It's so beautiful, that on Tuesday, when I was curled up in the armchair in the living room, crying hysterically after a run-in with my brother, (when I tried 3 times in a row to explain how he was speaking out of turn and he just became more aggressive until I and gave up and lost my composure and my temper, because if having a patient radical feminist sister isn't enough to get a man to recognise his excess of male privilege, what hope is there?), as I curled my hand around a tuft about to pull it out, as I do when I'm really anxious or unhappy, I managed to stop myself.
* * * * *
The first time I remember pulling my hair out, I would have been about 14. I was old enough to have a "down-town pass" which was something Year 10 and 11 students could have to allow them to leave school premises. Printed on red card, and about the size of a debit card, you were given one if your parents wrote a letter at the start of term saying that you had their permission to go into town at lunchtime.
We had a white shirt as part of our school uniform, and I must have left the red pass in the top pocket of my white shirt before putting it into the wash. Mum had recently bought a new set of cream towels, which went in too and I didn't realise what I had done until the washload came out with red spots everywhere. Everything was ruined, and it was my fault for forgetting to take the pass out my skirt. I told my Mum; I had to. And she was really angry. I think these towels were a considerable expense, and I had ruined them. She lost her temper with me, and me apologising wasn't enough because I couldn't undo it. I remember her having to go out somewhere, and me sitting on the tiles on the kitchen floor with my back to the dishwasher, crying and crying, and then pulling at my hair and working out that if I wrapped some of it around my hand I could get enough leverage to pull it out. I pulled out enough to leave a bald patch about the size of a two pence piece. The hair grew back, slowly. First I had a bald patch, then I had a tuft which I had to clip down to the rest of my hair with a kirby grip, and then it grew long enough to blend in with the rest of my hair.
* * * * *
For quite a few years, my hair was too short too pull out in any volume. If it's shorter than a couple of inches, it's hard to get the leverage. You can pull out the odd hair but it's not the same, it doesn't make you feel any better.
* * * * *
In a relationship a few years ago, when my hair was longer, I became so routinely stressed at trying and failing to be the sort of girlfriend she wanted that I started pulling my hair out again. I learned not to pull out whole clumps from the same place as this was too visible, so I started pulling out smaller amounts from all over my head, which made it un-noticable as I have fairly thick hair. I'd do it when we were in bed in the dark together, when we were having yet another state of union conversation, as I became more and more upset that I couldn't match up to her last girlfriend, with whom she had bought the house we now slept in. I'd lie there, as she talked about how our relationship wasn't working, and I'd twist strands round my finger and then pull them out, putting them under the pillow. When she realised what I was doing she got mad with me. I wonder if her new girlfriend pulls her hair out to cope with the things she says to her?
* * * * *
On Monday, I felt them same level of anxiety that I usually cope with by pulling my hair out. My brother has been living here for a little under a month, and historically we do not get on, due to his displays of privilege and offensive sense of humour. But he needed somewhere to live in Leeds, and I thought I should make an effort to help him out. His girlfriend is also living here, sharing his room with him.
He has an incredibly offensive sense of humour, which I try and ignore as much as possible. But he makes it hard, when he will sidle up to me and say (so quietly that only I can hear him) "I don't like black people". He knows I will call him on it. I don't think he actually means it, but he thinks it's funny to pretend he is racist. And I hate it, which makes him do it even more.
Then there's all his jokes about rape. He was spending time with me and some of my friends, and the film Thelma and Louise came up, and he said in response to the rape scene that "well she was asking for it, as she was wearing a short skirt". I don't think he actually believes this. He just thinks it's funny and controversial to say something so offensive.
So I called him on it and I said "I know you don't actually think that wearing a short skirt means that someone is asking to be raped, but it's not on to even joke about it. Rape is not something to joke about. For many women, it is a reality. There will be women you know who have been raped and sexually assaulted, and for them to hear you joking about it so casually would be incredibly hurtful." To which he replies that if someone told him they had been raped and found his joke offensive, he would stop. I try and explain, through gritted teeth that is really not the point, and survivors of sexual assault shouldn't have to out themselves to him to make him stop joking about such a serious issue. He shrugs his shoulder and says I take everything so seriously.
How about everytime a man makes a rape joke, someone rapes him. Let's see how funny he finds it then, and how many times he needs to be raped before he stops seeing the funny side. Ha ha, only joking...
See, it's not funny is it?
My brother is the sort of man who thinks that rape and racism are issues he can pretend to support for comedic effect. And if we don't get the joke then we're clearly too uptight and take everything far too seriously.
But that wasn't even what made me break down on Monday. The issue then was his use of male privilege to try and dismiss the things that are important to me, belittle my feelings, make me feel that I am the problem and then ultimately silence me. It's the fact that we only had around a month living together; a month where he was living somewhere that has been my home for seven years, when he knew that I was having a hard time getting ready to leave, but where he still felt the need to try and control me and manipulate me so that he had his way even with things that weren't that important to him.
He mentioned that at the weekend, his gf's parents would be bringing up some more of her stuff including a kettle. As I am trying to pack non-essential items ready for my move, I said that I would maybe pack the kettle after this weekend and we could use hers. I also have some pale pink cast-iron kitchen ware I am fond of, which matches the pale pink of my kitchen walls. My brother has some similar kitchenware in blue, so he suggested that we could pack mine away and use his. I challenged this and said I would like to keep mine in use for as long as possible as it looked so pretty in the kitchen, and wouldn't match as well in my new house (as I am moving somewhere we probably shouldn't paint).
He replied dismissively that I might live somewhere else with pink walls in the future. (DISMISSIVE OF MY POINT/CONCERNS)
I took a deep breath and said that whilst it was possible this might be the case, it wouldn't be so immediately in my new home, and so for that reason I would really like to keep using mine instead of his for the next two weeks before I went. I also told him that I didn't feel up to having a big debate about it as I wasn't feeling well (the kind of headache and period pain that make you stay up all night blogging because you can't sleep and don't have any painkillers in the house).
He then said to me, in a patronising, babyish voice "ok well we'll do whatever is best for you then". (BELITTLING & PATRONISING)
I called him on this, and told him he was patronising me and I didn't appreciate it.
He said I was over-reacting and being hypersensitive. (DERAILING TACTIC TO TRYING TO MAKE ME FEEL FOOLISH FOR BEING UPSET ABOUT SOMETHING 'TRIVIAL')
I told him I wasn't over-reacting, that I had *heard* him talk in a babyish voice at me and I didn't appreciate it and that it was unreasonable for him to try and dismiss my view and feelings out of hand like that.
He then responded that if I didn't like the way he was talking I could leave the conversation. (ATTEMPTED SILENCING TECHNIQUE AND REFUSAL TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY)
At this point, feeling like crap with cramps and after giving him three chances to realise that the way he was talking to me was out of order, I lost my composure. I told him he couldn't use my pink kitchenware anymore, he would have to use his own. So he retaliated by demanding a quarter of the kitchen space to keep his things in.
Now, when he moved in, he said that he didn't have very many things so wouldn't be needed a quarter of the entire house. He's even previously chided me for having so many things and being so sentimentally attached to them. When he moved in, we discussed the kitchen space and the fact that as I had been here for seven years, I was using a lot of it. But he assured me he had space for the things he needed. And a lot of my things, like crockery and saucepans and cutlery and chopping boards are things he uses as he doesn't have his own. So my things take up space, but everyone in the house can use them.
Him suddenly demanding a quarter of the kitchen space, despite the fact that he didn't need it, that he didn't have things to fill it with, that all my things would be gone in a matter of weeks, that the space I was taking up was taken up by things that he enjoyed using... this demand was him throwing his weight around.
And because I wasn't feeling well, because I had already repeatedly tried and failed to rationally challenge his male privilege-powered attacks, and because I am feeling upset about moving out of this house, I got upset and gave in. And then I rang my mother.
Before my brother moved in, I was very worried about this type of situation occurring. Him using his male privilege to try and get his way, so that I either have to give in for an easy life, or fight it and cause a scene. I had spoken to my mother about it, and she had said that if that sort of situation occurred then we could have "a family discussion about it" but obviously I had not explicitly used the phrase "male privilege" because when I rang her in hysterical tears, she tried to calm me down and said that it wasn't 'because he was a man' that he was doing these things.
I then had to take time out from the issue to explain the concepts of male/white/middle class/thin etc privilege to her, and how people possessing those privileges can use them to oppress people who don't have them, often in such subtle ways, so built into society that many people don't even notice what's going on. I was surprised that she wasn't aware of the concept. And that made me despair a little, because people who don't know it exists aren't going to be a position to spot it or call people out on it. She spoke to him to hear what he had to say, and then told me that he had said he hadn't meant to upset me, but I had become upset. He is playing her, convincing her that he hadn't meant to upset me. So I come across as the one who is irrationally upset, a view which isn't helped by my hysterical crying down the phone.
* * * * *
I give up. I just give up. If I had been talking to any male friend, any male colleague, and the conversation had started going down the route it went with my brother, where I felt he was patronising me, or belittling me, or silencing me, and I calmly raised that, I am *sure* they would either have taken the opportunity to back down and apologise for being out of order, or if they genuinely hadn't meant to, they would apologise for making me feel that way. But he just carried on, as he always does. If any man in my life repeatedly used his privilege to try and control me, and didn't back down or apologise when I called him on it, I would cut him out my life. But as I know from past experience, that's harder to do when you have a biological tie to a person.
It was suggested by my mother, that I was expecting things to go this way with my brother, and that my negative thinking wouldn't help matters. That when I said, before he moved in, that I was concerned I would end up with as situation similar to one with strike three housemate (see previous post), where his controlling manipulative behaviour made me feel uncomfortable in my own home, that I was being irrational.
I know she was trying to help, but I call do not agree with her. I don't think it is past negative experiences that are causing me to worry that situations will repeat themselves.
I think it's that I'm getting better at recognising the men who use their privilege to manipulate and control the women in their lives, and the more times it happens the less patience I have. I am growing stronger and braver and I will not stand for it anymore. Some people will see me as a jumped up feminist upstart, but that's a price I'm willing to pay.
* * * * *
When my friend and I decided to dye our hair red together, she sent me a message which said"and the red we dye our hair will be the red of rage, passion, new starts and fun times altogether."
Hell yes. Bring it on.
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