EQUALITY FOR ALL!!!

I have been thinking about writing something for the past 5 years and I cannot believe that it has been so long since my last post. The reason behind it is very simple and quite interestingly another inequality matter. I gave birth to my youngest child 5 long years ago and haven’t been able to do any of the things I enjoy the most because of that.

I can see some people cringing and thinking ‘Oh no, not another one of those unhappy and dissatisfied mothers/feminists, who moan about motherhood and what it entails. If you you have had any of the reactions described I have two options for you: 1 open your mind and continue reading; 2 stop reading, you’re not ready to hear the truth, take your blue pill and continue living your Matrix life.

I have three wonderful human children, who, despite my husband’s and my own flaws and efforts to pass all that unnecessary heritage onto them, are doing well and are wonderful, loving people. I think my spouse and I can take a lot of credit for that particular thing cause love is what we have always had in abundance and what we have given a plenty. Yes, love and other emotions too but that is what parents do and I am finally not apologising for it but looking for better ways to communicate. I find that nature and hormones are trying to intervene in my great plan with perimenopausal problems but that’s a topic for a different article.

But I digressed long enough. How and why an accomplished woman like myself did not get her act together for 5 long years to write something, anything, that was not connected to work or was not a shopping list is very simple but also quite complicated. In my head I ‘write’ all the time and I create stories and worlds that are making me feel all sorts of things in response to the moment and situation that I’m in, whether it’s to entertain myself at a rather boring time or take me into the world of phantasy because reality is so downright grey and dull, and you are not allowed to go out or travel anywhere for months on end (by the way for women often it’s not just during lockdowns that this stuff happens). To have the time and strength to sit down with a pen in my hand or to type on my laptop, that’s a very different ‘story’. I have created and lost so much material over the years for so many reasons but the biggest one of all is being a wife and a mother which is nothing more than being a woman in a society where a man needs to leave the house after being to work and attending to the baby’s a few basic needs and not attending to any of the woman’s needs at all. It’s a funny thing how they don’t seem to get that we need to get away from time to time too, meet other people and feel like a person and not a mother. They also don’t get that we need to talk about the elephant in the room – the man, who is not responding to his wife calling his name when he’s at home, because it’s been called too many times and he feels uncomfortable with it, except the cry of a baby, though names no names is a constant call for its mother but that’s ok along with getting your breast out everywhere and all the time, being on display in public places, where judgemental members of society are ready to shame you with their glances and comments for doing the most natural thing in the world. Of course there is a reason why your husband doesn’t respond to you calling his name – you were at home the whole time while he was at work and you were sitting, and chilling with the very quiet baby, who does not need to be held and breastfed and changed and taught empathy and human connection through your actions, early development has been documented and proven scientifically but it is not only mum’s responsibility to teach and that process is relentless if it falls on one person only. On top of that there are so many expectations of what mum should be able to do right away to look like that girl that she was before getting pregnant and to act like her. For the first few weeks it’s difficult to do anything that does not involve the baby and people who show mums working out with their babies to get back to shape only a day after the birth or cooking with the baby in the sling or just going to take a bath ( not shower because then you might not hear if the baby is awake) are showing those few exceptions, who for some reason can do these things but I don’t know how! It is virtually impossible if you don’t have the whole village to support you and your efforts!!! During Covid our ‘villages’ had been shut down by governments and we were left, as always, begging our male partners to share the burden. Many of them did. But even then both parents were left exhausted and not wanting to engage in any creative activity. The future was so bleak and uncertain for so many, it seemed inappropriate to even try and come out with something in fear of creating another tear in the already divided public, and we are all so critical when given the opportunity…

It takes a village to raise a child. It is such an important wisdom. Your villages are your close ones and friends. Your play groups and any baby classes that you take your child to where you create bonds for yourself and your baby creates their own. The neighbours, the people you meet when walking the dog, who engage with your child, your child’s teachers and childminders our pets but today even the people on TV, in social media. We have created a global village that makes us vulnerable and it makes our children vulnerable in so many ways. I am 5 years into being mum for the third time and a year into being a grandmother for the first. In todays world it is a whole new experience. I am a part of my own village and my oldest daughter’s village. I work with families and I am privileged to be a part of so many other small villages that raise human beings of diverse origin ‘uniquely human’ and I am proud that my life has turned out this way.

Today I have made another step to becoming myself again. I hope you can find that strength in life too!

I have a chip on my shoulder and I don’t deny it. There is no point really. I know that there is a huge inequality and my ‘chip’ is very simply a result of that. I actually “have chips on both of my shoulders and they keep me well balanced!” (I like this statement but as it happens I did not come up with it so I put it in inverted commas: unfortunately, I cannot remember where I heard it so am unable to give any references ).

Being an outsider is a tremendous disadvantage and even my friends who migrated from one English speaking country to another have confirmed that it is not easy to try and fit in. There is always someone ready to point out to you that you are  from the nation that in the past had wronged you or something similarly divisive. It is even more disadvantageous if you come from a nation that is considered: uncivilized,  crude, less developed and in general less. The only evidence to support that is anecdotal but once in the literature, on the news or stated by a politician there is no way to erase it from people’s memory and there will always be someone who will use these arguments, true or not, to prove their point.

I sometimes wonder if anyone except for me has noticed, and I notice these things thanks to the chip on my shoulder, that in most American movies and TV series, not so much is English as of late but still, the protagonists are always the people whose names clearly suggest their western European origin. All the antagonists or as children call them ‘baddies’ have names and accents suggesting Eastern Europe origin, especially when it comes to corrupt cops or coppers, or especially unintelligent and very primitive criminals who usually get caught and have their hind parts kicked by their more sophisticated and better developed in every way adversaries. There is also another group of villains that holds a special place in the ‘pantheon’ of cinematographic stereotypes. They are the ‘baddies’ of German and Scandinavian origin! They are complicated characters that have to be feared and admired at the same time! They are mentally advanced and give the protagonists the most trouble but succumb in the end to the superior Anglo ‘race’ (just a little note – these are merely the stereotypes observed on TV).

Finally, we come to the group that is the most misrepresented and treated with the most disrespect in most films and on TV. These are people of colour. If you have ever looked closely and actually thought about it then you know what I’m talking about. In the past it was of course much worse. If the crude and unsophisticated villain was not an Eastern European character then it was a person of colour, most often than not, a young black man. Today they might claim that things have changed and both film directors and script writers are casting black people or other minority representatives in the most positive and important roles. Perhaps, but they still have not got rid off the old way of thinking and for one positive role there is at least one negative in the same movie or episode of a series.

Why did I get so hung up on movies and TV series? In the world that we live in for many people what they watch on TV, online or in the cinema is the only ‘education’ they get. The pictures of other countries, nations and cultures they have in their heads come from a source that used to show women as sexual, dependent on men, irrational, clueless creatures, who had to be told what to do every minute of every day. Which brings me to the other chip on my other shoulder.

As a woman I have heard many ridiculous things said to me. ‘Laugh like a girl, a girl shouldn’t laugh like that.’ or ‘Don’t be too competitive, boys don’t like girls like that.’ When I expressed my opinion a few years ago to my male friend that jobs that are predominantly done by women are paid significantly less, he said he didn’t think so. Of course not! He is a man! He never had to think about it and feel underprivileged because of some ancient stereotype that still prevails in so many minds… Well actually there are a few stereotypes that ruin boys lives too but it is still not nearly as bad as for girls and women so I am not going to spend time dwelling on it as this article is about the chips on my shoulders and not someone else’s.

I have not exhausted the topic of minorities misrepresented in cinematography but I touched only on the subject. If you feel that you would like to add or comment something please write to me.

P.S. ALL THE BEST IN 2018 !!!

Yesterday, 17 June 2017, I took part in the Pride march in Edinburgh. It was my very first time and I enjoyed that experience immensely! It was colorfuland and vibrant, full of life, happiness and pride! It was a celebration of love, friendship and freedom and I felt privileged to be there. Even the Scottish weather was impressed with all the wonderful raibows and colorful people in flamboyant outfits with equally striking personalities. It brought out the sun to shine brightly on all those wonderful people putting them for those few hours in a spotlight. WE could also hear many different languages spoken in the crowd, reminding us that it is not possible to be who you feel you are or love who you really are in love with in many countries in the world. My friend and I were wondering how many Polish people took part in that event, discussing the negativity surrounding similar events taking place in Poland. It was absolutely heartbreaking to hear that rainbow families would never feel comfortable enough to take their children to a Pride march in Warsaw for fear of violence, verbal abuse and lack of protection from the police. Here in Edinburgh the police were friendly, walking alongside the marching crowd, smiling and supporting everyone just like officers should. My friend, who has been interested in the execution of  LGBT equality right in Scotland told me that the police have an LGBT employment policy in place, insuring that LGBT officers can be employed and have equal rights in the service. We also saw a stall with royal navy LGBT officers and it was really reassuring on one hand. What’s the other hand? Well, another of my very dear friends pointed out that the ideal situation would be if there was no need for special LGBT insuring rights’ policies simply because everyone would be mature enough to accept the diversity surrounding us, not only in regards to LGBT communities but also all the other so called protected characteristics. Hear! Hear!

I guess that would be the perfect world where everyone could live their life in peace and safety. But before that perfect time comes we have to go out into the streets and march celebrating our differences or peacefully reminding people that whatever our nationality, religion, gender, sexual orientation or social status is, at the end of the day we are all human and feel exactly the same emotions such as grief, happiness, sadness, joy, fear, excitement, love, hate, hunger, thirst, cold… But the one that makes us do unforgivable things and act without the necessary reflection is FEAR and FEAR is very often used and fuelled by the people in power to control us and keep us right where they want us to be in order to keep them in power. Think about it before you vote next time.

But all in all I’M PROUD OF YOU EDINBURGH!!!

It’s sometimes difficult to find the right words to say what’s on my mind… I tend to write poems then 🙂

Who are we expecting?

You’re pregnant? That’s great news!

What is it? A boy or a girl?

Have you chosen the colour of the room?

Pink or blue?

Have you decided the name?

Dick or Sue?

Is he going to be strong and sorty like his daddy?

She will be beautiful and kind like her mummy.

Well, I’ve got news for you.

Dick has been lately really blue.

Today he told me he wants to be called Sue.

What am I going to do?

I’m going to call her Sue.

And then I’m going to paint the room blue,

green, yellow, purple, pink, red and black too.

That’s what I’m going to do.

My invisible son

If I had a son I would call him Jan

or John or nothing at all…

If I had a son I would let him be

whoever he wants, whatever makes him happy!

If I had a son I wouldn’t call him a man

I would call him a person…

I have a son.

His name isn’t Jan.

HIs name is Jordan.

My son is free to choose whoever he wants to be

as long as he’s happy.

I will never call my son a man

because the word is too small.

He’s the best person I know!

And that’s who he’ll always be to me.

Soon we will take off his cloak of invisibility!

Matka Polka

Matka Polka tranzwestytow nie rodzi,

wzorowa i unikatowa.

Matka Polka tranzwestytow nie rodzi,

a Ojciec Polak takich dzieci nie plodzi.

Tranzwestyta to wynaturzenie i zboczenie.

Dla polskich rodzicow upokorzenie.

Polska rodzina z cnot w swiecie slynie.

Niech lepiej tranzwestyta zginie.

Bo przeciez Matka Polka go nie urodzila

i wlasnym mlekiem nie wykarmila.

To musiala byc sprawka Zlego,

albo naukowca szalonego.

Tranzwestyta pojawil sie z prozni,

A kto twierdzi inaczej ten bluzni.

Gowniarzowi porzadnie sprac cialo!

Jak go dupsko bedzie bolalo

to od razu sie z tego wyleczy

i bedzie gowniarz mowil do rzeczy

Bo Matka Polka tranzwestytow nie rodzi

A Ojciec Polak takich dzieci nie plodzi.

Peace is what I believe makes sense in life.

Peace is what I want for myself and everyone else.

I’ve met many people in my life and they were all searching for peace be it the inner peace to help with their worries and anxieties, or the world peace to stop people from killing each other.

Politicians are trying to convince us that there are reasons to kill and get killed in the wars that they have ‘unlished’ onto this world. They tell us that some people are heroes and others criminals but both sides are killing and the damage and suffering is equally terrible. People used to protest and go out onto the streets to show their disapproval of the involvement of their government in a war. Today they watch TV, listen to politicians spreading hate in their speeches, manipulating data to show the reality they want you to know and the world becomes a tiny little globe of fear and misery.

How do we achieve peace?

Personally I believe it starts with getting to know yourself, getting to know who you are and the acceptance from other people ( NOT LISTENING TO THE NEWS WHICH IS FAKE). At first the acceptance comes from your parents and members of close family, people that you look up to. Once they accept and respect you as a person, you can accept yourself and then you accept others. There also has to be love and emotional nourishment which turns into ‘a compass’ in your life, guiding your empathy, helping you judge what is right and what is wrong when interacting with other humanbeings. A person equipped with all the above can achieve inner peace and ‘guard’ the world peace in a very simple yet effective way – spreading acceptance, respect, love and understanding.

That is my recipe for the most important thing in the world.

The reason we haven’t been able to achieve it is that we have too much inequality and injustice everywhere. How to change that? I started with myself. I think it’s a great shame God doesn’t come to Earth anymore. I’d like the burning bush to come to Trump and tell him to give away all his worldly possessions and go to a desert to think things through. Of course we could have one burning Bush come to Trump but I don’t think there would be any instructions or listening, probably a lot of screaming and possibly manhandling the burning Bush.

Nevertheless, peace is what I desire. At the moment I would love some PEACE and QUIET 🙂

There are many different kinds of war that we fight during our existance on this planet and just because some of them are referred to as such only metaphorically it doesn’t mean that they scar human beings less.

As an immigrant you fight battles every day. There are the battles that you fight with yourself, getting used to the new culture, language, way of life; you fight with yourself to open your mouth and say something beacuse you’ve already learned that the foreign accent coming out of your mouth when you speak generates all kinds of reactions, unfriendly looks being the least disturbing. You also fight battles with your family as the feeling of being ‘alien’ never really completely vanishes so anything can cause the family to lose their delicate balance. The moment you start feeling good about yourself   politicians sabotage that, throwing you under the bus full of blind and deaf, NHS and benefits deprived by you people, who accelerate when the politician on the upper deck screams ‘you have a green light!’ There are also the battles that you fight with those that you meet at work, in the institutions and so on… It can be really exhausting!

Sometimes you have to fight in the front lines and the imminent shellshock knocks you right down. Somehow you have to pull yourself together after that, pick up the pieces off the battlefield when you’d stepped on a landmine, reattach the limbs, give yourself a quick and crude brain surgery, as it usually suffers the hardest blow and let your corpse keep on figting the lost cause. I called it the lost cause for the simple reason that I’ve lost my faith in humankind.

Being an immigrant, I chose to work with other immigrants. I help them and their children settle in the new country when they arrive, I share with them my experience, paint a beatiful picture of their future, using a pallette of positive colours and try not to see too many parallels between us. It makes things less painful then. Before I go to work every single morning I ‘get all up in arms’ to fight yet another battle for ‘my kind’, a battle which doesn’t bring me any closer to winning the war against immigrants that has lasted for millennia. And so I’ve developed an immunity that helps me through the life that I’ve chosen for myself and my family, a thicker skin, a scarred skin that barely lets you see the person that I used to be.

So what am I still doing here?!

Well, since you’ve asked I feel obliged to answer. A few years back I thought I fought this war alone. A one woman army with mission impossible. I felt lonely and believed that no one else wanted to support a lost cause. I thought I was like a kamikaze, having been raised to sucrifice but to never surrender… Then it turned out that there are people who think a life of an immigrant is not worthless. Then they taught me to stand up for myself and others and fight my battles together in a group where we all have each others backs and I found some really good friends. Besides, I like fighting a just cause, even if it’s a lost one 🙂

Thank you all you wonderful people, who make my life so meaningful!!!

I wonder…

When 2016 started, I had high hopes and plans for my future. I even started feeling I had become a part of ‘the global society’. The feeling of belonging for the first time in my life was overwhelming and the warmth of positive emotions surged thrgough my body. I felt invincible! I couldn’t have been more wrong…

My newfound confidence and certainty that the world is slowly but surely, becoming a better place for everyone because we are all, including the world leaders, following the same principles rooted in moral grounds common to all people, and laws insuring that every human being is as important as the ones living in ‘golden mansions’ was shattered. Brexit showed me how naive and wrong I was! A citizen of a second sort. Here in the UK and in the country where I was born, for it had been announced by the leader of the PiS party (a very adequate acronym in English ) Jaroslaw Kaczynski. Of course he wasn’t after me personally. I just happen to support the opposition. As my father used to sing, borrowing the lyrics from Polish comedians ‘I was always in the opposition I expect a proposition’. Here the proposition is to call me names, spit in my face, and shove me out of the country (not possible as I left 12 years ago) because I have different views and opinions to what the government and the church are preaching. But I guess they are only following the footsteps of those that they look up to: the USA…and for Kaczynski that’s probably it. By the way, it must be very difficult for him to follow anybody’s footsteps with his short legs. But I digress and have devoted too much of my precious time and space to someone whom I despise.

Going back to the disappointments of 2016 that have been haunting us and keep many of us awake at night. I have to voice my concernes about the fact that powerful people with money and high political positions have been making statements or even have broken the law in public and yet no one is holding them accountable for their actions and words. They make public appearances, give speeches and show everyone who has ever had any doubts about acting on their hate towards others, that it is OK! I am not a lawyer but I am quite sure that there are laws clearly stating that if someone is egging on others to commit crimes they are commiting a crime too. The aftermaths of Brexit and the USA elections are, as everyone knows, the rise in hate crime against people that became scapegoats for politicians. But not only that. For those countries to openly state that they support leaders who are xenophobic, homophobic, create divisions and inequalities it’s like giving the rest of the world a green light to do all that and chip in a few of their own ideas to ruin humanity.

To show that we believe in equality and no one stands above the law, in each hate crime case that goes to court, Farage, Cameron, Johnson, Trump, Kaczynski, Le Pen and many others, whose political campains caused any kind of illegal behaviour towards any of the protected characteristics, should be tried alongside.

It pains me to see that again the reports of such crimes often talk about muslim women being targeted. And so I come back to the point that I made in one of my earlier posts.It is easy to abuse a woman, more so if she is with a small child or a baby, or pregnant. No threat there for the abuser. She will protect the child and won’t retaliate. Sometimes there are several ‘courageous’ men attacking a woman, trying to rip the hijab of her head. Such an honourable act of… stupidity and hate.

But there is another ‘oppressed group’ that no one talks about because they don’t complain simply because often they don’t know they are being abused and that the reason for the abuse is their ethnicity. They are children in schools. Schools are full of people, just like streets, shopping centres and other public places. People are easily biased and have different opinions about things.There are laws against certain behaviours but, as stated earlier, they can be violated without repercussions in public, then how difficult it is in schools where children often do not have the awareness that what is happening is wrong. Children can bully other children for many different reasons and the educators are there to teach that those ‘different things’ are not good reasons to give someone a hard time or make them feel worse, unwanted or worthless. But what if educators share the views that ‘the others’ are just annoying strangers and become the opressors and what if other adults choose to ignore the wrong doing of other adults, just like in the streets and other public places, but for different reasons? What then?

So what are you going to do about it 2017? Are you going to help us change the situation and make the humankind get back on track towards a common goal? Maybe it is an experiment conducted by aliens and they will claim Trump, Farage and others soon if we show them that we learned the lesson after WWII and we can’t be easily manipulated but then again, we would have to change the way we teach the history in very country…wishful thinking.

For 2017 I ask everyone to consider the question by a great writer:

‘To be equal or not to be?’

Hello everyone!

Long time no see or shall I say no read 🙂

After the shock and the disappointmet that Brexit had left me in I could not pull myself together. I really couldn’t believe that the xenophobic rhetoric used by politicians supporting the separation of the UK from the European Union would be something that the society would buy into. It is really awful knowing that the feeling of security that we previously had has been shaken and ultimately gone in many parts of the country.

Being used by people hungry for power and money has always been the experience of immigrants but being verbally and physically abused, attacked and killed for speaking Polish and being treated like ‘vermin’, that I believe had happened in the past and was supposed to stay in the past. It is frightening that there are politicians who spread hatred and prejudice but because they have money and power they basically are ‘above the law’.

At the moment it is unbeliavable what is happening in the world. Leaders of many countries are using fear and the ignorance of their citizens to manipulate them and make them believe that immigrants and refugees are a threat for their countries, the economy and every ‘legitimate’ citizen of a country. It seems that the more societies have the less they are willing to share with the ones who need help. Sending something to the countries where people don’t have much – sure, it is our duty! but letting people come and live in a war free zone – oh, this is such a strain! But we’ve send them some blankets, can’t they stay where they are? it is not our problem… We have become more selfish then ever.

I am not going to write anything more today as it is late and I need to go to work, which I haven’t stolen from anyone BTW, but it is underpaid and I’m overqualified to do it but I keep on doing it as it is a job and what else could a ‘Polish vermin’ expect to do as an immigrant? Any comments?

Please have a look at my poem called Immigrants on Poems page. I wrote it 3 years ago but more relevant than ever, I think anyway.

‘You can’t wear skinny jeans to school it’s unfair on your male teachers.’ A teenage female student heard in her high school and was sent home to dress properly or as some w…

Source: Who is the victim here?

‘You can’t wear skinny jeans to school it’s unfair on your male teachers.’ A teenage female student heard in her high school and was sent home to dress properly or as some would say decently and others would say unprovocatively. It doesn’t matter what adjective you are going to use here to justify your comment because as a teacher if you looked at a student wearing skinny jeans and you got ideas that you felt were inappropriate who is the one who should go home? Perhaps there is something wrong with you and you should seek help? Are you blaming the girl for your thoughts and ideas? Does it not remind you of a situation where a rape victim is being blamed for what happened to her?

I read an article online claiming that around 11 girls in Great Britain last year were sent home because they were wearing too short skirts or leggings. It is a phenomenon that occurs not only in the UK but in many other ‘civilised countries’. Frankly it doesn’t matter what country you live in, the so called developed or developing, girls are always the ones who are being shamed for their outfits, hairstyles and make-up. The world is sending a lot of contradicting messages to these young women. Television, fashion designers are telling them that it is ok to show off their young bodies. Their favourite celebrities are more popular if they can shock their audience with what they wear. Teenage girls are trying to find themselves, their individuality but at the same time they want to fit in and be liked by their friends. They express themselves by the way they dress and they should not be criticised for it. They should not be shamed publicly for what they wear and they should not be told at school that an adult and a teacher is unable to control himself when looking at them. Should he be a teacher then? Going back to the number of girls sent home mentioned earlier, I think the it is much higher but not all of the ‘incidents’ are being recorded as not many girls complain about such treatment from their usually male teachers. What’s more, many more girls hear comments that make them feel ashamed and humiliated because of their choice of clothes.

Let’s reverse the situation and say that a female teacher makes a comment like that to a young male student in a school ‘You should not wear skinny jeans to school it’s unfair on your female teachers…’ Wouldn’t most people then think she was wrong to say that? But also do you think female teachers cannot get ideas when they look at their young students, especially when they are wearing tight jeans? Let me tell you that the old-fashioned ideas that you have about women are totally wrong. We enjoy looking at male butts! We just don’t talk about it all the time and aloud! And again if a female teacher gets ideas at work about her students it is as wrong as it is when a male teacher does. So let’s send the message to all teachers that if they find themselves attracted to the young people in their classroom it’s time for them to get professional help and maybe change their career rather than traumatize their pupils with what I find highly inappropriate comments.

I would also like to ask those who tell the girls to change their clothes to ‘cover themselves’ if they think what they are imposing is progress? Not that long ago in history there was a time when women wore long gowns and covered every bit of their ‘sinful bodies not to lead men onto temptation’. It was also the time of torturing and burning women if men could not undersatand what they were saying or doing. Is that what you would like our global society to go back to?

‘Hey, teachers! Leave the girls alone!!!’