forthwritten

At the moment I am feeling profoundly apathetic about Pope Benedict XVI and specifically, his presence somewhere in the UK. ashwednesday has a great post about why his visit is so significant for British Catholicism and puts into context the anti-papist comments that are being made with disconcerting frequency. Catholics were a persecuted minority and not just in the burnt-at-the-stake sense - Catholics had very limited civil rights until the first half of the nineteenth century, including not being able to vote and restrictions on owning and inheriting land and property. There's still an undercurrent of anti-Catholicism - I suppose perceived similarity makes expressing prejudice more acceptable?

On the other hand, I think Benedict XVI is a dangerous man, occupying a position of enormous influence and using it in devastating ways. Where to start? Condom use, contraception, women, gender roles, homosexuality, sexuality in general, sexual abuse, paedophilia...just no. I do not share his beliefs on these issues, and neither do many British Catholics. I am glad that conflicting views are being reported; I think it's vastly important not to present British Catholicism as a monolith.

(As an aside, I would prefer not to take advice on my body and sexuality from a man who is supposed to renounce sex and relationships for the Church. I am well aware that not having sex doesn't mean you can't have a sexual identity, but it's not like the Pope has to worry about missed periods or supporting another child on overstretched resources or getting beaten up for holding hands with another man in the streets. Sometimes I wish he did.)

If he were just an ordinary man, I would not give a stuff over whether he believes condoms give you AIDS or not. Unfortunately he's not, and equally unfortunately many Catholics don't seem to understand papal infallibility. The Pope is not infallible all the time. The Pope can, however, make statements ex cathedra with the intention of invoking papal infallibility. These are very rare and about doctrinal issues of faith or morality. I think the latest one was in 1950 and about the Assumption of Mary. The Pope saying "oooh, it's going to rain later" or, indeed "condoms give you AIDS" or "gays are fundamentally disordered" or any of the hurtful and damaging things he's said are not infallible statements. Trust me, I went to a Catholic school, I know this particular argument.

Quite a lot of the time I wonder why I don't just leave. I'm not sure if it's about faith - I'm probably agnostic at best - and I don't have a Catholic community in Nottingham I feel ties to. I like some of the stuff Catholicism teaches - respect for others and the world, compassion, justice - but so much of the time I feel alienated from mainstream Catholicism and the Catholic school I went to has given me a lasting distrust of it so I really don't know where I'll end up. A lot of the time I feel pressured to explain Catholicism to others and have limited tolerance for anti-Catholic comments, and I'm aware that I may come across as more religious than I actually am as a result.

Today I went to gay club's crafternoon and helped make a banner and painted a placard for Nottingham Pride tomorrow. I knew that art GCSE would come in useful one day! I got to do lettering and paint and be obnoxiously and obsessively perfectionist for three hours, it was great. Am proper excited about Pride even if the Cheeky Girls are going to be there.

I also wrote 600 of the easiest words yet for this chapter, and it's given me ideas on how to make the rest of the chapter better. Hopefully this means I can actually write the damn thing instead of it being like trying to claw the words out.

Anyway, links:

Casual sexism is nothing but misogyny

For men and women alike, casual misogyny is the climate and context of all their interactions. It is unconcealed and automatic. It affects the way women are received, portrayed and considered as colleagues, friends, workers, mothers, artists, thinkers, public figures and victims of male violence and discrimination. Apart from outright slander, jibes, names and insults there is: talking down a woman's work, interrupting her, teasing her, mocking her, talking over her, patronising her, sighing or rolling one's eyes when she talks, invading her personal space. The misogynists' approach to women can be summed up thus: sneer, leer, exploit, ignore.

I've noticed this and it's so, so tiresome and disheartening.

India is still in denial on homosexuality

Since decriminalisation, the political parties have been abnormally quiet about the issue. The religiously inclined politicians obviously think it the end of humanity. But, the rest, even when pressed, don't want to get involved. It is, truly, political suicide. And it would be in a country where 98% of the country considers itself religious, and where religion dominates almost every facet of social and political life. But, until the political establishment is prepared to talk openly about sexual plurality, any hope harboured for a significant change within a short space of time is surely misplaced.

There's a story unfolding about AA Gill's homophobic remarks about Clare Balding and The Times' insulting attempt at a fauxpology. The F word comments on the irony of homophobia being apparently just the same as objecting to homophobia and Balding has complained to the PCC. Sue Perkins has been marvellously scathing about Gill, but possibly the best (albeit problematic in its own way for sexism) line I've heard about it so far is "if Clare Balding is a dyke on a bike, does that mean AA Gill travels by punt?"

If I was an art curator I'd remark how both of these sets of photographs explore time and the past and ghosts, and how they reveal the histories of cities as written in brick and steel and stone, and how histories and cities are both organic growing things, but that would be pretentious and I'm not an art curator. So instead, have links to photographs taken with months/years long exposures and to old WWII era photographs melded with perspective-matching present-day photographs.

A young man has life-threatening injuries after being attacked in Liverpool. It is treated as a homophobic attack and hate crime. I don't know the man but I recognise exactly which street has been cordoned off, I know the pub on the corner, I'd reckon there are fewer than six degrees of separation between us. It makes me very, very sad.

I read about ghost bikes last week; this reminds me of the Pansy Project. Both seem to be interesting way of remembering - the cycles are sometimes twisted to resemble the kind of accident or adorned with details or have memories and tributes written on them; the pansies' titles are derived from the details of the abuse. It seems to be about both highlighting the individual event and the sheer ubiquity of accidents and attacks and abuse. They're conscious-raising in themselves, but I've sometimes found myself looking at pansies in a different way and wondering if they were planted for the project. And then I'm not sure if it matters because for each homophobic hate crime experienced, how many are even reported? Are there enough pansies planted for the attacks that we'll never know about? It's something the artist has explored in the Memorial to the Unnamed.

The artist has invited people to take part in the project:

I now formally invite you to plant a pansy at a location of homophobia if you wish. It can be your own experience or that of a friend, you can do it alone or in a group, you can gain permission or not. It can be any colour (though I myself tend to abstain from yellow) when you have planted, take a photograph which in some way locates it in the place that it has been planted. If you have details of the abuse, this will become the title of the planted pansy, if you don't it can be dedicated to the person it's planted for. I would love to see the photograph, you can add it to The Pansy Project group on Facebook or e-mail it to thepansyproject@aol.co.uk. I will then post a selection on this blog and the website.

There's a Liverpool March Against Homophobia if anyone's interested.