Review of Miss Hokusai

I recently watched Miss Hokusai and was mesmerized by the beauty of the animation. The film depicts the life of the Hokusai family focusing not on Katsushika Hokusai  (1760 – 1849) the famous woodblock print artist but on his artist daughter. The film incorporates Hokusai's artworks into the narrative giving the work context and the plot meaning.

 

What I found fascinating about the film was the lack of romance and a simple narrative which explored the characters more deeply. The film portrays a determined and sensitive young woman who keenly observes the world around her incorporating it into her painting. Her young blind sister brings out the maternal in her. 

 

As mentioned before the lack of  a romantic subplot allows the film to develop and the characters to grow in maturity without being distracted. Miss Hokusai is a single woman whose talent while admirable seems to intimidate the men around her who admire her but don't see her as a romantic partner. Her strong sense of duty coupled with her talent make her content within herself and her world.

 

The animation is beautiful conveying a range of emotions and providing a breathtaking experience. The changing seasons an little detail from Hokusai's prints were cleverly woven into the story and provided animation to prints we have only seen as still.

What I personally found interesting was the way a story of two artists were told in a historical setting with the focus not on Hokusai the artist but his daughter. The stories within the stories were equally compelling and animated with skill.

PS: This film passes the Bechdel test. 

 

Women, Addiction and Nation- My latest article

One of my articles has been published by Ragged University it is a free article and you can access it by clicking the link below.

Women, Addiction and Nation

Based on work that eventually lead me to write my thesis this article tackles some of the issues I came across whilst dealing with an apparently clinical condition. 

End Human Trafficking and Slavery

October in the UK is marked as Black History Month. Presenting history that is not part of the mainstream curriculum and remembering events that are often forgotten is the aim of the month. Slavery and colonialism form a large part of that untold history. We relegate slavery to the past forgetting it is still a modern problem. People are still trafficked into sexual, economic and medical slavery. It is only fitting that we remember both the past and resist injustice of the present.

The problem of present day slavery is tied to economic affluence and seated in an ethic that devalues human life. While 1833 is thought to be the year slavery was abolished not all aspects of it were abolished completely. Economic greed and lust are still some of the chief causes for this crime to continue. 

Manchester Cathedral is hosting a day conference in conjunction with several activist organisations and individuals committed to fighting this oppression. 

Little Flower

  True Charity consists in bearing with all the defects of our neighbour, in not being surprised at his failings, and in being edified by his least virtues; Charity must not remain shut up in the depths of the heart, for no man lighteth a candle and putteth it under a bushel, but upon a candlestick, that it may shine to all that are in the house. (Cf. Matthew 5:15). It seems to me that this candle represents the Charity which ought to enlighten and make joyful, not only those who are dearest to me, but all who are in the house. 

 Saint Thérèse of Lisieux (Doctor of The Church) 

When nation, gender and madness collide

In all my years of studying Psychology I am always struck by how mental illness is often the first explanation that is ascribed to most behaviour. The history leading up to the formal diagnosis is often forgotten. creating disorder is more social process than a clinical one. I have challenged notions of biology before however my stance is best summed up by Richard Bentall- "Throughout the history of psychiatry, the idea that schizophrenia and related conditions are genetic diseases has been treated as an axiom, rather than a hypothesis."  

Here is the abstract I am presenting at the Psychology of Women's Section Conference 

Mental disorders are increasingly being looked at through clinical framework. The production of mental disorders is dependant upon social and historical factors. Location and gender interact with each other to produce disorders which are sometimes given a clinical status. Diagnosis in India is not merely dependent on clinical classifications. Women’s alcohol and drug consumption is tied to their sexuality, tethered to nationalistic discourse about ideal Indian femininity.

Women’s alcohol and drug use is often viewed as an anti national/maternal resistance leading to public violence. Bollywood films are a source of data to observe how cinematic violence often mirrors everyday violence against women and vice versa. Examining discourse in films and incidents of gender violence arguments of western corruption, representations of  ‘deviant’ women are used on screen as tropes to caution against trespassing the boundaries of national decorum.   Nationalism, gender and madness collide to create clinical disorders and social strategies of control. 

Not trans enough’ how the standard trans gender model gives in to cisgenderism

Here is an abstract of a paper that will be presented at manchester Sparkle and at the Psychology of Women's Section Conference. 

This paper challenges notions of what makes a good transgender person. In recent years the community has turned to more cisnormative ideals of gender to gain acceptance and often remain safe. The critique is not of specific people but how the transgender community is subjected to sexism, transphobia which is internalised and manifested in various ways.

This paper is going to be presented at the Psychology of Women's Conference. Here is a link to the program.

This is the abstract 

Not trans enough’ how the standard trans gender model gives in to cisgenderism – Pauline Sometimes and Sonia Soans

Abstract –

Amongst the LGBTQI community there are narratives of the ‘good trans’ person which alienate parts of the community that fail to identify according to the binary model of gender. Standard narratives about gender identity include transition from birth assigned gender and eventual hormone therapy and/or surgery. It is assumed that there is a strong desire to pass in cisgender society

Non-binary and bigendered individuals are often seen as confused and insufficiently transgender. Traditionalist views of what it entails to be transgender divides a community that is marginalised and creates a scramble for power and identification with ones oppressors. Attempting to restrict the transgender spectrum within a binary model imposed by cisgender society marginalises and excludes the most vulnerable members of society. Methodology is based upon lived experience of one of the co-authors supplemented with information published by transgender support organisations and social media postings by transgender, bigender and non-binary individuals.

Keywords: Transgender, Bigender, ‘oppositional sexism’

A free and open talk based on this paper will be given at Manchester Sparkle. For details consult the poster below 

Sonia Soans on Critical Psychology by Ragged University

Here is a podcast interview I did with Alex Dunedin of Ragged University. I have attempted to summarise nearly seven years of my work in an hour. 

A very female malady

It doesn't take a degree in Psychology to know mental illness is gendered...... having said that it has taken me a few degrees to get to that conclusion. In my masters I learnt disorders have a gender, alcoholism for men depression for women. These distinctions are not new mental illness has been tied to gender for a long time. Hysteria is a prime example, wandering uteruses caused women to turn mad (insert behaving unacceptably), we now know internal organs don’t move instead we blame women’s hormones on their fluctuating mood. Women are emotional and not very rational we are told. Anyone who had witnessed men watching sport can vouch for strong emotions accompanied by violence being displayed.  Why is football violence seen as unemotional and the product of a rational mind or war for that matter? Why is a woman natural response to a bad situation indicative of pathology attributed to her anatomy?

It would be very easy to dismiss psychiatry of the past as unsophisticated in its diagnosis and treatment but have we changed? Do we ignore the present because we are entrenched in it?  We accept female hormones make women emotional wrecks, that their menstrual cycles control them. These ideas need to be questioned, as do their purpose. Mental illness serves a very strategic position in our world, it helps us lock away undesirable individuals in asylums when prisons wont take them. It also helps control individuals by telling them how to behave.

Open any women’s magazine and they are full of advice by psychologists and counsellors. Popular psychology magazines are similar in content if not style in this regard. I often look at issues of Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping and Psychology at my supermarket till and they all have the same content and intent. We have become accustomed to being corrected by an all pervasive psychology that controls every aspect of our being. Gender is on the top of that list. Symptoms of mental illness are not stable as are its manifestations.

Location also influences the production and maintenance of mental illness. Culture bound syndromes is what the International Classification of Diseases calls conditions that are only prevalent in one culture. This too is an area that is seldom questioned if conditions such as depression and ADHD were produced in the west how is it they aren’t culture bound?

The symptoms of mental illness are culturally manufactured I have found. Alcoholism and addiction while understood as universal manifest themselves differently across the world. While clinically individuals may appear the same their diagnosis is based on their age, class, gender, race, ethnicity and many other factors. Women who are diagnosed with this very male condition are often seen as worse than the men. This is an idea commonly found in rehabilitations and in scientific literature. Women occupy a strained relationship with madness, often their gender is used against them to diagnose and treat them.

Reference:

Chesler, P. (2005). Women and madness. Palgrave Macmillan.

Culture, Continuity and Breast Cancer- Agnes Arnold- Forster  http://www.historytoday.com/agnes-arnold-forster/culture-continuity-and-breast-cancer

feminism 101

Coercive Abortions

A few weeks ago I was having a debate about the emergence of feminism and its role. The issue of abortion was on top of their list.  Feminism they claimed was responsible for women aborting their children. Apart from the shody reasoning the sweeping generalisation for propaganda made me question how they arrived at that conclusion.

Feminism is feared and reviled, myths about what it stands for distorted. While feminism  does not stand in complete agreement over every issue it does have certain core principles at the heart of it. Reproductive rights are central to feminism however debates around them  are dependent on the current social policy of the time.

Womens Day

Spotted this wonderful bag outside Central Library Manchester 

White women’s burdens

I keep coming away from feminist events feeling more and more empty and disconnected with myself. Most times I am spoken at or about as if I was not in the room. I am almost never an individual but a part of a collective characterised by tradition and culture. I can only be the exotic helpless other who is tortured by tradition. I wont deny tradition, culture and religion are used against women in the global south but culture is everywhere. Even in the first world with all its liberalism is rife with culture and all the maladies that accompany it. This week my facebook page has been inundated with stories of the Delhi rapist blaming his victim for playing a part in her own rape. It is shocking news, even disgusting how someone is so oblivious of their crime. For the victims family hearing those words would have been a cruel reminder what their daughter went through.

I don’t deny the nature of the crime or its impact, it’s the manner in which this narrative has played out in the media unjust. Indian men are positioned as more vile and disgusting than men anywhere else. In the west smug stories of how culture, religion bring about violence are used to demonstrate how progressive the western world is to have thrown off those shackles and moved onto a rational society. Women are used in this debate to prove the achievements of the western world. Conny Roggeband and Mieke Verloo have written a brilliant paper on the subject of how western and migrant women are positioned in national debates in the Netherlands. The idea that migrant women of colour women suffer violence is based in reality however the same is true of white women. With the 3% conviction rate in the UK the notion of the liberal, west starts to fall apart.

Culture is everywhere and rape culture is everywhere. Everyday I see buses plastered with posters of 50 Shades of Grey indicative of rape culture in British society. Why is there such a denial that culture exists in the west? I have heard many socialists talk about how they have no culture in the west. I suspect this is racism hiding behind orientalism, exotic dress and food are thought to be the only hallmarks of culture. Sociologists have a term for this – ethnocentrism. The naïve assumption that ones way of behaving and acting were the norm and everyone else is inferior positions the non-western subject as subnormal. In India it is normal to define foreign cultures as inferior. We often use the argument that we have female goddesses which translates into respect for women. This could not be further from the truth, the existence of female deities does nothing for mortal women, neither does the law. Indian women are not liberated because of their goddesses. Western women are not liberated by their atheistic secular society. Gender violence is a part of the left socialist’s great shame. Recently a friend posted an article about the denial of violence in the left movement you can read all about it here. War On Women – It’s A Left Wing Problem Too! The debate around rights has far too long concentrated on saying hey look we are better than that 3^rd world nation at least we are not…… The rights the western world fought are part of an on going struggle complacency will not keep them alive and ensure they are  enforced. In a era when right wing forces threaten to destroy these rights it is foolish to laud over past victories that have not been fully realised 

I accept India is not perfect I wont deny the documentary needs to be screened and it should lead to discussions however those discussions should not turn into a moral finger pointing match. When I was in India I saw this debate of the save Indian male as legitimate for obvious reasons in the UK I see it as unfair for the simple reason it tells women in the west this big lie that they are free and liberated. We women of colour are trapped by our culture white women are trapped in their liberal world.

References

Roggeband, C., & Verloo, M. (2007). Dutch women are liberated, migrant women are a problem: The evolution of policy frames on gender and migration in the Netherlands, 1995–2005. Social Policy & Administration, 41(3), 271-288.

https://smashinggenderchange.wordpress.com/2015/03/05/war-on-women-its-a-left-wing-problem-too/

The politic of angry black women, mislabelling our response to racism

Why do you black women shout so much? I am asked frequently. Loud and sassy that is what what we are called. My voice is not heard when I am quiet when I raise my tone of voice I become a shouty black woman. I am very aware of the discrepancies with which my white counterparts are treated. If it was only my voice that was the problem, my identity is viewed with suspicion therefore what I say becomes   difficult. It seems I am prejudged. I ask all women of colour this have you noticed how you could say something that isn't related to race and yet that is what they hear all the time. Even after you have clarified what you have said was not what they heard. 

Case in point

White man- So is this the first time you have spoken the English language?

Me- No, it is one of my two mother tongues besides English is a commonly used language in India.

White man- ah I see for someone who has only started speaking this language in the last few months that you have been here you can speak it very well. 

Me- That is not what I said English is my mother tongue..........

It was pointless saying anything more I would have been called rude and aggressive if I had clarified my point. Audre Lorde speaks about this phenomena in her book Sister outsider. Black women’s femininity is measured by white women’s standards and when we fail that comparison we occupy the space of the marginalised feminine. Our voices and tone of voice makes us aggressive the content is simply dismissed. At best we embody a pathology and our femininity is used as a means of cautioning other women against our mannerisms.

A white woman asked me where I was going one afternoon so I mentioned I was attending a black feminist event. Her next question for me was what are you doing after your angry black feminist meeting? I asked her why she added anger to the term black feminist, to which she replied well you all are angry about racism all the time…….. perhaps because we keep encountering racists all the time. Perhaps our anger is a response to anger. Nobody asks the aggressor why they react with such malice why are white, heterosexual, cisgender able bodies men so angry and insecure? Why is my retaliation labelled as anger and not his? Occupying a dominant position has come to mean we pathologise the minority, of not being aware of ones own aggressions. 

If our mannerism is not calm and polite it is because the aggressions we face are not polite. Does saying something rude in a soft voice make it okay? White women are trapped in this position of occupying one space of privilege – whiteness their conformity to this position involves their internalisation of a stereotype. Being polite, gentle, soft-spoken gives them an entry into a white male environment. In order to maintain this power they must reject alternative forms of femininity. Black, queer, transgender, butch, disabled women come to occupy the space of the excluded other. These struggles within marginalised groups is not uncommon. To gain affirmation from the norm members of a group are often willing to collude with their oppressors to gain acceptance. It is understandable but it is not acceptable. 

LGBT History Month

This is my little tribute to LGBT people this month

Coloured homosexuals have more knowledge of other cultures; have always been at the forefront (although sometimes in the closet) of all liberation struggles in this country.; have suffered more injustices and have survived them despite all odds. Page 107 Anzaldúa- Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza

Protest against cuts in 'Violence Against Women' services - Manchester 10 Dec

Transgender Day of Remembrance

Every year Transgender people are killed or allowed to die across the world. Some are kicked out by their families. Exploited and abused their lives are in danger. This violence must stop. Killing people is wrong. Killing people because we don't understand them is wrong. We need to accept people for who they are if you believe kindness wont change people neither will cruelty.

To my transgender brothers and sisters out there you are not forgotten. You will be missed. 

Here are some images from the memorial service at Manchester 

Why fighting feminism is counterproductive.

I got talking to a young polite man yesterday who said ‘I like to be a gentleman, I wish women would let themselves be treated as women’. I did want to say several things but seeing as he was very naive about the issue I held back a bit. Women would behave in a dainty way if society around them were dainty. Manners alone don’t protect us. As Audre Lorde said ‘my silences had not protected me. Your silence will not protect you’. The well idea of the idealised womanhood is still cherished by men who assume a woman would want to submit to this once she is married. The idea is flawed- marriages fall apart. The well-behaved woman stops behaving nicely once she knows her good behaviour makes her vulnerable. Feminism wasn’t born out of a need to be difficult it was society that was being difficult to women and still is.

Not being able to stand up for oneself isn’t a virtue it is a curse. I have a friend who once said she didn’t trust men polite or not, she wasn’t difficult, just hurt. Her hurt had taught her that men who open doors for women also let themselves out of those doors and abandon women. Politeness is wonderful, and I do appreciate that quality in both men and women, however politeness needs to be matched with a deeper sense of morality. If opening a door is a way to emulate your grandfather and feel nostalgic don’t do it. Do it because you respect the woman in front of you, do it because you feel a need to humble yourself, afterall good manners are a way of saying to the other person I respect you and think of you as important. To men who think they respect women I will say this feminism isn’t your enemy, patriarchal oppression is. It teaches both men and women they must conform even when it hurts them. Men are taught to be loud and coarse to display their masculinity and women passive to their aggressions. For those of us who reject such narrow definitions of gender feminism provides an answer. Don’t blame victims for taking up arms against their oppressors. To polite gentlemen I say this look at the men around you look at how they behave around women does their behaviour inspire trust?

Feminism comes from a deep wound one which needs healing not injuring. Women protesting aren’t the problem they are a symptom of an unequal society. People who have been treated unfairly have a right to be suspicious of their oppressors. Women bear their oppressions in silence and with dignity. Women with broken ribs and black eyes claim to have walked into doors. Their silence and their obvious lies don’t protect them. Women are scared when a man holds open a door he might touch her bottom. These are genuine fears that have a basis in truth. Women have come to fear not just aggressive men but polite ones as well. If politeness could protect us then we would have redeemed ourselves.

To the gentlemen amongst you I will say if you claim to respect us then join forces with us. Talk to your fellow men who treat us unequally don’t tell us silence ourselves. 

Real men do.....

I sat chatting with a lovely man today someone who could hold a conversation, not patronising and a good listener. Before I forget I was within the earshot of a young man or should I say "man" yeah the type who think being a man involves being a sexist who loves violence. It has always struck me how insecure masculinity is. Frightened of femininity and homosexuality. The overt manifestation of this masculinity revels in putting down what it thinks is deviant masculinity. There is nothing wrong with being manly but manliness that is created by putting any other state of being down seems false. It seems to be an overcompensatory mechanism which seems to suppress any form of dissonance. While every gender should allowed to be experienced in its own way very obvious manliness seems to be the most violent and insensitive. However this not the sum total of masculinity, there are those who aren't particularly bothered by upholding laddish laws who aren't part of a herd and are able to assert their individuality. Resisting this externally created masculinity for an innate and perhaps more individual sense of being.

It seems this narrow understanding of masculinity is way of experiencing all the joys of being manly  minus the responsibility. 

Boys will be boys...... and what are little boys made off?

An overcompensatory masculinity harms men who are given to believe that being a man is scripted and includes behaving in a way that is contradictory to their inner nature and feelings, that being a part of herd is more important than being in individual. What are boys meant to be? Feminism has rightfully questioned stereotypes and how patriarchy is harmful to women and men. 

This scripted masculinity hurts women and men alike. What is constitutes masculinity has been constantly changing over time and culture. Men  were not always expected to be tough and unfeeling.