The Astral Pilgrim

I think it is safe to say that today was my first dose of awkward street photography. We decided to visit the local park seeing as the weather was nice and I of course thought photo shoot time! The park just around the corner form my house is nicely nestled in amongst a small wooded area and I thought I would put my new macro lens to work on some potential small wildlife, plus get some nice portraits of the kids and the my wife.

It never dawned on me until we got there – lots more kids, onlooking parents and a dude with a camera walking around…hmm as you can imagine it got awkward pretty quick. My immediate solution was to stick very close to my family making it very clear to onlookers that “I am with these guys!” but as you can imagine this was going to make wandering into the trees for some nature shots damn tricky. After a good 10 minutes of picking my camera up only to put it back down as other peoples kids came anywhere close I decided enough was enough.

From there on in I just kept camera in hand, took shots of everything and anything I wanted on the simple basis that no one else’s child was in frame. If a parent has a problem I knew that I would simply have to be willing to show them the photos I have taken to reassure them that there was nothing to worry about. I guess the lesson I learnt today was that as a photographer you need to be able to be confident in what you are doing around people who may not necessarily like the fact you are there. To be understanding yet at the same time getting the job done.

Many talk of historical events such as the repeal of the witchcraft act in 1951 as pivotal points in history whereby the neo-pagan movement was able to reveal itself from the hidden world it had existed in. To this day there are many who do not like the fact that the craft of the wise has gone mainstream and have reservedly revealed themselves to few – they certainly have not gone as far as ticking that census box as eagerly as perhaps some of us did.

Where they right in doing so – many would laugh and say no but can we be so sure. Only today in the country of Bahrain a new law is in the process of being passed that will criminalise any acts of witchcraft or sorcery. It has been proposed as an addition to laws governing con-artists and fraudsters and if treated as such punishment for said crimes would be light, but it also allows for severe enforcement such as in Saudi Arabia where the anti-witchcraft laws are enforced in a brutal and medieval manner. No definitions for punishment are being given, with the power of sentence being left for the judges to decide.

Details of the ruling can be found here

So, the summer holidays have come to an end, this week most children here in the UK will be heading back to school and for us here our daughter will be having her first experience of high school. For her a daunting and worrying time and for us much the same, yet all with that little hint of excitement at something new.

That said, secondary school here in the UK has always had a strict code of conduct in regards to uniform and various other factors and it has become quite clear that quite a high degree of control is placed upon the children, so much so that it seems to have gotten a little carried away. What schools are not realising is that they are strictly enforcing practices which are both sexist and discriminatory on a personal and gender based level.

Some examples of this are ones that I myself had to cope with when I was at high school. Boys are not allowed to have long hair (if it gets past the chin they demand it is cut) and boys are not allowed to wear ear rings under any circumstances yet for girls both of these are allowed, but with conditions. Girls can wear ear rings but only one in each ear and hair must be in a “simple and suitable style” leaving the specifics out to allow themselves more scope of control. The school even insists on the colour underwear that must be worn whilst at school, specifically for during gym sessions…..I would be interested to discover just ow they plan to check and enforce that one – lawyers at the ready!

Clearly though what is made evident to the pupils is differentiation. One rule for boys and one rule for girls, separate conditions for separate genders. Is this really how we should be influencing those who are so easily influenced? Of course it is, that is if you want them to grow in healthy members of a controlling social system that has inequality of pay and different treatment for men and women from the workplace all the way to the courtroom and back again. Another thing to ponder is this – in the UK, as a woman are you ever in your life going to wear a full suit with shirt and tie? The chances of anyone saying yes are very very slim, yet we insist that all school girls dress up like boys with full suit shirt and tie….erm….am I missing something there….hmmm

What starts as can or cant wear ear rings over time develops into an underlying acceptance of various other segregated levels of control. Why has unequal pay persisted for so long, and is still to this day not contested enough to actual cause much change? Because we are socialised to accept it.

What I like about this topic is that it is one that you can actively start to try and change – how do I plan on going about that. My name is down for the parent/teacher association and I plan on running for school governor as soon as elections open. I did the same at my daughters primary school and played an integral part in exposing and helping stamp out an disturbing and often overlooked problem – racism against white people (and yes for those who get their back up at this issue, it bloody happens and ignored because it is almost ASSUMED that white people will NOT be on the receiving end of racism which is flat out rubbish). Yes that was me shouting a bit there but that issue has affected my family quite a lot over the last 5 years at my daughters school.

So, if you have children at secondary school, take a close look at the “school rules” and have a think about just what kind of example they might be setting for your children – do you really want them to grow up repeating the same mistakes we are all making right now?