agency again, but that wouldn’t have been the end of the world. I wasn’t on the bones of my ass, but I wanted to get more work, I didn’t know what I was doing next and I wanted to work.<\/p>\n
That was hardly the only time I’ve done things I disagreed with. I’ve typed up letters telling large corporations how to avoid paying their taxes, I’ve done admin to help a temping agency figure out who they’re employing on the railways (undermining union labour – in many ways this is the one I feel worst about), I’ve put out invitations for an event the WTO was holding, and I’ve even worked for the New Zealand Defence Force. I’ve also been the benefactor of an income stream that makes everywhere I’ve personally worked look as ethical as working full-time for a revolution (as the Red Queen probably wouldn’t say).<\/p>\n
So when I say that I am still blogging here, and don’t have a problem with what Amp did, that’s not because I don’t hate the sites that are being promoted. The fact that women’s bodies are a commodity, things to be bought and sold, upsets and depresses me. The fact that some people see my body, the one I live my life in, as an object – scares me.<\/p>\n
Instead, it’s because I hate everything. Every object we make, everything we do, is perverted by a system that puts profit before people, by misogyny that is tearing a little bit out of all our souls, by the way we suck the resources, not just out of foreign lands, but from the marrow of the bones of the people who live there – and then tell them what’s wrong with the way that they live, by the many other ways we organise our world and stop people from being frree.<\/p>\n
There’s no way out of participating in that – not for anyone.<\/p>\n
This probably sounds despairing, it’s not meant to be. Like Natasha from Feminish<\/a> I believe another world is possible. I just don’t think we bring it about through what we do individually. If we’re going to create that world that I have to believe is an alternative to this one then it’s going to be because of what we do collectively. We each have to play a role in the various machines at the moment, but that doesn’t stop us, when we’re strong enough and organised enough from pushing those machines over.<\/p>\n I’m not saying we shouldn’t have bottom lines. Every one of us will have things we wouldn’t do, actions that we couldn’t live with ourselves if we took. There are always places where we have to take a stand, not because we believe it’ll change the world, but because taking that stand is the only way we can make it clear who we are and what we believe. I understand and respect that for many women linking to this site is something that they can no longer do. I just wanted to try and explain why I felt differently.<\/p>\n * See my analysis wasn’t nearly as developed as my sense of self-righteousness. I have a huge political problem with child-care as a luxury item. I don’t think that if parents want an evening off (or not to be prosecuted after school or during the school holidays – which was a lot of the work I did), they should have to pay through the nose.<\/p>\n ** I certainly should have had an analysis of temping agencies as a way of getting around labour legislations and essential to the casualisation of the labour market, but I don’t think I did.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I was 21; I’d been politically active for a couple of years and made some decisions. One was that I wasn’t going to ‘hold paper clips for evil’ (that’s the exact phrase I used in my head). This had been … Continue reading