Being worn down by sexism.

I am worn down by sexism. I am worn down by the word sexism. I am worn down by the thought of sexism. I am worn down and try not to think about it, because I find it so draining.

Last week I attended an event run by the Centre for Feminist Research in Goldsmiths. The centre is run by my tutor, Sara Ahmed, and runs events in Goldsmiths throughout the year. This event was on sexism, and the speakers all focused on sexism in higher education.

The first speaker talked about a 'bloody document' she has carried with her for 30 years. As a young graduate student, she wrote an essay and her professor covered it in red ink, 'correcting' her 'mistakes'. When I saw each slide, my jaw dropped. I imagine jaws dropped across the room. She is now a professor and head of a department at one of the most prestigious universities in the world. Her old professor is still teaching. She has kept this essay for 30 years. 

Here is the paper she wrote.

I thought,

This feels strange, but I can't think of a time where I faced institutional sexism while at this university.

I thought,

I've never had a lecturer or professor treat me the way this speaker was treated.

I thought,

Maybe it's because in Goldsmiths, I've only been taught by women. And mostly black women. My course classes are very different to what they used to be. There's occasionally one or two men in the classroom. 

I thought,

Queen's wasn't like that. In Queen's I was often the only woman in my class. I was taught almost entirely by white men. I was surrounded by men. I became a feminist killjoy. I was angry, all of the time.

But I still can't think of a time where my tutors or professors sexually harassed me. That feels strange.

But then I thought,

Hang on. 

I have spent a lot of time arguing with Goldsmiths as an institution about being disabled. 

I thought,

I spend a not inconsiderable amount of my time explaining to other students how to navigate disability bureaucracy. 

I thought,

I sat with my friend and the staff member who approves assignment deferrals, as she sat in tears, shaking with anxiety, and he visibly did not care. He did not offer a tissue. There was no empathy in his voice. My friend and I left the meeting and she cried for a while. She was shaking with the ferocity of her sobs. I was furious. I wanted to complain. I was so angry at how she had been treated by a staff member who was responsible for supporting disabled and unwell students. 

I have sat opposite men members of staff who have rolled their eyes at the hysterical angry woman in front of them.

I have sat in the disability room in the library while a male staff member stood over me, making me explain why I was in the room. Why I was allowed to be in the room. In front of a room full of students I didn't know. Afterwards, the shame burned my face and I felt like a child. 

I thought,

This is sexism repackaged and combined with disablism, entwined with racial and class dynamics in the case of my friend's experience. 

After the event, there was a wine reception and I talked with a few of my classmates. I talked about how lucky I felt to have had such incredible teachers during my time here. 

A classmate has taken an elective module with another department, and has had a tough time. She is taught by a man who, within the first two classes, she knew she couldn't stand. She knew it was going to be difficult to get through this term, being taught by him. 

We talked about the way that sexism has worn us down to the point where we think we do not encounter it. 

When we encounter sexism in class, from male classmates, we are exhausted before we put up our hand to tell a man why what he has just done was incredibly sexist. We feel the weight of the response our response will get. And we decide in that moment whether or not we have the energy to respond to the response our responding to sexism will receive. And more often than not, we decide the effort is too great, and we don't put our hand up. 

Changing Minds Fest

At the weekend the Southbank Centre in London held the #ChangingMindsFest, a weekend long festival dedicated to mental health. I had seen it advertised and thought about going, but that was before I started to become more ill in December and stopped really organising things to do.

As part of A Day In The Life, they invited contributions answering the questions:

"How was your day, what made your mental health better and what made it worse?"

I decided to submit the speech I made at the TUC Mental Health & Austerity event that day, and just found out that it was included. The slideshow played for 36 hours on a loop at the Southbank. 

My answer are slides 11 - 24, with a content note for suicide.

Calling in and calling out.

This post is inspired by conversations I've been having recently with people, mostly offline, on how we feel people should respond to criticism, critique, and call outs, particularly in relation to privilege. It's a conversation I've been having so often I thought I should properly write about it.

When I first got involved in liberation activism, I had no idea what privilege was. I didn't have a very good understanding of the structural inequalities that exist in the world, even though I thought I did. I had experienced sexism, misogyny, ableism, queerphobia - but probably wouldn't have been able to name those experiences as being part of a wider structural issue. I looked at those experiences as a series of one offs.

The first time I was called out - for using stigmatising language in relation to mental health - I was appalled. I was disgusted. I was beside myself that I, someone with mental health problems, could ever possibly misuse words that can be seen as derogatory. The person who called me out did it - in a way I would now say - incredibly politely. They sent me a short email, off the email list, explaining that the language I used was problematic for A, B & C reasons, and were perfectly pleasant. And I still felt like I'd been wronged the biggest wrong to ever happen in the existence of the world.

Fast forward five years. I have wised up. I have changed a lot, my politics have developed, and I've grown up. I'm not 18 years old anymore. I still slip up, I am still called out on things, and I am still trying to grow and develop my politics around liberation in particular and I know I will continue to slip up and will need to keep reflecting on my behaviour and actions as I get older. And the way I look at call ins and call outs is radically different.

It is quite a human reaction to be upset or anxious or panicked (especially if you suffer with mental health problems around anxiety) when someone calls you out, no matter how respectfully or politely they do it (and they're under no obligation to be polite or respectful about it). You worry about who you've upset, and how you've upset them, and what the affect of whatever you've done/said has been. 

But, if you too believe that being called up on your privilege is a very useful and helpful process during which you are able to learn about an aspect of something you overlooked, or hadn't considered, then you must continually remind yourself that you want to be called out. You want to be a better ally to marginalised groups you do not define into. And that means listening whenever someone calls you up on your shit, and acknowledging that in all likelihood they are coming from a place or experience that you may not know as much about.

No matter how emotional your reaction, or how poor your mental health, the person who is giving you their time and labour to call you out should not have to calm you down, or console you, or reassure you that they understand you didn't mean to do whatever you did. 

They have no obligation to be polite when calling you out. In all likelihood they have a reason to be angry, and that reason is legitimate. They should not have to bear the responsibility of dealing with your emotional reaction. It's not up to them. They're doing you a massive favour by calling you out - recognise this. Recognise that you are incredibly lucky to have someone take time out of their day to tell you that you fucked up. You are not the injured party here, even if your initial reaction is to be upset.

It is important to develop coping mechanisms for immediate emotional reactions to call outs. When my anxiety is particularly bad, a message from someone telling me I've done something shit and oppressive can make me have a panic attack. And I have begun to accumulate skills to deal with this, including (but not limited to) breathing exercises, reminding myself that this is something I value and appreciate immensely when people take the time out to do it, reminding myself of how I wish people would respond when I call someone out on something, and as someone who can slip into black and white thinking and catastrophising quite easily, reminding myself that the world is not over because I fucked up.

To take an example - I am middle class. I have a financial safety net, I have parents I can borrow money from if I needed to. I did not grow up being shamed for getting free school meals, my parents were able to afford to buy my school uniform brand new, we went on family holidays, we always had food in the fridge. I am skint, but I am not poor. I am not working class. 

And so when someone who comes from a working class background decides to take time out of their day to tell me that I fucked up - I said something shitty (e.g. 'Omg, I'm so poor, this is so shit, you all have no idea how poor I am right now'); I didn't consider an aspect of something (e.g. 'We should totally all go to this event/club/bar/dinner/restaurant! Are you coming? Why aren't you coming?', forgetting that not everyone has disposable income and can afford to spend a fiver on a pint); or I behaved in an oppressive way - I need to sit down and listen. I need to consider my behaviour, and reflect on what I did. I need to appreciate that this person was willing to call me out on my behaviour, and recognise the fact that they may have an incredibly different life experience on this issue than I do, because I come from a privileged position. 

I see 'calling in' as something that people with privilege should do to other people with privilege - it's my job as someone who is white to educate other white people about racism and the impact and effect of white supremacy. I should 'call in' the fact that they may have done or said something racist. I am responsible for educating other white people to look inwards at our experiences of whiteness, how our whiteness is reflected everywhere in society, how we benefit from a system built on white supremacy and racism. I am also responsible for constantly reflecting on my own white privilege, looking inwards at my own experiences and questioning why they are the way they are.

I see 'calling out' as something that marginalised people have a right to do to people with privilege. As previously mentioned, I believe marginalised people are under no obligation to be polite with their call outs - if you're calling someone out on their oppressive behaviour it can be a very upsetting, frustrating and angering thing that they have done, and you are under no obligation to be kind about it. 

Here is a post about being a better ally in general, here is one about being a better ally to people of colour and here is one about being a better ally to disabled people. If anyone has any articles about being an ally they would recommend, please let me know and I'll include them in here.

On welfare reform, and those who matter.

Content note for suicide

These last few months have seen some good campaigning, particularly from all sectors around the proposed tax credit cuts. Whilst they weren't reversed in their entirety, I do believe that the work from trade unions, Labour, and other charities and campaigning organisations definitely helped this.

But take ESA cuts.

What is ESA? It stands for Employment & Support Allowance, and is the disability benefit for those of us who are too unwell to work due to disabilities and long-term health problems. When you apply for ESA - an incredibly stressful, over-complicated and difficult process, you usually are called for a Work Capability Assessment. 

Initially brought in under Labour, the coalition government outsourced the WCA to ATOS, a French IT company. ATOS were so bad at their job - to assess ESA claimants to find out if they were fit for work or not - that appeals skyrocketed, costing the government (aka the taxpayer) a shit tonne of money in processing appeals and eventually backdating lots of claims. There were many headlines detailing tragedy after tragedy of people who had died by suicide, usually after being found fit for work and being overcome by despair at their (sometimes inevitable) homelessness and poverty. Some claimants aren't put through a WCA, but this is rare.

Once you have your WCA, you're assigned a group - the work-related activity group, or the support group. The idea behind it is that those who are in the work group may have limited capability to work, but will be able to do some form of 'work-related activity'. The support group is for people who are less likely to be able to return to work in the near future. 

A few months ago, the Tories announced they were cutting the benefit for people in the WRAG group by around £30, to bring it in line with current rates of Job Seekers' Allowance. In April 2017 the rate for those in the WRAG will go from £102 to £73 a week. This will reduce the yearly income of a person in the work group from £5,000 to just £3,500. The government's reasoning is that the money given to someone in the WRAG isn't a good enough incentive to get back to work. Of course it has nothing to do with an overstretched NHS, local authorities being stripped of their funding, and mental health services under resourced about to collapse. Of course those things have nothing to do with why a disabled person may not be able to cope with employment.

If this wasn't bad enough, more shit has been announced in relation to Personal Independence Payments, which were brought in under the coalition government to gradually replace Disability Living Allowance. For more information on what that's been like, read this (by Liam, on what applying for benefits is really like), this (by Liam, what it's like dealing with ATOS) and this (by Becca, and what pushed me to write this post).

This post from Disability Rights is pretty informative - a judgement has recently been announced, meaning that if someone with severe psychological distress cannot leave the house or go somewhere unassisted (for instance, due to severe agoraphobia, or panic attacks), they'll no longer be eligible for the mobility component of PIP, which currently stands at £55 or so a week. 

So what's the point of this post?

Firstly, to give an explanation of (some aspects of) ESA, and an insight into how difficult it really is for people to survive on this benefit. Most people don't know the intricate details - and why would they? Unless they know someone who receives it, it isn't a great surprise.

And then there's the issue of stigma. 

Who would you tell that you're trying to live off less than £5,000 a year? You'll probably receive some housing benefit, but that won't be enough to cover your rent anyway, especially if you live in London. You might get DLA or PIP, but you live forever in fear of new reforms being announced and the small benefit you get (which, rather than being spent on the extra costs of being disabled is probably spent on heating your room and paying your water bill) being cut. If you've kids or people to care for, you probably worry about making sure you can feed them, too. If you don't have anyone to care for, like me, you're one of the luckier ones. 

When someone asks me what I do, I generally tell them the truth. Or a half truth. Partially because I think that I have a duty to, because it's so shameful. I need to make it less shameful. I need people to look me in the eye when I tell them I live off the state. And for the most part, they don't. They glance sideways, awkwardly, look down at their feet. They don't know what to say. And I try to continue the conversation as if nothing has happened. But it's hard. And it's exhausting when this happens frequently. And it does, because I try and do something social at least once a week, and that inevitably leads to meeting new people who ask what I do.  

What is most difficult about being in this situation, is how isolating it is - both on a personal and a national level. When tax credits were being cut, everyone was up in arms - including almost all of the media, which felt like a first. And I was glad, I really was. 

But when it comes to disability benefits being cut, we don't get much. We get a few Guardian articles, a few MPs ask questions on a Wednesday, but it doesn't go anywhere. It's accepted, passively. It's not worth the fight because we're not worth the fight. Our lives are not as valuable as the lives of people who can contribute to the economy, the people who pay taxes, the people who teach and educate and heal and work on our public transport and in our banks and in our shops and our taxis. Of course, the government is currently trying to dismantle the hard-won rights of those working in the public sector, but my point still stands.

We need you - the activists, the politicians, the councillors, the workers, the trade unionists - to fight for us, because so often we can't fight for ourselves. We want to, but we can't. So much of our energy is taken up just by trying to survive. And when it comes to the end of the day, we don't have much left to give to activism, even though our lives depend on it.

So please, in 2016 make the conscious decision to try and raise the profile of issues like ESA reforms and housing benefit cuts and PIP changes, and give us a platform when we have the energy to talk about it. Please make a commitment to fighting for the right of every disabled person in the UK to be able to live a life with access to healthcare, safety, and dignity. Because we can't do it alone, and as each day passes another disabled person loses their fight, and it feels like soon there will be none of us left.  

I am still trying to choose life, but it's hard.

CN suicide, eating disorders (specifically mentioning purging - but just a mention) 

It has been almost two years since I've written a post on this blog.

Tonight a status from a Facebook friend on university, isolation, loneliness and mental health made me think I should try and find some words to talk about what's going on with me right now.

I'm supposed to be finishing my master's degree in August. I moved to London for this. I uprooted my life and got on a plane to go and do a degree. But I had to defer every assignment last year. I haven't even started an essay that was due last week. I wanted to finish on time, but I don't know if I'll make it. At this point, I just want it over with. Depression sucks every little bit of joy from the things in life you care about. I don't want to write about feminism, and I don't want to write papers and go to classes and have debates and think about Life After University, again. Like with my undergraduate, I have few friends in university. The false sense of security and hope I began to accumulate last year has broken into pieces now. I feel like an outsider on my own campus. 

I am on a steady diet of painkillers, anti-depressants, mood stabilisers and benzodiazepines. I make myself get out of bed, at least three or four days a week, before 10am. I eat meals regularly, for the most part. I spend most of my time alone. I tell the voice in my head that there are no such things as safe foods and unsafe foods, that all bodies are good bodies, and that I will not put my fingers down the back of my throat even though it's all I can think of doing. I don't eat a varied diet, but at least I'm eating. Most of my meals are cereal or pasta and pesto. I spend too much money on food out.

The doctors tell me I am Coping Very Well. That there is nothing they could tell me to do that I don't do already. I take my medication, I eat, I sleep, I get out of bed, I shower, though not as much as I should. I see friends. I have a partner. I am close to my family. I have interests outside of my degree and I am about to start long-term individual psychotherapy. They are uncomfortable when I talk about the impact that being poor has on my mental health. My DLA plus my housing benefit does not even cover my rent. Over two thirds of my income goes on my rent. They do not like talking about money and they know very little about benefits. 

I continue to burst into tears at inappropriate moments. I've cried too many times to count in London Bridge station, when staff have been rude and dismissive and I'm in such agony that I can barely walk, never mind take the stairs. I've had panic attacks in bars full of people enjoying their Friday night, I've left events early because I'm suicidal and I've cursed the Jubilee line for being safe and having tube barriers at every platform. 

I am exhausted and I am anxious. I am in need of a higher dose of my sedative, but need to wait to see a psychiatrist. I keep committing to things, and then hiding in my room for a few days instead. I have started to avoid looking at my emails. I always have twenty tabs open, always have a list of things to do. 

I need people to be patient with me. I'm forever needing people to be patient with me, but I really mean it this time. Living with depression and anxiety is an experience common to many. But living with complex and severe mental illness, combined with a chronic pain and fatigue disorder, is different. 

My world has been grey for quite some time, and I don't know when the colour is going to come back into it. The cliched phrase 'you never know what someone is going through behind closed doors' comes to mind. 

I am still trying to choose life, but it's hard. I cannot see the end of the week, never mind the end of the year. When I turned 23 a few weeks ago, I sat awake in bed at midnight in disbelief. When I was 17 and returning to my A Levels after several months off, I told myself I would be dead by my own hand before 20. I simply did not want to be alive for much longer than that. And while I'm still trying to keep myself alive, I cannot express in words how difficult a task that is. 

Someone I follow on Twitter posted a graphic a few weeks ago, with the caption 'I imagine that this is what people who experience anxiety & depression must feel like'. I don't know this person, but they're a good few years older than me, at least. And I could not get my head around the fact that they had made it to that point in their life without experiencing any kind of depression. I cannot imagine a life like that. I daren't, because if I had lived a life without anxiety and depression, I cannot even begin to imagine the different place I would be in. 

Rather than ending, as so many posts like this do, by telling people who feel horrific what they should be doing, I'll give a few suggestions of what you could do to better support your chronically ill and depressed friends.

- Mental illness and ableism is part of a wider system of structural oppression in society. Do not forget this. Do not divorce this from your understanding of mental illness, stigma and treatment. There is a reason more black men are given medication rather than therapy, are sectioned at a much higher rate, and often given incorrect diagnoses of schizophrenia. White supremacy, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, Islamophobia play a massive part in why those who are unwell are prevented from getting better. The world is not built for people who are mentally ill, and it is doubly not built for those who are mentally ill and queer, mentally ill and black, etc. 

- Make it a regular part of your routine to tell the people in your life who you love that you love them. Normalise it. 
- Check in regularly with your depressed and disabled friends, and cut them some slack when they snap at you, or turn down your invitation out for the tenth time. Leaving the house is difficult.

- Ask what you can do in general to help someone. For instance, I rarely forget to take medication. But many people find taking medication difficult to remember to do, and so a daily text to remind someone to take their pills can be a massive help. 

- Be kinder to one another. So much recent unnecessary cruelty directed my way has had a much huger impact on my mental health than those responsible would imagine it would have. Next time you go to write that passive aggressive tweet, or that insulting Facebook comment, ask yourself if it's really necessary. 

- People with severe mental illness do not expect you to be able to make it better. Nor are you expected to understand. Personally, what I would like, is when I tell someone I'm incredibly anxious, that they do not leave me to it because they are scared of getting it wrong. Tell the person that you are there if they need anything, ask what you can do to help. You'll build up trust, slowly. If you're scared of trying to cope, imagine what they feel like.

On Irishness, white privilege, and Being Different.

I have thought about writing a post on this for a while. A long time, actually, but never knew how to approach it. I didn't know how to make sense of the mess of thoughts and feelings in my head, never mind how to articulate them. But then I read an incredible piece by a wonderful woman I know that was verbalising the essence of what I've been trying to verbalise for months. As it obviously related directly to her life experience it was different, but the idea behind it was the same. So I'm going to get out what I've been wanting to get out for a long time.

When I was little, I was so ashamed to be Irish. Mostly, my voice. My voice and my name. My voice and my accent and the accents of anyone from Northern Ireland on television, on the radio. It sounded so horrible. I spent all of my time playing games where I would adopt English or American accents, and I wouldn't have to be me, I was able to be someone else. On television, no one had Irish accents. The only time I heard them was on the news. Everyone else spoke so well, so beautifully, their voices didn't send pangs of shame and embarrassment up my spine. I longed for a name that people wouldn't ever have to ask how to pronounce, for a name that wouldn't make it so clear that I was Irish and therefore Different. I planned to change my name once I was old enough to. For my confirmation, I took the name Lucy, because I liked it and it was normal and no one ever had to ask how to pronounce Lucy. I thought that once I went to university, I might tell people my name was Lucy and finally carve out the identity I had always wanted for myself. 

I had a stutter as a child, and I still have it now. That probably didn't help much. I sang in school and in choirs, because when you sang you didn't stutter, and you could hide your accent enough to make it sound like you were English. Like you had a Nice Voice. The kind that people would enjoy listening to. You could hide a stutter and an Irish accent when you sang. 

Fast forward fifteen years. I started getting involved with NUS and visiting England relatively regularly. At one of my first conferences, we all had name badges, and a lot of people didn't know how to pronounce my name. When they asked, I told them. And that was usually the end of it. But then a woman told me that that wasn't how my name was pronounced. She laughed, like it was obvious to everyone but me. I told her that it was Irish, it was a different language. The language didn't operate by the same rules that English did. That was the reason it was pronounced the way it was. But she refused to accept it, and kept telling me I was wrong. That has stuck with me for a year, and it is something I often think about. I have never told the woman involved how hurtful it was. I was too scared to. But I suddenly became aware of how much I stuck out, the minute I opened my mouth. The Irish jokes came thick and fast throughout the conference. I smiled, but inside I wanted to cry. 

I got further involved with NUS, and was flying out to meetings or conferences every few weeks. I became so much more aware, again, of how different I was. I felt like I was six years old again. People constantly told me to slow down. People made jokes about Irish stereotypes and the food that we ate and how much alcohol we drank and thought it was the most original, hilarious thing ever. I smiled weakly, rarely having the courage to tell them to fuck off. But I found it hurtful and patronising and the more I thought about it, the angrier I got. 

I did not speak about this with anyone for a long time. I did not know how to approach it. It wasn't racism, and it wasn't xenophobia. It was something inbetween. 

Let it be clear, I have white privilege. I am Very Very White. I carry with me every single privilege that comes with having white skin. I am not stopped and searched because I am white. Shop attendants do not follow me around thinking I might steal something. There are a magnitude of hair and beauty products in shops that are tailored to my skin tone and my hair. 107 of the 108 politicians sitting in Stormont reflect my skin colour. Northern Ireland is full of white people being represented on every possible platform, I see people who look like me on television and in plays and when I walk down the street. I have white privilege. I will be moving to England in a few months, and even there I will be the Good Kind of immigrant. Because I am white and educated and middle class and can pass for being heterosexual and don't have visible disabilities and have been socialised with many British cultural norms. I will blend in easily, because I look like everyone else and I am not Different. I will blend in easier than those from the south of Ireland, because of the magical world of borders and partition and jurisdictions. People will tell me that I am British, that I am Like Them, and will not accept it when I tell them I am not. 

Eventually, I pluck up the courage to talk about this with a few excellent women I know. Who gave me the courage to announce to my committee at the training event that I was at that I was sick of jokes and comments and laughter and piss-taking of the fact I am Irish, and didn't want it anymore. And so I did, and some friends apologised for their part in it. It helped.

I have tried to be proud. I have tried to be proud of my culture and my heritage, and I am. I am thankful both my forename and surname reflect my background, even though inevitably it shows that it is clear I am a Catholic, went to Catholic schools, and probably define as an Irish nationalist. I am angry at what has happened to my ancestors at the hands of the British state. I am sick of having to defend this anger to people who think that because they were not directly involved, I should be polite and respectful to them while they disrespect and desecrate the memory of my family and the people who fought in defence of my country, labelling them as scumbag terrorists who deserve everything they got. I am Irish and I am working on trying to stop letting the rest of the world make me ashamed to be so. 

I don't quite know the point of this post, or what I am hoping to get out of it. It is the first time I have written about this, and the first time I will ever open up to a relatively large audience about this aspect of my identity and its influence on my life. It feels strange. 

Young Labour National Conference

Below is a copy of the email I sent to every member of the Young Labour Committee. I pretty much talk about what went wrong last weekend at the conference, and figured rather than writing a separate post, it would be just as easy to post a copy of the email for anyone who was interested in finding out what problems I had with it. TW for discussion of panic attacks & mental health.

Hi all,

My name is Aisling Gallagher, and last weekend I was one of the Northern Ireland CLP delegates to the Young Labour Conference. It was my first conference, and the first conference of the other delegates from my CLP. I'd mentioned to a few committee members that I was planning to email you all to talk about how last weekend went, and I thought I should email the entire committee rather than just a few people. I'd rather have the issues I'm bringing up brought up to everyone so it's as open and transparent as possible. 

No one needs me to tell them that there were a lot of problems with the way last weekend went. I think it's easiest/most accessible if I set it all out in a list rather than a massive block of text.

1. Access in the venue. The main room had chairs packed quite closely together, and as the weekend went on the room got progressively more inaccessible, with stuff lying around and chairs moved around, particularly for anyone who might need to use mobility equipment to help them get around. As Simon mentioned in one of the caucuses, it was also an incredibly difficult room to chair in. 

2. Arrangements before the conference. Not being told where the venue was or being sent the agenda far enough in advance is incredibly bad for access (anxiety issues, people who need to plan far in advance schedules, etc.), and where possible should be sent out at least a fortnight before the conference. 

3. As a general rule it's a good idea to have a quick ten minutes on accessibility at the start of a conference. I got involved in YL through being involved with NUS, and it's done at the beginning of every NUS event. It sets out clearly what accessibility is (because i don't expect everyone to come to a conference knowing liberation inside out and I'm sure none of you do, either), what behaviours are and are not acceptable, and provides a point of contact and a safeguarding number in case anyone needs it (for instance; no whooping, no clapping while someone is speaking, that kind of thing- understandably members can be confused over this because at Labour Conference we're encouraged to clap while people speak, at NUS events we only clap once people are finished speaking, and at other groups and meetings sometimes the only clapping done is the sign language gesture for it, so it's good to have a general rule and stick to it). 

It means that everyone in the room is at least on the same page to some degree when it comes to how to conduct themselves at the conference. It doesn't solve every problem but it is generally a good thing to programme in. It also usually informs people where the safe space room is. The fact there was no safe space room and no safe guarding number is nothing short of a disgrace. I don't know who's to blame for it, but there was a safe space room at Labour Students (as far as I'm aware?), and so the excuse that I've heard ('there wasn't an available room for it') really doesn't stand up to much. I sincerely hope this won't be repeated at any future YL event, and unfortunately what happened last weekend showed how necessary these things are to have in place for every single event.

4. *That* debate. Since conference I've spoken to more people and found out more about the way Young Labour operates. I still can't really get my head around the fact that there isn't a constitution or a set of standing orders. This was talked about in a caucus, and whilst it seems whoever were the main organisers wanted the atmosphere to be a little more relaxed and informal seeing as there weren't elections (bar women's officer), this entirely backfired. You will never have an accessible debate if there are no rules governing how the debate is conducted. 

At the time I didn't know there were no standing orders, and so my anxiety/panic attack was probably brought on by the fact I just thought people were being purposely obtuse, but now I know it wasn't as simple as that. I'm not defending the actions of people (on all sides of the debate, not that it matters), but I do have some sympathy with the view that they felt there was no option but to heckle because they weren't being listened to, felt completely powerless, and the chair had complete power over how the debate was conducted. I don't know what people think about this, but I (and many others I spoke to at the conference, particularly first time delegates) think it is crucial YL write up some standing orders for how debates are conducted. It isn't an unreasonable request, and I still don't understand how YL has managed to get by for so long without any. There are plenty of hacks, both within and outside the committee, who I'm sure would be more than willing to help draw up a draft standing orders document. 

That space on Saturday was the most toxic environment I have ever been in, caused the first panic attack I'd had in months, and many disabled people including myself then had to run and hide in disabled bathrooms afterwards because there wasn't a safe space room. I left conference soon after, and didn't come back until the next day. The only reason I came back was because I wanted to go to disabled members' caucus, and my CLP had spent a considerable amount of money sending me over, but I do know of many people who left and didn't come back. I'm only sending this email now because I've been almost bedbound all week, in all likelihood as the effect the weekend has taken on my mental health. I don't believe the debate would've gotten as out of hand as it did if there were rules governing how it was to be conducted, with proper processes in place (like having the ability to challenge the chair, or propose a motion to vote in secret ballot or whatever). 

I don't believe this was the intention of anyone on the committee or anyone who organised it all, but this is the reality that these situations bring. Putting 200 Labour Party members into a room and asking them to debate a contentious topic with no rules governing how it's to be done is a recipe for disaster. Access isn't a buzzword and it isn't something I throw about lightly. I don't care how you voted and I don't care if you're a Blairite or a Bennite or you're a trot or a closet Tory; this isn't about the topic of the debate or factionalism or any of that bullshit. I haven't been involved for very long and I'm on no 'side'. But I do believe our political spaces must be as accessible as possible if they are to be inclusive, and it would worry me if the committee did not share this belief.  

5. The factional in-fighting and arguing all over the internet after the aforementioned debate didn't help either, but I also know it's not something anyone can individually tackle. But I was really disappointed to see so many people, on both sides and of all political persuasions, throwing about access as a political tool and/or as a piss-take of its importance. Ditto people speaking over/ignoring women when they were chairing, or people generally just disrespecting them in a way that definitely would not have happened if they were men. Again, not anything you can do, but if people could take this back to their relevant "camps" that would be appreciated. Because, unsurprisingly, I know they won't listen to me if I tell them this because I am just some mouthy Irish woman with a lot to say (any time I tried to bring up anything about access or anything even remotely related, it was largely ignored). If men want to be good allies to feminism, never mind wanting to call yourself feminists, then please get your houses in order. 

6. I also can't get my head around the fact out of an entire weekend there were only two hours dedicated to debating policy. The requirement of ten signatories to submit a motion isn't great either, but it isn't anywhere near as bad as the fact you can only put your name to one motion. I understand it stops factionalising as much, but it makes it significantly harder for people in less well known areas or those who don't have connections to submit policy. 

7. No one has really taken responsibility for the agenda, either. Every committee member I've spoken to so far has said they didn't see it before it was published. That doesn't seem to make sense either. It'd be good to know who was responsible for setting out the agenda, because there were a number of problems with it and I would like to have a commitment that there will be an effort to ensure this doesn't happen again.  

This email is long, and I'm not really sorry, because all of these things need to be said, and I'm sure a lot of people who feel the same are very burnt out now and so probably haven't gotten round to emailing in feedback on how it went. On a positive note, the fact every chair always went out of their way to see if women wanted to speak in plenary sessions/debates/etc was very very welcome, and I definitely haven't seen it done to the extent it was done at the weekend before. 

Feel free to get back to me individually or however you wish to if you want to talk about this further, with the understanding that it might take me a while to respond because I'm dealing with bad health at the minute along with NUS conference season and a dissertation. At times during the weekend I swore to myself that I wasn't going to come back or get involved again, so I'm sending this because I do believe YL can and should be doing better, and I want to help make sure this happens, particularly because I'll be moving to England in a few months and want to take a more active role in the party. But we need to get our shit together if we want people to want​ to come back and get involved.

Cheers,

Aisling