Annie Makoff

In some ways, I feel I’ve become a bit too sensitive of late when it comes to “disablist” gags, but maybe I’m just hyper vigilant these days. The smear campaign the DWP and the media are carrying out on disabled people has made me and thousands of other disabled people distinctly uneasy.

Why is it socially acceptable to laugh at people with disabilities? Disablism is where racism was thirty years ago, yet now (in some ways, at least) it’s frowned upon to single someone out because of their race, culture or colour. Not so with disability.

Yes, we have the Equality Act, but in real terms that doesn’t mean much. It doesn’t stop society’s attitude and it doesn’t stop society’s comments.

Disablism is real and it’s getting worse.

Having the odd joke at someone’s expense because they look different may seem harmless, but turn that around. Would these same people laugh at someone because of their colour? If one scenario is unacceptable, then it stands to reason that the other should be too.

My issue is not just with disabled gags alone – it’s certainly not a new phenomenon, historically, people have always done this. My issue is with the entire picture:  we’re seeing a rise in hate crime and every day, the media print another article about disabled “scroungers” or “fakers”.  These aren’t just isolated examples, they are happening everywhere, all over Britain, and the papers that print this rubbish – The Telegraph, The Sun, the Daily Mail – are highly influential.

Disability activist Sue Marsh believes this scapegoating culture is a slippery slope towards fascism. I am inclined to believe her.

Before you snort indignantly into your coffee at the apparent hyperbole, hear me out.

Prejudice and fascism has to start from something. It can start with a comment, an attitude, a point or a sneer. It can turn into an opinion piece, read by hundreds of people. It can turn into an article, distributed to thousands. It can spread to other newspapers. Before long, people are looking around them thinking “yes, that’s true, that’s true, because Mrs X down the road is apparently disabled, but I’m sure I’ve seen her walk about without any aid.”

It’s easy to see how that can spread. Before long, people are finding “evidence” to back up their beliefs. Disabled people are viewed with suspicion which is fed and perpetuated by the media.

This is all highly convenient for a government who want their money-saving policies – which will impoverish hundreds of thousands of disabled people – to be approved without a fight. So the government line continues to – underhandedly – support these views. They do it in what they say, they do it with DWP campaigns.

Earlier this month, six disabled charities warned that current government rhetoric is at real danger of fuelling abuse against disabled people.

A Scope survey carried out in September found that two thirds of disabled people have experienced “hostility or taunts” recently. Four months previously, it was just under half.

This is at the same time as the government are pushing through their draconian Welfare Reform Bill which will take at least 500,000 people off DLA, cut housing benefits, force thousands of sick and disabled people into work when they are otherwise too ill and push disabled people out of their communities because they can no longer afford to live where they are.

And that’s not all. The Government’s “Work Fair Programme” will force disabled people to work for free – or face losing their JSA. Nearly 100 companies have signed up to support this programme. It’s great for them – they can “employ” people for free. People who are forced to work under these schemes will do so with exactly the same hours, sometimes doing night shifts with no income.

Is this the contemporary version of the workhouse?

So tell me that disabled hate crime is not on the increase. Tell me that disabled people are hyper sensitive and there is no propaganda campaign. Tell me that this system is fair and that we really are “in it together”, because this is real, it’s happening.

….but the figures speak for themselves. The Office for National Statistics have today released the latest unemployment figures which the BBC say are the highest since 1996.

Unemployment is now at 2.67million. Women make up two thirds of this number.

The unemployment rate among 16-22year olds is currently at 1.04million. Those claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance in January of this year rose to 1.6million.

As a friend of mine aptly put it this morning: “David Cameron, what a…”

I’m keeping this short, because my message needs to be heard.

We have just under three days left to pressurise the government into pausing the Welfare Reform Bill. Three days, 72 hours, 4,320 minutes. It’s not long, but I believe it’s possible.

After all, we’ve already done the impossible, haven’t we?

We, the disabled community shouted until we were heard. We were heard by the media, we were heard by the public and we were even heard by the government.

The Spartacus Report, produced so lovingly and with such determination by so many amazing, awe-inspiring people (often from their sick beds) had such an impact that it helped us win six government defeats in the House of Lords.

And on Saturday, hundreds of disabled people chained themselves together in Central London, shutting off London’s busiest roads – Regent’s Street and Oxford Street for several hours.

Who would have thought we could have done this? Us: the vulnerable, the sick, the ill. The disenfranchised, the dependents. We did it, because we had to.

Yet we need to do more. This week (2^nd February) the government intend to overturn the will of the House of Lords so that disabled people will be pushed further and further into poverty.

They want to abolish DLA. They want to take over 500,000 sick and disabled people off disability benefits. They want to cap every kind of benefit so that disabled people become ever poorer.

They want to take away our independence, our dignity, our voice.

We can’t let them do this.

The petition, which calls on the government to pause the Welfare Reform Bill, has to reach over 100,000 in three days if we are to make a difference. When that happens, parliament HAVE to listen to us.  Again.

Currently, there are over 25,000 signatures to this petition. We have three days to get 75,000 more. It’s a momentous task, but we’ve got to do it.

Tweet the petition, retweet it, put it on Facebook. Ask your family, friends, colleagues, social workers. Ask the man on the bus, ask the checkout assistant. Ask your nurse, ask your dentist. It doesn’t matter, as long as they sign.

Disability can happen to anyone at any time. No one is immune to disability.

This Welfare Reform Bill has to be stopped in its tracks and it has to be stopped now.

Thank you for reading.

Annie

Why did BA see fit to refuse a flight to a child with Down’s Syndrome? What does this say about our society?

Highly independent twelve-year-old Alice Saunders from West Sussex was set to visit her Aunt in Glasgow on a BA flight from Gatwick as an unaccompanied minor. Alice attends mainstream school and goes away regularly with youth groups. Visiting her aunt should not have been an issue.

But her mother, Heather, was left stunned when she was told by a BA customer service representative that they would not allow Alice to fly alone because of her disability. The excuse? “we’ve had problems before.”

When Heather asked what would have happened if she had not mentioned her daughter’s disability whilst booking, she was told that her daughter would still be turned away at the ticket gates because staff would have seen she had Down’s Syndrome.

BA has since apologised, insisting that it was not their policy to “refuse solo flyers with Down’s Syndrome”.

What kind of society to we live in when our knee-jerk reaction is to refuse a service to someone because of their disability? What kind of society is it that automatically assumes that disabled people are incapable of independent travel?

It may be all well and good to assert that there is no policy to refuse people with certain disabilities, but that becomes meaningless when the no-policy-policy is not filtered through to the frontline.

If there is the assumption among staff, where did it come from? The agent mentioned there had been ‘problems before’. Was the decision to refuse the service based on the agent’s own prejudice or their managers, or their manager’s manager?

I’d have thought that “caring” (I use the term loosely) for customers with disabilities would have been right up there in the front of the training manual. Whether it’s a training issue or misplaced attitude (and I’m being kind) it should be addressed and addressed now.

Slut, slut, slut, slut, slut, slut. Does it make you cringe? Did your hackles rise? Let’s try again. Slut, slut, slut, slut, slut. OK, I’ll stop now.

Actually, the word (wait for it) SLUT has become much more than an offensive word dripping with hidden meanings and implications. As of 2011, it’s become political. It’s the word chosen by the latest generation of feminists to symbolise women’s sexual inequality.

It was a bit like the butterfly effect, but the butterfly in question was actually a bigoted member of Toronto Police who advised a hall of law students that “women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimised”. It created ripples of disquiet across the ponds of the world, ripples of outrage and fury. SlutWalkToronto (SWTO) was born.

Since January, SWTO’s partners (known as Satellite partners) have mobilised in strength and number worldwide.  Sluts of the world, unite!

The word “slut” implies someone who is promiscuous or ‘loose’ – and it almost always refers to women. Whilst some use it “ironically”, (as in, haha funny, right?) it has become almost acceptable to use it in relation to women who enjoy wearing revealing clothes. They are either met with lewd comments and wolf whistles from men enjoying the display or disparaging “you’re asking for it” type reactions. Where do you draw the line? When does simple enjoyment become something else?

I confess I’ve been one to unashamedly smirk at the sight of what I’d term a “Croydon girl” dressed in as little as she can get away with, especially if it’s in the depths of Winter, (and maybe it’s just not my thing dressing like that), but you know what, who am I to judge? Do we not pride ourselves on being a democratic country with some kind of equality between the sexes, where we can freely choose what to wear?

And exactly what am I smirking at, anyway? The supposed idiosy of dressing like that in Winter? Or is it jealousy that I can’t carry off a look like that? Or is it something else, something darker? Deep down, do I hold the opinion that actually by dressing in such a way “she’s asking for it”?

I don’t actually believe that of course – but there are plenty who do. This is what the SlutWalkers are err, walking against.

As women, we choose to dress “sexually” because it makes us feel beautiful. It’s no different to what wildlife in the animal kingdom do to attract a mate (OK, so you don’t see squirrels wearing hot pants and putting on mascara, but you get my point). And maybe we also like being looked at – sometimes. But that is where the buck should stop.

Look at us if you want, that’s your choice, but don’t then tell us that it’s ‘our’ fault if we are attacked. The fault is never with the victim.

I’ve been lucky enough to be brought up with liberal parents (especially my mother) who taught my sister and I that we had a right to wear what we wanted without fear of repercussions. She taught us a rhyme that became my motto:

Whatever I wear, wherever I go, yes means yes and no means no.

So I don’t hold with the “she asked for it” excuse.  I also don’t hold with the hard-core feminist approach of the 1970s that dictated that women should stop wearing clothes that sexualised them: polar necks, high-waisted trousers, “sensible” shoes etc. To me, it felt like it was subscribing too willingly to the “she asked for it” belief.

Of course, not dressing what society deems “sexually” doesn’t always guarantee a rape-free existence (excuse my blasé way of approaching a very sensitive subject, it’s tongue-in-cheek). Women have been attacked whilst wearing jeans and baggy sweaters, they’ve been attacked without make-up, they’ve been attacked wearing last season’s trends (heh). Men who have the propensity to rape are going to do it regardless. They are going to do it if you are dressed provocatively, they are going to do it if you’re not. And they will always find an excuse to justify their animal behaviour.

The same people who use the “she asked for it” belief surely don’t extend that to explain how children become victims of sexual abuse?

Slutwalking then, is a movement based on a woman’s right to wear what she wants. It’s about refusing to accept “slut” as a derogatory word, it’s about challenging the belief that the rape or sexual assault victim is at fault simply by being a woman.

Husbands can rape wives, clients can rape prostitutes: if it’s not consensual, it’s rape.

This is why I wholeheartedly support the slutwalk movement that has gained international recognition with events all over the world: The likes of Canada, Australia, USA, Sweden, The Netherlands, Denmark, Brazil, South Africa and the UK are all involved.

Check out the slutwalktoronto website for a list of local slutwalk events across the UK , including the London event this Saturday.

I’m a big fan of petitions. Not just because I like adding my name to a (hopefully) long list along with others who feel the same way as I do, but because it’s a measure of democracy. If enough signatures are obtained, maybe, just maybe, those in authority may take the desired action. It’s no guarantee of course: sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t. but it’s the thought that counts, right? It’s the taking part that counts, simply by giving up a whole two minutes of your life to add your name to a list of signatures.

Actually, I’ve probably signed more petitions in the last few months than I’ve signed in a year.

It’s the sign of the times: the public sector cuts, the redundancies, the loss of front line staff to essential public services, the scapegoating of disabled people, the welfare reform…the list goes on and on. More petitions are floating around cyber space than I care to imagine.

Yes, petitions may seem the easy option, it may be the ‘soft’ options for the hard core campaigner among us, but they can and sometimes do get the job done.

This is what I’m hoping with a petition I signed recently. The story behind it touched me deeply, because it is yet another story of injustice inflicted by the state, only this time it affects a five year old child.

On the surface it seems a typical heart wrenching story, an easy target to tug at the heart strings: small disabled girl sent away to die.

Only this story isn’t just a story: Rania is a real person: a five-year-old child who came to the UK from her home country, Algeria in 2008 to be looked after by her aunt and uncle. Very soon, her disabilities became apparent: she has Cerebral Palsy, severe epilepsy and is partially sighted. Being in the UK means she receives the very best medical care on the NHS enabling her to a good quality of life. She attends school, has a stable home life, has a lot of friends and is described as a very happy and well loved little girl.

The Home Office have decided to send Rania back to Algeria because they believe they have extended her visa often enough and there is no evidence she will come to any harm in her home country.

I (and thousands of others) know this to be wrong. Algeria is renowned for a having a very different disability policy from the UK. It believes in institutions and superstition: epileptic fits are often thought to be possessions of the devil. What kind of life would Rania have in this country? What emotional and psychological affect would it have on a five year old child who has spent most of her life in the UK? How would it feel to be Rania, having lived all her conscious life in a loving and secure environment, to be taken to a strange country, with a very different culture and a medieval attitude towards disabled people? Severely disabled people in Algeria are more often than not confined to institutions where they are neglected, due in part to lack of staffing and money. For Rania it will be like a prison. There is absolutely no doubt:  her quality of life will deteriorate if she is sent back to Algeria. Her family back in Algeria and in the UK fear sending her back will seal her fate: she will die. She will have no access to medication or any kind of healthcare.

Don’t let this happen – whatever your views on immigration, Rania is just a child and is already enjoying a happy and secure family life in the UK with those who love her. Don’t let them take it away from her.

Sign the petition.

The problem with intending to blog regularly about issues that resonate with me and my specialisms means that there is a wealth of material to choose from. What this means in reality, is that I can’t actually decide, so I don’t decide at all. That’s really not good practise. I know.

Then today, the story about Jono Lancaster and whether or not his hereditary condition should deter him from conceiving broke on the BBC. For obvious reasons, it had clear resonance.

Jono is the latest disabled heart throb to be taking social media platforms by storm. Having taken part in a BBC3 documentary about his dilemma to father offspring with his long-term girlfriend of four years, and then featuring in today’s BBC online news story, Jono has unwittingly found himself at the centre of a controversial twitter debate.

There’s the usual arguments: It’s ‘selfish’ to even consider having a child if the parents are highly likely to pass on their ‘impaired’ genes to the child, it’s egotistical, its another ‘burden’ for the state, blar blar blar.

It would be easy to rip these somewhat ignorant and prejudiced arguments to shreds, but it would be a case of preaching to the converted. (I like to think my readers are rather more enlightened than the minority who airs such twisted views!).

What concerns me isn’t so much as the views itself – there always will be such unsavoury opinions – it’s the fact that these views don’t seem to be dying out. They are the same as they ever were, and in some cases, are the very same that sentenced so many disabled people to life inside institutions in the 19^th century.

There seems to be the fear that disabled people having disabled children are helping to spread a ‘pandemic’ of disability. It’s the same type of fear that terrifies people into believing that one day Britain will no longer be a ‘white majority’ but shock horror, be made up instead of hugely diverse ethnicities leaving the poor white man in the minority. Well, so what?

What really concerns me is that no one seems to be challenging these views. There are documentaries about difference a-plenty, documentaries which educate as well as documentaries purely to shock and disgust. But very few media outlets actually address the views that appear to advocate (indirectly) repressing difference and therefore disability.

The assumption is that the child will suffer, having inherited the disability, or have a less meaningful life than if they were non-disabled. Where do we draw the line? What if disability was defined as anyone with red hair, or anyone with freckles or grey eyes? Would the red-haired child suffer any more than a blonde-haired child?

Of course the severity of disability (in itself a huge umbrella term that encompasses a huge range of conditions) will ultimate dictate the quality of life a person has, but that quality of life is actually dependent on society, not on the person themselves.

If every single service, system, event, place etc was fully accessible for those with visual, hearing, mobility and/or speech or communication conditions, in what way would such conditions be a disability? Disability as we know it would cease to exist if no one experienced barriers in their day-day-life.

There would be no more special adaptations or access requirements needed because they would already be there. There would be no need to explain or make allowances for differences because it would already be part of an inclusive society. What place then, would disability have in such a utopia?

I am under no illusions that such an idealised society is going to happen overnight, if at all, but I think it demonstrates  that disability is more  to do with the constraints society places on it rather than the disability itself.

People like Jono shouldn’t be made to feel ‘selfish’ or ‘an added burden on the state’  if they choose to have children even if the risk of disability is high.

It’s entirely the choice of the parents, and if their choice is to conceive, then that is their right and no one else’s.

I was actually going to blog about accessibility this week, but then an article in The Telegraph caught my attention. Well, not so much ‘caught’ as in ‘enraged’ my attention, if such a thing is possible.

The Telegraphs so-called Social Affairs Editor writes that what women want, in the 21st century, is to marry a rich man. Apparently, we want to be financially dependent. We want to be nurtured financially and be the 1950s home maker, while the man in our life goes out to work and earns hard dosh. We certainly don’t want to take high powered jobs. Clearly, women can’t hack responsibility.

What absolute rubbish.

Reading the article, I thought back to that life-changing day, several years ago, when I had agonised for hours over my match.com profile, working out what I wanted in a future partner. Would my ideal partner be a graduate? What would I want my ideal partner to earn? Did I prefer them to have a job or a career? (There is a difference!)

Yes, I wanted them to be of a similar education level as I was (similar start in life and all that jazz) and yes, I wanted them to have a good career, but did I want them to earn more than me? Did I want them to be ultimately more successful than me? NO. I wanted to be on an equal footing. I wanted to find an equally ambitious partner, not someone who I would be financially dependent on.

I’m not for a minute suggesting that I, in my entirety is a true representation of women throughout the UK, but I would be surprised if my wants and needs in a partner are radically different to that of the next woman.

When I’ve been between jobs, I’ve hated being financially dependent on my other half. I’ve hated feeling that my success has reached minus 100 on the career success ladder. My perception (rightly or wrongly) saw the equality balance in our relationship tip dramatically away from me when I was not earning. I could not imagine ever wanting to be financially dependent, let alone, activelychoosing to be.

So a modest three years into our relationship, I continue to feel very happy with my choice of partner (let’s hope he does too!) and I’ve never thought ‘cor, I wish he was wealthier, then I wouldn’t have to work!’

Maybe it is restricted to the social circles that I move in (although I doubt it), but I know very few women who actually dream of wanting to be financially dependent on their partners.

It is a common fantasy of many women to want to marry a rich man. But this is not quite the same as actually marrying someone whose wealth and career success makes the partner feel as confident as a dying flea.

I know of many women who have happily married men who happen to earn more. That’s not quite the same thing. The difference between such a situation and what the Telegraph article asserts is that women consciously prefer to marry a wealthy man in order for them to be financially reliant on them, so they don’t need to either work, or aim so high in their career.

Yet, if The Telegraph is right (and I’ll explain why I do not believe it in a moment), and if this is the way society is going, then women have taken a huge u-turn in equality and are spitting in the faces of the suffragettes who worked so hard to be taken seriously by men.

Luckily, I can quite easily rubbish this article by a few simple comments:

The article is founded on research carried out by the Centre for Policy Studiesthat was largely supported by Margaret Thatcher. A quick flick through the CPS website tells us all that we need to know: its aim is to ‘limit the role of the state’ (i.e privatise everything. Goodbye NHS) and places big importance on families. And rest assured, their idea of ‘family’ is not the progressive one which might consist of a single mother, or a single father for that matter, or, shock horror, same sex couples. No, their perfect family ideal is the father that goes out to work, and the mother that stays at home nursing babies.

So it’s rather convenient, that this study they have released ‘supports’ their mission –  nothing but underhand propaganda intended to infiltrate onto the unsuspecting public the idea of the ‘perfect family’ which inevitably includes the 1950s housewife.

Article author, Tim Ross asserts: “The report said that the “war” for equal opportunities between men and women was now over in the UK…Women do now have an equal opportunity to find work, but choose different priorities for their lives.”

Oh no, Tim. The war for equal opportunities is only just beginning.

And here we are, nicely landed into a new year full of hope, apprehension and god knows what else. It’s a while since I’ve last blogged, but now with a refreshingly modern and (hopefully) slick new website, I intend to be updating a lot more regularly about anything and everything. Some of it will be topical, some of it will be in the shape of furious rants, some of it will be a delicious stream of (un)consciousness, but I hope that most of it will be enjoyable.

At this time of year I always think vaguely about new year resolutions and like most people, my intentions and aims for the year ahead are always well-meaning but sadly impractical. For instance, for the last six years, it’s been the top of my ‘must do’ list for the year ahead to finish my novel. Ha. Eight years since its first inception I am nowhere near finishing it than I ever was. But, isn’t that the fate of all would-be novelists?

Actually, (and quite fittingly for the time of year) today was the day that I had The Revelation.  I hope this ‘revelation’ will be the revelation to end all revelations. Let’s hope.  After all, I’ve just typed the damned word enough times in the last sentence.

My baby, my one dream, my life, my damned never-to-be-finished novel has been stagnating in the depths of my brain, and on my laptop for a long, long time. Inspirations has dried up. The pace has stopped. The characters have refused to progress with the plot, and horror of horrors I have become bored with it. I never thought this would happen.

Writer’s Block

Anyone who knows me knows I live, dream and breathe all things eighteenth-century (yes, yes and all things Tudor, Stuart, Highland Clearances as well, etc. etc) BUT the idea of getting bored with something destined to be so full of extravagance, sex and delicious scandal is rather galling for the writer in me.

I may be a slow writer when it comes to my novel, and I may not have been working on it for days, weeks, months at a time, but genuinely, never a day goes by without me musing about my novel at some point in the day. It’s played a big part of my life since 2003.

I guess I’ve had a serious case of what you may call ‘writer’s block’. Something that I was sure a trip to the delightful Bath would cure. (It didn’t). Or maybe reading a few delicious well-written historical would cure my trouble. (They didn’t.)

I’ve realised the cause of the block for some time but, rather like a consultant confronted with a vague diagnosis, I’ve been unsure what to do about it. The format isn’t working. I’ve felt for a while it doesn’t quite capture the atmosphere I’m wanting. I’ve never really been a fan of traditional narrative, and I have peppered it with flashbacks, flash forwards and quirky diary entries, but the plot just doesn’t lend itself to so obvious a format.

Over the months, I’ve thought and thought about how to improve it. I suspected it may be that I was just bored with the pace and tried to pick things up a bit, move things along, pick my character up, and flick her somewhere into a future point in her life.  But, as my dear grandpa would say ‘na, didn’t work.’ It didn’t.

So today, January 2nd 2011, during a civilised breakfast at a local cafe with my long-suffering partner, I suddenly had the revelation. I have no idea what prompted it. I’m always mulling over my ‘novel problem’ often during the day, but what triggered this revelation rather came out the blue.

In short, I have a new format. It will mean shaking up the novel as it is, throttling it, squeezing it of stagnant word juice and re-hashing major chunks.

Despite the time it has taken me to get this far with it, I’m not despondent at the prospect of doing this. Actually, I think it may speed up the novel-writing process. So while it may seem initially that I am taking several steps backwards, I’m hoping it will build up momentum and will actually shunt me further into the novel than I am at present. Who knows.

The Old Bailey Factor

I’m not new to the Old Bailey Online. I’ve trawled through its archives many a long night, reading through harrowing court records of infanticide and detailed accounts of arson or GBH. Some of the court documentations are disappointingly brief. Some are rich in description. They have really helped me put my novel in context. Yet, until now, my novel has been seriously missing something. It’s been missing the what I now call the ‘old bailey factor’.

London Lives, 1690 – 1800

To my shame, I’ve only just discovered a new ground-breaking project by the Old Bailey Online and other organisations. London Lives is a sister site that is ‘designed to complement and extend the Old Bailey Online’ Simply put, it is a wealth of searchable archives (240,000 to be exact).

By creating a ‘personal workspace’ a registered user can link meaningful documents together, search eighteenth century biographies, write your own biographies of various Londoners, and interact with other users on the site. The archives gives a vivid insight into eighteenth century London covering crime, poverty, illness etc. Documentations include old bailey proceedings (as with the main site) and parish archives, coroner’s reports, hospital records and workhouse registers.

For people like me, it is a treasure trove of magic. So, with the help of London Lives and theOld Bailey Online I’m off to inject the ‘old bailey factor’ into my novel.