The Work & Writing of Laurie Penny

Ballot boxes ready to go at Reykjavik city hall.

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 18:53:21 -0400

Ballot boxes ready to go at Reykjavik city hall.

OWS Library poetry book. Someone just sent me a photo of the...

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 15:42:56 -0400

OWS Library poetry book. Someone just sent me a photo of the drawing @mollycrabapple did of me, that got used for the cover, left out in the rain at Zucotti Park, and just resurfaced. <3 #ows

#panoptigram

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 20:08:23 -0400

#panoptigram

Today’s reading. Housing Works bookshop-cafe, SoHo. This...

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 16:17:00 -0400

Today’s reading. Housing Works bookshop-cafe, SoHo. This is my jam right now, in that I can’t seem to get it off my fingers.

Pamphlets! 1.Oldskool book research 2.Teastains add...

Sat, 30 Mar 2013 09:09:16 -0400

Pamphlets! 1.Oldskool book research 2.Teastains add authenticity 3.Instagram is not work.

In which I am @warrenellis’ pixie helper who only he can...

Fri, 22 Mar 2013 11:29:40 -0400

In which I am @warrenellis’ pixie helper who only he can see…

Some of the mindmapping at #weirdshitcon2013.

Thu, 14 Mar 2013 12:25:58 -0400

Some of the mindmapping at #weirdshitcon2013.

Judgy Accessorize models are judging me. This is just like...

Fri, 08 Mar 2013 18:10:26 -0500

Judgy Accessorize models are judging me. This is just like school.

Heathrow, 6am. 4 hours’ sleep out of the past 48. Berlin...

Wed, 06 Mar 2013 00:58:05 -0500

Heathrow, 6am. 4 hours’ sleep out of the past 48. Berlin here I come.

In which @owenjones84 and me have solidarity-tea (solidaritea?)....

Wed, 20 Feb 2013 10:03:53 -0500

In which @owenjones84 and me have solidarity-tea (solidaritea?). Because fighting the good fight can be lonely work.

Don’t worry mum, I’ve got tea, I’m fine. xx

Wed, 06 Feb 2013 13:56:58 -0500

Don’t worry mum, I’ve got tea, I’m fine. xx

Black bloc protecting the march #opantish

Wed, 06 Feb 2013 11:53:44 -0500

Black bloc protecting the march #opantish

Tahrir Square. #opantish

Wed, 06 Feb 2013 11:53:31 -0500

Tahrir Square. #opantish

Wed, 06 Feb 2013 11:53:23 -0500

Tahrir Square. #opantish

‘There is no law and no police. This is a message- if...

Wed, 06 Feb 2013 09:48:18 -0500

‘There is no law and no police. This is a message- if anyone touches me, I will defend myself’ #opantish

‘We the youth will liberate egypt’ - march against...

Wed, 06 Feb 2013 08:55:01 -0500

‘We the youth will liberate egypt’ - march against sexual harassment, 6th Feb 2013

Ella and I have just noticed how very much the traditional image...

Tue, 05 Feb 2013 11:18:25 -0500

Ella and I have just noticed how very much the traditional image of the Virgin Mary look like a vulva. Can this be accidental?

Yesterday, the historic Freedom Press bookshop in Whitechapel...

Sat, 02 Feb 2013 09:39:00 -0500

Yesterday, the historic Freedom Press bookshop in Whitechapel was firebombed by persons unknown. From what anyone can make out, it appears to have been a targeted arson attack - the police are investigating and treating the blaze as suspicious.

Everyone who works at the bookshop is safe, and they’ve managed to save most of the upstairs. However, the electrics and a lot of stock are damaged. This little radical bookshop, which has been running for 126 years, is an important piece of London’s history, and it really needs your help today.

To donate money, send cheques or postal orders made payable to Freedom Press can be sent to Freedom Press, 84b Whitechapel High Street, London E1 7QX, UK.

You can also help by ordering books through their website and then emailing them at subs@freedompress.org.uk to let us know that your purchase was a donation and you don’t need them to send you anything.

This seems a little bit fiddly, I know, but there are good reasons why it’s set up like this for now. I was just down at the bookshop helping out and dropping off some supplies, and the damage to all those rare books is just horrible to see.

[photo by Hal Bergman]

A still from perhaps mu favourite piece of art, Harry...

Wed, 30 Jan 2013 09:51:34 -0500

A still from perhaps mu favourite piece of art, Harry Clarke’s 1924 ‘Eve of St Agnes’ window which I finally got to see for real today. It is. Made. Of. Glass. And the picture you’re looking at is larger than the original. Think about that for a second.

Ableism and apologies

Wed, 30 Jan 2013 06:06:00 -0500

Last night my use of ableist language in a previous post, ‘Take Back The Net’, was called out by feminist allies both on Twitter and on The F Word. I think that those who called me out were absolutely right to do so - when the mistake was pointed out, I was mortified. Philippa Willitts, author of the post at the F Word, explained that when I wrote this:

“It’d be nice to think that the rot of rank misogyny was confined to fringe sites populated by lunatics. Unfortunately, not only are men like White clearly at least minimally sane enough to hold down desk-jobs, their school of misogyny has become an everyday feature of political conversation online, particularly in the UK.

…It felt “like a punch in the stomach.”

I’m sorry, Philippa. Here’s what I meant to say: the use of terms like ‘crazy’ and ‘mental’ to describe online trolls is hugely problematic. There’s absolutely no correlation between violent misogyny and having mental health difficulties. Most of the people I’m closest to have at some point struggled with their mental health, and none of them have posted rape fantasies about women online. Writing off disgusting, violent prejudice as ‘crazy’ is intellectually vacuous and perpetuates the worst sort of stereotyping. Unfortunately, that’s not what I actually wrote.

What I wrote was a crude way of describing the situation, for multiple reasons, not least because one should not need to be quote sane unquote to be able to hold down a job - that’s precisely the kind of attitude that perpetuates the stereotypes that make employers push aside the CVs of anyone with a history of, say, depression. I fucked up here, and I fucked up doubly hard because I’ve written for mental health publications in the past. I’ve been both a carer and a person with mental health difficulties, I’ve for godssake spoken at conferences about how and why ableist language, misuse of words like ‘schizoid’ and ‘nutter’ in the media, is unhelpful. In other words, I *should know better*.

I was originally intending to simply change the wording of the piece with a note, and I imagine that’s what I’ll do if and when I’m called out with justification in future. The reason for explaining the process at more length here is that - well. Some people seem to have a big problem right now with a culture of online debate that allows those without large public media platforms to challenge those who do if and when they fuck up and play into lazy stereotypes. I don’t mean to hijack a discussion of ableism with my own hand-wringing, but this is relevant to wider issues of ‘privilege-checking’ right now, so read on if you’re interested.

This is not, as some people have already suggested following my brief apology on Twitter, about language-policing, or about letting the internet dictate what you write and think. People toss criticism at me all the time (really: ALL THE TIME) that I don’t respond to, because not all of it is meaningful and some of it is disingenuous, uninformed, or comes from a place of hate. However, in light of the “Take Back The Net” post, which was all about online ethics and silencing, I’m actually a big fan of the net culture that lets people call others out on their occasional fuckups and gives them space to change.

Legitimate, useful critique is not the same as hate-trolling or censorship. I know other people have different opinions on this, but personally I think that if we are to deal with either of the extremely real, pressing problems of online censorship or of harassment and hate speech, then we also need to get used to taking ownership of our mistakes.