I feel really bad about going to Jura tonight for the meeting. I had talked to my flatmate roaringwomyn about a mediation we had between S* and I last week. I had felt like it was an opporunity to vent and little more. I got called out for having "incorrect perceptions" of S’s sexism and ageism against me… and general undermining of my activities (and not similar actions of others).

The mediation beat around the bush for hours before it got to the issue of why S and I don’t get on. I got called out by a younger collective member for venting my frustration at S over the last month because he is an "easy target" because he is older, been in the collective longer and appears as a figure of authority. Anyway, I was talking to roaringwomyn, and she made some good points about how this all manifested… She pointed out that its a misnomer to call a discussion of my problems with S a "mediation" because that personalises what is happening, it denies that other women in my position (notably, Pirate) had exactly the same issues with S and were treated in exactly the same way by S.

Having a mediation just clears the board of all the other women he’s alienated, and makes it a problem between Anna and S, or rather, it makes it Ann’s problem with S. The other collective members are all men, and don’t get the same level of hassling. I also wasn’t happy with how things turned out. Basically, S didn’t have to admit mistreating me (even though I fully admitted being narky over the last month). He just had to nod slightly when J asked him not to be patronising. The blokes were trying to convince me that "it was a victory". Really. Roaringwomyn said something great about that: "its your feelings, they can’t tell you that you ‘won’ when you don’t feel that way". Tonight there is a collective meeting, and I don’t feel like going. This is for several reasons. Mostly because I feel unsupported in what I put into the Jura project. It just doesn’t feel reciprocal. Really. I know that the outside world won’t give things to us, but I don’t feel like the collective gives back either. Its cold.

 
I also don’t want to go because there is a new woman getting interested, and its clear that S has a big interest in her (she is lovely and beautiful). But it arouses my jealousy - because there will be a favourite female to disprove everything I’ve gone through, because any new potentially interested person is worth more than me to the collective (we all have to be on best behaviour, and that means not talking about feeling shortchanged). And her being there just eclipses me. Not that I have anything against this particular person (I don’t, she’s great), but I have a problem with the politics of treating all women as politically interchangeable. Next time I complain, it’ll be "oh well, she doesn’t have a problem". I know that because I saw it happen to Pirate. I was the new cunt that invalidated Pirate’s struggle - whether I wanted to be or not. Just because my issues were different to hers. Just because it took them years to wear through me.