Owl

‘Too much, too much’
Cries the owl behind my head.
Stopping and starting, a
Whole gathering of owls,
Hooting and squeaking as I play
Spot the branch,
Swiveling my head into the
Dark aroma of night.

I sit back down and that
One, insistent voice
Starts up again behind me.

It seems I
Haven’t yet got the message.

Form

Rivulets of sound become matter.
A repeat signals something new -
Time relived as the
Day drains into evening.

Fluid, precise
Exuberant, poised.
All tactics in a
Game of waiting.

A change of key heralds development -
Time spun forwards backwards to a
Recapitulation which will
Come and then go.

Beyond Lehman Sisters: New Feminism and Economic Collapse

It is hardly news that only a tiny handful of the world’s economic and business leaders are women and that the glass ceiling remains a real obstacle to their promotion. Many women therefore welcomed Christine Lagarde’s quip when, as French Finance Minister, a year after the global banking collapse of 2008, she suggested that the crisis would have looked very different if Lehman Brothers investment bank had been run by Lehman Sisters. Her remark triggered renewed debate about gender inequality in the financial sector and struck a chord in all areas of the workplace at a time of intense criticism of reckless corporate behaviour. Since then, in an ironic aside to Lagarde’s subsequent appointment as Head of the International Monetary Fund, yet darker aspects of the male-dominance culture within the corridors of fiscal power have been highlighted by the scandals attending the downfall of previous Head Dominic Strauss-Kahn (not to mention the serious allegations of sex crime). The need for reform is both clear and urgent. So how far has the ongoing debate got to the root of gender inequality in business and, beyond, to the root of global economic crisis? The answer is not very far. But the reasons for that lie as much within the terms of the debate itself as within the huge complexities of the issue and the difficulties of enacting reform.

Much of the response to Lagarde’s suggestion has been to take it at face value and pursue those questions directly pertaining to the comment itself; the most obvious being whether she is right. Would it really make a difference to corporate behaviour if more women were at the helm? If so, why? What forms might this difference take? Can we be certain any difference would be positive? Positive for whom exactly? Are we talking in purely economic terms of business performance or, more widely, about the role of business and employment in society? Whatever the starting point, the issues very quickly become multiple, complex and far-reaching. Even so, things would appear simple at base for the statistics documenting the lack of women in business are dire; a mere 15% of directors in FTSE100 companies are women despite growing evidence of improved market success for those companies with a greater female presence in the boardroom. To take just one study, a four-year, 2009 US analysis of Fortune 500 companies found that returns were much higher on equity (53%), sales (42%) and invested capital (66%) for those with most women in top management teams compared to those dominated by men. Echoing other surveys, the results were strongest in those companies with at least three women on the board of directors. So it seems clear that encouraging women up the corporate ladder is vital to improving society’s fiscal health - if not to saving its very economic core from potential meltdown.

But there is a growing and uncomfortable sense of deja-vu about the debate, not least because it is failing to address deeper systemic issues. As opinions polarise around Lagarde’s remark and how to tackle the often misogynist cronyism of the old boys’ network, a crass kind of dualistic thinking has re-emerged around gender issues on all sides of the debate in which women are seen only in comparison to men. Indeed, Lagarde’s very comment is predicated upon such binary thinking for, however challenging it may be to the financial establishment to raise issues of gender from within its very heart, and, however controversial her grounds may be for a favourable comparison of female behaviour to male within that predominantly male environment, she is nonetheless advocating nothing more radical than a call for more women to hold positions of corporate power. In a way reminiscent of the identity politics of the ‘80s and ‘90s, she has invited discussion of the role of women in business in terms of how far women are included and represented and in terms of the particular skills they might bring to the table. But, in mainstream circles at least, that discussion does not extend to a feminist critique of Western capitalism itself, despite the system being one in which women, usually participating as unpaid, cheap or cheaper labour, are very much poorer, second class citizens. (Even those women lucky enough to be in full-time employment can expect to earn 16.4% less than their male counterparts, while all women aged 40 earn 27% less than men of the same age according to a 2010 study by the Equality and Human Rights Commission; a statistic sadly demonstrating a very unfavourable comparison of women’s position to that of men’s).

In its current form, the Western capitalist system is not just failing financially, but it is also increasingly dysfunctional at a cultural level; for, whilst lip-service is paid to the supposed mobility of the free-market, in reality, the system is designed in such a way that profit inevitably comes at the expense of social equality both here in the UK and abroad through, for example, morally-dubious foreign outsourcing practices. Indeed, the structure and behaviour of corporations and financial markets is increasingly revealed to run counter to democratic ideals and basic principles of socio-economic justice. The very urgency of the renewed gender debate is testimony to the failure of previous feminist campaigns in business and politics that may well have changed some attitudes towards women for the better and opened some doors for them in the process, but which have been unable to effect systemic reform and are now foundering on the rocks of economic globalisation and collapse.


Naomi Klein is one commentator who might urge us not to miss the economic wood for the trees at this time of global financial crisis. Ten years ago, in her hard-hitting de-construction of corporate culture “No Logo”, Klein argued that an obsession with identity politics prevented activists of the late ‘80s and ‘90s from noticing the ingress of a far greater threat to freedom and equality; identity branding. She contested that, as activists indulged in self-referential turf-fights over the representation and visibility of gays, women and ethnic minorities, they lost sight of the bigger economic picture; they simply did not notice when powerful corporations, already switched on to the youth marketing goldmine of ‘cool’, began actively to appropriate notions of diversity as marketing tools (those infamous Benetton ads appearing to challenge racial stereotypes, for example). Indeed, a corporate coup d’etat took place under the activists’ very noses in which companies successfully exploited global markets in new ways by means of cynical appeal to oppressed groups, utilising the very language of social activism (Nike, for example, promoting sports shoes as objects of female and black freedom and status). In Klein’s words: “identity politics weren’t fighting the system, or even subverting it. When it came to the vast new industry of corporate branding, they were feeding it.”

Today - and right on cue it seems, amidst claims of a supposed ‘90s cultural revival - a new wave of identity politics is cresting as brand-worship has become ubiquitous on every social and cultural level despite rising unemployment, the outstripping of wages by inflation and increasing chasms between rich and poor, the West and developing nations. Governments are adopting punitive austerity programmes and slashing public spending in moves that target their most vulnerable citizens but which are so far failing to halt the collapse of the Eurozone and global financial systems following the credit crunch. Against this backdrop, heated debates are taking place in the UK about everything from Scandinavian-style boardroom quotas for women to new trends in oxymoronic Tory feminism as the Conservative party tries to stop the haemorrhage of its hard-hit female support base. But the toxic legacies of Thatcherite financial deregulation and profit-worship with which we are now faced serve as an ironic reminder that greater involvement by women at management level hardly guarantees greater long-term economic stability, nor does it ensure financial justice for those women and men in the West and the developing world who are paying the highest price for an increasingly sociopathic Western capitalism. Seen from this perspective, current speculation about whether women might, for example, be more or less prone than men to indulge in risky business ventures is not only based on banal gender stereotype, but would ultimately appear to be beside the point.

As the reality and consequences of economic collapse hit home, substantive, not just symbolic, reform is now urgent. It is more vital than ever to become aware of the bigger economic picture and to take action in light of its problems. Whilst battles to do away with glass ceilings and bring about changes in the gender balance of financial institutions are undoubtedly crucial, they can equally be used as a convenient red herring to distract from the wider, more fundamental need to effect deep, systemic reform in the way capitalist structures operate; the urgency of which calls for real, feminist vision from women - and men - experts within the business world. Of course, some form of identity politics need not be incompatible with a broader focus on economic reform but that is the point; the debate needs to take conscious account of the failure of concepts such as ‘trickle-down’, with the unwarranted faith in market success eventually to provide social and economic progress for all. If we truly aspire to notions of democracy and freedom, then ways must be found to establish real principles of equal opportunity and equal access at the heart of our socio-economic system, not merely as desperate add-ons in an attempt to find some kind of panacea to financial and social disaster. As a society, that will entail not just a willingness to tackle the behaviour of powerful corporations that are currently failing to run the system even in their own interests, but to take a good, hard look at our monetary values and undertake a cultural reassessment of how we define ourselves as women and men within the financial landscape. We now need to decide what roles we choose to accept as gendered individuals within a financial system that so plainly affects not just our own but the socio-economic well-being of other women, men and children across the globe.

Published on Interactive Ecology 17th March 2012: paper.li/saphyreblue/1306436290

pulse

left
up down sideways along
breathe
rest head lie back

lift eyes to the grey sky and
marvel at the rain rain rain

everything soaked in tiredness
but the pulse
unrelenting uneven
stubborn angry

alive

Collapse

Blossoming outwards with
Wet fire, the
Dream seethes
Behind my eye-lids.

Wet again and black -
Now peopled, voiced,
Now curling inward -
Turning turning,
Searching for rest.

Nothing to scatter.

Pushing through the
Blanket dark, as 
Morning shadows
Sway hotly into form.

What Does "Gay" Mean?

When asked the question, 'What does 'gay' mean?' most people would answer 'homosexual'. Some would specify 'homosexual man' and some might reminisce about the word's older meaning as 'innocently happy' or 'carefree'. But an alarmingly increasing number of people would reply that 'gay' also means 'rubbish', 'crap' or 'stupid'; indeed, they would regularly use it as slang to describe anything apparently negative, no matter how obscure or bizarre: 'That car/jumper/screwdriver/weather/financial crisis is so gay'.

Celebrity chef Allegra McEvedy did just that in a Radio 4 interview in the autumn of 2011, making fun, in her own words, of a type of 'gay, therefore frowned-upon' knife sharpener. Her apologetic, but defensive, reply to offended listeners was that language is 'live'; that 'gay' has 'evolved' and has 'come to mean something a little bit different'. No doubt that is true, and no doubt it's also true that the new 'gay' is meant in a 'friendly' way (as she put it) in many cool circles. That is absolutely not the case, however, with those who gleefully exploit the new usage of 'gay' with vicious and deliberately homophobic intent. And what does is mean for school kids, both LGBT and straight, to be growing up hearing and repeating that 'gay' is the epitome of 'rubbish'? A 2009 Assembly Government survey of bullying in Welsh schools, which reported that by far the most prevalent form of bullying was homophobic, indicates that this is neither witty nor without consequence.

Allegra McEvedy is not the only celebrity to have caused offence with a negative use of 'gay', but she is hardly in the same boorishly ignorant league as broadcaster Chris Moyles, to name another; for, while she aimed her 'affectionate' teasing at an out gay man, she herself is an out lesbian who continues to make active charitable contributions to the LGBT community. Of course, a gay person can make gay jokes in a way that would not be acceptable coming from a straight person, and any community that cannot see the funny side of its own stereotypes is in danger of disappearing up its own polemical posterior. However, the new, derogatory 'gay' has become so commonplace amongst LGBT and straight people that McEvedy clearly felt entirely comfortable using it on air. This raises further troubling issues.

Her slip (if it can be called that) comes at a time of renewed questioning of what constitutes an insult and how we use language - for example the recent debacle over Ricky Gervais's offensive use of the word 'mong'. It also comes as more people, especially women, are challenging the increasing incidence of open and direct homophobic, racist and misogynist abuse. The latter, for example, is the experience of huge numbers of women journalists, bloggers and forum users online. The fact that the new, pernicious usage of 'gay' has been adopted by sections of the LGBT community, however 'softly',  therefore raises questions about whether large numbers of LGBT people are sleep-walking into tacit collusion with alarmingly homophobic and increasingly right-wing forces. To turn fully from ironic cool to downright chill, there is another word that is seeing increased usage in the same negative sense as 'gay' and that is 'Jew'.

Let's scratch a little below the surface of the word itself as positive term and as an insult. When homosexual rights campaigners began publicly to embrace 'gay' in the 1960s, it was a political act; a smartly conscious hijacking of an innocent adjective that had already been in euphemistic use for some time. Indeed, the very innocence of the archaic definition captured beautifully the ironic defiance of a newly politicised community tired of ignorance, prejudice and abuse. The wider cultural triumph of this campaigning use was that large areas of straight society came to adopt the LGBT community's own word of choice to describe not just gay people in positive terms, but also to describe in positive terms the potential reality of homosexual lifestyle and experience, which contradicted the popular myth of a dark, lonely existence. 'Gay' no longer meant merely 'effeminate man', but instead became a hugely successful and widely respected umbrella term.

That 'merely', however, is an important point because the word 'gay' remains a byword for effeminacy for those who persist in ignorance of the wide spectrum of LGBT identity, and to such people the word still carries old, clichéd 'fairy' connotations. Seen in this light, its adoption by LGBT and straight people alike as a negative term or a term of abuse not only perpetuates effeminate stereotyping, but also begins to take on distinctly misogynist overtones: when 'gay' is derided, it is precisely the perceived feminised aspect of homosexual male stereotype that is held up for ridicule. Here, thinly disguised,  is that familiarly tiresome motif of the supposed weakness and inferiority of the feminine, which is at best patronised. Alas, a quotation from the hapless McEvedy's apology, which was posted subsequently on her website, only serves to reinforce the point: 'I meant it....in the same way.....one might use the word 'girlie'.....not exactly complimentary but affectionate.'

The exact reverse has happened to the word 'gay' as happened to 'queer' when LGBT people reclaimed that epithet from its insulting intent into proud, self-defining attitude. While 'gay' has been allowed to become at once trivialised and demonised, 'queer', in contrast, has been wrested from its pejorative usage by straight people to become an assertive political statement of sexual and cultural identity. It was move perhaps inspired by the US Civil Rights movement, in which the black community rehabilitated the once-pejorative term 'black' - and, more recently and more controversially, for some black youth the word 'nigger'. Of course context is very important, both in regard to the word itself and the manner and environment in which it is used, if one is to understand the intent and meaning of its deployment. There is also the more philosophical question of whether, or to what degree, the meaning of a word is dependent upon those who interpret it. It is clear nevertheless that the evolution of language is not a passive process. We choose our words and, whether we do that carefully, carelessly or somewhere in between, when we use words we quite literally take up space: we 'occupy', if you will, our own place within the most powerful arena of social participation and exchange that is language. So it matters what we say, to whom and how.

Fashion and peer pressure have always been important influences on how language changes. In the present, it is clear that part of the reason why 'gay' has taken a negative turn is because there is a backlash against what is deemed to be 'politically correct'. For many, 'Equal Opportunity' has somehow become conflated with 'Health and Safety', and the more ludicrous examples of the latter apparently justify an irrational suspicion of, or hostility towards, any measure brought in to help or protect vulnerable groups. Indeed, it may now be the case that, for some, 'gay' merely amounts to another label for those 'others' who are seen to be taking scarce public money, or jobs or housing. A barrage of negative media publicity and oppositional scare-mongering greets recipient and policy-maker alike whenever the latter struggles - not always successfully - to define and apply principles of justice and equality for all. It is unfortunate that, as the establishment takes such faltering and often reluctant steps, growing numbers of people - including some who are perhaps more fortunate from those same vulnerable groups - now think it is cool to be anti-PC in language if not in deed. But it is precisely at this populist level that a pernicious kind of right-wing libertarianism seeks to take hold in ways that could ultimately trample hard-won values and minority rights underfoot.

With some justification, there may indeed be those in the LGBT community for whom the term 'gay' now feels outdated and no longer an adequate descriptor of that community, but there are very many people worldwide who continue to identify as gay. So it is not just ironic but galling that some LGBT people may now feel themselves so comfortably integrated that they can afford to belittle a word which was once so key to their own - or at least the previous generation's - struggle for liberation. Alas, gay equality is neither so established nor so universal that we can afford to be complacent in a time of difficult economic and social change. While street slang now tells us that 'bad' is 'good' and that 'sick' is even better, it cannot be a positive sign that 'gay' has changed meaning so catastrophically in our post-rap society. In the UK, huge advances have undoubtedly been made towards gaining equal civil rights for LGBT people, but the day-to-day reality for many is one of continuing struggle  against homophobia of all kinds, from the most flippant to the most lethal. In some countries, being gay is not only still illegal, but punishable by torture, imprisonment, banishment or death. So this raises the question of what word now equates to the old meaning of 'gay' - that is, simply 'good' or 'glad-making' - when the new gay means 'rubbish'. Because 'queer', for all its attitude and reclaimed, politicised power, doesn't begin to do that.


Published in Planet 205 Feb 2012: www.planetmagazine.org.uk