Deborah Orr
Mental health should come first
Anxiety leaves people unable to look after themselves – or anyone else
i Newspaper11 Oct 2018Deborah Orr
I was struck, as World Mental Health Day unfolded on Twitter, by another story that caught the attention of my corner of the internet, and me. The Wellcome Collection had decided to run a four-day workshop called Daylighting, which would aim to instruct women in techniques whereby patriarchal historical archives could be reinterpreted.
At some point, it had been decided that it would be more inclusive to refer to the group this course was aimed as “womxn”. The word “womyn” was first used by feminist groups in the 1970s to avoid using the word “men” – “womxn” is a new form of it that has been introduced to be more inclusive. I hadn’t heard of the course before this, let alone considered attending it.Asawomanthough,nota womxn, I didn’t feel, as they say, welcome. Other women complained on social media and the Wellcome Trust withdrew its use.
The point, of course, was not to welcome me. The point was to welcome trans womxn and others who have not felt historically included by the terms “women” or “womyn”. For many trans people, the wish to feel welcome and valued in single-sex spaces is overwhelming. I get it. But many women, including me, feel that in the taking of the word “woman” and the branding of it with an “X”, others are taking our identities away from us. In the wider world of economic and existential problems, these matters should be relatively trivial. Instead, however, they have become a dominant part of political discourse, with both sides showing anger and feeling fear.
For some, the fight to be oneself is harder than it is for others, and more traumatic. But, real as the hierarchy of trauma may be, personal identity has surely got to be about acknowledging difference, not trying to erase it or trying to force other groups, who may feel vulnerable themselves, to give up their own hard-won spaces. And, more important than anything else, remembering that all of us are only human, that we all know fear and we all can get angry.
Trumpism illustrates all too well that relatively secure groups can feel hounded and targeted, and do awful things with every belief in their rectitude. The left needs to guard against this kind of grotesque self-indulgence, not mirror it. It may seem absurd to trans women that some women feel dragooned into becoming “womxn”. But it is a real fear, causing real anger and real mental distress. This needs to be acknowledged, not condemned. Distress can so quickly become disorder, in the heads of humans and in our societies.
People come up with all sorts of unhealthy coping strategies that then cause further trouble
www.pressreader.com/uk/i-newspaper/20181011/281535111947714