To celebrate National Poetry Day, here are some of my favourite feminist slam poems. They are clever, moving, amazing, and about as far from the GCSE poetry anthology as you can get, thankfully. Some are long but they are totally worth the investment. Enjoy bubbelehs, enjoy.
*trigger warning*
Staceyann Chin - My first period. Also features a haiku about George Bush. "Even Jesus had to pass through a punani Angels and messengers aside Mary had to lend passage to god Or them Christians might still be Jews Waiting for a christ that was stuck up the ass of some man Who thought he could do what little girls do Every day against our wishes"
Andrea Gibson - Letter to a playground bully from Andrea (age 8)
"I am not 'always crying',
I am just thawing outside the lines."
Sonya Renee - What women deserve
"Women do deserve better, Women deserve choice"
I think I have linked to this on the blog before, but it is just so great.
Alix Olson - Subtle sister
"So I take back the whispers, the cute, mute act and the high pitched giggles, Yeah I take them back I won't avoid your stare evade your step Nothing of that kind, I won't help you help me victimise the only space that's mine."
(Unfortunately this video is cut with other footage - but its the only reasonable version I can find on Youtube).
And finally:
Mindi Nettifee - For young women who don't consider themselves feminists (the last nerve)
Who have I missed out? Please share your favourite feminist poems below!
You've finally graduated, with a good combined degree in Humanities and Other Useless Studies. You spent your university years relatively well. You played sport for a team, you joined an orchestra. You had a social life. You're reasonably well rounded, and entirely sure that you can a: answer the telephone, b: send an "email" and c: talk to people without accidentally saying "cunt". Ready to take on the adult world of employment.
But the glorious, hopeful summer has now turned to October, and you're sitting in your parents' kitchen in yesterday's pants with a mysterious crust on your face (this bears no relation to my own life, I'm totally fine. Having a great time, actually). You're on your fifth cup of instant coffee and its only ten in the morning. You're flicking through the same unpromising job ads that you've seen every day this week. Most of them tell you neither what the job is nor who it would be for, but they do use plenty of fun, meaningless phrases like "self starter".
The fortnightly trips to the job centre take on a nightmarish air. The night before sign-on day you wake up in your sleep, soaked in sweat. Will you be able to convince the sceptical woman behind the desk that you are worthy of this week's £56.25? Difficult to say, when passing the test to keep your benefits depends on you accepting individual blame for the failings of the political system.
Of course, there's always an opening in recruitment consulting, bribing other people into becoming recruitment consultants. If you don't think about it hard enough, maybe you won't notice that its an empty, self-perpetuating job cycle created to give desperate graduates something to do. Sometimes these consultants even call you up, deliberately ignoring whatever sector it is you marked as desirable on your CV:
Consultant: "Would you like a mind-numbingly boring job that you have absolutely no interest in?"
You: "No, thank you kindly"
Consultant: "You are clearly a benefits scrounging loser. I read about your kind in the Telegraph."
I've never had a conversation like that, but it's only a matter of time.
In any case, from one work-shy feckless job-seeker to another, here are my five top tips for getting a job. They have served me admirably well in the past:
1. Start your cover letter thus:
"Dear Company,
I have no idea who you are or what you do, but frankly the position advertised is an insult to someone of my abilities. Obviously I am capable of filing, answering the telephone, and making tea. During my degree I had to write essays about dialectical materialism, for fuck's sake. Please, please, please give me this job, I really need the money."
2. Apply for unpaid internships. When they offer them to you ask if they'll pay you. If not, turn them down in an outraged email railing against slave labour, linking them to the wikipedia page for the principle of "a fair day's wage for a fair day's work". Repeat.
3. Turn down any job offers you receive. If they're offering you a job, it can't be that great a job. What's wrong with them? (See: Groucho Marx)
4. Write intimidating speculative applications to companies who don't have job openings. Threaten to leave the country if they don't create a job for you. Why should multi-billion pound businesses receive favorable treatment?
5. Whenever friends, parents, partners or bloggers try to give you well-meant job advice, laugh long and loudly. You have no need of their advice! Have you not sent five thousand applications this very week! Do you not have as much chance as anyone else of landing the BBC Director-General job (as and when George Entwistle vacates it)? Shout all these things aggressively, then cry and run out of the room.
On a side note, all the stock pictures of women and implants are of white women
I have a new piece up on Comment is free. Its about a recent scandal in which contraceptive implants have become lost in women's bodies, and problems with the contraceptive market more generally. And the global pharmaceutical industry. And gender: Contraception is no stroll in the park and men should share the stress
