Jill Rants and Raves: political correctness, glenda jackson and aging well

Perhaps it's the oppressive heatwave we've been having, maybe it's that I'm annoyed with myself for the extra 20 pounds I've been lugging around for the last 2 years, or it could be that I got upset with a story I heard yesterday about some trigger-happy moron who shot two dogs -belonging to a friend of a friend- who wandered, tails wagging and happy eyed, onto his property down a dirt road somewhere north of here. The black lab died on the scene, the border collie cross survived with a shattered jaw. Sport shooting - nothing more and nothing less. The owner had to come looking for her injured dog. The dogs were loose on his property. He gets to shoot 'em. End of story. 'Nuff said on that. I don't feel good about it.

But it could just be that I have been a bit triggered by something, and it surprised me, and I'm gonna talk about it because that's what I do - I confront head on the differences between us. If you read my blog, you know I fall left of the line. My resume checks out. You don't need to check my political credentials. Along with my union card, my pure Labour Party voting record and my status as some sort of freakin' lesbian feminist hero, I've got some stock in that 'Right On Savings Bank', dontcha think? Arrests for the 'right' things, banner waving, front line anti war demonstrator, activist, graffiti collaborator, anti porn radical, and admired icon photographer of refaced billboards, girls making out in public toilets and portraitist of such illustrious celebs as Kathy Acker, Susie Bright, Dorothy Allison and Justin Bond (to name but a few). So, ya know, even though I torment myself with self doubt and inner turmoil - I am proud, damn fucking proud of what I've accomplished.

But I do have some libertarian blood streaking in my veins, I do have an innate dislike of government encroachment on our civil liberties, and I fantasise and plot how to get my 100 acres in the woods, with meadows and streams and deer and bobcats, and only the raptors flying overhead. And I do listen to right wing radio and it doesn't always make me feel sick. It helps me understand, helps me get a grip on how Prop 8 succeeded, how 'our side' failed to make our case, how maybe we just ran a bad campaign, how those who hate us feel, and think and act. And yes, I find common ground with my enemies. I wonder how a man like Michael Savage can call me 'vermin', yet we would ooh and coo over a frickin' poodle. How could he be one of the most outspoken voices supporting the decriminalization of marijuana?

I don't like being in an airless room full of people who think exactly as I do and I don't like to be marginalised by anyone.

I know all about political correctness from both sides. Been there, done that. In the late 70's and throughout the 80's in London there was a fog of fear which hung almost unseen over our community. The fear of being out of (lock)step with proscriptive feminism and the possible excommunication from the protectiveness of the lesbian feminist community I existed in, kept me stuffing my gender issues in a bag and dumping it at the back of the sodding closet. And I did it myself - once when Glenda Jackson was hosting an event at a London theatre to oppose a virulent anti woman anti choice law, a few of us self-important South London dykes in dungaress disrupted the event because we thought someone onstage made a sexist comment. Glenda was furious with us. Here I am, she yelled, raising a ton of money for a good cause and you come after me. What are you doing? She was right. We were just self-righteous.

I think recently I've been a little protected, because at my age younger members of this community mostly look on me as a hero of sorts. I get emails from teenagers, and students telling me how much my work and I mean to them. But our heroes always have clay feet. And there is a new righteous political correctness emerging and you know what - I don't like it.

Postscript. Ten years after yelling at Glenda Jackson that she was a sexist hack, I photographed her in her dressing room before a performance. She looked at me when I walked in and said 'you look familiar.' I blushed and told the story of disrupting her event. She looked hard at me, took a long drag on her cigarette and said 'You've improved with age'. Yes. I had.