A Sneak Preview

Defying Diana: A Guide to Fashion by the Hand Me Down Kid

Like many women of our generation, my attitude towards the very clothes I wear everyday is conflicted and confused. On the one hand, thanks to an indulgent twenty five year long diet of adverts, peer pressure, popular culture and magazines I am adept at reading the “hidden codes” behind the clothes we all wear. Like so many women I have spoken to, I learnt from a very early age that wearing the wrong thing can land you in all sorts of trouble. One bright summers day, when I was aged seven, the bullies in the playground battered me over my head with my bright green trainers that I loved but had bought from a market rather than a sports shop. At this moment I had the rather abrupt and startling realisation that this fashion thing wasn’t a passing trend, it was here to stay and how I reacted to it would shape my life. It was here the confusion began.

At such an early age, it seemed I had two choices, either to play the system: follow all the latest fashion trends and be thought of as stylish by all my friends. Or, on the other hand, I could rebel, refuse to conform and wear the green trainers, batterings be damned! I don’t think I am unique here. Consciously or unconsciously, every single child in mainstream education has to make this choice. Even when schools desperately clamp down and put uniforms in place, fashion has a way of seeping through in the little details, from shoelaces to bags to hairbands. The bullies have an eye for detail and will always find a way to separate the weak from the strong, the rich from the poor.

For many, conformity is bliss and for the children who choose to play the system, you can see why. They buy the branded goods and follow their favourite magazine’s “Top Tips for Hot Hair”. They dutifully lower their eyes to the ground when big, stilettoed Diana from year 10 is coming down the corridor. They hope to God she won’t notice them, because they heard what she did to Tracy Evans last week for the crime of having a dodgy perm. Who can blame them, really, for playing the game, and making their life at school just that bit less hellish? Of course, there has always been bullying as long as children have congregated and not all of it is fashion related. Yet, I feel that the pressure on our mother’s and grandmother’s generations to look the same and blend in was not as intense as we have experienced, due to the prevalence of advertising and dominance of global brands in the twenty first century. I have talked so much about the school system not because of lasting trauma (although that trainer did have a nasty sting!) but because these tender years are where our attitudes to the fashion machine are forged, shaping our adult thinking for the rest of our lives.

The situation is worse for girls than boys as they are targeted more ruthlessly by the media and fashion trends seem more fickle for them, changing at a bewildering speed. I remember many midnight conversations at sleepovers with teenage girl friends when they urgently confessed deep insecurities about being ugly, the wrong size, hideous, and unworthy. In a healthy society there simply should not be such a prevalent undercurrent of self hatred in the psyche of our female youth, a time of life when you should be full of self pride and vitality, not despair and an ever present feeling of hating your own skin.

In terms of my own journey, I did not, could not, and would not conform. Even aged seven, something did not sit right with me that anyone, however big and threatening, could pressure me into wearing something I didn’t want to. Moreover, it made me angry and defiant towards them. I clearly remember, standing in the playground with tears streaming and a bruised head, that I couldn’t understand why one shoe with a tick on it was better than one without. This acute sense of the absurdity of the fashion industry has stuck with me into adulthood. So, at school I wore my hand me downs with pride, and in my teenage years when I first became responsible for buying my own clothes, made a point of shopping in charity shops and jumble sales because I felt so angry towards a system that, as I saw it, caused so much misery. Although I didn’t have any political or analytical terms to criticise it in my vocabulary I instinctively felt the injustice and stupidity of the industry.


Several years and many run ins with Diana later, I escaped the school system and enrolled at university. There my relationship with clothes became even more complex. I was enrolled on a course that encompassed theory, politics and literature, and learnt about the systems that fed the injustices that I had only experienced on a very micro level. Now I was all focused on the macro, and it blew my mind. I developed a political conscience, learning about feminism and other women’s complex relationships with the fashion industry. I read about capitalism and globalisation and was shocked to read about the depth of the very real suffering that goes into production of the latest unnecessary fashion trends. In the West we are mentally imprisoned by what Alain De Botton calls status anxiety and the compulsion to conform. That is bad enough, but on a more global scale there are sweat shop workers all over the world working 14 hour days with no breaks or rights, companies pillaging natural resources, animal experimentation, even widespread use of child labour. I just couldn’t see many good sides, and whatever you might say to me about a healthy consumer capitalist economy, I still don’t. To me the whole thing stinks. We are slaves to the brand, and whilst the wheels of the fashion machine keep turning, so do the cogs of human misery, poverty and injustice that keep the whole thing ticking over.

I am no economist. I don’t have all the answers to the global problems. I know there are some positives to the fashion industry, I’m not denying that shopping for clothes can be enjoyable, or give you a sense of creativity and pleasure. All I can say is, as far as I’m concerned, count me out. For me, clothes are mostly functional things that keep me dry and warm in winter and cool in summer. Sure, I have a couple of “best” outfits and clothes that are suitable for smart occasions and going out. I live in the real world, I do regular stuff and my wardrobe reflects that, it isn’t particularly outlandish or strange. But I mostly buy second hand and I buy what I like rather than what is fashionable. I don’t read beauty magazines, I believe (as the song goes), they only work to make you feel ugly. I don’t wear makeup, I like my own face. I haven’t shaved in years, yet my husband worships my body. I recycle and pass on things I’m not needing and gratefully receive it when people do the same for me. I don’t own anything branded, second hand or not, I believe I’m a person not a billboard. I don’t watch adverts so I hardly even know anymore what is cool and what isn’t. If all this is the most unbelievable mortifying thing you’ve ever heard then know this, I can’t tell you my life is perfect, but I do feel free. I have a thriving body image and a guilt free conscience and all this serves to make me a happier person in the long run.

My rejection of the fashion industry does not give me an easy life or the right to look down my nose at those who choose not to, the purpose of this article is not for me to guilt trip everyone into making the same choices as myself. But all the time I save not being a slave to fashion means that I actually have a lot more hours to do things that matter to me. As a small example: clothes shopping is a twice yearly rather than a weekly event for me, so that gives me so much more extra time, energy and space to read a book, take a walk in the rain, have fabulous sex or even write this article! Think of all the precious time in a week you give to the fashion industry, either by shopping, preening, talking, reading, or just thinking about it. Then think about what else you could achieve in that time. For me this is the whole crux of the issue. Any doubts I occasionally have concerning my choices and way of life are resolved by asking myself these two simple questions: are there not many more interesting and important things in the world than contemplating my own fingernails, hair, clothes, tan and makeup? If so, shouldn’t I, just possibly, be doing them?

(Due to be published on the 19th July on the womans collective website: 'Imagining Ourselves' in response to a call for articles about fashion and image around the world. I thought I'd give my blog readers first dibs!)

Week of the Living Dead

At the moment I am working a short term (three weeks) contract as a temp in my Dad’s office. It’s sort of a mutual back scratching arrangement as his usual temp couldn’t do the busy summer rush and I needed the money, experience and reference so I put myself forward. On the whole it’s not a bad job although I’m not denying the fact that I definitely get special treatment being the bosses’ daughter. Most of the people working there have literally known me since I was born and spoil me rotten with cups of tea and long breaks and jacket potatoes with chicken tikka masala from the café upstairs. I’m not denying the nepotism of the situation or the cushiness of the job- I have had a lot of shitty ones in the past from being a care home assistant to factory worker and toilet cleaner to realise that right now I have it pretty good.

The work itself is easy although I had forgotten how exhausted the constant interaction with people can make me. It’s probably the same for everyone and I guess you adjust as time goes on, but I am shattered. I have been getting up at six o’ clock and not getting home till six at night and being on the go for all that time is quite an achievement for me. I’ve been getting home and just collapsing on the sofa bed in the newly decorated guest room in my parent’s house. Then curling up and sleeping and sleeping. I have found the tiredness so horrendously oppressive. I can’t think straight. I can’t order my thoughts. The idea of writing is laughable, or phoning someone other than Owen or doing anything for this blog even. The tiredness seeps through every crevice. I have christened the last five days ‘the week of the living dead’ because that’s how I felt. It was like I was looking at the world through a mist, a fog, not the kind that wafts lightly over dew soaked grass on summer mornings or hangs spectacularly over mountain tops in Nepal. No, if you’ll excuse the melodrama and run with this metaphor a little longer, this was a kind of fog that seeps through the bubbles of a sulphuric swamp, oozing from the ground: clammy and stifling leaving me just desperate for fresh air and a clear head.

I haven’t had a job for the last two years, and I often worry about not having one, that it doesn’t make me a ‘complete’ person or a fully functioning adult. I tell you, this was a wake up call. It is actually much easier to be a fully functioning adult when your days are spent in your four room apartment doing the washing up, listening to the new LCD sound system album and musing to yourself about what blog entry to do next than when you are in a non air-conditioned cramped office with four ringing phones, people shouting and complaining and all the time this awful awful tiredness. You find yourself just going to the toilet to get some space and sitting there with the door bolted looking at the peeling yellow painted door and trying to do Zazen in a desperate attempt to get some quiet.

It’s not that the job is bad- not compared to about 10,000 other jobs I could think of. It’s just that working in itself totally sucks ass.

Well, maybe I should rephrase that.

Working in a pointless futile job totally sucks ass.

I look at so many of my friends, and with the exception of one or two of them most are trapped, doing jobs they find unfulfilling and tiring in order to pay the rent and bills and feed and clothe themselves. Their salaries range from minimum wage to 35k a year, yet among them all there is this sense of oppression, resentment and the resounding feeling that they have been duped. We grow up in a world where at school career advisors tell you that ‘anything is possible; the sky’s the limit’ when in reality for most people living the dream is always elusive. It’s not for lack of ability; amongst my many writing, singing, acting, dancing musician friends some of them have more talent than you can shake a stick at, it’s just that these dreams are overpopulated, and unfairly weighted and dominated by capitalist market forces. There are not that many little girls who grow up wanting to be receptionists or bar tenders. There are not many little boys who dream of being a street sweeper or a shopkeeper. Yet, if we’re talking ratios I need hardly point out that for each Britney there are tens of thousands of these regular everyday worker bees keeping the dream machine ticking over. Some go to dancing classes in the day to keep their hopes alive. Some send poems of to crooked competitions that take their money for leather-bound volumes that never materialise. Most won’t make it and the few Britney’s that do often complain that when you get there it’s nothing like they tell you it’s going to be. A few years down the line they end up in rehab, or hospital, or shaving all their hair off and smashing cars up to the amusement of the press.

We are all so fucking dissatisfied with our lives because we all been conned by this dream machine. We have all been told ‘you can do anything’ when we quite clearly can’t, at least not all of us. Maybe one or two of my friends will get that lucky break, especially the ones that are working hard to make it a reality. But I see so many of them, if they keep on heading the way they are heading, ending up with a breakdown rather than the record deal or law degree they so desperately want. It makes me worried for them, worried for myself. People are profiteering off our dreams left right and centre and the more we listen to them the more swamped in the lies we become. So, it begs the question: should we just stop this silly dreaming and settle down to just clocking in and out each day? Like we are told our grandparents did, pleased to work in a flour mill for fifty hours a week, pleased just to have enough money to survive after the long hard war years, pleased that they were free to have a quiet job and not having to shoot at people or be shot at themselves. Should we just, like them, just learn to be quiet and settle down to the working week, accepting our lot in life graciously however shit it might be?

No, everything in me says this is not the way. My friends have too much talent, too much to say and contribute to just let them rot in offices and in shops and pubs and libraries. I have witnessed their art and it is brilliant. I have read their articles and poems, seen their dances, laughed at their self deprecating jokes. I have sensed within them great vision and the possibility of sowing seeds of change in this corrupt society. I don’t want to see them, bitter, twisted and burntout, at the age of 35, feeling like all they have achieved is insignificant. I have only spent a few days in an office to realise that every day you spend there is a soul sucking shift away from the vision you had for how your life would be. Every day spent in the working world corrupts you and your dreams. I don’t want my soul sucked away, I certainly don’t want my friends, my beautiful inspirational friends to be corrupted and trampled on by the system.

So what is the answer?

Well, that is the million dollar question.

I don’t know. Like I said last time, we all have to feed ourselves. Maybe those of us with visions should just stop complaining, grow some balls and go and do something radical- join a commune, go to protests, give it all up and go and live in Venezuela. Maybe all this trying to work within the system is draining us slowly. Maybe we need to step outside. To sell our house, give away our possessions and just throw ourselves in the lap of the gods and see where it leads us. To chase freedom rather than security. To love our art and our politics more than our money.

I don’t know, I’m thinking out loud. All I know is that this week I have had a taste of the working world that I’ve been alienated from for at least two years. It wasn’t unpleasant, but it left a bitter residue in my mouth that is hard to get rid of. I have a husband and friends who to their credit manage to accomplish great things alongside a full time job. I just don’t know how they do it, or if I could ever be like them. This week has deepened my respect for all of those people in my life who juggle their dreams and their finances and don’t let it drag them under. I just don’t know if I am as strong as them, or if I even want to be. Now the cogs are in motion, my brain is ticking round. More than anything I don’t want to end up like my Dad, who this week took a big sigh and said ‘I’ve done this job for 37 years. I hate it, I’m so tired, but the moneys pretty good.’ I do not want to be another casualty of the dream machine. There just has to be a better way.

Back Seat Driver

I had the good fortune yesterday to see two inspiring speakers at a public lecture at Leeds university: George Monbiot (who for a long time has been one of my inspirations) and Ngugi Wa Thiong'o who is a professor of Literature at the university of California as well as being an ex political prisoner, author and long term educator.

The lecture was about activism and social change, and both speakers know intimately about that subject. They had both endured hard times for their beliefs and shot from the hip, yet were encouraging, realistic and mindblowing at the same time.

The lecture made me both angry at the state of the world and happy that there were people who would stand up and rally against the causes of the problem. Yet, somehow I’m tired of standing on the sidelines. Of reading Guardian articles and saying the same things over and over again to my close circle of middle class friends. In short, it made me want to do more. You know, actually help the cause, rather than just getting kicks from feeling like a part of this revolutionary movement but never doing anything to contribute. I have been a passenger for too long.

I come to a point in my life where I’m at a crossroads. A genuine decision has to be made about the kind of life I will lead. I am not in a career nor am I aiming for one. I am not about to start a family. I do not feel tied to England. I feel like my life could go in many directions. I’m not saying it’s final or can never be reversed but over the next year or so, I will shape myself in ways which are at the moment undetermined. From the decisions I make I may never recover or I may blossom. I have to push myself in new ways. I may well enter the world of work, but do I really need to? If I do what kind should it be?

I find myself being softly seduced by the capitalist dream. Owen and I have been so poor for so long and after a while it starts to take its toll. Now I am in a more powerful position where my health has returned and the possibility of generating capital is at last within me. I find myself absentmindedly looking through the paper and saying things like ‘If I worked for twenty five hours a week, instead of just twelve or sixteen we could put the money aside and afford that holiday to Athens that we have always wanted. We could save and buy a car. I could go to more gigs. I could get that T shirt I have lusted after every time I walk past the shop.’

These are things that I have been saying to myself for the past few weeks. I feel the lure of the dollar, the seduction of the slavery. I always say to myself that this is not mindless capitalism, after all, going to see the historical birthplace of democracy and philosophy is not just your bog standard package holiday. The car would open up a world of possibilities; I could attend the local Buddhist centre I can’t get to on the bus, I could see inspirational friends more often. The T shirt, you mark my words, has a political slogan and the bands I would pay to see would be firmly anti establishment. Yet it boils down to this: I am here, voluntarily thinking to myself that I should chain myself to a desk and sign my valuable life and time away in the name of a foreign holiday? Have I learnt nothing over the years? Is this what my anti capitalism boils down to? My eyes glazed over under the neon shop window lights?

Yesterday was a wake up call, a slap around the face from one of Britain’s most important thinkers. I hope I will be eternally grateful.

I am no genius or great leader. I do however possess numerous talents that could help a worthy cause. Do I want to give these talents to the corporations or even established ‘charities’ when I know there are grassroots campaigners out there fighting for things that I passionately believe in who are desperate for people to help them out? What if Owen and I made a resolution to make do with less rather than more and we sacrificed our own personal ambitions for some kind of greater good? Isn’t that something that, when it’s all over, you could really sit back and be proud of?

Yes, you always have to live and cover your living costs. If you make yourself destitute you are, unless you are an exceptional person, not going to be any help to anyone. These are the chains that capitalism binds us with. Owen has his career path, rent and bills to pay, responsibilities galore: all those lovely adult words and concepts that prevent me going off and living in a tree house somewhere. Owen has done more than his fair share of the labour in this relationship for some time now and the balance has to shift now my health is improved, it’s only fair. What a tragedy would it be, though, if I were to find myself a year from now having been rendered useless by the corporate dragons, unable to do anything except work and sleep? My brain is now this lovely fertile ground where radical concepts and ideologies are taking form. I would hate to see it in twelve months time raped and pillaged and stripped bare, leaving only a shell of a woman who struggles to stay awake and who’s thoughts are preoccupied with questions such as ‘what kind of fruit salad shall I buy from M+S’ or ‘what interesting body part can I photocopy today?’ .

I have to work, I know, I know. But there has to be some kind of middle ground, right?

At the moment I am in a powerful position in that Owen and I are fully adapted to spending very little money, less than £10,000 a year, we could hardly survive on much less. In it’s own way, my getting a job is a dangerous proposition in that it will give us freedom to consume in ways we are not used to and once we have that money, it will become easy to become dependent on it. I see money sort of like rooms in a house. When Owen and I lived in a one roomed bed-sit, we were very happy and space was rarely an issue. Then, when we moved to York we took up residence in a house with six rooms and we soon ‘filled’ the space, both mentally and physically. Then, when we decided that we wanted to downsize because it was a ridiculous concept that we were paying for six rooms when we needed much less, the transition back was much harder. In a nutshell, it is always easier to upgrade than downsize. Yet, to upgrade there is always a cost, even if the acquisition seems reasonable or even free, maintenance of the new goods are often pricy. You always pay for more expensive things with your work, your time and your energy (the housework on the six roomed house was depressing in its infinity). Therefore, maybe it’s just better for Owen and I to struggle on with a small amount of money, to make do with as little as possible and have our freedom rather than getting used to having lots of cash.

For me and Owen the problem is that the work is unequally divided, rather than that we don’t have enough money. We might not be able to jet to Greece every few minutes, but we can eat and pay the bills and pay for Owens PhD. Maybe the equation we need to be looking at is how we can both do as little work as possible to maintain our living costs and then utilise our freedom for the greater good. The last thing the world needs is another back seat driver, enjoying the benefits of the ride but full of criticism for the guy in control. It needs people who will step out of the back seat and take charge, contribute, put their own necks on the line and their own foot on the accelerator. It needs activists and campaigners, people of integrity. Folks who will not be bought or sold, who can stand up and help stop the injustices that are perpetuating the suffering we see all around. It needs you. It needs me. The world needs us to give it everything we’ve got. Today, I’m standing at a crossroads. I’m not sure what direction to head in, all I know is that I have to travel against the flow.

Free Willy?

'Voluntary : Preceding from one's own choice or consent. Free of coercion, including any sanctions for not taking part.'

It was in the news this week that chemical castration is being proposed as the latest measure in the war against all things paedophile. The authorities insist that this would be a voluntary measure, naturally, as we are not the kind of country that goes around hacking off the balls of sex offenders in a response to the will of the lynch mob. No, we are far more civilized than that. We give them little pills, or a shot of Depo Prova in each buttock and of course, it’s entirely their choice. Isn’t it?

So this story got me thinking about the term ‘voluntary’. How it is used as a weapon to control people by those in authority. I want to explore the psychology behind it and highlight how in many cases, voluntary choices, as defined above, just don't exist.

I guess most people who can remember their childhood can relate to the kind of ‘voluntary’ decision making that adults imposed on them. I remember clearly a time in my early childhood where I was first made aware of the ambiguities of this ‘voluntary’ concept. It might be a rather frivolous example compared to castrating paedophiles but the psychology of the situation is the same.

My parents were the first to pull the voluntary trick:

‘Tidy your room or don’t tidy your room, it’s entirely up to you’, they said. ‘Go on, live in a pigsty, it doesn’t bother us. All your toys will get spoilt, your clothes won’t get washed, but we don’t care. It’s your choice, Jen, you do what you like.”

So I called their bluff. I thought I was being clever. I was fooled that I actually had the power of this so called voluntary decision behind me. I refused to tidy my room and went outside to play cricket with my brothers. When, several hours later, the sun had set and I came back inside they were both waiting, arms folded, by the bottom of the stairs.

“You haven’t tidied your room, Jen. “

“You said I didn’t have to.”

“Yes well…. (exasperated eye roll)…. I know we said that but your auntie Mary’s coming over tomorrow and you don’t want her to see your room all messy do you?”

“I don’t care. I’ll shut the door if you care that much. Can I have that ice cream left over from tea?”

“No. Not until you’ve tidied your room.”

“But you said I didn’t have to.”

“Well, you do if you want any ice cream.”

“Well, (exaggerated nonchalant shrugging of shoulders) I’ll go without then. It’s only Kwik Saves raspberry ripple anyway, and that goes all gritty between your teeth. ‘

“(audible sighs) Jennifer, stop being difficult. That room is getting tidied, tonight, whether you like it or not. Now do we have to drag you there and sit with you whilst you do it? Do you really want us to see what’s lurking under your bed? Or can you be a good girl and do it on your own?”

(Cue violent stomping up the stairs, tears, slamming my bedroom door and other general tantrumish behaviour.)

Then of course, one dirty sock at a time, in between the sobs and the foot stomps; I tidied the goddamn room. So much for voluntary decision making.

That is why I am always suspicious when I am presented with a choice and it is described as voluntary. This is why I am deeply against anything that curtails civil liberties and freedoms even on a so called voluntary basis. These things always start off as free choice, but end up mandatory. It’s the nature of the system: of power and control. When somebody demands you should make a choice, I find they usually have an agenda themselves and the chances are its not going to be so voluntary after all. The very fact that you are being told to make a choice kind of goes against the voluntary thing in the first place, doesn’t it? I mean, in a totally free world, if I wanted to live in an environment without clutter, I would just make the spontaneous decision to tidy my room, vice versa if I didn’t care about my possessions I would just leave the mess be. The very fact that my parents brought the subject up at all just highlights the fact that they have the power to make me do it. Simply by saying ‘we don’t care what you do’ they are drawing attention to the power dynamic and implying that if they did care, there’s not an awful lot you could do about it. The fact that you are being given a voluntary choice speaks volumes when in fact that voluntary choice should just go without saying; it should be part of your human rights. The fact is that most so called voluntary choices are badly disguised ultimatums. Failure to comply with the ‘right’ voluntary choice leads to further sanctions until you make the decision the authorities deem is right. Of course, if I hadn’t gone upstairs and tidied the bombsite that was my bedroom, there would have been a whole other range of escalating threats, pleas, and measures of force on the part of my parents until they got their way.

As an inpatient in a psychiatric hospital last winter, I heard person after person tell the same story- that at their crisis meetings with doctors and social workers they had been given a ‘choice’- they could enter hospital ‘voluntarily’ or be sectioned against their will. To anyone who knows anything about mental health, you avoid a section at all costs. It is, in effect, to be deemed insane. Your human rights are taken away, the fuckers can do pretty much anything they want. You have to take what they say, and comply to whatever treatment they deem is appropriate, which can include electro shocking and in some countries, a lobotomy. So when their Doctor popped the ‘voluntary’ question, were these people really being given a free choice that ‘preceded from one's own choice or consent?’ Of course not. Some people gave the shrinks a big fuck you and said ‘The only way you’re dragging me into that place is under section, I am not playing a part in this.’ However, most people I spoke to were neither as brave nor stupid as that and acquiesced. They said no to the section and went ‘willingly’ without need of police escort.

It is in this example that you see the beauty of the voluntary technique. It is effective because it seemingly passes the onus of the decision making from those in power on to you. This is no more than a smoke and mirrors trick to make them looks like the good guys. When you are ordered to do something against your will this generally causes deep wells of resentment which sometimes blossoms into rebellion. However, when you are coerced in the form of a loaded ‘voluntary’ choice (even though you were, in actuality, in the same situation as those who are forced), the process acts upon you emotionally in a very different way.

Expanding on the above example; when these ‘voluntary’ psychiatric patients entered hospital I noticed they were generally easier to control than the sectioned patients- not because as common mythology goes, those under section were actually much iller (although some were) but because the voluntary patients had gone through a process where part of them felt like they had got themselves in that situation. They felt tremendous guilt about agreeing to their treatment even though many of them had huge reservations about it and felt somehow responsible. They got angry at themselves for caving under pressure rather than getting mad at the system for the weight it piled on them in the first place. Even though, later, some of them were angry and recognised that they had been coerced, many of these people at least partially believed the lie the authorities told them; that they had come there of their own free will, they had been given a choice, they had chosen this and now they had to live with the consequences of their actions. What were they complaining about anyway? Of course, once they had entered as a voluntary patient, if they wanted to leave they would again be threatened with, or actually, sectioned, showing how empty the ‘voluntary’ label is. You can see through this example how the act of giving someone a choice makes them complicit and then less likely to rebel further on down the line.

I’m not trying to say there’s no such thing as a voluntary choice. When Owen says to me ‘do you want beer or wine?’ or ‘what shall we do tonight?’ Even though factors might complicate and influence these choices, as in I might know that he prefers wine and wants to go to the cinema; because the power relationship between us is the same, the voluntary choice is not loaded and I am free to say what I really want. I think voluntary choices only become coercions when there is some kind of power imbalance and then it’s hard to ever be truly free. As the power imbalance becomes more extreme, so can the demands of those in control. So the most vulnerable people often have the least rights. The mentally ill are drugged and shocked into submission. The paedophile is castrated. The old person incarcerated. The asylum seekers are detained, the immigrants repatriated, the Jews are exterminated. All of these horrendous things have been done under the guise of free choices, (remember that entrance to the Warsaw Ghetto was, at first, ‘entirely voluntary’) making it palatable to the public until they get used to the idea and then, eventually, it becomes compulsory.

It can be argued (and often is) that laws and regulations are necessary for preventing the system collapsing. I’m not going to get into the arguments for and against chemical castration of paedophiles. I object to it, but my real beef today is with the delusional idea that these paedophiles, who at the end of the day are considered to be the scourge of our society, the very lowest of the low, the very bottom of the power scale, are going to have any ‘choice’ in the matter at all. Yes, they may technically be allowed to turn the treatment down, at least at first, until a bill that makes it compulsory is sneakily passed in parliament ten years down the line. But, I guarantee you, behind closed doors, in the meeting rooms and on prison review committees the pressure for these men to comply with the treatment will mount and mount until the word ‘voluntary’ rings as hollow for these men as it did for the Jews, squashed together like stripy sardines on the train to Auschwitz.

X Marks the Spot

Well, the deed is done. I put a cross next to the candidate’s name, dropped the ballot in the box and in doing so exercised my democratic freedom. Waiting to give my name to get my voting slip, I couldn’t help thinking ‘what a fucking joke.’ Not just because of the depressing details that I couldn’t help but notice; the fact that, at six o clock it should have been a busy voting time but there was only me and Owen in the entire building. Not just because the party Owen wanted to vote for didn’t even have a candidate standing in our ward, or because the women who took our names had a look on her face of utter despair and boredom. All these things were pretty lousy but above and beyond that, to me the whole thing just felt like one huge big ridiculous fucking farce.

What I wanted to write all over my ballot: ‘There is no such thing as democracy anymore in this country. I will not play along with your pointless charade.’

What, in reality, I did write: X (next to the Green Party candidate)

Why? For the same reason that I will not allow myself not to vote, even though I am totally disillusioned with British party politics and the utter corruption of local government. I am an idealist, a dreamer, and I just could not bring myself to spoil my vote. It seems such a negative, wasteful thing to do, even if it does reflect my line of thinking more than any positive vote could. I told myself that I was acting out of respect for the people who died trying to get me that vote. I stood in the cubicle, thinking of those women and men chained to railings, thrown in prison, dying all over the place so I could put that cross on that paper. That does, undeniably weigh heavily on my conscience and it did influence my decision. Also, I do agree with a lot of the Green Party manifesto and have voted for them many times in the past. Still, I feel like a bit of a coward for not putting what I thought. Even if only one vote counter had read what I said it would have made a point.

We are not living in a free and fair democracy. Our vote does not matter one jot. The truth is that Corporations are the real policy makers, both locally and nationally, rather than just lowly politicians, or, perish the thought, voters. If you want to make a difference then it’s probably more effective to vote with your talents, your money and your time. Some humble suggestions (aimed at myself more than anyone else): don’t shop at the out of town Tesco that’s ripping the city centre apart, even if it’s the only place that does stock the organic pink grapefruit that you love for breakfast. Make sacrifices. Simply don’t buy the local newspaper that devotes page after page to scaremongering, shitstiring and racist gossip making the streets feel unsafe and causing deep divisions in the community. Consider spending a couple of hours a week volunteering at a local project or charity that is actually something you believe in and helps bring people together for a cause other than money. Treat others with respect; maybe there isn’t such a thing as true altruism but looking out for your neighbours; saying hello, getting to know their names, offering to feed their cat when they go away is always a good start. If someone in the street falls over, help them stand up. If you bump into someone, say sorry. Support local arts events, rather than always going for big names, go to concerts of small local bands who have something to say. Visit galleries of promising regional artists, book tickets to see the amateur dramatics or youth theatre productions. If you are confident enough, join a committee. One night a month on the school governors or the local hospital might make a difference to something of massive local importance and you will find yourself with a surprising amount of power. There are loads and loads of things you can do to help local issues.

If we really want to think local on this Election Day, then we should probably commit more than just a pointless cross. For a long time I have believed that corporations are winning this battle by alienating us from our environment and our fellow human beings. I have always believed that acting locally is the way to fight a global war. It makes the problem more manageable, less overwhelming, more rewarding (in my head I think of it a bit like the GCSE bitesize course run by the BBC!) Let’s face it, if everybody, self included, was more involved in their community, we would be a lot less alienated, far less divided and therefore a step closer to solving the global problems.