grrlthatyoufear

Contact

Website 2

http://blog.myspace.com/grrlthatyoufear

MSN

hmpaterson@hotmail.co.uk

Website

http://www.myspace.com/grrlthatyoufear

Personal

About me

What can you say about me that hasn't been said before? Probably very little, buy feel free to try. I don't see the world the same way that you do, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. The type of girl your mum warned you about, the one you secretly wanted to be. I was never one of the cool kids, because I never wanted to be.

Inspired by love, creativity and a desire to play whatever part possible in making the world a better place, I am a commited activist who will always stand up for those things and people I believe in.

For those who care to scratch the surface, there is more to me than meets the eye. A self confessed shit vegan, book junkie and karaoke wannabe, I enjoy blurring boundaries and raising questions just by my existence.

Neither butch nor femme, hippy nor anarchist, spiritual but not religious, single through choice but open to love, anticapitalist but posesses too many shoes. I don't feel a need to categorise myself to justify or validate my existence.

Favourite films

Tank Girl, Rent, Prozac Nation, Party Monster, My Summer Of Love, If These Walls Could Talk, Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy, Hackers, Ferris Buellers Day Off, Edward Scissorhands, The Colour Purple, The Breakfast Club, Brazil, Better Than Chocolate, Amelie, Pans Labyrinth, Labyrinth, Human Traffic, Bound, Audition, Kinky Boots, Minority Report, Almost Famous, AI, Moulin Rouge, Gremlins, Secretary, Coyote Ugly, Priscilla Queen Of The Desert, Wizard of Oz, School Of Rock, Descent, Rocky Horror Picture Show, Eyes Wide Shut, Corpse Bride, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Pulp Fiction, Ginger Snaps, Trainspotting

Interests

My friends, my cats, summer rain, singing in the shower, faeries, shoes, painting, reading, meeting new people, writing, real ale, spicy food, music, life.

Custom title

Resist the urge to do nothing

Favourite books

The Acid House - Irvine Welsh, Valley of The Dolls - Jacqueline Susann, Black Holes and Baby Universes - Stephen Hawking, The Escort - Kay Vale, Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy - Douglas Adams, Sugar Rush - Julie Birchill

Music

Dresden Dolls, My Ruin, Aimee Mann, Peaches, Lisa Loeb, Catatonia, Blur, No Doubt, Jack Off Jill, Nirvana, Green Day, Garbage, Amy Studt, Alishas Attic, Rage Against The Machine, Lily Allen, Indigo Girls, Amy Ray, 3 Doors Down, Placebo, Kaiser Chiefs, David Bowie, Lady Sovereign, Hole, Alanis Morrisette, Little Richard, Horrorpops

Dislikes

Bigottry, Narrowmindedness, Fascists . . . and marmite

Networking and politics

Political label

Left, but I don't do labels.

Country and town

Rotherham

Region

UK

Employment sector

construction

Occupation

Sales Estimator

What do your politics mean to you?

Everyone has political opinions to various extents but where do they come from ? What influences the way you think and the issues you feel strongly about ? After being asked many times about the views that I hold, why I am so outspoken about them and where they come from I though I woud try and answer some of those questions.

Most of you who know me (and quite a few of you that don't) know that I am a quite out and proud lefty politically. I choose not to label myself as socialist / anarchist / marxist etc although share a lot of views with the above. However many of you may not know much about my politics or where they have come from.

There are a number of causes of my politics. One of my great influences in this area is my Dad (currently Liverpool JMU Unison Branch Chair and creator of the Liverpool Links website). I remember as a child there was a little statuette of Karl Marx next to the phone in the front room, I knew before I could walk that when I did take my first steps that they would never take me across a picket line and every election time there would be Labour posters in the front window (when Maggie was still in power and Labour were still a leftwing party).

At that age however, although I was aware of the existence of politics, I didn't know what it was all about and when I was old enough to start to understand to be honest it all sounded a bit boring. So how did I get from that point to the loud, outspoken, active banner waving type that I have become?

Well for a start I am a Thatcher child - she snatched my milk and I'm still out to get even! Brought up in the eighties struggling through the recession and the awful "Things can only get better" Blair campaign I now actually find it difficult to comprehend how anyone my age can not be political.

However despite my background my own entry into world of poltics was primarily issue based. The first signs of my political awareness came at the age of 12/13 when I became vegetarian. Old enough to be past the stage of not wanting to eat the fluffy bunny rabbits, I stopped eating meat when I became aware of factory farming methods. I think my mother thought it was one of those teenage phases that I would outgrow. I am now vegan.

All of my schooling took place in multicultural schools, so I grew up with friends who were black, white, asian, christian, jewish, muslim etc. and never understood any reason why any of these people hold be treated differently. In fact as a child it was great, we knew every religious and cultural festival and what sweets and other good stuff came with it. There was a Jewish festival when one of our primary school teachers used to give us apples and honey, some of the muslim children used to bring in indian sweets which were like sweet little marzipan dough balls and we used to go to the christingle service at church to get our oranges with the nuts and sweets stuck to them with cocktail sticks. I digress.

So by the age of 12/13 I have some strong opinions an animal rights and equality. Then comes the next blow, puberty and the discovery of my lesbianism. I remained 'in the closet' for the rest of my time in Liverpool including my college years when I pulled a different boy everytime I went out to prove my straightness (despite the skinhead). I confined myself to the occassional reading of a few pages of Diva in WHSmiths and haging around the LGBT section of News from Nowhere. I even celebrated my 18th birthday in Garlands as a 'fag hag'.

When I moved to Sheffield I came out the day I moved in. Noone knew me so I had no fears of losing friends etc. A few months after my arrival I met my first girlfriend KT in Planet and shortly afterwards as the result of a beer-fuelled bet found myself running for LGB officer for Shefield Hallam University and winning This was the point when I became outwardly political. I found myself on national NUS conferences in the middle of heated debates of whose form of socialism was best and briefly became a member of SWSS. I attended Section 28 and equal age of consent demos and attended my first of many pride marches.

After a year of university I had a brief politcal lull, but then came the invasion of Iraq. Back out came the banners.

Now progressively more outspoken by the day the next major event was the G8. Going to join another antiwar demo I found myself arriving at the Matilda Social Centre - and staying there for a few days. It as here I was again introduced to a wider set of politics and anarchism.

When Matilda was theatened with closure I got involved on the legal side with Sheffield Squatters Support Group and then got involved in future social centres, OS120, Crooksmoor House and Mooreen.

Through all of the above I have met more likeminded people and been introduced to new campaigns and issues. Reent actions have ranged from the Save Our NHS Demo in Sheffield to taking part in the Faslane365 blockade with CIRCA.

So from small beginnings that pretty much brings us upto date.

Favourite thinkers

Noam Chomsky, Dalai Lama, My Dad, Myself

Favourite political books

"No Logo" and "Fences and Windows" - Naomi Klein, Reasons To Be Cheerful - Mark Steel, Nineteen-Eighty-Four - George Orwell, Shut Them Down - G8, Gleneagles and The Movement of Movements

Comrades re-united - political groups you were a member of

Briefly a member of SWSS while at uni (2000), Sheffield Hallam NUS LGB Executive Officer (2000)

History

Member for

1 year 50 weeks