Why Angela Davis is my political fave

For as long as I can remember, I have been proud to call myself a feminist. My Mum's a devout feminist and has never told me to afraid of the word 'feminism'. That being said, until the past year or two, I didn't feel wholeheartedly connected to the issues mainstream (white) feminism talks about.

Of course, I knew things like 'free the nipple' and letting girls wear short skirts and show their shoulders in school without being sexualised by male teachers were important issues, but I didn't feel like this mainstream feminism was particularly useful when it came to other forms of oppression. I didn't feel like this feminism was inclusive of other intersections, it became more and more obvious to me that this type of feminism didn't really fight for those who are oppressed because of their race or those who are oppressed because of their class. Becoming invested in 'SJW Twitter' definitely helped here and opened my eyes to the reality of white feminism and to the prospect of intersectional feminism. In short, white feminism is a branch of feminism focused on the struggles of primarily white and privileged women, this is basically liberal feminism which is centered around western ideals and liberalism doesn't really help the movement on a mass scale (but that's a topic for a different time). Intersectional feminism is a branch of feminism that encompasses all intersections because it claims that oppressive institutions are all intertwined, so the obvious one is sexism, but it also takes into account racism, classism, transphobia, homophobia, biphobia, ableism - you name an oppressive -ism and intersectional feminism is against that.

This is a picture of one of the walls in my Uni house - me and my housemate Megan adore Angela and wanted to order a poster of her, and then we received two in the post (at no extra charge) so we have two posters right next to each other, yep we cool.

So how does Angela Davis come into this? Angela Davis is one of the most famous intersectional feminists there are, just a month ago she said in an interview that feminism involves 'embracing but moving beyond gender'. In the 1960s, Angela Davis was a member of the Black Panthers, leader of the Communist Party in the USA, as well as being a member of the Che-Lumumba Club which was the all-black branch of the Communist Party. Being a part of groups like these meant she was not silent on classism or racism. She was (and still is) outspoken about classism and racism in the Suffrage movement, which we're told liberated all women when actually WOC were exploited by white women to push forward the movement. She's also spoken out about sexism in the Civil Rights movement and other socialist movements which resulted in the oppression of women being pushed to the sideline. Angela Davis also emphasizes the importance of women's rights being looked at globally in order for women to form 'a united, multiracial, antimonopoly women’s movement in order to aid oppressed women throughout the world'. 

I largely base my feminism on the likes of people like Angela Davis, people who are unapologetically anti-Capitalist (for a while, I was scared to say that I agreed with a lot of communist/anarchist ideals because you automatically get shunned as a fascist apologist - again, this is another topic for another blog post) and people who include POC, most importantly black people (again, colourism - different topic that I shan't go into detail about now), and encompass all of these issues into their feminism - this is the basis of my feminism, and as it is Women's History Month, I'd like to thank Angela Davis for being a big figure in helping me further my feminism, so thank you Angela - you tha real MVP.

Political baking with a meme-ingful message

Recently, I helped host a little shindig for my feminist friends (a.k.a the combabes) and I decided to get a little political for the vegan treats I made.

So I made some vegan shortbread and whilst I started off just writing 'I hate men', 'girls rock', 'NB people rock' etc. I ended up with a hammer and sickle and 'kill all men' - they went down pretty well!

I didn't intend the writing to look like blood, more like a happy accident...

On the 10th January, we were blessed with a new meme and that is the phrase 'Davey Cameron is a pie', so what better way to commemorate it than with a literal Davey Cameron pie? I went for apple, even though I'm sure Cameron would've preferred pork. There's nothing more liberating than stabbing a Davey Cameron pie, as I'm sure our party guests would've agreed with.

Whilst this may not have been the most interesting post, I make myself laugh and I want as many people to know as possible than I not only bake vegan treats but I also bake vegan treats with a political message - thank you and good night.

Bitter about Valentine's? Get the heck over it!

I'm 18 years old and I've never really had a proper boyfriend, sure I had some primary school ones, but preferably I'd like to pretend that cringey era in my life never happened. Nevertheless, I've still never been bitter about not having a Valentines. For the majority of my life, I never really cared, I treated it as another day. Then when I got older in high school I started watching rom-coms and consuming copious amounts of food with a high sugar content to make some sort of ironic statement (it's always about the irony with me), but for all of my teenage years, without fail, I find so many people being bitter about Valentine's Day, and I ask you why.

Exhibit A of the rom-coms watched on Valentine's Day, although I've seen both Bridget Jones films too many times to recall (well.. how much is too much when you have Hugh Grant and Colin Firth?)

When I started noticing the bitterness around February 14th, it was generally focused upon the fact that the person writing it was single. So, fine, you're jealous and you want to be in a relationship, that's your prerogative sure, but I don't understand why this influx of sourness is focused upon Valentine's Day. When you go to a wedding, you generally don't go feeling sorry for yourself because you're not married (although marriage shouldn't be a goal in life, y'know oppression of women in its most traditional form but you can do it if you want yada yada yada different topic for a different blog post). When it's someone's anniversary, you don't go feeling sorry for yourself because you haven't been in a relationship that long or you're not in a relationship, so it doesn't really explain why people are so bitter around Valentine's Day.

The second source of bitterness is the commercial aspect of Valentine's Day. You'd be a bit stupid to ignore the fact that Valentine's Day is or at least has become a commercial holiday, but what holiday or occasion hasn't? We live in a world dominated by Capitalism, you can't just opt out of it (the revolution is comin' dudes), this means that most things are based upon a system of commercialism, but why is it mostly Valentine's Day that takes the hits? I know Christmas takes some punches, but let's be honest it's mostly Valentine's Day that suffers. Let's think of your birthday for example, it's possible that you're part of the small population that doesn't celebrate your birthday, but generally it's a day of gift receiving and essentially spending money, but you don't seem to complain and no one else seems to complain either  - can you imagine?

"Gee wiz, I hate your birthday, it's such a commercial occasion, we should instead focus our attention to overthrowing the bourgeoisie and destroying the rigid class system"

Alright comrade, we get your point, Valentine's Day is commercial, but you can't opt out of Capitalism, so unless you're going to join the revolution and start to attempt to crush the elite, your criticisms are pointless and, in my opinion, seem a little pretentious. 

It's pretty easy to say that you should celebrate your love with another person (or more than that if you're into polygamy) every day, but is it really such a satanic practice to have one day dedicated to really showing a person you love them? Daily routine can become mundane and we can become blasé about sentiments that we receive on a daily basis. Furthermore, we don't celebrate the fact that we're aging and rapidly reaching an inevitable death everyday so why should we 'celebrate' the fact that we've found a person  who we love everyday? I'm not advising you ignore your partner every other day of the year, but there's a difference between acknowledging affection towards someone else daily and celebrating so criticising Valentine's day on the grounds that you should celebrate your love for someone else every day is a little preposterous.

Essentially, all I'm trying to say, is stop being so damn bitter y'all. If you don't want to celebrate Valentine's Day, don't, but don't rain on someone else's parade because they may be perfectly happy celebrating it and that's their choice, you can easily ignore one day of the year, so get the heck over it. If someone, who's forever alone like me, can, so can you.

What are your opinions on Valentine's Day?

Bloglovin | YouTube | Tumblr | Twitter | Instagram