the backlash against feminism

There's a fantastic article in the Guardian today, written by Kira Cochrane who is one of my ever present girl crushes. The article is huge in scope and covers a massive variety of frightening topics including rape conviction rates, inequalities in the work place, the shocking lack of funding for women's charities (I've read the statistic a million times but it still enrages me that sick donkeys get more money than battered women on this isle of mine), the increasing prevelance of the sex trade and my own pet subject:

In gossip magazines, women's bodies are pored over - a pound gained provoking headlines that they're fat, a pound lost leading to headlines that they're too thin. Circles are drawn around a spot on their ankle where they've failed to apply fake tan, around a bitten nail or a tiny, incipient wrinkle beside their eye - which could just be a stray lash. What is implicit but unsaid is that there is no objective standard of beauty, no level of perfection that a woman could reach at which her body would be perceived as acceptable and in control. In the eyes of these magazines, a healthy body mass index could be considered seriously plump. A woman deemed too fat in one magazine could, on the basis of exactly the same picture, be deemed too thin by another magazine. The constant message is that women's bodies are not our own. They belong to everyone but us, and are there to be picked apart. Women can try to curry favour, come up to snuff, spend hours like, say, Madonna, working out, perfecting themselves. But there's then every chance that they will be derided for the veins on their hands. There's something essentially depressing about women being derided for their veins

I suggest you go and read the whole thing, I'm already trying to work out a way of forcing everyone I come into contact with into reading and understanding it. Maybe that would make my day to day interactions bearable.

UPDATE: Apparently the ladies over at Jezebel agree with me.

how timely!

In relation to what I blogged about last time from next week UK employers are required to protect staff members from sexual harassment by customers, tradesmen and other people they are contractually obliged to have contact with during their employment (source), if they fail to do so they may be liable for damages. This is fantastic news for bar and restaurant staff across the country, although I'm not too sure how effective such a law would be in actually cutting down the amount of harassment by members of the public. The worst job I ever worked in terms of getting groped (also in terms of poor pay, levels of physical labour and the resulting blisters) was catering for weddings. The female staff members used to keep a running tally of how many times each of us had been groped by liquored up guests (the winner getting first dibs on the left over alcohol from the free bar, I never once attended a wedding where everything was finished - let me tell you that would never happen if I were the one throwing the party or, you know, attending it as a guest). There was nothing that our boss could have done about this whatsoever, short of physically removing every drunken uncle and groomsman from the room (leaving a grand total of about twelve guests in some cases), she was utterly powerless. It might be slightly more useful in a controlled atmosphere, taking another example from my experience (if a little by proxy) - one of my friends used to work for a transport company. The regulations concerning harassment were clearly laid out within the company itself but she did have trouble when dealing with outside contractors, her bosses felt that their hands were tied as they had no direct control over (or legal responsibility for) workers who weren't under their direct employment. This kind of legislation could have made her working life infinitely more pleasant.

To be honest any law that moves us towards a situation where workers are able to do their job free from harassment (and I'm not just referring to female employees here either - I once worked with a guy who was pestered relentlessly by a customer "on behalf of" her daughter, culminating in an offer of £10,000 for him to take her out dancing... did I mention this customer was incredibly drunk? And too rich for her own good?) is a step in the right direction.

As for you the lovely, and silent, commenters - any stories of workplace hideousness to share?

Procreation? Not so much. Footnotes? Absolutely.

Two articles caught my attention today the first, over at Jezebel is a truly horrifying report of a woman in Sweden whose boyfriend fed her RU-486 without her knowledge in a bid to abort the foetus she was carrying. Even more frightening is the fact that he's not the first guy to have this stellar idea. The Jezebel article highlights some of the comments left on the original news story, which I'll reproduce here:

I find it interesting that he gets sentenced to 18 months in prison for trying to get rid of the fetus and she can legally get rid of the fetus by having an abortion.

Most of the responses to this are completely in tune with my personal reaction of "The FUCK? He drugged her, that's assault you fucking moron" which is always heartening to see. It's nice to know that rampant stupidity doesn't permeate to every last corner of the internet. As far as refuting the moronic arguments like the once above goes: it all comes back (like so many things) to the "my body, my choice" philosophy. I've been reading a lot on this subject recently and I have realised something very important. This is an ideal which I will fight to the death to defend. I will also say this, melodramatic as it sounds: if abortion or emergency contraception were ever made to be completely illegal I would have myself sterilised. For real. I don't care how painful, expensive or irreversible the procedure would be there would be no way in hell I would take that chance.* I'd rather never have children at all than have them before I'm ready for them. As for abstinence? Fuck off. I mean, you have met me right?

This brings me neatly onto the second article, via Feministing, which happily put me in a much better mood. Shockingly enough some women genuinely don't want children. Why? Because they just don't. I cannot tell you how happy this and the associated comments made me feel. The second I say something such as the statement I made above I immediately get jumped on with the "oh you'll change your mind soon enough"s or the "it'll be different when it happens to you"s and I am sick to the back teeth of it**. It's part absolute fury at being told what I will and will not feel at some undetermined point in the future (which I do not like) and part repulsion at the idea that I obviously will never be able to be a complete and rounded person until I have popped out a sprog. I've stopped saying that I don't want children now, not because I suddenly and magically do but because I can't take arguing with people over it any more. It appears that the answer of "because I just don't really feel I want them" isn't good enough and I utterly despise myself when I catch me starting up with the "I can barely look after myself, what would I do with a baby? I'd probably lose it. I even kill my houseplants HA HA HA" schtick which seems to be the only verging on acceptable response. Anyway, it's not as simple as that I'm not saying I'll never have kids just that I don't want them but people can't seem to understand this distinction. It is very, very simple: if I meet someone who desperately wants a family then, yeah: I would consider it. However, I also think that if I never got around to reproducing it wouln't be any great loss - my life would be just as fulfilling and I'd be just as happy either way. Is this a wildly radical notion? Does the logic of this not compute somewhere? It's another case of people assuming that just because they get something out of a particular situation (and yes, so do billions of other people) then everyone else must do too.

Although I will say this, having gotten older and making friends with women who actually are mothers some in real life (some in a life that just feels real) my perception of motherhood has changed. Realising that parents are real people (who can get irritated with their offspring, or find them unintentionally hilarious, or have any number of any other utterly rational human responses to a completely autonomous living entity) rather than the Stepford-bot mega-mommy 3000s I grew up around (seriously, private school girls have issues 90% of them parentally induced) my horror of having spawn has been downgraded from "I'd rather jump off a bridge, oh God. Why would you even say something like that to me? What the fuck, man." to "well maybe, if I had the money and the support and someone else who promised to feed them and clean out their cages... meh, what's on TV?". So there's always that.

* This is not to say that I am anti-children (obviously, or my future career plans would be kind of stupid), or anti-anyone having children ever. I am however anti-me having children. I am also anti-bringing a child into the world into a home situation that either doesn't want it or isn't ready for it.

** This particular rant may or may not have been brought on by the fact that my baby cousin, who ok is only 9 months younger than me, moved in with her boyfriend this week highlighting the fact that in my family's terms I am officially an old maid. Seriously, being 22 and not having met/married someone yet is positively deviant - especially as my Mother was living in London when she was exactly my age and yet she still had time to find herself a husband.

girls on film?

Just a quick hit posting (I'm absolutely blitzed at work at the moment which is awesome) to draw your attention to the following AlterNet article on the imbalance between male and female characters in kids TV programming.

An exerpt from the article:

"Studying 4,000 female film characters, females (from animated girl puppies to grown human women) were more than 5 times more likely than males to be shown as adornment or sexually enticing and three times more likely to be dressed in sexually alluring clothing.
...
Most dramatically, females of all ages were 3 times more likely (10.6% vs. 3.4%) to have unrealistically "perfect" bodies, introducing the skinny ideal at an early age to the minds of young boys and girls."

Something else to take away from the piece: Geena Davis absolutely rules.

on body image and the rediscovery of feminism

So I'm approaching an important milestone: in 20 days' time I will have been a single girl for one whole year (I obsessively celebrate anniversaries of even the most mundane things, go with it). Now, the ex Mr. TheOdd, while a generally all around bitchin guy (seriously, as drinking buddy material: awesome. As a boyfriend: not so much) was.. how shall we put it: a bit of a chauvinist... actually he was a lot of a chauvinist. He was also one of those freaks who actually exercised for fun, and not the "going running with friends, swimming for relaxation and because my amazingly cute bathing suit makes me look like a bond girl it's high necked with a zip up back and I love it and must wear it at every possible opportunity now what the hell was I talking about again" way but in the "I will lift pound upon pound of steel every single day just to make my naturally wiry physique just that bit more bulgey" kind of a way. He also perpetuated my desire to eat incredibly unhealthily (note: strawberry liquorice and sherbert - not a meal) and that combined with his constant non-understanding about my food issues unintentionally prevented me from making a full recovery from my borderline disorder (Hi, I'm Alex. I used to be dangerously underweight).

So what's the point of all this, and what the hell does it have to do with the title of this post? Well, wade through several more paragraphs of my rambling and I'll tell ya.

I stopped being dangerously thin when I hit about 14. I made halting steps, started eating what normal people would class as "food" and filled out. A bit. No longer scrawny but I was definitely slim, while maintaining one hell of an hourglass figure.

I started eating properly this year. I can actually name the date: it was March 24th. Like most things, it was started by a boy (or maybe I should say "geezer", right 'bama?).

The upshot of this is that now I eat everything in sight; foods that would have made me gag previously are now part of my Sunday morning ritual, I take bites out of things without inspecting them first, I don't hover over someone cooking me food and wrinkle my nose up in disgust when they list the ingredients. I no longer take two bites and then push the of my food around my plate, carefully sculpting it until it looks like an entire meal has been eaten.

I also don't weigh 8 1/2 stone any more, that's 119lbs to those who aren't British. I don't think, in all honesty that I'd want to be that small again - I went down to 112 for a while, around my second break up with the ex Mr. TheOdd (due to a month of vodka replacing food and dancing replacing sleep) and I looked dreadful. People started telling me I'd lost weight with concern in their eyes rather than admiration. But since then I've steadily gained weight taking me to where I am now.

All 5'2" of me, weighing in at 140lbs.

Now personally, I don't think I look that bad, although (in my head) I could stand to be a good 10lbs lighter, if I remained this size forever I'd be far from pissed off. I'm still a UK size 10 (that's a US size 6) but in my head I'll always be "spiritually" super skinny. Although academically I know that many people would kill for my curves I still have that niggling voice in the back of my head telling me I don't look like I "should do". No matter how much I slim down (and I will be half-heartedly attempting to in the coming month or so) I am not built to look like an athletic, long legged skinny chick and a mental makeover is required as well as a physical one. However, due to my past relationship with food, and the fact that in times of stress I slip into highly disordered eating patterns (three meals per day of take-out, or four days of not eating at all) I am very aware that I have to be incredibly vigilant whenever I start any kind of eating plan to make sure I don't slip over the edge.

So this, coupled with my pre-existing interest in the topic led me to reading "Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters: The Frightening New Normalcy of Hating Your Body" written by Courtney E. Martin, one of the regular bloggers over at feministing. The book is well worth a read, if you're interested in the issue. The author is young, and that reflects in her writing style. It's by no means a definitive account and the social methodology is somewhat lacking in places but she's writing from the heart about a subject that's close to her own experience, as a reader you can see what she's trying to do and I really applaud that.

The book also had a surprising effect on me, it rekindled my desire to immerse myself in a pet topic.

I was raised with Feminist beliefs but, due to to my public girl's school education followed by a slightly overpowering ex boyfriend as well as the British college mentality of "don't do or say anything to massively alienate yourself from anyone" (we don't do political activism, it's not our way. The kids who stage demonstrations are generally regarded as a little bit weird and are best avoided), I slowly but surely buried them under a jokey facade of "oh, I've never seen it happening, it's not that important" and bought in to the myths and the rhetoric ("I don't believe in Feminism, I believe in equal rights" which I now consider to be an incredibly damaging sentence). Over the last few months I've been re-educating myself. Reconnecting with my Mother on the subject, having some illuminating conversations with surprising people (the most laid back of my school friends, and generally the most easy going woman that I know looking at me with fire in her eyes and stating that she didn't know "how anyone, in good conscience, could possibly say they aren't a Feminist." I found myself nodding, after all it's just that the majority of my peers don't understand the definition any more) and, probably most importantly for me, reading the literature. It's a scary thing to identify myself with a label like this, and six months ago the idea of "identifying" myself as anything would have been alien to me, the culture I grew up in and the current climate doesn't have a particularly nice view of people who label themselves as anything at all. You can't be just "a person with beliefs" you have to instantly lose your sense of humour, become crusading and have no other interests or past-times. Even those with a particular political alignment are viewed as slightly ab-normal.... but I'm going to ignore this. In fact: I'm reverting. Back to my teenage self who actually cared about things and could muster up more than a disenfranchised "meh" when faced with something she should care about.

But where to start? I have the tendency to become over involved in things, I try to learn everything there is to know about any subject that I am interested in and often become completely overwhelmed with the details. Sometimes the task will be so daunting that I don't even bother to start, missing out, I'm sure, on so very much. So I have to pick an angle, choose a niche that I can fully explore, become comfortable in and then use as a launch pad into other areas.

Because of my past experiences, recent reading material, continuing reading of Jezebel and new and shiny subscription to BUST magazine I've chosen to stick with what I know and go for body image, portrayal of women in the media, obsessions with food... basically this is a warning that I'm going to be fucking insufferable on the subject from now on.

So that's where I stand. It feels good to have something, even something small, to believe in again.

As far as my own personal philosophy concerning my upcoming mini attempt at weight loss goes: I've informed both my flatmate and my Mother what I'm doing. Both are highly (and painfully) familiar with my eating patterns and neither one will fail to call me on my shit should I start being stupid about it (this may seem melodramatic but a couple of months ago I suddenly realised I'd spent the previous two weeks existing on less than 500 calories a day... yeah not healthy and my body wasn't best pleased either. Still karmically it got it's revenge as I then spent 8 weeks completely paranoid that I was pregnant and that every test on the face of the earth was wrong). I'm not doing much: just cutting out alcohol for a month, cutting back on sugar and no longer eating a (couple of) Krispy Kreme doughnut(s) on my way home from work. So actually just being a little bit healthier.

So yeah.