SEXISM, SMOOTHIES AND STRUGGLE

A UNIVERSITY ADMINISTRATOR'S DIARY

5am Early start! Lots of meetings today and a couple of disciplinary hearings. That whole thing about canteen staff still asking students if they want WHITE coffee just won’t go away. I guess real racism never does. A kelp and dandelion smoothie, some Stormzy while I meditate and draw a mandala in my own menstrual blood, and off to face the day!

6am Already at my desk, but not a good start. The Vietnamese co-operative who lined the trans safe space in bamboo have sent an invoice. We did tell them not to put on a protective coating of varnish because it is eco-aggressive, but now it has all rotted from the inside. Jazzie PP says xe can poke xer finger through it. But I don’t see why we should pay them. That money could go to Venezuela.

7.15am Why do we even use clock time? It’s patriarchal. Time was invented by men to pressurise women and non-binaries. From now on, just assume all my entries begin ‘whenever’. It’s time for woman time!

Vagina Club meeting very positive. We have a new speaker booked for whenever (see? You can take down the patriarchy any TIME. Geddit?) and xe is called . Xir name is just a blank. Brilliant, because that is all we are to the patriarchs, right?

A showdown with the Dean of Cultural Studies. Again. David Rossman’s ‘book’ – actually Mein Kampf with a slightly better cover – is still in the library. IQ comes up no less than seven times in the index, and this in the same book as xeeple of colour are mentioned! Why not just turn that bit at the back of the library into a gas chamber?

Quick almond and lychee latté with sustainable chocolate topping, then it’s the Black Queers for Palestine sit-in in the main square. They are so much fun, and so queer! Note to self – Why is the square called a ‘square’? The rigidity of four lines suggests a power structure designed to entrap not-males within patriarchal angles. Tell Dean to call it something else. Suggest ‘circle’.

Relax! Simon 17 and Imogen Maneater are doing some improv on the lawn, which looks a lot better since it was dug up by Extinction Rebellion. Imogen’s screaming is so real it is frightening, a howl into the void of oppression. Have to tick off a few freshpeople for clapping and not doing jazz hands. Education never sleeps!

Lunch in the bitchyurt. I have hay with apple-core sauce and, for dessert, 72 raisins. We talk about the de-platforming of fascist Lucretia Blackmore. The speech was shown to us in advance, as always, and mention was made of the ‘Islamic oppression of women’. In a post-male world, a creature like this would be in jail, or dead.

First disciplinary hearing of the day does not go well. A philosophy lecturer who a. talks about someone called ‘David Hume’ who – surprise! – turns out to be a CisHet dead white male and b. wears an actual leather jacket to the lecture. We table for a week’s dunce-hat and stocks, or immediate suspension.

Keep fighting!