The writing 'up' year

Three and a half years ago, started working on my PhD thesis. At that time, not long into my studies, I wrote this blog post where I asked myself what the difference was between writing a thesis, and writing ‘up’ a thesis. At the time I was unsure what the difference was, suspecting in fact that there was really no difference. Now that I am in my 4th year of PhD study – the so-called writing ‘up’ year – I can say that I am still none the wiser regarding the difference between writing a thesis and writing ‘up’ a thesis.

This is the way my thesis has progressed: I read some information; it gave me some ideas; I wrote down some of those ideas tried to structure it into some sort of argument; I read some more information; I improved my existing argument; I read some more information… After having written loose argument, with some diagrams and notes, and some sections which were perhaps a little bit rambling, or poorly referenced, or not exactly great, I moved on to a different chapter and repeated the process. Sometimes, I returned to old chapters to improve them a bit; other times I worked on a chapter from start to a reasonable state of completion.

A couple of months ago, I had a meeting with my supervisors, in which we discussed how well my overall project was progressing. They seemed happy enough with the level of my work, and the speed at which I was working. We agreed that I would try – and should hopefully be able to – finish writing my thesis by September this year. We agreed that I should return to my weaker chapters, improve and update them, and that I will try to produce a full draft of the entire thesis by the end of March. This is what I'm currently working on.

A couple of the chapters which I've returned to not particularly well-argued, or are in need of scaffolding, or it reads like a string of consciousness. I'm going through these chapters, deleting what is unnecessary and improving what is weak. Is this the fabled writing ‘up’ which I've heard so much about? To me, this is merely a continuation of what I have been doing all along: write something; make it better; write something; make it better, until you’re finally left with a brilliant piece of work.

I suspect that this is not the way most people work, however. If most people worked this way then writing ‘up’ would not be a phrase at all. Rather, the writing process would be seen as one long continuous process. Instead, the fact that writing ‘up’ is apparently what people do in their final year suggests to me that most people work differently in their final year of PhD study than they do in their first few years. As if they are actively writing in a way in which they were not writing previously. What they have been doing during their first, second, and third years of PhD study time remains a mystery to me. Perhaps they have only been reading? Perhaps they have been reading and making notes? Perhaps they have been expressing their ideas in some way other than writing?

I have tried to ask my peers about how they work and I'm still none the wiser. People seem surprisingly cagey about discussing the way in which they work. Perhaps they are embarrassed that they haven't written anything? Perhaps they are embarrassed that they have written a lot? It seems that a number of people can't really articulate the way in which they work; I ask them what they have been doing on their thesis and they say something along the lines of “oh you know, reading and stuff. Nothing really.”

I think, perhaps, people spend a number of years reading and making notes, without structuring it into any coherent form, and they then spend their final year writing out their argument. This would mean there was a distinct difference between the writing of the first few years, and the writing ‘up’ of the final year. The writing of the first three years involves merely the act of putting words on paper, without any focus on quality, whereas writing ‘up’ involves some sort of quality control.

But then again, I know that the University of Nottingham – and other universities too I'm sure – has a robust procedure for supervision meetings. Students must submit work and basically prove that they are meeting the expectations of doctoral quality work. If people really were just reading and not doing a great deal of visible, verifiable work, then they would be in big trouble in their supervision meetings. They would be told that they are not doing enough, surely, and yet, as far as I know, people are not routinely told that. I can only assume that they must indeed be producing doctoral quality work. If this is the case, then they are writing something. What then are they doing in their final year which makes them say they are not merely writing, but writing ‘up’? I feel that if I don't know by now, when I'm in my writing ‘up’ year, I may never know.

I don't think I shall let it keep me ‘up’ at night though. I work in a way which is great for me. And presumably, given that others are submitting their theses and passing their vivas each year, they must be working in a way which is great for them. What writing ‘up’ consists of remains a curiosity, but I don't think, in all honesty, that it really matters.

Are the covid vaccines really doing any good? (Spoiler: yes they are)

I recently saw it reported that out of all the UK people who have died (so far) from the Indian (delta) covid variant, a third were double-vaccinated. The article was from The Sun: it's not something I usually read (because it's trash), but I must admit that when I saw the headline pop up in my news feed thingy on my phone, I was both intrigued and horrified. I clicked it.

I have only had one dose of the vaccine so far, and I have been looking forward to my second jab (scheduled for July), believing that it'd be my ticket to immunity. And the more of us are immune, the more we can start seeing each other again. Hearing that a third of people who've died from the Indian variant in the UK was not what I wanted to hear. If the vaccine programme isn't offering much protection, then it's pretty pointless, I thought... for a few seconds, until I read the sensationalised story and gave it a little more thought.

The Sun is telling the truth, in this instance; this article in The Telegraph reports the very same statistics.

Image source: The Telegraph, 12 June 2021

Although it is sometimes useful to look at the proportions of something, as these pie charts do, it is not always sensible. Yes, a third of people who have died from the delta variant in the UK have been double-jabbed, but exactly how many people are we talking about here? The answer is twelve. Twelve double-jabbed people have died from the delta variant - that's out of 42 people in total who've died from it. This is not a large or worrying number. 

Why? Because no vaccine is 100% effective. 

Around 30 million people in the UK have received two doses of the vaccine. So, out of the 30 million people who have been double-jabbed, just 12 have died from it. It's a tragedy, of course it's a tragedy, but from a statistical point of view, it's insignificant. Twelve deaths out of 30 million is less than 0.5 people per million.

But shouldn't we be concerned that a third of the deaths were in double-jabbed people? That seems like quite a high percentage.

Well, no.

As more and more people get vaccinated, the number of double-jabbed people in the UK is increasing. Suppose we were to reach a point where every single adult had had both doses. This would mean that any deaths from covid - and statistically, we'd expect there to be a few - would be in a person who was double-jabbed. One hundred percent of deaths would be occurring in fully vaccinated people. Although that might sound alarming, it's worth remembering that many people will die from flu each year despite having had the flu vaccine. So long as the raw number of covid deaths is low, the percentage of how many of them had been vaccinated is immaterial.

Of course, we shan't reach a 100% vaccination rate, as some people can't have it, and some people refuse to have it for whatever reason. But the more people have the vaccine, the greater the proportion of all deaths could be among vaccinated people - because they're so populous. 

We still need to be vigilant. We still need to wear masks and keep our distance. And we still need to get vaccinated.

Why did I allow myself to be drawn in by the clickbait sensationalism of The Sun? I don't know. I'm just glad that a few moments' thought enabled me to see the statistics for what they are.

I want the pandemic to be over.

"Is it Miss or Mrs?": Why my marital status is no one's business but my own

Picture the scene....

A man - say, Mick - walks into a shop and wants to take out a mobile phone contract, or buy a new kitchen, or have some furniture delivered to his house. The shop assistant needs to fill in a form with his details. She gets out the paper form or pulls up the online form on the computer. The first question on the form is "Are you married?"

Pretty weird, right? Why is it relevant in any way whether or not Mick is married? It's not. He wants to buy a mobile phone, or a kitchen, or to have some furniture delivered to his house: it really does not matter whether or not he is married, and we would think it bizarre and unnecessary that he should be asked whether he is married, let alone that it should be the very first question on the form!

So, you'd like your new sofa to be delivered, would you?
Are you married? Image source: Unsplash

And yet this is what happens when women have to give their details for a form. It is almost always the case that the very first question a customer service representative asks is "Is it Miss or Mrs?" Why does the shop assistant need to know whether or not I am married? My marital status makes no difference at all to whether or not I can obtain a service. And yet the form requires that I ascribe myself a title. Why?!

This is not the 19th century, where women are the property of their husband, and it is sinful to live with a partner "over the brush", or strange for a woman my age to be unmarried. Women in 2021 are, I believe, allowed to buy a carpet or suchlike without permission from a man, whether or not I am married. Wow! The rights we girlies enjoy today! Yet I must announce (or 'admit') my marital status when I want to have a carpet delivered to my house, lest the shop delivers a carpet to me on the wrongful understanding that I am a married woman, when in fact I am unmarried. Imagine that! Think of the children!

Given that men and women supposedly have the same rights as one another in the UK today, I don't really see why titles such as Mr, Mrs and Miss are needed at all. When buying a carpet or a kitchen or a mobile phone, "Do you have a vagina?" and "What gender do you identify as?" seem utterly irrelevant questions, but this is essentially what the form is getting at when it asks me to identify my title. Titles are pointless.

Now, if someone has a non-standard title such as Captain, Reverend, Professor or Doctor, then it seems reasonable that they may want to have their title on the form, but for the rest of us, why does it matter whether I am Miss, Mrs, Ms, Mr, or Mx? It does not.

I am looking forward to the day when I don't have to tell the shop assistant whether or not I am married just because I want to buy a carpet; failing that, I will just have to look forward to the day I pass my viva and can call myself 'Doctor' Karen Lancaster. Then I can buy things and have them delivered to my house, and neither the shop nor the delivery driver will know my utterly irrelevant marital status. I hope they can handle the not knowing. Until I obtain my PhD, however, they simply MUST know whether or not I have got married.

We have made many leaps forwards in sexual equality and the recognition of transgender and non-binary people. I hope we continue to make progress. But I think that the clinging to the titles of Mr, Miss and Mrs may be holding us back. If a man does not need to announce his marital status, then why does a woman? If a woman changes her title from Miss to Mrs when she marries, why does a man's title not change from Mr? And if a transgender or non-binary person wants to identify their title as something other than Miss, Mrs or Mr, why can't they? (Mx serves this function, but is often not available on forms.)

I have a dream: I dream of a future where I can put my name into a form without having to declare that I'm an unmarried woman, and silly titles like Mrs and Miss are abolished from the English language altogether.

How should we share covid vaccines?

Vaccinations in the UK are going well. Source: Unsplash

Covid-19 has had a devastating impact across the world. But now, thanks to the wonders of science, there are several vaccines which are safe and effective. Given that it takes time to administer the vaccines, not everyone can receive it straight away, so some people will have to wait their turn.

What I want to consider is how it should be determined who receives the vaccine first. The virus seems most dangerous to old people and those with underlying conditions such as diabetes, so I'll take it as a given that within a country, those people should be prioritised. However, what I'm wondering is how it should be determined which countries are first to receive vaccines, and how many. I'll consider these possibilities, that the countries to receive/use the vaccines first of all should be...

1. The countries that make the vaccines 
2. The countries with the highest death tolls
3. The countries with the highest death rates
4. The countries with the oldest populations
5. The countries best able to administer the vaccines quickly

The countries that make the vaccines 

If country X has put extensive time, effort and money into researching and developing a vaccine, perhaps it is fitting that the citizens of that country are first in line to receive that vaccine. This seems fair in the same way that if I work hard to obtain some commodity or money, I should be allowed to spend it to benefit my kids. I did the work, so I can reap the benefits. 

A problem with this is that the covid vaccination system then becomes a question of wealth, with the richest countries in the world, such as the USA, China, Japan, and much of western Europe being first in line to receive vaccines, with the poorest countries in the world in places such as Africa, Asia and Latin America, being left behind. 

In the UK, we hold our NHS dearly - even more so since covid - and believe that healthcare should be based not on wealth, but on need. This means that we should find it uncomfortable to endorse a system where the countries which sink the most money into developing vaccines are the ones to receive the vaccine first, just in virtue of having been rich enough to develop a vaccine.

The countries with the highest death tolls

If we think that healthcare should be distributed based on need, then death tolls seem a pretty good measure of need. In the USA nearly half a million people have died from covid-19; it might seem like they are most in need of the vaccine, and therefore the USA should be the ones to receive it first.

But allocating vaccines according to brute number of deaths is obviously going to favour countries with large populations. it is no surprise that of the ten countries with the largest populations, five of them are among the top ten countries with the highest death tolls (Mexico, Brazil, USA, Russia, and India). This would mean that countries with small populations would be way down the list of who gets the vaccine, even though they may be in dire need of it, and experiencing far more deaths per head of population than some of the heavily populated countries, such as India.

The countries with the highest death rates

Calculating deaths per head of population seems quite a reasonable way of determining which country is in the most dire need of the vaccine. After all, they are losing the greatest proportion of their population to covid, it seems only fair that they should be helped the most by receiving the vaccine. 

However, this might unfairly favour tiny countries and territories. For example, these statistics (as of 4 Feb 2021) show that Gibraltar and San Marino have the highest number of covid deaths per head of population; they have suffered 79 and 68 deaths respectively, but because of their tiny populations, they are top of the table in deaths per head of population.

Moreover, simply having a high total number of deaths per head of population doesn't mean that a country is in dire straits now. It's possible that a country has had a high death rate per head of population, but then got things under control and now they don't have any cases. I'm not sure whether any countries actually fit into this hypothetical category, but they could do. Normally, in philosophy, the fact that something hypothetically could exist is good enough to prove a point, but this is real-world applied ethics, so reality matters. There are certainly countries who have got things more under control than others though, and a country whose daily death rate is really on its way down is perhaps less in need than a country whose daily death toll is on its way up, even if its overall death rate is currently low, because covid hit them later.

The countries with the oldest populations

There are several covid vaccines
available. Source: Unsplash

Covid is most dangerous to older people, so perhaps the countries with the oldest populations should be prioritised. Sure, there will be some countries with an ageing population who haven't been really troubled by covid, but why should that matter? Simply because they haven't had a high death toll or death rate yet doesn't mean they won't have one. And since a vaccine is about preventing deaths rather than treating those who are already ill and dying, then it really shouldn't matter at all that we'd be sending vaccines to some countries who aren't suffering too badly as yet.

However, countries which currently have low rates of infection don't really seem to be in dire need of vaccines in the same way that those with high rates of infection are. Perhaps such countries are good at stemming the spread of infection by other means, such as lockdown and mask-wearing, or perhaps the virus has mutated into a less potent strain in their area, and they won't really need the vaccine after all. So perhaps giving vaccines to countries basted on their population age isn't the best idea after all.

The countries best able to administer the vaccines quickly

Vaccines are a valuable resource - both economically and health-wise. It would be a tragedy if vaccines were given to a country which squandered them. There are some countries which lack the infrastructure, refrigeration facilities, staff, or other necessities to administer the vaccines quickly and effectively. It would be a great shame if vaccines were given to such countries and they were wasted, when other countries could have used them to save lives. 

Conclusion 

I've considered several possibilities above, and none are unproblematic. I believe that out of all the options, some sort of combination of death rate per head of population, and brute number of deaths, coupled with some understanding of who is suffering the worst right now. This would put Belgium, Czechia, Italy, the UK and USA as some of the first countries to receive the vaccine in great numbers. This isn't really a perfect solution, but I think it's a reasonable solution. Once the most vulnerable people in these countries have been vaccinated, it would be fair to move on to other countries (but if/when I'm offered it, I'll be snatching their hand off!)

In practice, there seems to be a mixture of sharing methods taking place. I'm glad that the UK is doing very well with its vaccine rollout -- we have a very high death rate at the moment, and I'll feel much more at ease when that's under control. I just hope that the vaccine rollout can be swift and effective everywhere, and that the pandemic will soon be over.

And finally...

Look at this infographic I drew. It took me ages, and without any special software, so please look at it! Alas, I can only put it on here as a flattened image, so the links don't work. And I can't get it to be high resolution, or the right dimensions for the screen. But here it is anyway!

Collective restrictions

"Right, Lee, if you don't stop this behaviour right now, then the whole class will lose out on playtime.... ok Lee that's it, everyone is missing playtime, all because of you." 

I know I certainly experienced this sort of event as a child, when I, a generally well-behaved student, had my freedoms restricted because some idiot in my class was misbehaving. I felt the injustice of it then, and I still hear of teachers doing it today. It's wrong. 

Yet that is exactly what is happening with lockdown restrictions. I am staying home for over 23 hours per day. I haven't seen my parents in the flesh since Christmas; I haven't seen my elder sister in 6 months, and I've not seen my younger sister in a year. The last time I met a friend indoors was a year ago. This is not because I don't want to see my family and friends: in non-pandemic times, I'd see someone at least once a week, and partake in sports 1-2 times a week. I'm not doing the things I want to so because (a) The government have said not to do these things (b) I don't want to spread the virus (c) I don't want to catch the virus. 

I have curtailed my normal activities to such an extent that I don't think I could curtail them much more at all. My parents have not left the house in nearly a year, except to go to the doctors, or to have outdoor exercise. they order food and other products online, and haven't seen friends in I don't know how long. 

And yet, I hear on the news that lockdown restrictions aren't being successful enough, and that our freedoms may be curtailed further. I feel pretty sure that the continued spread of covid is not because of my behaviour, and I am certain that its not because of my parents' behaviour. 

There are people meeting in groups for weddings; organised sport and kids' sports clubs are still going on. People have been partying in pubs and in the street until the most recent lockdown. When I've driven through towns, I've seen large queues outside take aways and restaurants. So many people are still going into work, to work in non-essential jobs, and the number of kids in school is apparently around half of what it is when schools are fully open, and anecdotally, plenty of those kids have one parent who is a key worker, and another who is working from home, so the kids should really be at home, like the rest of us who are having to home school and do our work at the same time.

A lockdown would work, if people would actually lock down, and stay at home. But many people are not doing that. And so the government, like a teacher who is rapidly losing her rag, punishes the entire class rather than punishing the offender. But the thing is that if people are not adhering to current restrictions, why should we have any reason to believe that they'd adhere to more stringent restrictions?

If Lee - the naughty boy in the class I mentioned - doesn't do what he's told when the teacher says sit quietly and listen for 5 minutes, then when the teacher says everyone must sit quietly and listen during all of play time, would he suddenly reform his behaviour? Doubtful. Instead, the rest of the class - who had already sat quietly and listened for five minutes - now have to sit and listen for 20 minutes. And they do this, while Lee is still throwing a wobbler because he doesn't want to sit and listen at all. Nothing is achieved by forcing people who are already following the rules to follow more stringent rules, simply because some idiots were not following the first set of rules.

What really needs to be done is to get people to actually follow the rules and stay home. Because of the virus has an incubation period of about 7 days, and when people catch it they're infectious for 2-3 weeks, then really, if everyone could ACTUALLY lock down and self isolate for 3-4 weeks - or even 5 or 6 weeks just to make sure, then there should be no one infectious after that time, and the virus would be fully eradicated. Yes, it would be a right pain to be imprisoned like that, but it'd rid us of covid-19, and plenty of other communicable diseases too. 

Instead, those of us who are already isolating for alnost all day every day are now being told we need to isolate more. All the while, other people are partying, getting take aways, and going to non-essential jobs.

With that approach, this virus will be with us for a long time yet to come.

EDIT: Perhaps I hadn't given enough thought to the restrictions, as I was thinking that only essential workers should go into work. The restrictions say you must stay at home, but can leave for essential reasons, such as work or medical care. I was thinking this meant that people can only leave home for essential work, not nonessential work. So if a person worked in a factory sewing t-shirt sleeves together, they should stay at home and not go into work (because t-shirt sewing is not essential; the country won't grind to a halt without t-shirts for a few months). But now I come to think about it, there must be vast numbers of people who are using public transport and working in places, doing nonessential work. In a stricter crackdown, those nonessential workers should be stopped from working. The definition of a "key worker" is also pretty broad. Working in B&M Bargains, for example, makes someone a key worker. 

Why we shouldn't rush to get back to normal

Life has changed in 2020. That's stating the obvious, of course.

I enjoyed my life in 2019 and previous years a lot more than I've enjoyed 2020, and my heart is aching to get back to freely seeing friends and family like I used to. I'm sick of my own house. Now, with a vaccine being rolled out before Christmas in the UK, it finally seems like life might get back to normal again next year. I, like most people, can't wait for things to get back to the way they were.

But although I loved the old normal much more than I love the new normal, if we think about it rationally, we probably shouldn't rush so much to get back to the old normal. After all, the old normal provided the ideal breeding ground for covid-19, didn't it?

The Perfect Storm

What was it about the old normal that enabled covid-19 to conquer the world? Our exploitative relationship with nature allowed the virus to transmit to humans in the first place, and our relationships with each other allowed the virus to spread. Specifically:

Habitat destruction. It's pretty simple: when we destroy animals' habitats, they either move elsewhere or die. We know they're dying because of the mass extinction that's taking place, but animals are also moving further afield - into human-populated areas. When humans and wild animals live in close proximity, disease can spread from them to us more easily.

Live animal markets. I can barely begin to explain my disgust at the abhorrent live animal "wet" markets which take place throughout China and some other southeast Asian countries. Aside from the morally indefensible ways in which animals are treated in such places, such markets enable humans to mix with wild, exotic, domestic and farmed animals. This makes them perfect places for viruses to leap from one species to another.

Who would have thought that markets like this would lead to disease?
Image source: Bangkok Post

Densely populated cities. If people had lived in rural communities which kept themselves to themselves, the virus would have fizzled out very quickly. I imagine there are uncontacted Amazonian tribes who are totally unaffected by covid-19; for those of us who live in cities, it's a different story.

International travel. Without air travel, the virus that began in Wuhan would have taken a long time to reach our shores, or may not have reached us at all. But with international travel being what it is, people were freely flying in and out of Wuhan and around the world throughout January, and the virus was here in the UK within just a few days of the outbreak in Wuhan. 

Shared facilities. Humans live in large communities where we share transport, shops, places of worship, educational establishments, leisure facilities, and food outlets with one another. Shared facilities - especially those with limited cleaning and high footfall - are ideal places for viruses to spread.

Twenty-first century living is great in many, many ways... But humans' way of life has created the perfect storm: covid-19 has spread astonishingly quickly. To put it bluntly, human contact with animals enabled the virus to make the leap to our species, and our interconnected lifestyles in big cities enabled it to spread.

But covid-19 is an anomaly, right?

Well, no. You'd be forgiven for thinking that covid-19 is an anomaly: I myself have pointed out in a previous post that several other lesser pandemics (or almost-pandemics) have come and gone over the last 20 years. 

And apparently, scientists have long been "preparing" for a killer pandemic, ominously calling the hypothetical disease "Disease X". (Wowsers, if 2 million deaths and international omnishambles occur when the world is prepared, then I'd hate to see what might have happened if weren't prepared!) The scientists apparently speculated about Disease X a few years ago. I didn't know this until a few months ago. 

We are lucky that the fatality rate of covid is so low (around 1-2%); by contrast the mortality rate of Ebola and Bubonic Plague (the Black Death) is around 50%. And the worst part of it all is that scientists predict that there will be another, deadlier pandemic within the next decade. I hope they're wrong, but I fear they may be right. If the old normal was a perfect breeding ground for covid-19 --which evidently, it was -- then a return to the old normal will facilitate a new pandemic at some point in our future.

So what should we do?

Clearly, if we are to avoid future pandemics then something needs to change. But I - probably like everyone else - want to have my cake and eat it. I want to have MY old life back, but I want the rest of the world to change so as to prevent future pandemics. I imagine that everyone else feels the same. We all want our old lives back, whether our old lives consisted of going to football matches, university lectures, playing Bridge at a friend's house, or gutting live frogs in a wet market.

I am willing to make concessions such as social distancing or wearing masks in shops, but to have to avoid my family and friends for the rest of my life for fear they might die if I breathe near them,.. well, I don't want to live the rest of my life like that. 

I think the UK is over the hump of the pandemic now (though I'm sure many more deaths will occur - possibly a few million across the world, and it may get worse before it gets better for the people in countries which are slow to vaccinate). 

Image source: Stat News

But what about future pandemics? Well, I never believed that covid-19 would be a pandemic until mid-March and the deaths were skyrocketing, but now I'm (sadly) a convert: I think there will be future pandemics. if it can happen once it can happen again. and next time might have a far higher death rate or it might pick off kids instead of the sick and elderly. There's just no way to know.

Will we learn from covid-19? We might wash our hands a little more frequently, and people may continue to wear masks voluntarily after covid has gone - the way Chinese people have long since worn masks for any and every occasion. And maybe we'll keep our distance from strangers a tiny bit more than we used to. But generally, in the long term, I think we'll be very quick to forget 2020 and keen to jump straight back into our old ways of life, while the next pandemic is quietly brewing away.

Are drag queens as offensive as blackface?

Over the past year or so, some people in the media have apologised for performing in blackface. In this post I'm going to argue that drag queens are offensive in the same way - although perhaps not to the same degree - as blackface is. Consequently, drag queens should be axed from the screens and stages just as Minstrels have been.

Blackface

Blackface, for the uninitiated, is when an actor or performer applies dark make up - typically to the face, but maybe the hands or elsewhere too - in order to perform as a person from an ethnic group with a darker skintone than their own. For example, if a white person was playing the role of a black person, and applied make up to facilitate that role.

George Mitchell, creator of the Black and White Minstrel
Show, was awarded an OBE in 1975 for his work on the show

Performances of people in blackface have not been acceptable on TV for some time. But there was a time when white people wearing caricatured black make up and dancing around a stage was prime-time entertainment. The Black and White Minstrel Show ran on the BBC from 1958 to 1978, and often drew audiences in the tens of millions - it drew a record16.5 million viewers in a 1964 show. The entertainment value of people in blackface dancing around is lost on me, and it is clearly a product of its time. Minstrel shows are thankfully no longer around, but blackface has still been on prime-time TV (albeit in a slightly different format) within the last 20 years. (And shows of people dancing around still unfathomably persist, but that's another story.)

Ant and Dec 'disguised' as Jamaican women
Patty and Bernice, in Saturday Night Takeaway.

Over the past few months, there has been a flurry of celebrities keen to apologise for wearing blackface in their past performances. The list includes Ant and Dec (on Saturday Night Takeaway), David Walliams and Matt Lucas (on Little Britain), and Leigh Francis (on Bo Selecta). The Mighty Boosh and League of Gentlemen also came under scrutiny for their use of blackface, and were removed from Netflix. The celebs are only too happy to eat humble pie and make statements such as "It was wrong then, and it's wrong now". 

In short, blackface is objectionable because it presents caricatured, demeaning stereotypes of black people;* this contributes towards the dehumanisation of black people which was a defining feature of slavery. The donning of black make up -- as if blackness is a costume one can wear for fun -- is a form of morally objectionable cultural appropriation. Given the history of oppression (not to mention present-day discrimination) which black people have suffered at the hands of white people, it's no wonder people object to blackface.
* Sometimes blackface involves an performer impersonating someone of Southeast Asian origin. The prevailing opinion seems to be that this is still offensive, though it lacks the slavery-related offence dimension. 

Drag queens

If it's offensive to dress yourself up as an oppressed (or historically oppressed) group to which you do not belong, then blackface is not the only form of offensive appropriation which exists. Although there are (morally questionable) examples of able-bodied actors playing disabled characters, they generally do not present ridiculous caricatures of disabled people.

However, the same cannot be said of drag queens. 

Drag queens, in my humble opinion, are horrific caricatures of what society (or perhaps just men) judge to be the defining features of women. Huge, coiffured hairstyles, ridiculous volumes of make up, false eyelashes, enormous breasts and/or bottoms, revealing dresses, trashy jewellery.... there is literally nothing fun or pleasant about what a drag queen represents. They represent the very worst expectations of women, donned by men for the sake of trite entertainment - typically in the form of singing show tunes or reality TV.

To be clear, I am not criticising transsexual women (people born physically male but who identify as female) or transvestite men (men who choose to dress as 'normal' women). These people are a whole different ballgame, and I can see nothing morally concerning about these people dressing as or identifying as normal women.

What I am objecting to here is the donning of the caricature outfit (and make up and suchlike) that is a requirement the drag queen. They are offensive in the very same way that minstrels and blackface are offensive, and here's why:

 

1. They perpetuate dangerous and offensive stereotypes. Women are not just big hairstyles, big boobs, trowel-fuls of make up, and showy clothes. But this is the image that drag queens portray when they "dress as women". This stereotype of women as nothing more than a sexualised, glamorous appearance is offensive - after all, drag queens are not impersonating the intellects of female scientists, the bravery of female firefighters, or the compassion of female nurses. The only thing they portray is the vile oversexualised appearance of the female caricature.
2. They involve a powerful group dressing up as a less powerful group. They say that when it comes to comedy, you should 'punch up', not 'punch down'. This means that it is less offensive to make fun of those in power than it is to make fun of oppressed (or historically oppressed) groups. Sexual inequality has been rife throughout history, and still persists today in many areas of our lives. Just as it is offensive for white (privileged) people to portray caricatures of black people, the same is true of (privileged) men portraying gross caricatures of women.
3. They use appropriation as entertainment. With The Black and White Minstrel Show, cultural appropriation was central to the entertainment value of the act: the fact they were white men made up as black men was (apparently) entertaining in itself. White men dancing, or black men dancing, just wouldn't have had the same sort of appeal. Similarly, a woman (dressed normally) or a man (dressed normally) singing the show tunes of which drag queens are so fond - well, it just wouldn't be the same. I suspect that most if not all drag queens are men who have tried to make it as (normal male) singers, failed, and have turned to drag queening as an alternative route to success. Their absurd make up and outfits make them inexplicably more appealing to audiences, just as wearing blackface suddenly (absurdly) catapulted the Minstrels to success.
4. They pick out caricatured features of the target group. The Minstrels had the white eyes and the white or ruby red lips in stark contrast to the dark skin (make up). The drag queens have the enormous breasts, excessive make up, absurd hairstyles, and revealing dresses. Both pick out nonessential features of the target group, and do so in an unsympathetic way. Watching the show does not help us to feel more sympathetic towards the oppressed group, nor see them as equals; instead, it just encourages us to laugh at them. Drag queens and Minstrels add to the oppression because they dehumanise the target group, making them appear as 'other' and presenting a one-dimensional view of the target group.

If it is morally abhorrent for white people to dress up as caricatured stereotypes of black people for trite entertainment, then it is equally abhorrent for men to dress up as caricatured stereotypes of women for entertainment. Just as celebrities (and perhaps non-celebs) today are apologising for their cultural appropriation (blackface) from decades gone by, I think - and I hope - that in future we will see men apologising for the "sexual appropriation" which they engaged in when being a drag queen. 

The make up, hair, dresses, and oversexualised behaviour are inseparable from the drag queen; without these things, the drag queen would simply not be a drag queen. The Minstrels would no longer have been Minstrels without the blackface, the music, and the style of dancing, and so they could not simply tweak their act to make it more culturally sensitive: the Minstrels simply had to go. Similarly, drag queens cannot simply reinvent themselves in a more politically correct format -- without the features I am objecting to, they would simply not be drag queens. They would just be normal men with mediocre singing voices. For this reason, and the reasons outlined above, I maintain that drag queens should be consigned to history, along with The Black and White Minstrels. There cannot be racial progress when those in a position of racial privilege make fun of black people, and the same is true of women. Women cannot fight for sexual equality when they are being sexualised and made fun of by the very group of people who has the power to provide that equality: men.

But people love drag queens!

Maybe so. But people also loved The Black and White Minstrels. As I said above, the show regularly pulled in audiences in the tens of millions in the UK in the 1960s. And just ten years ago we were still laughing at the blackface characters in Little Britain, The Mighty Boosh, and the League of Gentlemen. Times change, and just because there are many ostensibly non-sexist people who like drag queens (as there were many ostensibly non-racist people who loved the Minstrels) that does not make it morally right for a privileged group to caricature a less privileged group. 

Disclaimer

I have argued elsewhere that I have not experienced a great deal of sexual inequality in my life. I stand by that. Most of the men I have met have been lovely, and have not given me the impression that they think less of me because I'm a female. The men who are drag queens are quite probably nice people on an individual level - and I imagine lots of the Minstrels were nice guys too. That said, sexual inequality does still exist in the UK and elsewhere, and it would be great if we could make more progress towards genuine equality. We are making progress with racial equality, and the move away from Minstrel shows was a step forward. Getting rid of drag queens will be a step forward for sexual equality. It will not be a panacea of course, but baby steps are nonetheless a form of progress.