#they can exclude women from a conference

[a-room-of-my-own]

Meanwhile, the UN - an organization with some branches that openly support Hamas and the Iranian regime - agreed to exclude women and women’s rights from a key UN conference at the Taliban’s request.

If we needed more proof that this organization is no better than its predecessor the Society of Nations, there we have it.

[transfloridaresources]

Today (05/06/24), 4:30pm, Orlando

[Photo ID: Pink to white gradient image with various logos and info boxes. Text reads: 'Save the date: May 6th 4:30pm. Press Conference. 5205 South Orange Avenue - Orlando, FL 32809. Not one step back! Identification for all! Not one step back. Every Floridian. Every Identity. Every ID.' Logos for Orlando for Gender Equality, Free Mom Hugs, Inc., Dream Defenders, Zebra Youth, Come Out with Pride Orlando, HRC Orlando / Central Florida, Spektrum Health, The Center Orlando, GLSEN Central Florida, HOPE CC. /End ID]

[Photo ID: White box with rainbow border. Text reads: 'Statement on DMV Policy Change. LGBTQ+ advocates from around the state organized and mobilized in great numbers this past legislative session. Through actions like protests, letter-writings, die-ins, and more, we defeated 21 out of 22 anti-LGBTQ+ bills attempting to move through the Florida legislature. One of these bills, HB 1639, sponsored by local representative Doug Bankson, was particularly egregious. It sought to redefine "sex" in a way that excludes transgender, non-binary, and intersex people, and to prohibit a person's state identification documents from reflecting their gender identity. As the bill was heading towards its downfall in the legislature, the Deputy Executive Director, Robert Kynoch, of the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles (FLHSMV) released a memo to county tax collectors in late January rescinding previous department policy (IR08 - Gender Requirements), which allowed for Florida residents to change the gender marker on their ID to accurately reflect their gender identity. The memo wrongly excludes gender identity from "sex" in an effort to subvert the democratic process to redefine sex - and prohibit gender marker amendments - absent legislative authority. In a similar way, the legislature continued its attacks on the rights of immigrants and people experiencing homelessness in the form of HB 1451. This bill, which passed and was signed into law by DeSantis, restricts the acceptance of community IDs issued by community organizations to immigrants and individuals experiencing homelessness. Community IDs are essential for demonstrating that a person is a resident and member of a given community. It is already tremendously difficult for these groups to acquire valid identification, and this law imposes yet another barrier to identification.' /End ID]

[Photo ID: White box with rainbow border. Text reads: 'Statement on DMV Policy Change. Accurate identification is a human right; we must demand access to legal authenticity for all. Advocates for transgender individuals, immigrants, and people experiencing homelessness must stand together in the fight for equitable access to accurate identification. We demand that the FLHSMV restore their previous IR08-Gender Requirements policy to ensure that transgender people can obtain accurate IDs. Furthermore, we demand that legislatures take action to protect trans people's ability to obtain accurate identification as well as protect the acceptance of community IDs. Join us for a rally and press conference at SPEKTRUM Health (5205 South Orange Avenue) on May 6th at 4:30pm! WE CANNOT LET THEM TAKE US ONE STEP BACK! Signed, Orlando for Gender Equality, GLSEN Central Florida, HRC Orlando/Central Florida, SPEKTRUM Health, HOPE CC, PRISM, Zebra Youth, Youth Action Fund, Central Floridians for Social Equality, Justice Advocacy Network, Voices of Florida Fund/Women's Voices of Southwest Florida, UCF Students for a Democratic Society, Central Florida Queers for Palestine, LGBT+ Center Orlando, Inc., Come Out with Pride, Free Mom Hugs, Inc., Dream Defenders, Corey Hill, Vance Ahrens, candidate State Senate District 19, Amy Phillips, Beverly Washington, Orlando Drag Queen.' /End ID]

[mariacallous]

Of the many missteps the United States made in its two-decade war in Afghanistan, one of the early ones involved a missed opportunity with the Taliban. In December 2001, just weeks after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, the Taliban made an offer to the Bush administration: Its fighters would be willing to lay down their arms, provided they could live “in dignity” in their homes without being pursued and detained.

The offer was made in the form of a message to Afghan political leader Hamid Karzai. Had it been accepted, it may have prevented years of bloodshed and a long American occupation that ended in ignominy. But the United States at the time was reeling from the attacks of 9/11 and determined to eviscerate the group that had hosted al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and refused to hand him over. U.S. officials did not even respond to the offer.

Zalmay Khalilzad, a U.S. diplomat who dealt with Afghanistan for years, had a chance to ask the Taliban about that early truce offer while negotiating with the group much later—in 2021. He was struck by the response. “They thought that 20 years of war and all the loss of life on all sides was due to that mistake, as they saw it.”

This week marks three years since the Taliban marched on Kabul and regained control of Afghanistan. The hasty American retreat—and specifically the scenes of chaos at the Kabul airport—stand as a foreign-policy debacle for the Biden administration.

But America’s failure in Afghanistan is a much longer story. To try to understand it, Foreign Policy set out to explore why for two decades some of the world’s most experienced negotiators failed to reach an agreement that would have brought lasting peace to the country. The result of the reporting is a seven-episode season of our podcast, The Negotiators, produced in partnership with Doha Debates, and including interviews with key U.S., Afghan, and Taliban figures. You can hear it on our website or on any of the podcast platforms.

Based on conversations with the main actors, it is a story of misunderstandings, missed opportunities, and complacency—coupled with an American predilection for military action over diplomacy following the shock of 9/11. And while the Taliban were no pacifists themselves, they did at least show an early readiness to negotiate.

The misunderstandings and missed opportunities began to stack up in the closing stages of the U.S. invasion, when the Bush administration had the Taliban on the run and its focus was starting to shift toward Iraq. Uninterested in what it called “nation-building,” the administration asked the United Nations to shoulder the task of creating a new political order.

The result was a hastily convened conference in December 2001 in the German city of Bonn, which anointed Karzai as the new interim leader. But in line with U.S. wishes, the Taliban were excluded from the cross-section of Afghan political groups invited to attend.

For the U.N. and most of the Afghan delegates, the meeting was an opportunity to launch a peace process that would end the country’s forever war—which had been underway since the Soviet invasion in the late 1970s.

But for the Bush administration, the Bonn conference was simply a means “to consolidate victory in the war on terror,” according to American political scientist Barnett Rubin, who was then advising the U.N. envoy in charge of the meeting. “You can look through all the statements of all U.S. officials,” he said. “You will not find a word about peace in Afghanistan.”

That new order, agreed upon at the Bonn conference, did include plans for elections and a new constitution enshrining—among other things—rights for women. It also ushered in a period of optimism in Afghanistan, with millions of Afghan exiles returning home over the next few years, hopeful at that point that their country was on a path to stability with the West’s support.

But the Bonn agreement, patched together quickly, ended up cementing old divisions and creating new ones. “The underlying political issues were not even articulated at Bonn, let alone resolved,” Rubin said. It led directly to the Taliban taking up arms again, aided by the group’s sponsors in neighboring Pakistan, who also felt sidelined.

In response, the United States doubled down on its counterterrorism goal of trying to destroy the Taliban. Even figures who had been trying to maintain a dialogue were arrested, such as the Taliban’s former ambassador to Pakistan, Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef.

In the years that followed, a weak, fractured, and aid-dependent Afghan government would struggle as the Taliban’s insurgency expanded. Their support grew as the death toll from U.S. night raids and airstrikes rose. But it was the Taliban, along with some of America’s European allies, who were first to revive efforts to talk.

One of those allies was Norway, which had troops in Afghanistan but also experience mediating in other conflicts. Lisa Golden, director of the Norwegian Foreign Ministry’s Peace and Reconciliation Department, said her government had quickly concluded that “a purely military solution wasn’t going to bring peace and stability to Afghanistan.” The ties it built up with Taliban representatives led to a series of meetings in hotel rooms, “with the fruit basket that they provided between us,” Golden recalled.

To show his support for the talks, Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar dispatched a trusted aide in 2009 to establish contact with both U.S. and European officials.

But nearly a decade into the Afghan war, entrenched American attitudes toward the Taliban made it difficult to get any talks started. Because of the risk that the United States would detain him and bundle him off to Guantánamo Bay, the aide, Tayyab Agha, had to work through intermediaries and travel clandestinely to the Middle East to set up meetings.

President Barack Obama had inherited the war by now and appointed veteran U.S. diplomat Richard Holbrooke as his envoy for the region. Part of Holbrooke’s brief was to weigh talking to the Taliban, and he brought in Rubin as one of his advisors. But the United States still had “no policy toward a political settlement,” said Rubin, nor on how to engage with the Taliban.

When U.S. officials finally got the go-ahead to meet, it was only Agha, the Taliban emissary, who had a set of proposals and demands—the American side came empty-handed. Holbrooke’s sudden death, in late 2010, again stalled this tentative U.S. attempt to talk to the Taliban. And when his replacement was appointed, Rubin and his colleagues found themselves undermined by leaks from the Pentagon and the intelligence community, who were putting their hopes in the U.S. troop surge then underway, not peacemaking. “Most of the government was against us,” Rubin said.

And so it went, with misunderstandings and disagreements snarling efforts to promote talks, while the bloodshed mounted. A deal for the Taliban to open a political office in Qatar in 2013 fell apart when the Afghan government objected to its quasi-official status. By then, it was two years since the United States had killed bin Laden and the Pentagon was reducing its troop count, with plans for Afghan government forces to take the lead. But as their spokesperson, Suhail Shaheen, boasted at the time, the Taliban’s power had only increased.

President Donald Trump brought a different approach to the White House—a determination to withdraw American troops no matter what it meant for the Afghan government. But by then, U.S. leverage had weakened. “Instead of trying to negotiate at the apex of U.S. power and the nadir of Taliban power and capability in Afghanistan, we finally got serious about it as the U.S. was clearly on the way out the door and the Taliban was making steady advances,” said Laurel Miller, who served as acting U.S. special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan at the start of the Trump administration.

Trump instructed Khalilzad to negotiate a withdrawal—but that meant that the chief U.S. concern was getting out safely, not achieving an Afghan peace settlement. This was underlined by the fact that only American and Taliban negotiators met in the early stages, consigning the Afghan government to the sidelines. The arrangement mirrored the way the Taliban were left out at Bonn in 2001.

The United States and the Taliban did manage to strike a deal: the Doha Accord, which was signed in February 2020. It was supposed to be followed by power-sharing negotiations between the Taliban and the Afghan government. But since the United States had already agreed on a date for withdrawing its forces, the Taliban had no real incentive to bargain further. “It made it very easy for the Taliban just to wait us out,” said Gen. Joseph Votel, head of U.S. Central Command from 2016 to 2019.

Hamdullah Mohib, who served as the national security advisor to Afghan President Ashraf Ghani at the time, accused Khalilzad of going behind the Afghan government’s back in his negotiations, calling it colonial behavior.

Khalilzad, in an extended interview for the podcast, rejected these accusations and insisted he kept Ghani and his officials fully informed. But he acknowledged “there was a conscious decision” not to tie America’s withdrawal to an agreement between the Ghani government and the Taliban, because of concerns that any linkage would delay its exit. Ghani’s government struggled to adjust to the new reality created by the agreement—and failed to strike a deal with the Taliban.

For older Afghans who had lived under the first Taliban regime and others who had prospered under the umbrella of the 20-year U.S. occupation, the group’s dramatic return to power in August 2021 was devastating. Many Afghans swarmed the Kabul airport to board evacuation flights. Afghan women braced for a new reality—with severe restrictions imposed on their everyday lives.

Three years later, girls above grade six are still not allowed to attend school. While the international community pressures the Taliban to relax the restrictions, the group chafes at the West’s continued embargo and its refusal to recognize its government.

In the interview, Khalilzad conceded that Afghanistan had been a lesson for the United States in “the limits of what military force can achieve.” Washington had made many mistakes in its war on terror after 9/11, in both Iraq and Afghanistan, he said. “The policies that we pursued, the forces we strengthened, in a significant way contributed to the changes that were inconsistent with our values and, arguably, at least after a certain period, with our interests as well.”

[ukrfeminism]

Scotland’s education secretary ordered a conference on school violence within 48 hours of being sent a video of a girl being lured into a changing room, temporarily blinded with Coke and beaten about the head and face as classmates watched.

Jenny Gilruth and other ministers were bombarded with emails and letters cataloguing assaults on pupils before they decided to act on the problem.

At one point in early 2023, parents, youngsters and staff were sending messages, often containing videos of attacks from social media, several times a week, according to more than 100 pages of correspondence released to The Scotsman under freedom of information laws.

The video of the child being thrashed in the changing room was sent to Gilruth after she took up her job, by a distraught parent who said their daughter had been the victim of “a premeditated attack”.

They feared their child’s life was “at risk”, when — unable to see because of the soft drink in her eyes — other pupils started “kicking her in the face and head, bouncing her head off a wall and kicking her in other areas”.

Other parents outlined allegations of sexual assault, of a primary pupil who was “dragged” into school toilets before being kicked unconscious, and of an assault so serious it “could easily have left the pupil for dead”.

Gilruth, a former teacher, was appointed in March and ordered her summit in May. The government has announced a series of responses.

A study in November found two thirds of staff at more than 500 Scottish schools surveyed had encountered verbal abuse in the previous week. Another 59 per cent had dealt with violence between pupils in the past seven days.

The study’s authors described “pupils persistently infringing rules, making cheeky or impertinent remarks, engaging in general rowdiness, mucking about and deliberately excluding others”. Discipline, the experts authors concluded, had got worse since 2016.

The official report raised particular concern about behaviour at primary schools, which was also reflected in messages to ministers. A parent got in touch with the government to describe a “drastic increase in the level of bullying and violence within the school grounds” at one primary.

Much of the debate on school violence has focused on controversy around low levels of exclusions. School leaders tend not to send disruptive students home, preferring what is called “restorative practice”.

This stance was raised by some of those complaining to the government. “The policy is not working. It is creating tensions between education staff, police and the community,” one correspondent said.

Some teachers and psychologists argue that excessive use of exclusions and suspensions can cause more trouble. 

There are also concerns about internet culture, with many incidents being filmed and uploaded to social media and some episodes of bullying or violence being linked to online bigotry against women and girls or minorities.

A Scottish government spokesman said: “Scotland’s schools should be safe learning environments for all. Violent and abusive behaviour towards pupils or staff is completely unacceptable.

“The education secretary has been clear that this must be improved, and has set out five steps to address concerns around behaviour, including bringing forward a national action plan to set out a range of actions at national, local and school level, and a dedicated approach to responding to issues surrounding misogyny.”

[brf-rumortrackinganon]

I keep getting called a Karen by a few women at my work and I don’t know what to do, as I am a white woman and the women bullying me are in fact black women, and I’ve not done anything other than just started my new job there and all I can think is that they didn’t like me asking questions about what it’s like there etc. and I didn’t say or do anything that can be considered or said to be racist? One of them said as we were finishing that nobody would side with a white woman over them and they’d spread my name online and end me. I’m seriously depressed about this whole situation as my new job was a move and promotion that I wanted for a long time and now with these women targeting me I don’t know what to do. As who will believe me as it doesn’t seem like these sort of women bullying me are ever going to be stopped doing what they’re doing to innocent women like me that have seriously not done anything wrong as even though I’m a left wing progressive woman I don’t feel that non-minorities are listened to by these sort of faux claims of racism, sexism and bullying /abuse etc.

First, if you haven't already, you need to loop your boss and HR in immediately. Right now. If your boss or HR admin is one of these ladies, go above her. Stick just to the facts about what happened when you report what's happening. If you already have reported it, follow up. Say "The issues I reported to you on XX date are still happening and it's still causing (or now causing) X, Y, Z impact to A, B, C deliverables/results, and they are also now making B and C threats of retaliation. What suggestions do you have to address this?"

Second, lock your social media down tight. Restrict your visibility to friends only. Exclude your accounts/profiles from searches.

Third, document. Document, document, document. Every interaction you have with these ladies. Everything you've said, everything they've said, as verbatim as possible as you can remember. Include dates, times, locations, and witnesses/bystanders. If there's any harassment over messages (emails, texts, Slack, etc.) include screenshots in your write-ups. Do it immediately after every interaction you have with each one of them, whether individually or in groups. Also document every discussion you've had with your boss(es) and/or HR about these ladies/these situations too.

After writing it up, immediately email it to yourself - your work email and your personal email. If you have your own printer, print them out too and keep paper files in a locked drawer the ladies don't have access to or at your home.

This documentation is important because it creates a paper trail. If the ladies escalate, you have documentation proving your role (or lack thereof). If the company fails to protect you, you have documentation describing and showing what they didn't do.

I'm just going to be direct here. We live in a time where white people - white women especially - have to be very careful about what we say and do. It doesn't matter what our allyship is or our politics or what we think is right or how much credibility someone does or doesn't have. So when you make these reports, when you do this documentation, leave all of that out of it. Stick only to the facts, which is "I was in Conference Room 1 with Jane, Lisa, Sue, and Joe on Tuesday, April 2, 2024, for a discussion about X that took place between 1:30pm - 2:15pm. {{Discussion summary}} At approximately 2:15pm when the meeting ended, I said A. Lisa said B, then Joe said C. Our interaction ended at approximately 2:20pm when I returned to my office alone." Leave the feelings out, leave the justification out, leave your perspective out, leave your allyship and your politics out. Stick only to the facts.

If I had to guess about what's happening here, it's probably that one of those ladies applied for your job, didn't get the position, and now she's taking it out on you and enlisted her friends to help.

And if you'd like more help, take a look at Ask A Manager. She's an HR manager who has a ton of experience in managing people and the blog is an amazing resource for any/all kinds of career advice. Here are a bunch of here pages about dealing with bullies and toxic colleagues that you might find helpful as well.

[cloverplayssnakegame]

The Laurel Class President and the Great Plan of Happiness 

It was late September 2019, and I was around the age of 16. I was invited into my bishop's office, and he offered me the calling of Laurell class president. I accepted the calling because it was surely from God, and I waited for the bishop to set me apart as president of the Laurel class. I fasted and prayed to have the wisdom to be a good and faithful servant to my fellow young women and my Heavenly Father.

Two weeks later, during the women’s session of the General Conference, it was announced that there would be no Laurels, Mia Maids, or Beehives and that wards would instead be allowed to set up classes however deemed necessary.  

I waited roughly four months for the bishop to decide whether I should be sustained as a young women's leader. During that time, I still went to meetings as if I was going to be sustained and did the responsibilities as a class president all without proper recognition. He pulled me into an empty classroom sometime in early January of 2020; he told me that in the time it took to figure out how to distribute the Young Women's classes, he realized that one of my friends was meant to be class president instead. I took this graciously. It was from Heavenly Father, after all, and accepted my calling.

I was the second counselor

Serving under a female class president 

Serving under a female young women's president 

Serving under a male bishop 

Serving under a male stake president 

Serving under an all-male regional quorum of the seventy 

Serving under an all-male general quorum of the seventy

Serving under the all-male quorum of the twelve apostles

Serving under the male first presidency

Serving under a male prophet. 

Presumably, that male prophet serves under God.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

There is a story in the New Testament about a woman with an issue of blood. When she hears about Jesus, she finds him, and she touches his robe and her blood dries up. Jesus tells her it wasn't his power but her faith that made her whole. That was the simplified version of the story I was told as a child, at least. It was taught to me as a lesson to have faith in the church and in our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. 

Now, as I'm older, some would call me cynical; I would simply say that I'm more precise in my hope. 

It is important to note that menstrual blood was considered ritually unclean, and women were not to be touched while they were bleeding. A woman who is chronically bleeding like the woman in the story, would basically be unable to join in her society. So it is significant that this woman felt that she could feel worthy to touch someone she believed to be a prophet, and Jesus did not feel insulted by touching someone who is a cultural outcast. If I were to be tasked with teaching a primary lesson about the woman with an issue of blood I would not try to wow them with the idea that there are magical men within the church and we can be made whole by having faith in them. I would liken it to their lives which should hopefully be somewhere in reality. I would tell them that this woman would not have needed a literal act of God if she had a place within her community, and purposely including the excluded is a radical and Christlike act that can change a person's life. 

Maybe that's why I probably won't be in charge of teaching primary any time soon, 

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

Nearer, my God, to Thee, nearer to Thee!

E’en though it be a cross that raiseth me,

Still, all my song shall be, nearer, my God, to Thee.

Nearer, my God, to Thee, nearer to Thee!

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

 “I bless you the day will come for you to enter the Temple to receive the eternal covenants Heavenly Father would have you make with Him. I, also, bless you to make and keep sacred covenants with your husband and sustain, support, and love him. He in turn, I promise you, will love you and enjoy the life you build together” 

~Heavenly Father 

  Within a Mormon context, the word sustain has a particular meaning. Whenever a new person is given a calling the members of the ward will be asked to raise their arms to the square to sustain the leadership. This gives the illusion of democracy. Weirdly it also serves as a reminder that the Church’s leadership only has power to the extent the membership feeds it. Within this paragraph of my patriarchal blessing, I am blessed that I will find a man who I will sustain as my leader and I will support and love him. This isn't a commandment or advice or a request this is a blessing; Divine providence states I will one day stumble into a man and feel that he is worthy enough to sustain, support, and love as much as- or more than- I sustain support and love God. My promise to follow an all-knowing all-powerful deity is placed in the same breath as my calling to marry a man.

I couldn't physically throw away my patriarchal blessing. Some remaining malignant scrupulosity simply wouldn't let me get rid of it. I kept it tucked away at first when I got to college. I felt a bit as if I had buried McKenna Johnson the Laurel Class President beneath the floorboards of my dorm. She whispers sometimes about the life she should be living. Her heartbeat still rings in my ears though it gets softer and softer with each passing day. I let my patriarchal blessing sit alone and unread for a while as I reconstructed my life. I made it into a snowflake an art form based on creating beauty and meaning by cutting something apart. I used a cheap tarot deck I wasn't using, to make a suitable background. I have the galaxy-themed back of the cards cut into the predictions for my life. Because the Universe always finds a way to remind us that it has no respect for our small minds' view of the future. 

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

In my senior year of high school, I started writing a story that I ultimately dropped and abandoned. It was about two sister missionaries who fell in love. The story would need to end in a sad way where the girls go their separate ways because they have a sacred duty to their heavenly father. The story was revolutionary in my mind because I would allow the girls one chaste little kiss, and they don't regret it and appreciate the lessons they learned from each other. I did not fully know that sister missionaries are not meant to have first names for the eighteen months they spend as missionaries. So it was, ultimately, a useless task to figure out meaningful names for the star-crossed lovers. I named the junior companion Rosemary, which would later be shortened to Rose as she grows as a character. She goes from being called a herb, which is meant to be diced and consumed, to a flower that is simply meant to be grown and appreciated for its simple beauty. Tying her transformation to her budding relationship with her companion makes it a nice little story of self-discovery.  I named Rose's senior companion Clover. It's my favorite flower and it's also a weed. This is thematically significant because I made Clover openly bisexual in a mission environment that isn’t super open to queerness. She is being defiant by existing beautifully. I wanted her to have unique but fantastic answers to gospel-related questions and a different perspective on life than Rose, so I made Clover a convert. I spent a while dwelling on what she would be like before Mormonism. I gave her a bob haircut and a lot of extra piercings, and I even dared- just once- to draw a picture of her in a crop top. I spent a lot of time thinking about these characters and this story, and all I needed to do to continue writing was find a good reason for Clover to join the Mormon church. 

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

Though like the wanderer, the sun gone down, Darkness be over me, my rest a stone; Yet in my dreams I’d be nearer, my God, to Thee.

Nearer, my God, to Thee, nearer to Thee!

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

The Orlando temple’s real front door is cemented shut. It's this ornate cement door that is built exclusively for Jesus Christ to open when he comes to earth again. The temple designers were either creepy or short-sighted because the door leads directly into the bride's dressing room. I spent a lot of time sitting at the temple's front door, it felt like the most important spiritual part of the building's exterior.  Even as I was in the process of losing my faith, I would still come back to sit at the temple’s door. At this point, the temple’s back doors might as well have been cemented shut. I couldn't bring myself to pay tithing anymore, so my temple recommend would remain expired into the eternities. When I lead tours of a lifesize recreation of the Tabernacle from Mose’s time I was assigned to lead people to the doors into the courtyard, then go back to grab the next group and never to go in. Every tour over and over, my script would mention that only Levites were allowed into the courtyard, and only the high priest was allowed into the holy of holies. It gave me a little sense of hope while I led those tours. In the old days, non-Levites were not allowed into the temple, and now most people don't know what a Levite is. If I follow this logic to its conclusion, maybe there will be a day where the god chosen people are not excluding queer people; they will have moved on to a different social construct to exclude. 

Now that I am thousands of miles away from the cement door leading into the bride’s room. I can see that the inside of the temple only has meaning because there are vastly more people outside of the temple. I spent a long time touching the door- hoping for my faith to make me whole. My faith failed me, but maybe that was the best thing that could’ve happened. 

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

“Purity that demands exclusion isn't real purity, maybe paradise is a lie.” You might think that this is a quote from a wise and important person, but it is not. This is a quote from The Fucking trampoline episode from the sitcom Community. I'm always amazed at the wisdom that can be found within the most absurd.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

Outside of my preexisting biases, I do like the word Sustain. There is power in choosing what is important to strengthen support and suffer within your own life. I can bear testimony now that my new world is worth sustaining. I have a second piercing. It's very small, but I feel quite edgy and cool every time I see it. I wear crop tops and drink tea. I've discovered that most of the world gets to have a second Saturday to truly rest. I can laugh loudly at the pure absurdity of Mohonri Moriancumer’s trans-Atlantic submarines. I can allow the sad story of Helen Mar Kimbals’ life to exist uninterrupted and unquestioned. At least one part of my patriarchal blessing came true, I found a boy worth sustaining, and then another guy and we love the life we are building together. I steal my partner’s bed while I call my other partner. I can sit inside my own body with pure peace and bliss. Like the missionary I named after a wildflower I dont have a single good reason to go back to where I was before.

 I am Clover

my room

the building my room is in

my college

my town

Idaho

The United States of America

The continent of America

The world

The Solar System 

The Milky Way Galaxy

The Cosmos 

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

Or if on joyful wing cleaving the sky 

Sun moon and stars forgot

Upward I fly 

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

[f1ghtsoftly]

I actually really, really dislike that radfems tend to focus on judging women for individual life choices like they’re made in a vacuum and not actually making it easier for women to make more life affirming decisions. It's easy now, when so many things are technically legal but socially and financially difficult to blind ourselves to the very real hurdles that can keep women trapped in patriarchal social structures and communities.

While it is true that choices, like partnering with a man, reinforce patriarchy we also live in a system that does everything it can to reward behavior that sets women back. As feminists, it should be our job to make it easier for women to separate and when women refuse to ask ourselves "what more could we do to make this less harrowing?" Underneath, for example, many women's refusal to stop wearing makeup, is really a refusal to forgo the social status conferred by being gender conforming and that social status isn't useless. It can help women advance in their careers, help them gain sympathy, make them more attractive to their desired partners etc etc.. While compliance with patriarchal dictates separates a woman from herself and other women, it also helps her succeed in a woman hating system.

Making feminist decisions in a patriarchy is like swimming backwards against a current. Sometimes that current is weaker or stronger and sometimes, despite a woman' best efforts she might start going backwards. As politically engaged and awakened women, we are supposed to give women tools to help make swimming against that current easier. Not forming cliques or shaming women who are struggling (if you're frustrated with a brainwashed woman, that's your sign to log off and vent to a feminist friend). Even "privileged" patriarchal aligned women are committing self harm on some level, patriarchy hurts all women. Even the ones prolonging its life with their actions.

This is also why class is such a critical feminist issue. When escape from deep poverty is reliant on a women selling her body through an advantageous marriage to a man, it's not in her self interest to forgo that option for political reasons. When childcare is so expensive in the US women are forced to rely on a partner to help them raise children. Not only are male partners more likely to make more money, they also can't get pregnant, and thus can devote themselves to their own children (this is why older women and childfree women should involve themselves in childcare). When women know living single means having to fend off disgusting and violent men, they're less likely to do it.

And yes, I know women can learn a trade and be reasonably financially sufficient but it's also better for women to diversify and organize within their chosen fields. Not only will it make women more comfortable, but it's better for female consumers. Evidence also shows that pay lowers when women enter an industry en masse so the relatively lucrative careers in the trades are only like that because women *aren't there*. Furthermore, when women decide to become mothers, they take a massive financial hit, both in the amount of time they can put into a job and the financial burden of raising children. I'm not an anti-natalist, I think women having children when they want them is a good thing and patriarchy takes a beautiful experience and makes it a way to trap women with horrible men.

When we place the entire burden of feminist actions on individual women "choosing" to not partner with men or cater to them rather then using our energy to unite to make systemic changes we ensure that our movement centers young, childless women, rather then what is demographically common. Not only do we do that, but we also exclude mothers from this movement, when mom's need to be centered.

Here is what I am not suggesting:

We confuse compassion for women unable or unwilling to risk patriarchal backlash for some feminist actions for excusing them. Trying to understand women still aligned with patriarchy won't turn you into a liberal. Makeup is still patriarchal. Dating men is still not great for you mentally, emotionally and physically. Lying about pronouns or refusing to challenge the rollback of women’s rights publicly will still create the illusion women consent to the destruction of their legal protections. That is all real. But patriarchy comes down hard on women who stand against it alone. And an online community, especially one not exactly flush with cash, can only take us so far.

Here is what I am suggesting:

We begin to reprioritize party building and policy goals. How can we make it easier to make feminist choices? What structures can we make to support separatism?

How can we organize women across varying industries against unfair wages, misogynistic standards and the political repression of feminists and feminism?

How can we develop women only networks to support mothers in childrearing?

In general, how can we make forgoing personal safety to be around men a less and less desirable option for more and more women?

In general, let's please, please start thinking in terms of systems instead of individualistically. It doesn't serve anyone but men to pick judgement over solidarity with women who aren't there yet. Stop judging women you only know through a screen and start organizing to make it easier and easier for women to live feminist lives. Put that desire into action, stop using it to make us stagnate when we need to grow aggressively.

[berlinauslander]

White feminism

A white feminist is someone who refuses to consider the role that whiteness and the racial privilege attached to it have played, and continue to play, in universalizing white feminist concerns, agendas and beliefs as those of all of feminism and all feminists. You do not have to be white to be a white feminist. It is also perfectly possible to be white and feminist and not be a white feminist. The term describes a set of assumptions and behaviours which have been baked into mainstream Western feminism, rather than describing the racial identity of its sub-jects. At the same time, it is true that most white feminists are indeed white, and that whiteness itself is at the core of white feminism.

A white feminist may be someone who earnestly salutes the precepts of "intersectionality' - the need for feminism to reflect structural inequalities drawn along the lines of race, faith, class, dis-ability, etc., as well as gender - but fails to cede space to the feminists of colour who have been ignored, erased or excluded from the feminist movement. White feminists can attend civil rights marches, have friends who are women of colour, and in some cases be women of colour themselves, and yet be devoted to organizational structures or systems of knowledge that ensure that non-white women's experiences - and thus their needs and priorities - remain sidelined.

More broadly, to be a white feminist you simply have to be a person who accepts the benefits conferred by white supremacy at the expense of people of colour, while claiming to support gender equality and solidarity with 'all' women.

[spiderfreedom]

I was reading this post about baeddel history a while back. baeddelism, if you're not aware, is a fringe tumblr ideology that asserts that the fear of feminine males is the root of all social injustice. i must emphasize that it is fringe because it is basically unknown outside of tumblr and is currently dead. (there are people who independently reinvent baeddel concepts, but that's not the same as being a baeddel in the baeddel community.)

there's a collage of attacks against trans men. some of it is based on taking the idea that trans men have "male privilege" extremely literally ("trans men are male socialized" - a fascinating statement requiring further study to, uh, substantiate). some of it is blatantly false ("trans men have no oppression"). but this one segment here, I think gets to an interesting idea:

i've written in a previous post about the myth that trans women are 'perfect sex objects', which is repeated by men who enjoy visiting transfem prostitutes and watching transfem porn, and by some radfems, who assert that trans women "enjoy" being in the sex industry on account of being hypersexual. I challenged this myth there, because it takes people's reasons for being in the sex industry at face value without considering that trauma can lead to hypersexuality as a coping mechanism. it also objectifies trans women as being hypersexual and 'naturally suited' to the sex industry.

this screenshot from the collage linked above shows support for my position - many (most?) trans women are not in fact loving having to go into the sex industry to make ends meet. the reasons here aren't even related to transition like getting surgery; the trans woman in question is facing homelessness and food insecurity.

now, this screenshot also shows an aspect of baeddel philosophy - the idea that trans women are suffering, and trans men are not, and trans men are taking advantage of a movement that trans women built, and using it for their own gains. in other words, a fear of being de-centered in a movement that was supposed to help them.

i don't believe that trans men are not suffering and i don't believe that trans men were uninvolved in the trans rights movement. i don't believe trans men are en masse doing porn because "it's hot"; like i think that's a non-existent strawman made up by the poster. i think there is some resentment towards trans men here that goes beyond "trans men are literally undistinguishable from cis men." part of it relates to another common attitude in the trans community, the idea that there is such a thing as "AFAB privilege."

but let's be charitable because i think there is something deeper here. baeddelism tapped into a fear many trans women had of being shut out of a movement that was supposed to center them.

i think there is actually some truth to the idea that the mainstream trans narrative is harming trans women in certain ways.

for example, I recently posted about how "he/him non-binary AMAB people" were registering for the grace hopper conference. the grace hopper conference was originally only for women, but recently expanded to "women and non-binary people." the intention appeared to be to exclude cis men (and trans men? unclear). however, a group of apparently malicious male actors took advantage of the fact there is no way to verify who is 'really' a "he/him non-binary AMAB" person and who's a cis man to register, taking up limited spots at the conference.

of course cis women were upset, and the post went around radblr with that focus, and I was also upset at that. but I think that trans women would naturally also be upset at this development. it is agreed upon by radfems and trans women that trans women experience most of the heinous violence they go through at the hands of men. it is understandable that trans women would want to go to a place that is safe from cis men, because that is the primary group of people that attacks them. but if there is no way to prevent malicious cis men from joining? then there is no way to provide this protection to trans women.

this is something I've also thought about in regards to things like trans women in prison. having someone who identified as male most of their life and committed a violent crime suddenly change their identification to "woman", be housed in a female prison, obviously poses severe risks to female people. but it poses risks to trans women as well. trans women on HRT experience a loss in strength - strengthwise, they are between cis men and cis men. a trans woman who takes HRT is therefore also at risk of physical violence from people like this.

many radfem's instinct is going to be something along the lines of "boohoo, you got what you wanted. you have been trying to prevent females from having our own spaces for over a decade. why should we care about you experiencing the same thing we have experienced?" this is understandable but misguided from a political perspective - because venting/catharsis is not politics. i think this is an opportunity to find common ground.

(also, my politic may be centered on female people, but i do believe that social justice for all groups is important and necessary. despite serious disagreements in the past, i have tremendous compassion for trans women as people who are gender non conforming, often suffer from severe dysphoria, experience misogyny if they pass, and experience homelessness at highly elevated rates. i don't want to throw them to the wolves, no matter how much I disagree with the mainstream NGO narrative.)

overly permissive self-identification also puts trans women at risk, both from malicious cis men, and from trans women who may have transitioned very late and seem to find no common ground with the community. an inability to police spaces means that transfems will have no way to protect their own from malicious posers or people who are technically transgender but have no true alliance to the community.

the solution, in some sense, requires some amount of policing. you cannot promise a man-free space to cis women or trans women or female/AFAB people or anyone without some way to say "hey, I don't think you belong here." we need to work towards what that level of boundary policing is. some prisons, for example, have case-by-case decisions of who is allowed to be transferred to women's prisons on the basis of the danger they pose to inmates. i don't know if that's the best idea, but it's a start. i think it's clear at this point that having no way to prevent men from joining men-free spaces does a disservice to cis women and trans women.

[haggishlyhagging]

The quotes below the cut are about the tension between consciousness raising and political action. All are from Alice Echols’ Daring to Be Bad: Radical Feminism in America: 1967-75.

Quote 1: p. 61

With Koedt's article, Firestone's summary of the Jeannette Rankin Brigade protest, and Sarachild's D.C. speech, "Funeral Oration for Traditional Womanhood," NYRW's Notes from the First Year was an implicit, and sometimes explicit, rejection of the politico analysis. Within two months of its publication, Evelyn Goldfield of Chicago's Westside group issued a rebuttal of sorts in the The Voice of the Women's Liberation Movement. Goldfield took women's groups to task for concentrating on consciousness-raising rather than action. And in contrast to those New York women who argued that women needed to organize separately to build a power base from which to attack male supremacy, Goldfield advised that if men were to be excluded initially from women's meetings, it be for the "tactical" reason that women had difficulty expressing themselves around men, and not as a "matter of principle." In fact, Goldfield argued that the very notion of a separate women's movement was divisive. She admitted that the bromide "there can be no liberation for women outside a general movement for liberation, and no such movement can exist without a movement for women's liberation" had failed to silence those who asked which movement came first. But Goldfield proposed shelving any further debate by declaring that radical women should henceforth "not think of the women's movement as separate but as a united force within the radical movement." She chastised the women of Notes for envisioning "the women's movement as very separate from other movement struggles," and declared that a "women's movement which confines itself to issues which only affect women can't be radical."

Quote 2: pp. 113-114

Some women at the conference also discussed the upcoming Counter-Inaugural demonstration to protest Nixon' inauguration. The action was being organized by the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam (Mobe). Webb and Baxandall, in particular, had ties with people in the Mobe. In fact, Webb's husband, Lee Webb, had informed her that there was a slot available on the program for a women's liberation speaker. Barbara Mehrhof reports that during the car ride back from Lake Villa, Firestone, Atkinson, Koedt, Margaret Polatnik, and she discussed the proposed action. According to Mehrhof, all the women agreed that consciousness-raising, as it was practiced in NYRW, was leading to more consciousness-raising rather than to action. They discussed reorganizing the group, making it "more action and theory-based." Margaret Polatnik suggested that they "give back the vote" at the Counter-Inaugural protest, and the others agreed. According to Ellen Willis, the action was intended to demonstrate that "suffragism"—which they contended had eviscerated the first wave of feminism—was dead and that "a new fight for real emancipation was beginning." They announced the action at the next meeting of NYRW and welcomed others to join them in planning the protest. Firestone, Willis, Peslikis, Mehrhof, Kearon, Forer, Baxandall, Linda Feldman, Barbara Kaminsky, and Sheila Cronan were among those involved in planning the protest.

Quote 3: pp.142-143

In early April, Sheila Cronan proposed that for their next action the group hang a banner which would read "Liberty for Women: Repeal All Abortion Laws" from the Statue of Liberty. However, Cronan and her allies encountered technical problems in constructing the banner, and opposition to the action when Sarachild returned to the group. Sarachild argued that the action was poorly conceived and that the group's energy would be better spent writing a manifesto. When the group voted in mid-June to scuttle the action, the discussion reportedly "broke down into great recriminations."

The Statue of Liberty action became a point of contention because members disagreed about the importance of consciousness-raising. Not everyone in the group was as committed to consciousness-raising as Sarachild, Peslikis, and Mainardi. Certainly, Mehrhof, Kearon, Cronan, and Linda Feldman—who eventually left Redstockings to join The Feminists—felt that consciousness-raising should be de-emphasized. Even Firestone reportedly wanted the group to be more action-oriented. There were also disagreements about the pro-woman line. Mehrhot, Kearon, Cronan, and Feldman were its most vocal detractors. But Willis contends that both she and Firestone were far more psychologically oriented than Sarachild, Peslikis, and Mainardi of the pro-woman faction.

The tensions over consciousness-raising and the pro-woman line seem to have been exacerbated by Sarachild's re-entry to the group. She reportedly let the group know that she was returning to Redstockings despite her differences with the group. She then reportedly tried to recruit to the group women who she thought shared her political vision. Baxandall, who was at that time in a study group with Anne Forer, Judy Thibeau, and Helen Kritzler, was among those Sarachild succeeded in recruiting. Baxandall asserts that Sarachild told her that she was shifting the group's focus from action to consciousness-raising and that the meetings were, as a result, much improved. Indeed, the group became less action-oriented following the March 1969 abortion speak-out. The group did disrupt another all-male abortion panel at Cooper Union and helped to organize a number of joint actions. But from the spring of 1969 until its demise in the fall of 1970, the group devoted most of its time to consciousness-raising, organized c-r groups for new women, drafted its manifesto, and distributed movement literature.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Helen Joyce

Published: April 2023

Being invited to talk at a conference for psychoanalysts in London last month was not, on the face of it, a surprise. The topic was trans identification in children; I’ve written a book on this and other trans-related issues. What was surprising, given the transactivist tactic of demanding “no debate”, was that the event went ahead as planned.

My refusal to agree that men who identify as women thereby become women means that when I’m invited to speak, there’s usually trouble. Last March I was asked to present at a conference for NHS psychiatrists ��� and disinvited after a smear campaign. The conference was eventually cancelled. When philosopher Arif Ahmed asked me to speak at Gonville and Caius College Cambridge in October, the college master emailed fellows and students describing me as “offensive, insulting and hateful”. I managed to give my talk, but had to shout to be heard over protestors outside.

The psychoanalysts’ event wasn’t entirely free of drama. During the morning, I and other critics of trans ideology described its spread through the medical profession, and the harm this is doing to gender-distressed children. As the session closed, a young man stood and denounced us as hatemongers, his voice and body trembling as he spoke. He compared us to the psychotherapists who, half a century ago, peddled “conversion therapy” — electrical shocks and nausea-inducing drugs aimed at turning gay people straight. 

I’ve heard opposition to “gender-affirming” care analogised to conversion therapy many times, and it’s absurd. This is the treatment pathway involving giving puberty-blockers and cross-sex hormones to gender-distressed children, often as a precursor to surgery that will leave them sterile and lacking in sexual function. Most children sent down this path would have grown up gay if left to do so in peace; when they identify as the opposite sex, they become nominally straight. It’s the gender ideologues, in other words, who are the modern-day conversion therapists.

I’m hopeful that the event for psychotherapists going ahead with a critic inside the room is a sign that “no debate” is no longer an effective tactic. The would-be censors haven’t given up, however, only changed tactics. Instead of trying to silence us, they’re starting to argue. The way they do it says a lot about their worldview, in which subjectivity trumps objectivity, emotion trumps reason and words trump material reality.

At the heart of trans activism is a power play which seeks to impose trans-identified people’s inner feelings on the external world. Other people are expected to ignore the material fact of sexed bodies and “affirm” stated identities by the use of “preferred pronouns”.

Pronouns are not the only words now regarded as powerful enough to change reality. Take the rewriting of literary classics to remove racial slurs, often imaginary, and workplace training that purports to root out “implicit bias”. Both are based on the notion that words, rather than describing the world, shape it so profoundly that censorship can be a route to social justice. What makes a word worthy of being erased is entirely subjective: that someone claims to find it harmful, no matter how tenuous or outlandish that claim.

Laws, too, are moving away from objective tests. Hate crimes, which attract longer sentences, are those which the victim “perceives” to have been motivated by prejudice, whether or not that perception is reasonable. Scotland’s Hate Crime Act, not yet in force, will criminalise speech that merely “might” make a minority group feel “vulnerable” or “excluded”. As for “non-crime hate incidents”, as the Orwellian name suggests, these involve no crime and rely purely on perception. The Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, has said that the police must stop routinely recording such incidents. They’ve already been told this by the High Court,  yet the practice continues. 

One reason for this elevation of subjective feelings over objective facts is a trend towards celebrating victimhood. Most early societies were what sociologists call “honour cultures”, in which might was right and maintaining status after an insult or injury meant exacting swift revenge. The rule of law saw honour cultures give way to “dignity cultures”, in which status is formalised in job titles and academic qualifications, self-control is admired and justice is dispensed by police and courts.

In their 2018 book The Rise of Victimhood Culture, sociologists Bradley Campbell and Jason Manning describe how honour and dignity cultures are giving way to a moral code which elevates the oppressed. Call-outs and cancellations, they explain, are status-raising tactics, in which people claim to have been harmed by problematic views and to have suffered micro-aggressions in order to don the mantle of victimhood.

The spread of victimhood culture has helped popularise novel gender identities (non-binary, agender) and sexual orientations (aroace, pansexual) since they allow people to claim membership of oppressed groups without experiencing any actual hardship. It is also driving the self-diagnosis of mental illnesses, from quotidian conditions such as anxiety and depression, to boutique ones such as multiple-personality disorder or a novel form of Tourette’s transmitted by TikTok. 

More generally, this is a culture that encourages young people to regard themselves as traumatised. According to Jonathan Haidt, co-author of The Coddling of the American Mind, US schools and universities have started to promote three pernicious falsehoods: that what doesn’t kill you makes you weaker; that feelings are a good guide to reality and action; and that life is a battle between good people and evil ones.

These dysfunctional beliefs, which Haidt dubs “anti-cognitive behavioural therapy”, promote mental fragility. They encourage people to feel fearful of ordinary words and to regard censorship as virtuous. The logic goes like this: being dis-agreed with makes you a victim; victims are good; people saying things you disagree with therefore deserve to be silenced and punished. This is the culture of “crybullying”: using claims of victimhood to harass others.

Haidt thinks social media, with its polarising and conflict-inducing algorithms, is largely to blame. Another culprit is the “post-modern turn” that was underway before the internet era, in which academics, activists and political theorists stopped thinking of reality as something that could be described objectively and studied empirically, embracing a radical subjectivity instead. 

To these, I would add smaller families and later childbearing. A record half of all women now reach 30 without having given birth. Until the past couple of decades, most childhoods involved playing without adults around, if not with siblings then with neighbours’ children whom you were expected to look out for. 

A growing share of young adults have missed out on these formative experiences. One consequence is that they are painfully ignorant of the ways in which children are different from adults. This is part of the reason so many young people give credence to gender-distressed children’s claims to “really be” members of the opposite sex. 

My younger son identified as a train for most of his waking hours between age two and age four. I put it down to a vivid imagination, read and watched Thomas the Tank Engine on repeat, and waited for him to move on. 

These kidults have also been denied the experiences that would enable them to outgrow the vices of teenagers, namely emotional incontinence and a crippling concern for the regard of peers. Looking after children teaches you to enforce boundaries and prioritise long-term interests over short-term desires. You learn how to say no when that makes you unpopular, to exercise self-control while others are losing it. The worst thing you can do when a child screams at you is to scream back. 

To me, that young man who accused me of supporting conversion therapy appeared never to have learned these lessons. His professed concern for gender-distressed children seemed performative, even narcissistic: more about making him feel good and look good to his political tribe than about what was right for those children. He was failing in the most important task of adulthood: understanding that it’s not all about you. 

[kellymrichman]

Conference Paper: ‘Streets’, The Modernist Studies Association's Annual Conference 2023

Paper: ‘Holy Hub: Picturing the Modern Black Madonna in the Streets of Harlem and Beyond (1940-1948)’

Presented in-person as a member of the four-person panel, ‘Sensing Harlem: Visual and Sonic Cultures of the Harlem Renaissance’, at the 2023 Modernist Studies Association Conference in Brooklyn, New York City on October 27, 2023. 

Abstract:

In “The Task of Negro Womanhood,” an essay published in Alain LeRoy Locke’s The New Negro: An Interpretation (1925), educator Elise Johnson McDougald declared laboring African American women—especially working mothers—the “hub of progress.” McDougald acknowledged that this neoteric perception of the figure was not yet part of the popular imagination, lamenting that “the ideals of beauty, built up in the fine arts, have excluded her almost entirely.” Soon, however, a new feminine iconography would challenge this reality. Enthroned on stoops and enshrined by sidewalks, the modern Black Madonna of the 1940s brought sacred maternity down to earth—specifically, to the streets of contemporary Harlem.

This paper presents a case study comprising three paintings. Two of these works—Madonna of the Stoop (1940) by Palmer Hayden and Tombstones (1942) by Jacob Lawrence—are set in Harlem; the other—Our Lady of the Neighborhood (1948) by Allan Rohan Crite, an East Coast artist who exhibited with the Harlemites—is based in Boston.

This paper first explores how these radical interpretations of the Madonna reconsidered established conventions of Marian iconography, paying particular attention to the significance of the street as a sacred space—an unexpected modernist motif. This paper then questions why this iconography is overlooked by recent research. Stressing that contemporary scholarship seldom diverges from the movement’s masculine metaphors, it asks the question: If the modern Black mother was the “hub of progress” during the Harlem Renaissance, can scholarship that disregards her role in the arts—a “spoke” of this hub—truly be progressive?

[sheepwithspecs]

The War Consultation Social

|| Hellsing || Rated G ||

Ao3 Link

Because she's both young and a girl—heaven help her—newly appointed Sir Integra Hellsing is forced to stay upstairs with the women instead of being allowed to attend the Conference. But perhaps she could learn a thing or two from the Ladies of the Round Table?

[Original Post Date: 2017-01-26]

Sir Integra might have been stuck between childhood and the cusp of womanhood, but that didn’t make her any less prominent among her peers. That’s what she liked to think, in any case, and scenarios like this only made her sullen and angry at the world. Despite her performance as the head of her family, the men of the Round Table looked down on her as a ‘little girl’ and excluded her from many of their meetings. And when she insisted that she needed to be in the loop, they merely patted her head and told her that Walter could come in her stead! As if Walter was the one commanding soldiers from the main study!

“Walter,” she addressed the man now as they drove the streets towards the Penwood home, where this month’s meeting was scheduled to be held. She tried to sound firm and assertive, not whiny or complaintive. “I don’t want to go to Sir Penwood’s house unless I can go to the meeting as well.” She crossed her arms, glowering at the world out the window. Since it was only her and Walter, she had opted to sit in the passenger seat next to him rather than in the back where she really ought to have been. Her guardian butler laughed good-naturedly, but didn’t respond. It prompted her to add, “I sincerely don’t want to sit in some stuffy parlor and drink tea with a bunch of other women.” She kept hoping that if she referred to herself as a woman, others would start seeing her as one too.

“Now, now,” Walter finally consoled her as they waited for the light to change. “Leader of the family or not, you’re still a bit young for a meeting like this one. You wouldn’t find it very interesting, anyway.” She highly doubted that; adults always labeled the most interesting things as boring. She half-thought they did it only to keep prying children away, and she was most definitely not a child anymore. There was no reason that she couldn’t go to the meeting as well. It was only proper, wasn’t it?

“But I’ll miss the most important things, and then I’ll be behind on news,” she protested. “How can I manage an organization if I’m behind?”

“I’ll take notes for you; don’t bother yourself about that,” he assured her calmly. “You just relax upstairs with the ladies and it’ll be over and done with before you know it.” She had the distinct feeling that he was laughing at her in his head, even though he was stoic enough on the outside. “Besides,” he added a little ruefully, “you need to spend time with other women.”

“I don’t see why,” she replied stubbornly. He sighed, staring at the wheel when the light changed on them again before they could get past it. He seemed to be struggling with something.

“It’s just that I can’t teach you everything,” he finally blurted out, looking almost puzzled as he watched the wheel instead of the light as he should have been. “There are some things that you just need a female to tell you about instead of old Walter.” She almost laughed his ’old’ remark; he only had a few wrinkles here and there, he wasn’t old yet. She thought about voicing that thought, but decided against it.

“Like what?” she asked instead, genuinely curious. Walter knew almost everything there was to know about anything, it seemed. He knew about weapons and soldiers, all about proper housekeeping, and even odd facts about plants, animals, or astronomy. It was hard to believe that he couldn’t tell her about whatever it was that she might need to know. To her surprise he blushed deeply, unable to meet her gaze and instead pressing down hard on the gas the moment the light changed. They shot forward and he tapped the brake to compensate as they cruised the street.

            “I—I wouldn’t know,” he stammered, fingers tapping nervously on the wheel. “I’m not a woman.” He cleared his throat loudly, the expression on his face letting her know that he didn’t want to talk about it anymore. “We’re almost there,” he said, changing the subject abruptly. “Only a bit farther now.”

            “Don’t remind me,” she muttered, watching the roofs of the glamourous houses pass by as she sunk down in the seat. She wondered why Hellsing manor had been built so far from the other Knight’s houses, when it could have occupied any other space on the street. Something set it apart from the others; was it because the soldiers actively practiced there? No, it couldn’t have been—she’d been to Lt. Walsh’s house, and they practiced on his expansive lot as well. What was it that had made her family so standoffish, that they’d distanced themselves from everyone else? Or… had it been the other way around, where everyone else had distanced themselves from the Hellsings?

            They turned onto to the small circular portion of asphalt that separated the gate from the main road, and she waited while Walter exchanged pleasantries with the doorman through the speaker. The gate swung open with oiled efficiency, allowing the car to pass through to the expansive driveway. Integra stared gloomily at the large estate with its perfectly manicured lawn and neat shrubbery separating the gardens. She could see Sir Penwood’s efficiency in the crisp, straight hedgerows and Lady Penwood’s colorful aesthetic in the flowers that sat clumped beyond them. They pulled up next to a large marble fountain that spat water in flowing cascades over frolicking frescos of smiling merpeople.

Integra hesitated, but Walter turned off the car and went over to open her door for her, so that she had no choice but to get out. She brushed imaginary dust from her long skirts before adjusting her glasses, looking up at the formidable panes of windows. The house loomed above her threateningly, as if silently judging the small creature that stood on the walk before it. Walter smiled and led the way up the walk; she followed habitually, used to trailing behind him from her infancy. He had often referred to her as a lost little duckling when she was a mere tot, wandering the halls and clutching at his pants legs while he worked. Some small part of her knew that as the head of the family, she ought to have taken the lead, but following after him had become almost instinctive.

The doorman let them in and they waited in the posh front hall while the steward announced their arrival. Walter stood with a calm demeanor, every muscle relaxed as he waited. She tried to follow his subtle example, but her eye kept catching the lavish décor of the room and she stared about, oblivious to the doorman’s curious gaze. Personally, she liked her foyer better.  Lady Katherine had a knack for clutter that collected dust, or would have had she not personally trained a fleet of servants to live up to her high demands. While the Hellsing home’s furniture was sparse, yet functional and stylish in its own minimalistic way, the Penwood home teemed with knickknacks and plump cushions embroidered with kittens. She was taking in the sight of a statue-d trio of fat-bottomed cherubim reclining on clouds when the steward returned, flanking the master of the house.

“There you are, Walter,” Sir Penwood greeted him rather indifferently, one hand already fishing for a handkerchief. He sweated more than any man Integra had ever seen, despite his reluctance to exert himself. She assumed the perspiration was from stress and not heat, and yet he never seemed to hurry anywhere either. He did wear an expression of perpetual exasperation, but then again he was often beleaguered by something she’d done, or said, or asked of him; she could never tell if that sad, pressured look was meant for her alone, or if he always wore it. Of course, when one’s wife was Lady Katherine Penwood, exasperation might just become the norm….

In any case, he seemed to silently wish that the world would leave him alone with his work, and Integra felt in that something along the lines of a kindred spirit. If he wasn’t the man in charge of her wellbeing—insofar as much as an absent godfather could be in charge—she thought that they might have been good acquaintances. Then again, all of the other knights also seemed to think that their work was the most important, and anything stopping said work was just too big of a hassle to ignore. She often wondered if her father had acted that way as well, and if she in turn might someday wake up with the inner voice of a crotchety old geezer.

“And youn—Miss Integra,” he greeted her, and she noticed that despite his unchanged expression, his tone did soften a bit when he spoke to her. “You’re very welcome too,” he added, looking down at her as though he had no idea what to do with her. He’d done the same thing when he’d first met her, and Walter had introduced her as both his goddaughter and her late father’s successor.

“Hello, Sir Penwood,” she responded civilly, hands behind her back as she looked up at him. Privately, she couldn’t help but think that she would be very pleased when she grew taller than him and he had to look up at her. Walter had told her that her family had all been very tall, and she hoped that the genes had passed to her. He continued to look at a loss, but he blinked twice and his face morphed into his usual agitated expression.

“I suppose now that you’re here, we can begin; Sir Irons has been beside himself with impatience….” he told Walter, before turning to the steward. “See that Miss Integra joins the other ladies,” he ordered before turning and walking away without another word. Walter hopped to attention and followed him, leaving Integra alone with the steward. For a quick moment she thought about putting up a fight to go with the men, but decided against it almost immediately. Her father’s words echoed in her mind: It’s fine to be however you are at home, but abroad one must always put on the face of proper gentry. A proper Englishwoman wouldn’t whine and wheedle because she didn’t get her way, no matter how angry she was deep within. So she stifled her sharp words and instead obediently followed the steward up the elegant staircase and down the finely carpeted halls towards the parlor.

The parlor itself was nearly as ‘Katherine’ as a room could be. The wallpaper was gilded white, the carpet was spotless white, the couch cushions a brilliant white with baby doll pink accents. Lace doilies covered every available surface, crystals hanging from the chandelier and lamps, and cutesy figurines lined up in perfect rows along mantel and bookcase alike. China hens laid their eggs on the unused ottoman, and an entire wall was dedicated to an expansive dish collection featuring two brown and white spaniels playing in a wildflower meadow. One shelf above the door was solely for porcelain dolls in Victorian wear, their little painted fingers holding fragile parasols and folding fans. In this room, nauseating as it was, Integra was left to fend for herself as the steward beat a quick retreat.

There were eleven women scattered along the frilled cushions of the sofas, one for each of the men that were right now sitting down with Walter to discuss what to do about Russia, or how to handle the English/American situation as a whole. She would have given anything to be down there, in the midst of the men, arguing her point just as loudly as the rest while choking on the somewhat attractive, yet pungent fragrance of mixed cigarette and cigar smoke. No matter what horrors they were talking about down there, it paled in comparison to the sight of the women, perched on the sofas and grabbing cakes and cookies from the coffee table while they chatted.

“Young Miss Hellsing,” the steward managed to say, halfway down the hall but still loud enough that the women heard. They turned as one, peering over the backs of sofas and around the arms to see her standing in the threshold. She colored (she hated it when servants called her young, as though she were five years old or something), but she didn’t comment on it. Proper gentry, proper gentry….

“Integra!” The loud voice of her godmother rang out in the silence. “Come in, come in darling!” She stood up and made her way over, getting uncomfortably close before wrapping Integra in an embrace resembling a constrictor’s hold. Integra shrank away from the woman’s affection, unsure of how to handle it; the only women she’d known before her father’s death were the female servants, who never touched her at all, and Cook. Cook was a large woman with the same build as Lady Katherine; however her affection was not shown in hugs and kisses, but rather in fresh cinnamon buns and an a fond pat on the head, if anything. Integra would rather deal with Cook’s no-nonsense attitude than be forced to put up with constricting arms and having her face shoved into folds of plump, warm flesh. But Lady Katherine was just different, wanting to call her ‘love’ and ‘darling’ and dress her up as though she were another one of those prissy china Victorianas sitting pristinely on the shelf.

She wasn’t the type of woman that Integra had assumed would be Sir Penwood’s wife. She’d imagined a small, scrawny, nervous woman who kept a never-ending supply of handkerchiefs for her husband’s sweaty habits in her clutch. But Lady Katherine was the very definition of ‘plump’; she wasn’t obese, but had enough fat on her to give her some girth. It made for those very squishy, suffocating hugs that Integra wasn’t entirely sure if she enjoyed or not. And she wasn’t nervous, either. She was loud, willful and made sure that the entire room knew her opinion without a care for anyone who dared to think different. The only thing that matched Integra’s mental description was the multitude of embroidered handkerchiefs that always appeared at exactly the right moment.

She froze as the tight embrace lasted longer than expected, feeling the heat rise to her cheeks and shifting uncomfortably, shoulders tensed. What was the proper protocol for hugging? No one ever seemed to say anything about it, instead knowing instinctively how to behave. Was she the only one that didn’t know what to do? Was she supposed to return the hug, despite whatever her internal feelings might be? Or was she just supposed to stand there and take it? Just standing awkwardly seemed—well, awkward. But that was all she knew how to do, so she became a living statue and held her breath. When she was released, her lungs released all the air as well in a long, low whoosh; the gentlewoman didn’t seem to notice, perfectly manicured nails resting on the younger girl’s shoulder as she whisked the child to sit in a seat of honor next to her.

Integra sank back into the soft cushions, trying to keep herself afloat long enough to settle the cup of tea she was handed. Her feet weren’t able to reach the ground, so she finally found a relatively comfortable position by subtly tucking her right foot beneath the knee of her left leg and using one of the harder accent pillows to support the small of her back. A plate of cakes, some drizzled with honey or fruit preserves while others were doused in a fine snow of powdered sugar, was passed to her and she took one, surprisingly peckish despite having a decent lunch earlier. When the plates were finished being passed, there were sweets piled high enough that Cook would have been proud to see her pack them away. 

The women continued their conversation as if she wasn’t there, which was—in a way, at least—what Integra wanted. It left her in peace to drink her tea without having to pause in order to answer unnecessary questions or add to the conversation. As she ate, she let the conversation wash over her without really paying attention to it, instead looking at the women themselves. She’d always loved people watching, and there weren’t many chances to see so many diverse people in the same room, especially when your butler didn’t approve of you mingling in with the ‘common crowds’.

Sitting directly across from her was the formidable Lady Marjorie Irons; she was exactly the sort of wife Integra had imagined for the stalwart and stuffy Sir Irons. Thin and bony with sharp eyes and a sharper tongue, Lady Irons had a habit of snapping her fan shut and pointing it threateningly whenever she spoke. She was condescending and Integra thought her cruel, though Walter and Cook both insisted that she had her merits and besides, it wasn’t ladylike to speak poorly of one’s elders. And perhaps she did have some redeeming qualities somewhere within the confines of her bony breast, but Integra couldn’t—for the life of her—figure out what they were. She seemed to have a negative opinion of everything, including her own family. Even now she sat with pursed lips, shaking her head in response to whatever topic was pouring amply from Lady Katherine’s mouth.

Sitting to Lady Iron’s right was Lady Marie Walsh, the wife of the quiet, elderly-yet-dashing Lt. Walsh. She was a teeny little snippet of a woman, and looked odd sitting next to the tall Lady Irons. She was also the youngest of the party, her hair having only the lightest hues of silver at her temples and the finest of lines around her always smiling mouth. Lady Marie— she insisted on being called by her Christian name rather than her surname— was perpetually cheerful and sweet, with never a bad word to say about anyone or anything. Integra thought that she could even talk Alucard up to sainthood in her quiet Cumberland tones; her chief talent seemed to be minimizing people’s flaws.  Integra liked her very much, if only for her soft-spoken nature and gentle smile.

Lady Grey was to Lady Iron’s left, seated as though she had a rod up her spine. Integra wasn’t even sure what her given name was, having only heard her called Grey. She was a very pensive woman, always strict in religious edict and morality. She always thought doubly hard before speaking, especially when answering questions, and she was never seen without her hair being done up in tight, headache-inducing bun. Lady Katherine often joked when no one else was around that Lady Grey showered with her bun intact. Integra liked her intelligence, but she was always spouting morals as though she’d memorized them from some book and it often annoyed her.

Three women of the same medium build were crammed together on the settee; Lady Foxx on the right, Lady Summerland on the left, and Lady Winters shoved in-between like toppings on a finger sandwich. Lady Foxx was a rather droll creature that was always worried over her health; Integra couldn’t help but sarcastically think that she was oh so brave to face the germy world outside her own home as often as she did, and was secretly happy that she never found a reason to call on Hellsing manor. To tell truth, anyone could tell that her nervous disposition was really an inability to handle the daily hassles of life. Integra thought that having a tendency to hysterics must be a very boring lifestyle, since Lady Foxx was supposed to do everything to keep them from coming upon her. Thankfully, it didn’t take much to send her into a dead faint so she was never too put-upon.

Lady Summerland and Lady Winters were identical twins. Integra could tell them apart only by their smooth braided buns; they pulled their hair in opposite ways, so that the gray streaks of Lady Winters’s hair ran to the right and Lady Summerland’s to the left. They both had striking green eyes and their hair, before growing dull with age, must have been very beautiful with an ebony sheen. They were both quiet, amiable women who had a habit of finishing the other’s sentences and laughing in the same octave, which was both amusing and eerie until one got used to it.

Lady Montgomery sat in a chair to herself next to the settee. She was from France, and despite having lived on the island for more than thirty years she still spoke in such a thick accent that sometimes she had to repeat herself two or three times before anyone could understand her. Integra was always amused by her dark eyelashes, which were naturally long. They were pretty in their own way, but she had admittedly thought of a camel when she’d first saw them. She also never tired of hearing Lady Montgomery’s firsthand stories about the ‘Forces françaises de l’intérieur’, as she called the French resistance. 

Lady Campbell sat on the third sofa, which had been wedged between the arms of the other two and stood across from the chair and settee. She was the most boring of the wives, hardly speaking at all unless there was a complete lull in the conversation. Even her looks were boring, from her freckled face to her mousy brown hair and dull muddy eyes. Lady Winslow sat next to her, laughing at everything with an irritatingly airy laugh and holding her hand in front of her mouth as though afraid that her teeth might jump out and run away. On her other side sat Lady Herveaux, who was portly and had no more character than the hens sitting on the ottoman; she didn’t seem to have an original through in her head, instead only agreeing with everyone else. Integra supposed that, other than rounding out the Conference’s wives, she served no great purpose.

“Ugh! Filthy thing!” For a moment, she had no idea what Lady Irons meant and went ahead with her absentminded thoughts, wondering if Lady Herveaux might one day surprise them all by being some sort of criminal mastermind that hid in plain sight. It was only when everyone grew quiet and the sentiments were repeated that she looked up to see herself as the center of attention. “Filthy, filthy girl!”

“Excuse me?” Integra managed to ask, shocked into civility. What had she done? In the back of her mind, she knew that she needn’t have done anything to become the target of Lady Iron’s wrath, but she was still used to actually having to put forth an effort to be naughty before being singled out. Still, this polite question only made the woman even more vexed than before.

“Don’t you sit there and act innocent in the face of your misdeeds!” Lady Irons crowed with narrow eyes. “The proof is all over your fingers!” And with this, the folding fan snapped shut and pointed in the direction of the criminal digits. Integra looked down at her hands, trying to decide what was so wrong about them. Nothing seemed to be the matter, and she looked over at Lady Katherine in puzzlement.

“What’s the matter?” Lady Katherine asked for her, sounding as puzzled as Integra felt. Lady Irons scoffed, shaking her head.

“As though you’re blind, Kitty!” she fussed, using the woman’s nickname. “Just look at her filthy little fingers, covered in sugar! Where do you think you are, child?! The East End?!” It was true; she had the remnants of one of the sugared cakes on her fingers. But what was she supposed to do? They were made to eat with one’s hands, weren’t they? She was ready to defend herself with these words, but before she could open her mouth Lady Katherine was speaking for her again.

“Oh let her alone, Margie!” the plump woman clucked as she handed Integra another napkin. “Here, dear. Wipe your fingers off so that Lady Irons will be happy,” she added in an undertone, along with an eye roll for Integra’s benefit.

“Yes, let the poor dear be,” Lady Summerland agreed quietly. “She’s nothing but a child anyway. I say we should let her eat as she pleases.” She took a sip of her tea, oblivious of the scowl Integra sent her way. Even up here, they were looking down on her. What did she have to do to be seen as a proper lady, the same as them?

“I do it myself,” Lady Marie said, gracing Integra with one of her soft smiles. She held up one hand and wiggled the fingers. “What’s life for, if not to get a little messy when eating sweets? Or are you going to call me a dirty slum-heathen too?” she teased.

“Correcting children for their sinful faults is the job of every adult, no matter what their own slovenly habits are,” the woman replied tersely. She crossed her legs and looked down her nose at Lady Marie. “You certainly have never seen anything on my fingers,” she added.

“Well, no, I canna say that I have,” Lady Marie agreed after a moment’s pause. “But I still say that there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s certainly not sinful.”

“Certainly not!” Lady Katherine repeated in a loud tone. “Whatever put that notion into your mind, Margie?” She tsked as she shook her head.

“That doesn’t matter,” Lady Irons retorted coldly. “If Walter would take the time to train her properly, she’d not have gotten her fingers dirty in the first place.” The air changed and grew thick with anticipation; Lady Foxx paled and busied herself with her teacup, as if seeing something in the near future that Integra couldn’t. “But then again, I suppose the real training in etiquette should have gone to her father, and we can certainly call that a failure that never happened,” she scoffed. Her nose turned even higher. “Perhaps you ought to have forced yourself a little more, Kitty.” There was a longer pause, and the hair on Integra’s neck stood up. Lady Foxx’s teacup began to rattle.

“Perhaps I should’ve,” Lady Katherine responded in a near whisper, not unlike herself at all. Integra felt something in the air that set her on edge, and she knew that whatever Lady Irons had meant, it was far deeper than the outwardly impression that her father had never taught her any manners. Integra could feel that it wasn’t for her own benefit that Lady Katherine was in this state—it was something purely between the two women. “But I also,” she added in a voice calm with conviction, and yet so filled with outrage that it was near impossible to believe that she wasn’t screaming her head off, “I also know how to respect a dear friend’s wishes, no matter what the consequences ended up being.”

“Some people would find that in itself a fault,” Lady Irons replied in the same tone, calm and yet clipped. The other women were as still as the dead; Lady Marie alone looked as though she wanted to say something to diffuse the situation, but she must not have been able to think of anything worthy of saying aloud as she remained silent.

“Well, Marjorie,” Lady Katherine said as she took a sip of tea, “since you’re so keen on finding fault in everyone today, please enlighten me on how I might have shaped her up better than Walter ever could. After all, I eat with my fingers too.” It sounded like a challenge, and Integra could already tell that this was going to end up badly if Lady Irons took the bait.  The other woman licked her lips, uncrossing her legs and drawing herself up to her full height as she narrowed her eyes at them from across the coffee table.

“Her lack of table manners is only the tip of the iceberg, Kitty dearest.” At this, Lady Marie managed to cut her way in.

“Come now, Kitty, Margie, let’s not quarrel,” she said breathlessly, her wide brown eyes flitting from one tense figure to the other. “Integra is a fine young lady, and she’ll be a fine woman no matter who raised her. Arthur put good values in her and Walter, well… Walter’s a fine man now; Oxford took care of a great deal of his faults—”

“That bovver boy that fancies calling himself a butler is no more fit to care for a house than he is a child.” Lady Marie’s mouth closed with an audible sound, her expression one of pure shock. Lady Irons ignored her, fan now idly flapping through the air and blowing the gray curls from her face. “He’s the only thing she has for a moral compass; that’s the only reason I don’t completely blame the child. And as for your earlier input, Katherine, I assume that had you taken her as you wanted when she was born, she’d have at least looked decent.”

“What’s wrong with her looks?!” Lady Katherine protested, her voice rising to shouting level. Integra felt more taken aback than insulted, because secretly she was thinking the same thing. She looked down at her clothing, wondering if perhaps food had gotten on them as well. Her shirt was white, so any sugar would have been invisible, and her blue skirt was as spotless as when she had first arrived. Walter had, as always, ironed her clothing for her so there were no wrinkles. She honestly had no idea what Lady Irons meant. The woman in question turned on her with a critical eye, shaking her head with tight, bloodless lips.

“Really, just look at her,” Lady Irons sighed abjectly, as though she couldn’t stand the sight before her. “For one, her hair is all in her face and half-brushed, but even that could be looked past if it weren’t for those glasses.” She scoffed, nose twisting in disgust as she stared right into Integra’s eyes. “No girl—no girl with a mother, at least—would ever be permitted to wear such ridiculous, oversized frames. I sleep at night only because I believe that somewhere in the world, good, God-fearing men and women are keeping their children properly dressed and with glasses that actually fit them, much less help them to see.”

“That’s just absurd!” Lady Katherine spat. Lady Marie furrowed her brow at her sofa mate’s spiel, Lady Winters shook her head and Lady Campbell actually raised her eyes from her lap in a rare display, but none of the other women spoke up to agree with the lady of the house. Integra felt her cheeks burn and she tentatively reached up a hand to feel her frames, pushing them up her nose. Yes, they were a little large for her, but her father—she stopped her train of thought, swallowing hard. She had to keep her mind veered away from the deceased man; it still hurt to think of him, even though his death had been months ago. She wasn’t about to get teary-eyed in front of anyone, especially Lady Irons, who would probably take it as a favorable sign that her words had gone to heart.

“Well, now.” This was Lady Summerland again. She was staring down into her teacup, refusing to look up in the direction of the coffee table. Her sister looked astonished, blinking rapidly. Lady Katherine was staring at her as though she hadn’t been sure if she’d heard right. The woman took a sharp breath. “I don’t… suppose that… the frames of one’s spectacles constitute good breeding.” She swallowed quickly. Lady Foxx chewed her lip and Lady Winters took an unnecessarily long drink of her tea, nearly draining the cup. No one else piped up to defend Integra, so she decided to defend herself.

“I happen to like my glasses, Lady Irons,” she said as politely as she could muster. Instead of having a favorable effect, the sentence instead only increased the tension in the room. The other ladies either looked down at their laps or away; Lady Marie spared her a pitying glance before becoming interested in the doily on the table next to her. Lady Katherine’s tongue darted out to whet her lips, but even she didn’t look directly at Integra. Only the addressed woman stared at her, and with such a piercing glare that Integra thought twice about speaking again. Still, she was determined to finish her piece. “I don’t mind that they’re a little large for my face, even if other people think that they’re ridiculous.” Surely there’s nothing in that answer to constitute bad breeding. Yet she was underestimating her new opponent’s skill.

“Did no one ever teach you to hold your tongue to your elders?” the older woman snapped. “Well, I suppose they didn’t,” she added as an afterthought. “Seeing as they didn’t teach you anything else. But what can you expect?” she asked huffily, tapping Lady Grey. The woman jumped at being singled out, looking timidly at Lady Irons before sighing and staring back at her cup. She then looked through her lashes at Integra for a moment before lifting her head and staring at some fixed point just above Lady Katherine’s head, taking a dainty bite out of a biscuit.

“Spare the rod, spoil the child, or so they say,” she quoted cryptically. Integra wondered if that was meant for her or Lady Irons, but it seemed to pacify the latter.

“See? Take heed, girl.” She shook back her curls. “Then again, I have no choice but to blame genetics. We all know that Arthur was a drunkard and a reckless fool, even if he did do his job well enough that they didn’t throw him to the street. And when your family stems from those sorts of Germans, well—what can I say?” said with a cold laugh and a nod sharp enough that it looked like it might sever her head from her bony neck. “It didn’t help that he refused to marry a proper Englishwoman. Who knows what sort of blood came from that—I shan’t say it in this sort of company.”

Integra was silent, having to mentally take a moment to replay the words and process every slight about her family and upbringing one by one. A hot wash of unwarranted shame flooded and she grew angry at herself for flushing, knowing that her burning cheeks could be seen by everyone in the room, even if her hair ‘hung in her face’. Her confusion and embarrassment turned into anger and she thought of standing up and throwing her tea into the old woman’s face. What good would it have done, though? It would have only cemented the notion that she was a wicked, heathen girl and then she would be no better off than before. Thankfully, she wasn’t alone in the battle; her godmother fluffed like an angry bird seeking to shelter its chick beneath its wing.

“Marjorie Irons, I have never in all my life heard such an unprecedented speech! You sound just… silly!” she exclaimed, throwing her hands in the air and upsetting Integra’s teacup in the process. A drop of semi-warm liquid landed on her skirt and she frowned, hoping that Walter could get it out before it became a stain. This blue skirt was her favorite…. But there’d be time enough to think about that later, as Lady Katherine was still arguing. “… and we all know that you’ve got German roots too, so you shouldn’t even say anything about that either!”

“Please! Saying that my family and the van Helsing family are the same is like saying that a Penwood is the same as a Smith!” Lady Irons face was mottled in her anger. “You’d never see a von Carlson behaving in that manner! We were—are—a proud family, with a sense of ethics and honor instilled in us from our aristocracy alone! You didn’t see us dabbling in black magic and consorting with vam—” At this Lady Katherine gave such a start that the entire sofa moved, cushions and all.  Lady Foxx gave a little screech of alarm and there was a tinkling sound as the rim of her teacup cracked from the continuous shaking.

“Are you alright, darling?” Lady Winters asked her in a loud voice, as if trying to drown out the other woman.

“I’m just… a little nauseous,” Lady Foxx stammered, face ashen. The twins moved as far over as they could, one nearly sitting on the other’s lap in order to give her room.

“Take it to the lavatory if you must,” Lady Katherine insisted, waving a hand at her. “Not on my carpet.” She turned back to face the coffee table, but Integra saw the hand holding her cup was faintly trembling as well. Something clicked in her mind and it became clear as day what Lady Irons meant to say. So they knew as well…. “What were you saying, Margie!?” She tried to gather her emotion into an angry expression, but it was clear the upset had pushed the argument from her mind for the moment.

“Ah, I meant that you’d never see a von Carlson with such garish eyewear,” Lady Irons finished blandly, the fight seemingly gone from her as well. She looked embarrassed to have nearly let the something slip out. Integra put her cup on the coffee table, the china clinking almost inaudibly against the wood. She looked Lady Irons in the eye and smiled broadly, feeling proud at what was about to happen. For once, she knew something that the others did as well, without having to be instructed like a child.

“Were you about to say ‘consorting with vampires’, Lady Irons?” she asked sweetly, letting the sarcastic syrupiness roll from her tongue like the most potent of venoms. The room hushed every woman eyeing Integra with something akin to fear. Lady Irons narrowed her eyes, as if trying to see down into Integra’s soul and garner how much the girl knew. Lady Katherine had gone stiff as a board beside her, but now let out a peal of laughter.

“Vampires!?” she cackled, prompting the other women to laugh weakly as well. Only Lady Marie’s giggle seemed to be just as genuine. “Whatever made you think that, of all things? Has Walter been filling your head with fairy stories, dear?” Integra merely continued to smile, turning her knowing gaze to her godmother.

“No, I was just about to say that if Lady Irons needed one, she could use mine. Since her family didn’t consort with them. They’re really rather useful for taking care of unwanted trash,” she added confidentially. Her tone was now cold, an echo of the woman that she’d be in a few short years. “And mine is growing bored around the house, so I don’t think he’ll mind being released into the Irons’s home for a bit.”

The resounding silence was deafening. Integra expected shouts for her insolence, threats to tell Walter about her bad behavior, even a well-placed smack for her sheer cheek. But instead all the women looked at her with a strange light in their eyes. Lady Marie’s spoon missed her teacup, clicking the side of the saucer and chipping the edge before marring the floor with a perfectly round stain. It continued to rattle, the woman’s hand trembling as she looked from Integra to Lady Katherine and back, her cheeks losing an alarming amount of blood by the second. Her cheerful face had lost its glow, and it didn’t suit her in the slightest. In all their eyes was an old fear that was meant for something greater, something that was before Integra’s time.

“Y-Yours?” Lady Montgomery asked at last. With her breaking the silence, the questions poured forth.

“What do you mean?” This was Lady Grey, her mouth twisted in a grimace.

“Integra…” Lady Katherine inhaled slowly, one hand on her shoulder as she turned Integra around to look her in the eye. “Are you being serious? You’ve found—you’ve gotten a vampire?” She looked as though she were trying to keep calm in the face of death, rather than sitting in the parlor with tea and cakes.

“I have,” she answered proudly, rolling her shoulders back and puffing with a bit of her own ego. She, the youngest, and the ruler over a vampire when all of them couldn’t even imagine the possibility!

“Does Walter know about this vampire?” Lady Summerland asked with the utmost seriousness. “Have you told him?”

“Of course he knows!” Integra exclaimed, twisting in her seat to glare at the woman. “How could he not know?” There was another, shorter silence and then the room seemed to explode.

“O-oh! Oh goodness me! I—I’m having a panic attack!” Lady Foxx gasped to no one in particular, her face losing the little amount of blood it had. “I’m going to faint! This can’t be good for my health!” And with that, her prediction came true and she swooned. Lady Montgomery looked concerned, standing up and fanning the limp woman with a napkin.

“Un désastre, un désastre complet,” she muttered to herself as she frantically waved the makeshift fan over the waxen features. 

“Someone ought to march down there and make Walter explain himself!” Lady Winters demanded, fist striking her thigh defiantly. She didn’t, however, make to move from her seat. “He ought to explain!” she repeated when no one bothered to pay any attention to her. “How could he keep something so vital a secret from us all?”

“If it was indeed ‘us all’,” Lady Grey finally answered her. “I have no doubt that he probably told the men, and they all seemed it fit enough to keep it from us.” She huffed, shaking her head. Lady Foxx let out a breath that sounded as though her soul was finally escaping its mortal coils, and Lady Montgomery continued her fanning with renewed vigor, looking panicky herself.

“How?” Lady Marie whimpered, one hand on her temple. Tears pooled in her eyes, her natural reaction to stressful stimuli that actually bothered her to the point of concern. “How can he be back?” she asked. “Arthur said… he promised that he’d never come back!” she squeaked, burying her face in her hands and sobbing with squeaky little gasps. “He promised!” As Integra watched, Lady Irons actually put a comforting arm around her shoulder and allowed the small woman to lean on her.

“There there, stop making such a fool of yourself,” she sighed in her usual snappish way, but lacking much of the bite she might have gave under less shocking circumstance. “Calm down, Marie. It’s not as though—”

“I’ll never forget what I saw, in Berlin,” Lady Summerland cut her off. Her eyes were focused on the mantle, but there was a distant gleam in them that Integra recognized from the soldiers under her command. They wore the same look whenever they recalled what Walter often referred to as simply ‘bad times’. “Those men, and those… those telegraph poles….” She shuddered. “I’ll never forget it for as long as I live. That monster—” Her sister put her arms around her and squeezed, stroking the neatly parted hair.

“It’s alright, shh,” she murmured. “It won’t happen again, I’m sure of it. Things are different now.”

“You’re right,” said Lady Grey. “It ought to be worse now, for there’s no SS to waste its energies on.” Lady Montgomery cleared her throat, looking up from Lady Foxx for a minute. Her bright eyes locked onto Integra, sitting in the midst of the chaos with a look of confusion.

“Until zis ‘orrible mess can be sorted out,” she said firmly, above the ruckus of Lady Marie’s squeaking and Lady Winter’s comforting of her sister, “Ze little one can come to my ‘ouse and stay.”

“But my house is farther away from Hellsing manor,” Lady Grey offered. “She’s certainly welcome there; now that Louis has gone to his own house, there’s a spare guest room she can be put in.” 

“It won’t matter where she stays, if that creature gets a notion to go after her,” Lady Katherine butted in. “She could be sent to the Cape of Good Hope and it wouldn’t do any good at all; it would only cause more property damage. But if she did stay anywhere,” she concluded with a flinty gaze. “It would be with me.” Her face turned down to her young seatmate and she smiled kindly. “Don’t worry, dear. Aunt Kitty will protect you.” Integra stared blankly back up at her, battling with indignation and exasperation alike. Her face twisted purposely and she huffed before reaching up and adjusting her ‘unladylike’ glasses.

“Thank you, Lady Katharine, but that is not necessary. My vampire will not harm me." There was a hard look in the girl's eyes. "He protected me once already, from my Uncle, when he tried to kill me." Lady Katherine’s smile faded and the women shared another uncomfortable glance between them.

“My dear, I suppose he did kill your uncle, but sparing you was most likely just a whim, as much as I hate to say it aloud.” It was clear that for once, Lady Katherine was trying to tread a subject carefully, and not doing a very good job of it. “Your much safer if he’s locked away in some dark dungeon and left to ro— well, to the annals of history,” she laughed nervously.

“I’m afraid I have to disagree,” Integra replied, making an effort to be kind in return and assuage the older woman’s fears. “For one, he didn’t kill my uncle. I did that myself. And, you see, as head of the family, I—”

“How many times must you be told!? Don’t talk back to your elders, child!” Lady Irons hissed. “Especially on matters that you couldn’t even begin to understand!”

“Margie,” Lady Katherine chided, giving her peer an imploring look. “Let’s at least hear the child out.”

“She doesn’t even know what she’s begun, letting him loose!” Lady Irons retorted. “Who, pray tell, is keeping control of him?”

“I am!” Integra interjected, thoroughly confused. They acted as though the world itself were ending, just because she had a vampire now. Why couldn’t they understand that she had things under control? Nothing particularly bad had happened since she’d let him out of the basement, and that had been weeks ago! While a part of her was curious as to what had happened with the telegraph poles in Berlin, the rest of her was trying to decide on the best way to show the women that she was in charge. She doubted that bringing him here would solve anything—it would only make the women more afraid. He could look quite daunting, when in the wrong light.

 “We’ve got to speak with Walter,” Lady Marie finally said in a shaky voice, wiping at her cheeks with her handkerchief. Lady Winters nodded vehemently in agreement, her arms crossed over her chest, and Lady Grey reached for the silver bell on the coffee table. Lady Katherine reached forward with a speed that surprised Integra and laid her own hand over it, a pensive frown on her lips.

“Do you really believe that the men knew?” she asked Lady Grey in a quiet, very uncharacteristic tone. The woman shifted uncomfortably in her seat, face screwed up in concentrated thought. Finally she put a hand on her chin.

“I think that Walter would have deemed it necessary. I know he was a rowdy sort of youth, but I can’t believe that he’d actually hold back that sort of important information.”

“Well then.” The silver bell was left on the table and Lady Katherine’s eyes gleamed with a dark light. “Do you think you’re up for walking the ledge, Marie?” The red-faced woman stared deep into the hostess’s eyes, biting her lip, and then nodded. The women looked at each other, and then stood as one. “Come along, Integra dear,” she said absently as they all moved towards the window, skirts swooshing and heels clicking in the new, purposeful silence.

“Where are we going?” Integra asked, baffled as the women pooled near the windows. There was no balcony, not in the sitting room window anyway. No one answered, but Lady Summerland motioned her with a hand gesture and she rose from the sofa to join them. Lady Irons and Lady Grey opened the windows, letting in a gust of fresh breeze that ruffled the curtains and brought the lovely fragrance of roses.

“Take care,” Lady Grey said to Lady Marie. “You haven’t done this in a few years, my dear. Don’t take a tumble now.” Integra balked at the woman, who was down to her stocking feet and working on the stockings themselves. She yanked them off and stuffed them down into her shoes, her free hand gathering her longer skirts around her until they were above her knees. She looked up at them all and, despite the traces of tears still lingering on her cheeks and lashes, gave them all a bright, if not weak smile.

“I don’t plan to, Lady Grey.” Before Integra could blink, she was on the ledge of the window and peering out, holding onto the casement with one slender hand. She seemed to gage something and then swung around the casement and out of site. Integra pushed past the other women until she was Lady Katherine’s side, one hand on the ledge as she peered out after her.

“I hope it’s still there,” Lady Katherine muttered to herself, allowing Integra to press up beneath her chin in order to lean out the window. “It’s been years since I’ve even looked at that old thing.” Integra meant to ask what she meant, but she was more interested in watching Lady Marie’s tiny, childlike feet carefully navigate the thin ledge of the molding that skirted the length of the house. For a normal ladies foot, the ledge would be too narrow. Integra knew that she could probably cross it easily enough, with patience and good balance. But Lady Marie, despite her age, had naturally tiny feet. It seemed that she also apparently had perfect balance. She made it seem easy to cross over to a small balcony that was connected to one of the spare bedrooms, if Integra had to guess.

“Oh, she made it!” Lady Winters breathed happily. Lady Marie waved to them from her safer spot and then walked over to the wall, which was half-hidden behind a larger vertical line of molding. Afterwards, she kneeled, fiddled with something beyond the balcony, and then there was a deft click that rang through the air. All the women at the window froze for a moment, and Lady Marie froze as well before slowly straightening up and walking back across the balcony. She hopped back up on the ledge, but now something was clutched tightly in her hand.

“What does she have?” Integra asked Lady Katherine, who smiled back down at her.

“Well, you’re about to be initiated into a well-kept secret that has nothing to do with government… well, not in a way.”

“Yes, and you better keep your mouth shut about it,” Lady Winters warned. “If it gets out, we’ll know who to blame.”

“Oh, hush. Our darling Integra won’t tell a soul, will you?” Lady Katherine purred. Integra dutifully shook her head and then they all had to move back as Lady Marie jumped in off the ledge.

“My foot slipped in that last moment,” she admitted breathlessly. “It wasn’t as easy as when I was in my thirties.” She opened her clenched fist to show nothing more than a common two-way radio. “I still remembered how we used to set it up, though. And there wasn’t any feedback, so no one’s using the frequency.”

“Where was that at?” Integra asked, thoroughly puzzled. She wished that she could have seen around the vertical molding. It was all so strange! Lady Marie smiled at her.

“In a little dovecote. It’s nailed to the wall, but there haven’t been doves in… well, I daresay forty years.”

“We commandeered it for our own purposes,” Lady Summerland added. “After all, one has to keep on top of things.” She laughed softly. “All Lady Marie had to do was crack the window a smidgen and rest the other radio on the upper sill. A bit of glue holds the button down. We’ve been doing this for as long as meetings have been held here, haven’t we Kitty?”

“Still, wasn’t that window clicking loudly today?” Lady Grey said. “I thought for a moment that we were found out!” Lady Katherine put a finger to her lips and then without further ado, Lady Marie clicked the on switch. There was a static-filled pause, and then Sir Irons came through as clearly as though he were standing in the room with them.

“—can’t see what’s to be done about it, unless we send in some specialized forces.” The women leaned in, staring intently at the transceiver in Lady Marie’s hand. “Do we have money in the budget for that?”

“Can’t say that we do,” Sir Penwood sighed. “We’re strung out as it is, I’m afraid. Training troops and sending them to Russia is too much for any budget. We’ve got to somehow make do with what we have already.” 

“Saying it’s one thing, doing is another,” Sir Walsh interrupted them both. “Speaking for myself, I know that none of my men are strong enough to take on an entire town of Ghouls and a pair of vampires. How about you, Sir Grey?”

“I can’t say much for mine, either. I’m still training new ones; lost too many in the last big showdown.”

“Well,” Sir Irons huffed. “And you, Walter?”

“Our men could possibly handle the Ghouls, but unless the vampires are alone when we come for them, there’s no way. A pair of vampires—especially if they’re partnered, instead of just working together—would be far too advanced for our soldiers. If I may suggest, though: Alucard could be sent in to deal with the vampires while the men work in the town.” There was a pause, and Integra could hear every woman in the room hold her breath.

“Naturally, but what of the damage costs? We all know how he is.” Sir Irons sounded displeased.

“Compared to the costs of training fleets of new men and covering up the others’ deaths?” Walter was confident. “Miniscule.”

“I still say we ought to have locked him up the minute everyone was safe.” This sounded like Sir Summerland, speaking around his pipe. “It’s too dangerous.”

“It’s not our call to make,” Sir Irons said. “It’s Walter’s business to order the Hellsing household; Her Majesty said as much when we brought the matter to her, didn’t she?”

            “It’s Miss Integra’s business,” Walter corrected swiftly. “He obeys me because he wants to, but he obeys Miss Integra because he must. That’s all the difference in the world. In the end, it’s her decision whether to keep him out or lock him away, and I will stand by that decision, no matter what the outcome may be.” Integra said nothing, but deep within her a vein of compassion bubbled and swelled. Walter…. 

            “Well, in any case,” Sir Irons faltered, and Integra could hear the dismay written across his face. “Sir Penwood, ring the bell for the steward and tell him to get the cars ready. I don’t think there’s anything more we can decide on today. In conclusion, gentlemen: Sir Grey, I trust you to—”

            “That’s it, then.” There was a deft click and the radio was turned off. Integra nearly called out for it to be turned back on, afraid that there might be some last minute command that she’d miss. But the women’s curiosities were satisfied, and Lady Marie was already on the ledge and preparing to make the dangerous trip again to get the other radio off the window. “We ought to do it earlier next time, so we can hear more.”

            “Hear more of what?” Lady Irons huffed as she watched Lady Marie through the casement. “It’s been the same pointless war dribble for nearly twenty years now.”

            “She’s not wrong,” Lady Summerland sighed. “Still, I suppose we found out the answer.”

            “And so?”  Lady Montgomery tsked with a small shake of her head.

            “And so what?” Lady Katherine replied in the same tone. “That’s it.”

            “Well, I’m not going to take it so easily,” Lady Winters growled, her hands still fisted. “My husband has another thing coming if he thinks he can pull one on me. Why would he not even tell me?” she asked her sister.

            “Why, the same reason Laurie didn’t tell me,” Lady Summerland huffed, nails drumming on her crossed arms. “Probably thought we couldn’t handle it, as if—”

            “Really, as if!” her twin concluded irritably, shaking her head.

            “You’re right,” Lady Marie said as she climbed for the fourth time through the casement and sat upon it, pulling her stockings back out of her shoes. “It’s as if we preened ourselves through the war, fragile as china dolls and not teaching the troops self-defense courses.”  

            “Pah!” Lady Montgomery spat, nose wrinkling. “As if we couldn’t fight our way through the enemy lines!”

            “As though we didn’t carry our fathers’ secret messages back and forth between the Knights,” Lady Katherine rolled her eyes.

            “As if we weren’t in Germany at the same time!” Lady Irons scowled. “And in Berlin at that!”

            “Berlin, that’s exactly right,” Lady Herveaux agreed. Integra listened, wide-eyed, as the women forgot her presence. Weren’t these the women who had just panicked at the thought that Alucard was out and about? Why were they talking as if they were unafraid of anything? She’d heard Walter’s stories of WWII and the horrors of Ghoul armies, but… was that what these women meant? Perhaps it was the principle of the matter, she decided as they continued to talk over one another while closing the window, putting back the curtains, and then making their way towards the door. Lady Katherine paused and turned to her, offering an arm silently.

            “Integra? Aren’t you coming?”

            “Yes,” she said, coming close but not taking the proffered arm. It went around to the small of her back instead and she was guided out the door along with the crowd of women, who had gone oddly silent once they passed the threshold. It was the principle of the matter, she realized, once they had gone downstairs and met up with the men. Those women, the same ones that bickered over fashion and were now meeting their husband’s words with cold indifference, had put themselves in danger for a cause they believed in, just as if they were men. Whether fighting for Partisans, or delivering coded messages, they had risen to the challenge. And even if they were frightened at the thought of Alucard, they would have risen again as one to defend a new objective—herself—from the perceived threat. That their own husbands, who knew of their exploits, would leave them out in the cold for no reason but some paltry excuse of their own? It was rude, inexcusable, deplorable behavior.

            She looked at Walter, who had not been blameless in this affair, and a new idea dawned that had never before entered her head. Walter was a man. This was something that he wouldn’t understand, even if she tried to explain how she did understand without having been through the same thing herself, and furthermore—as a man, he’d never experience it the same way a woman would, if at all. Was this, then, what he meant when he spoke of things that he couldn’t teach her? She eyed him for a moment before turning away in a halfhearted snub of her own and following the women out to where the chauffeurs waited with the cars.

            “Hmm?” Walter tilted his head as he watched his young charge head to the cars. She’d never looked at him like that before, and he’d expected her to ask about the meeting, but… there she went, just like all the others. And that expression; it was strictly Katherine-esque in nature. It startled him, frankly.

            “It astounds me how little she resembles either of her parents.” Sir Irons adjusted his top hat as he watched the youngster climb into the car, this time in the backseat instead of the passenger side. “I wonder where her looks come from? Not from Arthur, to be sure.”

            “She is pretty,” Lt. Walsh chuckled as he lit a cigarette. “Feisty, too. Already she’s been asking Marie and me to teach her a few moves. I thought about giving her some judo lessons, eh, Walter?”

            “Well—”

            “She gets her attitude from Arthur,” Sir Penwood interjected with a sigh. “She demands more ridiculous things every quarter. New helicopter, fancy new missile system, enhanced weaponry….”

            “Just say no, man,” Sir Irons huffed. “I’ve looked at your records. Complain all you like, but you keep buying her the new toys as fast as she sends a request.”

            “Well, she is my goddaughter,” Sir Penwood mumbled to his shoes. “And when she gives you that one certain look, it’s hard to say no. It’s the same one Arthur always wore. It brings back memories….” He looked up to the ceiling. “And then there’s Kitty on the other side, whipping out the checkbook every time the child sneezes. New clothes, new cutlery, a party here, a party there, hair ribbons and every other gaudy thing that Integra doesn’t even really wear.”

            “Ought not to let the child hang around Kate and the others too much, old boy.” Walsh laughed harder, the sound bouncing around the foyer. “She’ll rub off on her.” This time it was Walter who let out a heartfelt sigh.

            “To be fair… that’s what I’m a little afraid of.”

[beardedmrbean]

The Finnish government is due to present a controversial bill to Parliament on Thursday on the so-called three-month rule.

Savon Sanomat is among the papers reporting that the proposal aims to link work-related residence permits more closely to work, putting people on work-based residence permits at risk of deportation if they don't get a new job within three months after becoming unemployed. An exception is being made for certain specialists who would have six months to find new work.

The planned amendment was widely criticised during a consultation round with various stakeholders. For example, the Federation of Finnish Technology Industries, which represents many large export companies, said in a statement that it was very concerned about the impact of the proposal on Finland's image and attractiveness as a destination for international talent.

According to the STT news agency, some changes have been made to the bill following consultations.

Under the terms of the proposal, employers would in future be obliged to notify the Finnish Immigration Service (Migri) of the termination of employment of an immigrant.

The government's aim is for the new regulations to enter into force in April of next year.

Objection to refugee exclusion

Helsingin Sanomat reports on comments by Swedish People's Party MP Eva Biaudet, who said in a discussion on Yle TV Wednesday evening that her party will not agree to any government plan excluding, for example, Afghan women from the nations' refugee quota.

Based on its own sources, HS reported last week, that the Finns Party has proposed reducing the number of quota refugees accepted from Muslim-majority countries while increasing the intake from Christian-majority nations.

According to HS, Finns Party interior ministers, first Mari Rantanen and later Lulu Ranne, have instructed officials to prepare the allocation of next year's quota in such a way that quota refugees would no longer be taken from countries such as Afghanistan. Instead, more would be taken from countries such as Venezuela.

Biaudet stated it is unthinkable that the the Swedish People's Party, which is a member of the coalition, could accept such a move.

The current government has reduced the refugee quota from from 1,050 to 500.

"Since the government has halved the refugee quota, it is all the more reason to give asylum to those who need it most," said Biaudet.

In response, Finns Party MP Joakim Vigelius denied the government is intending to implement discriminatory criteria, saying that the aim is not to reduce the number of refugees from Muslim countries. Instead, he said one of the aims is to accept refugees that can be integrated as well as possible.

"I would not consider Venezuelans fleeing a socialist government, for example, to be any less valuable," Vigelius said.

War fatigue

In a recent interview with the Financial Times, Finland's Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen (NCP) took up the issue of the danger of rising fatigue among western states regarding assistance to Ukraine.

Helsingin Sanomat reports that President Alexander Stubb repeated that warning on Wednesday during an official visit to Norway.

Speaking at a joint press conference during a state visit to Norway alongside the country's Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, both made it clear, says HS, that there is no room for war weariness.

President Stubb compared the situation to a marathon, where one cannot let fatigue win in the middle of the race. He added that this is especially true at a time with three wars going on, two in the Middle East as well as in Ukraine. In addition, Stubb said, the world is eagerly awaiting the outcome of the US presidential election next month.

The paper points to a similar analysis published Wednesday by the US-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW) which says that, "Russian President Vladimir Putin's current theory of victory in Ukraine seeks to protract the war and posits that Russian forces can outlast Western support for Ukraine and collapse Ukrainian resistance by winning a war of attrition."

HS also noted that Western support for Ukraine will be a key topic of discussion when US President Joe Biden meets with Nato allies German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer in Berlin on Friday.

Securing home routers

Finland's National Cyber Security Centre has received more reports of denial of service (DDoS) attacks than usual this autumn, reports the Uutissuomalainen news group.

Ilta-Sanomat writes that Nordea Bank said this week that it has been more difficult than usual to prevent DDoS attacks against its services, in large part due to the fact that they have involved Finnish and other Nordic home network devices that have been hijacked.

Geoblocking, that is blocking of inbound web traffic from abroad, is a common way of combating cyber attacks. However, this is difficult if a large part of the attack traffic comes from the same Finnish IP addresses as the customer's web traffic.

The National Cyber Security Centre says there are three key issues to consider when ensuring home router security.

The first point is to disable remote management of the router. If remote management is enabled in the router's settings, malicious actors can remotely modify the settings. The Cyber Security Centre recommends disabling this feature altogether.

It is also advisable to change the router's default password. Default passwords are a security risk and it is recommended to change it to a stronger one when logging into the router management portal.

And it is important to keep your device updated. Sometimes routers update themselves, but in other cases you have to do it yourself. If automatic updates are available for your device, the Cyber Security Centre advises activating this feature.

IS also points out that telecoms operators say you should also replace your router every 4 years or so because security updates may not be available for older devices.

[xtruss]

‘We Have Provided Everything Possible For Their Freedom’: How The USSR Helped France’s Most Important Colony Stick It To Paris

Demining, Energy Cooperation, Irrigation, Metallurgy, Children’s Summer Camps Made the History of the Friendship Between Algeria and the Soviet Union

— Wednesday April 24, 2024 | RT

Algerian President Houari Boumediene (2nd R) and Soviet Prime Minister Alexei Kosygin (L) during a visit of an Algerian factory during Kosygin's official visit to Algeria on October 5, 1971. © AFP

In early 2024, Moscow announced that it intended to establish a Russian House in Algeria, where both expatriates and local residents will be able to study the country’s language and culture. In recent years, the need for such a cultural center has grown, since thousands of Russians reside in Algeria (many of them have lived there since Soviet times) and Algerian young people are showing increasing interest in the culture.

During the Soviet period, the communist state educated many Algerian politicians, trained its military personnel, and armed the country’s air force and navy. The Algerian Army owes much of its professional success to Soviet and Russian military schools and academies, where more than 60,000 of its servicemen were trained between 1961 and 2023.

Thousands of Algerian specialists from various fields and industries were educated in the USSR. Many returned home with their Russian wives and children. In such multicultural families, the Russian language and culture have been passed on from generation to generation.

More than 1,000 Russian women live in Algeria today. In 1989, the Coordinating Council of Russian Compatriots created the Association of Russian Women Compatriots in Algeria, which unites women from Russia and the former USSR republics.

“The Association’s main goal is to preserve the Russian language and Russian traditions. Every year, we hold conferences which are attended by women from other cities of Algeria. This brings us closer to each other, we learn about the lives of our compatriots in other Algerian cities, about their success and their problems,” its website states.

How The USSR Supported Algeria’s Fight For Independence

The Soviet Union was the first country in the world to establish diplomatic relations with Algeria. This happened in March 1962, four months before Algeria officially declared its independence from France.

The USSR had de facto recognized Algeria two years earlier. On October 3, 1960, during the 15th session of the UN General Assembly in New York, USSR Secretary General Nikita Khrushchev met with members of the Algerian government. Several days later, he said this meeting had signified that the USSR had recognized the provisional government of the Algerian republic.

“We, the Soviet people, sympathize with all the colonial nations that are fighting against the colonialists for their [country’s] independence. How can we exclude the great Arab people who are fighting for their independence, for their freedom? We applaud their fight. We have provided and will continue to provide all the possible assistance that may help the Algerian people in the struggle for their independence, for their freedom,” Khrushchev said at the time.

Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev as he delivered his fist-waving, shouting speech before the U.N. General Assembly late October 11, 1960. © Getty Images/Bettmann

From the start of the Algerian war of 1954-1962 against French colonialism, the USSR supported the Algerian people. The Soviet Union spoke out in defense of Algeria at the UN and various international forums, provided financial, material, and military assistance, and organized various solidarity campaigns.

Demining

“And then, Algeria called me to demine the country. Volunteers – step forward! Everyone stepped forward, not just me,” sang the famous Soviet singer Mark Bernes in the song ‘Memories of Algeria’. Between 1962 and 1964, the Soviet Army demined large territories of the newly independent Republic of Algeria. Unfortunately, these accomplishments have been largely forgotten in present times.

Mark Bernes, Merited Artist of the RSFSR (1911-1969). © Sputnik/Aleksandr Smirnov

In 1962, the provisional government of Algeria and France signed the Evian Accords – peace treaties which also granted Algeria the right to self-determination. After a nationwide referendum on July 5, Algeria officially declared independence. However, there was a lot of work ahead since Algeria’s economy was seriously affected by the war, and French specialists left the country en masse. In the aftermath of the colonial era and the eight-year war, Algeria was in great need of assistance.

On leaving Algeria, France also left behind thousands of mines. The most heavily mined territories were on the border with Morocco and Tunisia (the so-called “Lignes Challe et Morice”). In 1959, large parts of these territories were blocked by minefields, observation posts, and electrified wire barriers. However, France had no intention of cleaning up after itself.

Sappers of the 19th USSR Engineer Regiment strengthening the border in the area of Constantine, Algeria.

Since Algeria didn’t have qualified sappers, it first requested help from several European countries (Italy, Sweden, Germany), but they refused to help. Private companies didn’t help to solve the problem either. For example, a group of Italians headed by retired general Ipolito Armando started demining the territory, but stopped when several people from the group were killed in mine blasts.

Then, the Soviet leadership stepped in and agreed to demine the territory free of charge. On July 27, 1963, an agreement was signed between the two countries. Two groups of specialists from the USSR arrived in Algeria in the period from 1962 to 1965. In this period, Russian sappers defused about 1.5 million mines, clearing over 800km of mine strips and 120,000 hectares of land. Each sapper defused between 10,000 and 15,000 mines. Some of them never made it back home and many remained crippled. On their return, most of the sappers received Soviet government awards.

Soviet Specialists in Algeria

Sappers weren’t the only specialists to arrive in Algeria from the USSR. In the 1960s and 1970s, thousands of Russian specialists came to Algeria and stayed there for many years. Some of these people permanently settled in Algeria and their descendants still live there.

On gaining independence, Algeria chose a socialist course in domestic politics and actively established international relations. In the first two decades following its declaration of independence, Algeria closely cooperated with the USSR in the fields of economics, politics, and culture, and the two countries frequently exchanged delegations at various levels.

Economic cooperation with the Soviet Union and other countries of the socialist bloc encompassed almost all areas of Algeria’s economy. The large number of Soviet specialists who came to Algeria greatly contributed to the development of the local economy. The USSR helped Algeria with mineral exploration, building large industrial enterprises, and training engineering and technical personnel. For example, El Hadjar Complex, built in 1968, became the largest steel plant in Africa.

The Soviet Union helped develop the mining and non-ferrous industries in Algeria, particularly when, in May 1966, Algeria announced the nationalization of all mining enterprises and foreign engineers left the country.

The Algerian National Oil, Gas and Chemistry Institute was built with Soviet assistance in Boumerdes. © Sputnik/Mikhail Kuleshov

At the request of the People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria, the USSR, Bulgaria, and other member countries of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance sent their specialists to Algeria, and the nationalized mines continued to operate. Thanks to this assistance, Algeria increased the extraction of iron, lead, and zinc ore.

Cooperation in the energy sector has always been important for Algeria, and has provided the country with foreign exchange earnings. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Soviet specialists worked at the Algerian state oil and gas company Sonatrach, and the USSR supplied drilling rigs for geological exploration sites.

Soviet agronomists and hydrogeologists helped boost irrigation and water supply, and increase the area of cultivated land. The USSR built two irrigation dams in Algeria. Soviet hydrogeologists also headed complex groundwater research in the country’s southern desert regions, which occupy about 80% of Algeria’s entire territory. In just four years, Soviet experts were able to identify 25% more water reserves than the French had managed to do in the 130 years they spent in Algeria.

The USSR also provided comprehensive assistance in the field of education. In 1964, the Algerian Institute of Oil and Gas was established in Boumerdès and presented to the city as a gift. Thanks to Soviet specialists, Boumerdès, a city in the north of Algeria , became a major educational and scientific center. The National Institute of Light Industries was also established there.

The Mining and Metallurgical Institute was built in Annaba, and the Hydrometeorological Institute was established in Blida. The professors of the main subjects were selected from various USSR universities and sent to Algeria. Between 1956 and 1978, more than 800 Algerian specialists were trained in educational institutions established by the USSR.

Military cooperation between the USSR and Algeria has always been important as well. The USSR (and later Russia) was Algeria’s main supplier of weapons and military equipment. In the late 1970s, the Algerian Army possessed 350 tanks and 294 combat aircraft, and approximately 95% of this equipment was produced in the USSR. From 1962 to 1991, the Soviet Union supplied Algeria with a variety of weapons with a total value of around $10 billion.

In December 1963, a cultural cooperation agreement was signed between Algeria and the USSR. Strong cultural ties were established in the fields of cinematography and literature, and many Soviet music ensembles and other artists performed in Algeria. The Russian language was taught in several Algerian universities.

Many Russian specialists who stayed in Algeria for a long time brought their families along with them. Algeria had schools and even pioneer summer camps for Soviet children.

Students at the Soviet Embassy’s school in Boumerdes, Algeria. © Histoire de Boumerdes

For example, the USSR Embassy established one such pioneer camp on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, near the picturesque town of Tipaza, which boasted Phoenician, ancient Roman, early Christian, and Byzantine architecture. The cultural program for children included swimming, beach volleyball and football, Neptune Day, and tours to the nearest Roman cities and tombs.

Present Times

From the mid-1980s to the early 2000s, relations between Russia and Algeria declined in light of an economic and political crisis. In 1991, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Algeria officially recognized the Russian Federation. Bilateral relations entered a new stage at the start of the 21st century.

In April 2001, then-President of Algeria Abdelaziz Bouteflika traveled to Moscow on an official visit, which resulted in the signing of the Declaration on Strategic Partnership between Russia and Algeria. Currently, 14 intergovernmental agreements, as well as around 30 protocols, cooperation programs, and memoranda are in force between the two countries. Political dialogue is maintained at the highest level.

The strong ties between Russia and Algeria have also ensured warm relations between its peoples. To this day, many Algerians remember with gratitude the help which the USSR provided to the young country in its first decades of independence.

— By Tamara Ryzhenkova, orientalist, senior lecturer at the Department of History of the Middle East, St. Petersburg State University, expert for the Telegram channel ‘Arab Africa’

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Vulvodynia is a little-known condition that, according to some US studies, affects 3%-14% of the female population. It is defined as chronic pain, present for at least 3 months, that generally involves the vulva or some of its specific areas such as the clitoris or vestibule and is not attributable to causes of an infectious, inflammatory, oncologic, or endocrine nature; skin trauma; or damage to nerve fibers.

"There are probably many more women who suffer from it who don't talk about it out of shame, because they feel 'wrong,'" said gynecologist Pina Belfiore, MD, chair of the Italian Interdisciplinary Society of Vulvology, at the annual conference of the Italian Society of Gender Medicine in Neurosciences (SIMeGeN)." It is a treatable condition, or at the very least, a patient's quality of life can be significantly improved with a personalized therapeutic approach."

The Correct Diagnosis

The first step for setting the patient on the right course toward recovery is to offer welcome and empathy, recognizing that the suffering, which can have psychological causes, is not imaginary." We need to explain to patients that their condition has a name, that they are not alone in this situation, and, above all, that there is hope for solving the problem. They can get through it," said Belfiore.

First, an accurate history of the pain is needed to correctly diagnose vulvodynia. How long has the pain been going on? Is it continuous or is it triggered by an environmental factor, for example by sexual intercourse or contact with underwear? Is it a burning or stinging sensation? Did it first occur after an infection or after a physical or psychological trauma? Does the patient suffer from other forms of chronic pain such as recurring headaches or fibromyalgia?

"It is then necessary to inspect the vulva to exclude other systematic conditions or injuries that may be responsible for the pain, as well as to locate hypersensitive areas and evaluate the intensity of the symptoms," said Belfiore." A swab test is performed for this purpose, which is carried out by applying light pressure on different points of the vulva with a cotton swab."

CNS Dysfunction

Vulvodynia is not a direct condition of the vulva. Instead, it involves the dysfunction of the central nervous system (CNS), which confuses signals coming from the peripheral area, interpreting signals of a different nature as painful stimuli." The origin of this dysfunction is an individual predisposition. In fact, often the women who suffer from it are also affected by other forms of chronic pain," said Belfiore." Triggers for vulvodynia can be bacterial infections, candidiasis, or traumatic events such as surgically assisted birth or psychological trauma."

Because inflammatory mechanisms are not involved, anti-inflammatory drugs are not helpful in treating the problem." Instead, it is necessary to reduce the sensitivity of the CNS. For this purpose, low-dose antidepressant or antiepileptic drugs are used," said Belfiore." Pelvic floor rehabilitation is another treatment that can be beneficial when combined with pharmacologic treatment. This should be conducted by a professional with specific experience in vulvodynia, because an excessive increase in the tone of the levator ani muscle can make the situation worse. Psychotherapy and the adoption of certain hygienic and behavioral measures can also help, such as using lubricant during sexual intercourse, wearing pure cotton underwear, and using gentle intimate body washes."

It is important that family doctors who see women with this problem refer them to an experienced specialist." For information on services available in specific regions, you can contact the Italian Interdisciplinary Society of Vulvology," said Belfiore.