First things first, you’re probably wondering about my name. Well, I was introduced to the early Tank Girl comics in Deadline in the late 1980s/early 1990s and fell in love with her energy, anarchy, and enthusiasm. When I moved to the States in the late 1990s, Tank became my nickname. (I am back in the UK now.) Nearly two decades and a PhD later, I realised Tank had become my real name, and so Dr Tank Green was born (via a Deed Poll). If you want to know more, I can only recommend the early Tank Girl comics and will trash talk the abominable movie until the cows come home.
Other things currently of relevance:
I identify as a woman and have been an avowed feminist since I was five years old, yet put me in a dress and I feel like I’m in drag. Don’t even get me started on high heels or make-up. Also, there’s no such thing as a male feminist, so you can miss me with that.
I’m deeply concerned by Big Data and their tracking and surveillance capabilities. I love the internet, I love technology, but I think the general public needs a better understanding of the ethics and power of Big Data and its implications for our privacy. I talk a bit more about this here and here. I was once convinced that the shifts of power away from the State and into the hands of big tech meant that we would witness the collapse of the State as we know it in my life time. I now think that the State and big tech are joining forces to create an uber-surveillance state.
Similarly, I am beyond glad the pandemic is over but remain convinced that there is a redistribution of power occurring. The pandemic transferred wealth to big pharma, the Russia-Ukraine war is transferring wealth to arms manufacturers, the cost of living crisis is transferring wealth to the energy firms and industrial food manufacturers. What will be the ‘next thing’ to distract us as it makes a surreptitious stealth grab of what little is left? Honestly, I am looking at housing: watch and wait for all the metropolitan housing bubbles to burst one by one.
I do not vote because there is no one to vote for and we do not have proportional representation in this country. I refuse to maintain the charade that is democracy nowadays. I guess, really, I am an anarchist, but my thoughts mainly dwell in ethical not political realms.
I thoroughly, utterly, and totally oppose the monarchy. Ever wondered why so many oppressive and discriminatory practices won’t shift? It’s because we’re still okay with the idea of royalty, that one group of people are inherently superior and more deserving than the rest. I vomit on that. Off with their heads!
I come from a working-class background and that matters to me. The older I get, the more I see the importance and value of that positionality, and so the more I foreground it in my identity.
I swear. A lot. I do not care about the kinds of middle class sensibilities which find me uncouth. 😇 I first made a ‘swearing tape’ when I was nine years old (and got right royally bollocked when my mum found it), and that solidified my love of all things fuck and cunty. You have been warned. (That said, I don’t swear on the job unless given permission by my client. I am a professional, don’t you know?!)
But what do I love? More than anything I enjoy: learning, reading, writing, moving, the spa, making clothes, hand weaving, challenging, dreaming of a revolution, swearing, and listening to the purring of cats.