So, after 26 years of working as an academic looking at gender, disability, health and social care, I have decided to run for Parliament for the Women's Equality Party to highlight the failure of the mainstream parties to properly support social care and carers and disabled people, as well as tackle violence against women and equal pay.
This is a strange and so far eventful journey and we are only a week into my campaign. I have discovered the backstabbing tribalism of politics first-hand, as well as the barriers to running for Parliament faced by women and disabled people. Did you know that until the Women's Equality Party, no political party had asked the Electoral Commission how to count support for childcare or personal assistance as part of the spending limits on campaigns? No, neither did I. I knew that it was going to take 50 years without positive action to see equal numbers of men and women in parliament, I knew that less than a third of elected representatives in the UK were women, I knew that women in public office faced an onslaught of criticism for their looks, their weight, their parenting and so on that men did not face. But I hadn't quite appreciated what it felt like to be a disabled woman running for office. How alien the transition from academic/activist to politician would feel. How heart-rendingly personal and exciting it would be. And how much I would appreciate my mindfulness training at the end of every hard day spent trying to juggle work, campaigning and family life, when I would sit or lie down to refocus my mind on my breath and my body rather than on the million and one things I was supposed to be doing. How I had to remind myself every hour in different ways to be kind and compassionate - not to my opponents, but to myself. And how human and frail I was, yet again. You can follow my campaign here: ://www.facebook.com/KirsteinRummeryWEP/ I hope you will forgive me if I blog a little less frequently in the next couple of weeks. I am sure I will be given plenty of opportunities to practise mindfulness and loving kindness, and plenty of opportunities to forget to practise it and go full-on bonkers batshit. See you on the other side, my lovelies, and remember if you are feeling despair at the state of the world, there is always something you can do to fix it. Even if that is simply voting for a candidate from a small but passionate party trying to stir up politics. in the interest of women's equality :)
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AuthorI came to mindfulness through trying to find a way to be sane and compassionate in an insane and harsh world. Archives
October 2017
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