Sunday 3 November 2013

11 vague thoughts on being a step-parent

Last week my husband's youngest son turned 12. This means I have known him for seven years. The eldest is nearly 14, and their double digit advancement is relentless. It lacks imagination but recently even I've been wailing with sadness about how fast they grow up. I cheerfully admit total hypocrisy here, because I've spent the last seven years moaning about what a massive pain young kids are.


Two main things strike me on the far side of this recent birthday milestone. One, several friends have since also collected step kids, ignoring a lot of advice they didn't ask for, but seemingly doing a much better job than me. I'm guessing there'll be more of these to come. And two, I haven't come to any conclusions whatsoever about the value or worth of having my own children, and I don't know whether this is clouded by spending time with someone else's. Children are still as big a mystery to me today as they ever were. Why and how people merrily have them with minimal thought and maximum confidence is a total puzzle. The only thoughts I have are vague, such as;

1. We share clothes a lot, the two boys and I. I'm wearing a lovely navy gilet now which belongs to one of them. And, since they've forgotten they own it, I'll never be asked for it back. Sometimes at the dinner table I will look up and see them both in my hand me downs. Worryingly, my husband put a pair of boys Bonds undies in my clothes pile just this morning. This suggests problems in our marriage on many, many levels....though in my defence I haven't worn them. Yet.

2. I still dislike saying 'step kids' or 'stepson' or being on the receiving end description of 'step mother'. It just isn't comfortable. It's a bit like wearing trainers as street fashion, it's for other people.

3. It still surprises me how unaware 'real' parents are about how 'same same' step-parenting is. I still get asked by friends, 'so, how often do you have them?' as if it might be once a semester or three times a year. Same answer for seven years. Every second weekend, all year, and four weeks a year holiday. They also still, in conversation about their own kids, roll their eyes and say 'just wait!' as if I may not be aware of the phenomena of kids at bath time, or bed time, or travelling, or endless conversations about whether you'd rather be a warrior squirrel or a battlefield badger etc etc. I have done all of those things. I have ticked off that list too.

4. I feel good about the things I've taught them: laundry, cooking, and that God may just be a figment of mass imagination. They, in turn, have taught me a lot of things about igneous rocks, the angles of reflection and refraction, and the difference between Doric and Corinthian columns using the Bank of England as a case study. Together we have faced Wellington's Non Verbal Reasoning paper, and won. I bloody hate Non-Verbal Reasoning.

5. The thing I would like to teach them now is that it's all blind luck. Everything. Luck of genes, luck of country, luck of time, luck of the draw. They could so easily be riding a refugee boat out of North Africa, or being shelled in Afghanistan, or starving in some shit hole in Glasgow. I am sad that in going to boarding school they will be surrounded only by other white kids soaked in litres of similar luck. I hope they don't become people who moan about immigration levels, or paying tax.

6. I read somewhere once that being a step parent was like swimming up a waterfall. I don't know what they meant by that, I guess something about always trying but never getting there. It hasn't been that bad.

7. I had a funny conversation the other night with a man who just couldn't understand why his second wife didn't want to get particularly involved with his kids from his first marriage. 'She likes them, but she doesn't really want to have much to do with them...' he said, genuinely puzzled. He said, 'but isn't being a step-parent brilliant? All fun and no responsibility?' It made me laugh then, and on many occasions since. One day, people might stop assuming all women to be welcoming caves of maternal interest.

8. If I had one piece of advice to anyone new to it all, and even to myself today, it would be to do things with your partner's kids on your own. I don't even mean fun hobbies, though that's great if you can. I mean just anything, like picking them up from school, doing the groceries, washing the car, going for a run, anything. When you're on your own with someone you have to make more of an effort. When you are otherwise a bit of a third wheel, and not involved in the big decisions, it's hard to see why you should bother.

9. No one wants to hear that you don't love your step kids. This is strange to me, as scientific studies have proven that 56 per cent of all people in Western families daydream about murdering at least one blood family member*. If you do meet someone who says they understand, they will still ask you 'but you'd really miss them if they weren't around, right?' And the look they give you makes you want to hug them, and tell them everything is OK.

10. I don't understand why parents want to talk to their kids all the time. At work, a lot of fathers are in the early teen years at the moment and there's a lot of frustration about how their kids are silent in the long drives from school and back. I say, isn't silence one of humanity's greatest virtues? Coming years of teen silence holds no fear for me. It sure beats the 'badger army vs squirrel army' conversation.

11. I hate being beaten at anything by the kids. It is much, much worse than being beaten by anyone else. They bring out the worst of the bad loser in me.


*this is a totally made up statistic, I bet the truth is much higher.


By Katherine Burgdorf.

Saturday 7 September 2013

UK: Anti-abortion campaigners dress up in feminist clothing



By Katherine Burgdorf

This week in the UK a pregnant, undercover reporter from the Daily Telegraph 'exposed' two doctors who signed off her proposed abortion after she told them she wanted the termination because she didn't want a girl baby. The doctors were filmed interjecting with 'we don't ask questions.'


In response to this story the Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt has criticised the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) for declining to bring charges against the two doctors, and was backed up by Emily Thornberry, the Labour MP for Islington and South Finsbury who took to the press saying this was an illegal act which should be punished as any criminal activity. The doctors are currently answering to their professional conduct board, the General Medical Council.


The sub-text here is that these doctors - and many like them - are condoning female infanticide. The suggestion is that any feminist should be outraged that unborn baby girls are being killed across Britain. But more dangerous is that this story is generating another attack on women's right to choose what happens when they become pregnant. It is being suggested that if women cannot be trusted not to abort girls, then they cannot be trusted to abort at all. It is the Telegraph - and a modern working female journalist at that, shame on her - paving the way for another attack on women's rights to govern their own bodies.


I've always vaguely taken it for granted that getting an abortion in Britain is fairly straightforward - something you hope you never need to do but reassuringly available if needed. When I imagine it, I imagine going to a clinic, saying that I just didn't want to bring up a child, possibly be subjected to bloodied photos of terminated embryos to make sure I was ready to proceed on my murderous path, but nonetheless given approval.


This week's story got me wondering what the law actually is, and embarrassed not to really know it. Is it really as straightforward as I think? Because if you aren't allowed to say 'I don't want this baby because it's a girl,' then what can you say? In Britain is saying that any different to 'I just don't want to have a baby'? Or are they both illegal?


According to the Family Planning Association's factsheet, the Abortion Act of 1967 (amended in 1990), allows that a woman in England can be granted an abortion up to 24 weeks if two doctors agree there is a risk to the physical or mental health of the woman. After 24 weeks, agreement is needed that there is grave mental or physical risk to the woman or a risk that the child will be seriously mentally or physically handicapped. There is a high profile group of campaigners and politicians, including Health Secretary Hunt, seeking to reduce that to as little as 12 weeks.

For context, the FPA reports there are around 189,000 abortions in England and Wales each year, which is just under 22% of all pregnancies. In 2012 only 160 abortions were carried out after 24 weeks. Rates of abortion have been steady for many years. In 2007 members of the British Medical Association voted in favour of removing the requirement for two doctors to provide signatures up to the 24 week period but this has not affected the current law requiring two doctor's signatures.


So, in order to get a termination currently a woman has to prove to two doctors there is a risk to her mental or physical wellbeing if she has to carry the baby to term. Well, what does that mean? How does a doctor determine that risk, or indeed judge the woman's current or future wellbeing? I argue they can't. The point is, the legislation is graciously forgiving in its language. The point is, the legislation doesn't specify how unhappy she would be to have a child, or why she would be unhappy, though one might presumably be asked to say something on the matter. It just implies, rightly, that a mentally balanced woman has a greater right to physical and mental wellbeing than the State has to say when or if she gives birth. To a point - currently 24 weeks and sometimes longer - she has more of a right than the foetus, I would argue on the basis that without her, there is no foetus.


Now, of course the point of the Telegraph's story is that this woman had a different agenda. She was breaking the law - or rather entrapping others to break the law - by saying she wanted a termination because her child was going to be born a girl. Her request, they argue, had nothing to do with mental or physical health. But how are we to know what is in the heart or mind of any woman seeking an abortion? Yes, we 'know' in this case, but how in other cases are we to probe the minds of those who say their health or wellbeing is at risk? And if the police are likely to come and ask, why on earth would any doctor agree to carry out abortions even though they may well believe in a woman's hum\n right to choose? How do we ask women to prove they are not getting an abortion because they want to get further along in their career, or if they don't think they're ready yet, or they don't have a reliable partner, or enough money to pay rent, bills and also raise a family? These could all be loosely termed 'risk' to mental or physical health, but I would argue many are not, they're simply good reasons not to have a child at a particular point in time. Who am I to point and say 'criminal' to the family of four boys who doesn't want another? Or someone who just doesn't want kids? Or a woman who's just bought a house for two kids and doesn't want a third? Technically it's against the law but how far do I travel before I say 'criminal' to those who choose to say 'it's just not for me?'


The truth of course is that in many countries around the world girls are killed for being girls. They are killed soon after birth or, if the technology is available, aborted beforehand. If they survive those scenarios they are consistently and heftily discriminated against for life. What sort of society drives this discrimination? The answer, of course, is a patriarchal one in which giving birth to a boy brings significant economic benefit and status to the family, from sheer muscle power to help run farms, or bring in wages, to wealth through patriarchal inheritance laws. In many countries families must raise crippling dowries to marry off daughters, so they kill them to avoid the expense. These societies - China being the classic - show significant disruption to natural birth ratios of boys to girls. In China there are around 121 boys born to every 100 girls. Within nature it's between 105-108. In Britain, it's 105.1 and it has not changed in decades (Department of Health, 2011). Nor, as Janice Turner points out in The Times (7th Sept, Opinion), have these statistics changed due to immigration in Britain. She reports that in 2011 the DoH looked into birth figures according to the mother's country of origin - focusing on countries where female infanticide is more common such as Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, and China - and found no evidence they were outside normal British parameters. There is no evidence suggesting the systemic termination of girl foetuses by people from those societies living in Britain. Why? Because thankfully, despite the slow progress we make against everyday sexism, in Britain it makes no particular economic or social difference if you have a boy or a girl.


So, what conclusions do we draw? A newspaper has uncovered what is technically a criminal act. Two doctors have been asked by a woman for an abortion and she has offered up a reason that does not comply - on its own - with the law (and we do not know what else she said to those doctors). The Government is putting pressure on the CPS to charge them with a crime. The CPS has stated that bringing a prosecution would not have been in the public interest, in part because the abortion did not take place, and was never going take place. Had this been a real situation, perhaps they would have.


I draw two conclusions. Firstly, anti-abortion campaigners are dressing up their agenda in the clothes of feminism and asking us to share their outrage that a woman might decide to abort a girl. They will use this to tighten up abortion laws generally, and are already making moves on the 24 week limit. It is hardly going too far to imagine that next week a male-orientated campaign group will uncover that a woman who wants to terminate a male foetus.

I also argue that the current abortion law is still too restrictive. How can one doctor, or two, or three, know what is in the mind of another person? They cannot, and to say otherwise is ludicrous, so why do we insist we can assess it? The pregnant woman - and only the pregnant woman - should be able to choose an abortion within a timeframe guided by scientific research and say whether or not she gives birth. To make her jump and justify degrades our right to personal freedom and the pursuit of happiness. If the point of the current law is to give broad discretion then why not explicitly state we may have it? Society's role - and it does have one, backed up by the law - is to ensure that anyone born - girl or boy - has access to exactly the same rights and opportunities such that there is no reason for families to favour one or the other on any normalised basis. If we changed the law in this way we would see absolutely no change to the birth ratio in this country. Why? Because British women are not pursuing abortions based on gender in any systematic way. And I predict they would not start if it was legalised. The role of the law is to ensure that women are safe, just as men are safe.


I am not arguing that female infanticide  doesn't matter. It does matter and it matters on a dramatic scale but it matters because it's the sign of a terribly and hopelessly unfair society. It is not the result of legalised abortion, it's the result of long history of patriarchal favour, and laws which ingrain that favour. It's the result of hopelessly ingrained pro-male culture, implicit and explicit. And it will lead to unprecedented imbalance in countries like China. I'll write it again, female infanticide does not exist because women are allowed access to abortions. It exists because the societies where it takes place hold boy babies dear, and girl babies cheap. It happens where women have no recourse, and often no education, to do anything to change the environment in which they live, and the laws which govern them. It is an outcome of history and social values, not an outcome of freedom. And in these countries do you think it's well policed? Of course not.


There should be oversight of abortion in the same way there should be oversight of all medical and health services. There is room for women to be pressured into abortions and vigilance and support is required. I support euthanasia on the same grounds. But let the person bodily affected by the situation decide. Give people information, consideration and support to make their own informed decision. Carrying a baby, and giving birth, carries all sorts of big and small health consequences from death in labour to stroke, diabetes to simple (but debilitating) incontinence. Would men be hasty to restrict the right to choose if it were they who faced these risks? No indeed. 


Women in Britain are not systematically aborting girls or boys - let the statistics reassure us of that. Anyone suggesting that the right to abort will lead to it is motivated to reduce the right to choose any abortion. No. Women in Britain are aborting babies at the same rates they always have, and they are choosing to abort for the reasons they always have...individual reasons. May we all have the right to do so, lest the Government start asking us to prove what's in our minds.







Wednesday 26 June 2013

Will it really be easier for the next woman?

Australia's first Prime Minister Julia Gillard was beaten in a leadership ballot for control of her own party today, losing to persistent challenger Kevin Rudd. Rudd, it is argued by the Labor party, has a better chance of defeating the Liberal leader Tony Abbott in this year's election.

Why did Australia struggle so much with its female Prime Minister, and what does it say about the state of the country?



By Katherine Burgdorf

So, there we go. As it turns out Australia wasn't ready for a woman PM. But who wasn't ready? The media? The public? Her political colleagues? Aren't we all the same thing, at the end of the day? Many modern psychologists argue we learn more about ourselves from the reactions we have to others than we do about the subject our reaction is focused on. So what on earth, in Julia Gillard, are we so afraid of?

The treatment of Julia Gillard by politicians and the mainstream media has been debilitating. Debilitating for her, as it turns out, and debilitating for those of us who want to see Australia advance. I feel stumped as to what we do next, and I don't live there.

The reaction to the event in the UK has been one of astonishment and no small amount of awe at the ruthless nature of Labour politics. Indeed, Julia's own takeover of the leadership from Rudd has been described as such. There is much coverage of whether sexism befell her, or whether it was wider incompetence and pure political strategy. The event has been very widely broadcast, including a segment tonight on Newsnight. When Jeremy Paxman asked whether women be put off politics no one was daft enough to suggest they wouldn't be.

To suggest her gender hasn't been an issue is fantasy. Can we think of a single male PM treated with such disregard by both colleagues and the press? I can't. Not Rudd when he cried the last time he was booted out. Not Hawke when he cried, and not Whitlam when he was cut off at the knees by the GG. Not Keating when he dumped Anita. It is perhaps the only admirable thing about US politics...the respect for the post is what is most important, not the man or the woman in the post. Perhaps Russell Crowe sums it up best as saying it is simply ungallant. Ungallant to our own country.

So is Australia afraid of career women? Is it fearful of childless couples? Is it fearful of women generally, or outspoken women? Unusual people who don't fit the mould? The difficult thing for me, and people like me, is that other than her role she appeared ordinary. I have a hunch it was her straightforwardness, and I think that straightforwardness was amplified by her rarity in her environment, and Australian's didn't like the sound.


People who say what they think is rare - in politics as in financial services, as in any other alpha industry. Sometimes it is delightful - hence London's love affair with Boris Johnson, and sometimes it is uncomfortable, as we see with Gillard. One fits a mould we are comfortable with, and one does not yet come from a mould not enough of us are comfortable with.

From what was reported about Gillard before she become PM her no bullshit approach was highly regarded, and one that suited her. In her early days as PM the press kept asking where the 'real' Julia went to...the impression being she appeared muzzled and newly uncomfortable in her leadership role.

Perhaps in her role as PM it was unpalatable, and perhaps her advisors never found a suitably comfortable press replacement. No doubt her policies were not impressive to big business, but the venom with which she was attacked was bigger than that. She was never considered incompetent as the deputy leader and it seems unlikely she suddenly became incompetent as PM. Sexism was to play here, but many will not understand what we mean by this and will genuinely believe this not to be the case.

'Telling it like it is' is considered a great quality. It is talked about as a great quality, but not in women. Telling it like it is tends to make people unpopular and most people want to be liked. Arguably, being liked is a politician most important goal and being a plain speaker is a quality in very rare supply.

By and large people feel safe making their feelings known in private conversations, and very uncomfortable and unwilling to tell it like it is in public situations. They respond to leadership, and appreciate straight-talkers, but if that straight-talker falls outside the usual comfort shape then anxiety ratchets. The kneejerk reaction is to cut the speaker to size. In the City - and I will write more about this - it often comes dressed in light-hearted taunts, or shaded in language designed to remind you your outspoken behaviour is unusual. Unusual as a woman, and somewhat amusing. What I argue is that outspokenness isn't unusual for women. It's simply rare in general. It is not desirable in women, and that is different.

In Gillard we had a capable, straightforward politician as committed, clever, ruthless, calculating as the next politician. But we were not comfortable with her. We had to make out complaints about her about her as a woman. Her thighs, her gay hairdressing husband, her lack of children. That is how uncomfortable she made us.

It says more about us than her. It does not make us look good.

Wednesday 19 June 2013

Nigella is the real face of domestic violence


This week in London the art investor Charles Saatchi was cautioned by the police for the actions which shocked many on the weekend – the assault of his wife, Nigella Lawson, in Scott’s, the Mayfair restaurant. Lawson is the celebrity chef and broadcaster.

 

Saachi was photographed by the paparazzi with his hands over his wife’s throat on four separate occasions while they argued, and allegedly giving her nose a good tweak as they left. She was then photographed crying as she left the restaurant and then leaving her house with a suitcase and her son later that day. Of the incident Saachi said, “There was no grip, it was a playful tiff. The pictures are horrific but give a far more drastic and violent impression of what took place. Nigella’s tears were because we both hate arguing, not because she had been hurt.’ He says he suggested she leave their London house to avoid the press. Lawson has not yet made any comment.

 

The pictures are shocking for lots of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ reasons. They are shocking because we are seeing something which is usually private, in public. And shocking because this image is not the media image we conjure when we think of Nigella Lawson…she is not the typical face of domestic violence. Except that, of course, we are wrong.

 

Domestic violence and the spectrum of behaviour it encompasses has no typical face in reality. In our minds it’s probably still the face of poor people, or of house-wives. It is still a wife, rather than a girlfriend, still a middle aged woman rather than a teenager. It is still a woman, and not a man, and an adult and not a child.

 

Today, when an event like this happens and is reported on, it is not the mainstream media coverage of most interest to me, it’s the comments left by readers on noticeboards, news sites and Twitter tell us so much more about what wider society thinks. The digitisation of news and media has given us unprecedented access to the thoughts of others, and a view on public perception of issues that continue to dog women as a group.

 

Yesterday there were 145 comments on the Time’s Monday article about Saachi’s assault. They varied from those who thought the story was not news, to those who thought this was a matter for the couple privately, those who wondered what on earth Nigella might be scared of ‘what, losing her mansion?’, and no one else’s business, to those who wished they’d been there to lamp Saatchi good and proper. As one man wrote ‘my father told me to hold a woman by her waist and a wine bottle by its neck….Saatchi has got this the wrong way around.’

 

As I read through the comments I would say the majority thought Saachi’s behaviour was unacceptable. But many thought it wasn’t news, and a few thought the whole scheme had been enflamed by charity workers, the police state and ‘those people at Everydaysexism’. I was delighted to see a (male) journalist from The Times join the comments to write back to defend the Everydaysexism Project and suggest its detractor spend a bit more time understanding why your average run of the mill sexism was dangerous.

 

So is it news? Yes, I think it is. The fact we are shocked at the assault suggests we still aren’t used to the idea that domestic violence can happen to anyone. Does it matter that it’s Saachi and Lawson? No, but if we don’t report this, and don’t profile an event which took place in public how else do we shine the light on an issue that is still so common. Even one comment suggesting it’s no one’s business but theirs suggests we haven’t gone far enough to deal with this sort of violence.

 

In other opinion pieces in the week, such as Channel 4’s ‘4thought’, there have also been suggestions that domestic violence toward children is woefully underreported, with a suggestion that it’s women who are the main perpetrators of violence against their children (and we’ve all seen it in shops and the streets), and that physical and psychological violence toward men in the home, or from their spouses, goes virtually unreported. My gut feel is the latter probably is right, in the same way the Government wilfully ignores statistics on rape committed against men in prison. Like Nigella and Saatchi, the reality is all too uncomfortable, too inconvenient.

 

Violence is violence wherever it takes place, and in whatever form, and whoever it is done to. It is a shame we cannot dispense with the tags that seem to confuse our natural understanding and acceptance of that.  

Wednesday 12 June 2013

Dumbing down for the dummies?

London Fields Lido - Pre-renovation, with tache.

There's nothing worse than coming home riled up by something and banging out a full blown passionate blog entry...and then realising at the end of the process that you're probably on the wrong side of the argument.

*sigh*

London 2012. It seems only yesterday one of the peaks of the sporting landscape was in London. Not Russian-owned, Sloane-eyed, French manicured West London. But here in East London - layered across the little suburbs who could of Hackney and Tower Hamlets. Making real before our eyes the Olympic pledge of revitalisation of places which for decades had struggled along in the blind-spot of political will.

And it was wonderful. Britain shone. Women won gold medals, silver medals and bronze medals. They were celebrated in newspapers, on the TV and radio not for what they wore, or who they were married to, and not for one-off body parts but for strength, and speed and skill. We talked about maintaining the focus on sport as a means to deliver health, hope and social advancement. We have talked about raising the profile of women's sport after these Games. I believe we meant it. So why, in its women's-only swimming hour, has my local pool decided to focus on pool noodle water aerobics? Why has it chosen to dumb down sport for women and blunt ambition for sporting skill?

Last Tuesday evening I went to my local pool in London Fields in Hackney to do some long distance training. This pool is a gem. It's one of very few outdoor 50m pools in the UK and attracts a wide range of people from paddlers to serious swimmers. It was originally opened in the 30s - like a lot of the UK's lidos - and was re-opened after refurbishment in 2006.

From 7pm to 8pm on Tuesday evenings the pool is open to women only. I don't agree with this policy since both men and women contribute to the pool's operation via local taxes, but I can live with it. I can certainly understand some women might feel uncomfortable wearing swimsuits in front of men, but on the basis most of the lifeguards remain men during this slot the theory lapses in practice. But it's not something I feel that strongly about and women have long suffered exclusion and discomfort in public spaces at the whim of men.

What I do feel strongly about is the pool's decision to dumb down the sport and this facility to the point where it is unrecognisable as sport. With music cranked up until the water vibrated, a poolside gym instructor led about a dozen women through a coloured foam rodeo. It looked like a dozen clowns drowning with their balloon animals. The music was so loud it was impossible to relax, think technique, count laps or do anything other than endure dripping wet Justin Beiber. It wasn't just loud, it was utterly depressing. If this is the legacy of the Olympics, I want my money back.

I know people reading this will say hang on! It's about participation!' or 'But I use water aerobics for my knee rehab! Don't be a snob!' Right? No! Wrong!

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

This legacy of the Olympics should be about striving, about excellence, and about ambition for the people of Britain, and in this case Hackney. This pool is one of Britain's rarest sporting environments and instead of leveraging its power and the skills of people who could teach high quality swimming, the company who operate the pool - Greenwich Leisure - have sunk the pool to the lowest level. They have, effectively, said to women, 'we know you don't think you can swim. You're right! So let's have fun doing something utterly useless that you'll quickly tire of and which will leave you with no lifelong skills at all, but which ticks our Hackney Council box of 'inclusion.' Job done! Thanks for playing!

Girls are culturally raised to be safe, conscientious, and quiet. They are raised to try hard, smile when they (expect to) lose and to put others before themselves. They are raised not to make mistakes, and not to be loud and not to be aggressive. They are raised not to be ambitious, because they are told through invisible signals all through their lives that a woman who is ambitious is not liked. Worse, dangerous. They are raised, not to put it too bluntly, to like pool noodle aerobics! Read Sheryl Sandberg's Lean In and she will list you numerous scientific studies which show this to be true (I mean the bit about ambitious women, not actually studies on pool noodle aerobics). Even women are shown to fear and mistrust ambitious women. Ambition in men, however, is totally different and is encouraged subconsciously by mothers of boys, fathers of boys and friends of boys. Women thrive in the ordered environs of school, but don't do well in life.

And yet. And yet we love Rebecca Adlington. We love Jessica Ennis. We love women who win at sport - because we saw it all at the Olympics last year. These athletes come to win, or at the very least to be the best version of themselves possible. So let's use sport, real sport, to expand women's horizons. Let's use the few top class facilities we have to get hold of women and team them to swim, and swim better, faster, and further, whether that's 200m, or 10km.

If you think I'm being politically incorrect by suggesting women need this sort of intervention then I'll point no further than the Government's programme launch last week doing just this same thing in business. We need to shake women up, and show them what can be done. This isn't because they can't do it, it's because they are still not raised to do it. They are raised to settle for comedy non sports. We have been let down over and over again and if we keep dumbing down things like sport, or education, or the workplace, then we won't ever set our sights higher.

I predict the women who attend these noodle aerobics classes will attend 4, maybe 6 sessions in summer. They will have fun for a while, then it will rain and they'll get bored, and find other things to do. Then it will be winter and the noodles will be packed away for another season. These women will drift back home with no swimming fitness, no confidence to train on their own and no high level swimming skills. And they will miss the beauty of the pool in winter looking like a hot Turkish salon, its quiet lovely lanes, its muscle toning, lung expanding magic.


I asked the manager and assistant at London Fields what other people's feedback was - and the answer is mixed. Some people love the idea of the pool offering different things. Others, like another woman in reception at the time, feel the same way I do, and agree that men would never be subjected to such low-brow fob offs.


I mentioned my anguish to two people this week. One man, and one woman. The woman, a fellow swimmer, wrote back 'but think of the COMEDY value! Surely it's worth it for that?' No. I sighed. It's not. I want more. I'm saying let's not make women's fitness a thing of comedy. Let's not say 'aim low and hit the ground.' Let's make it about high achievement, and skill, and goals. Instead, currently, it's ambition in the slow lane. And it's not just women. When I first started swimming at the pool, in 2008, I asked if they offered private lessons for kids. No, they said, they didn't. I was staggered. Here's a dream chance to make some money off middle class ambition but they weren't having a bar of it. The second person I mentioned my argument too is a man. He didn't agree with me, saying who cares what the exercise is, it's exercise. But he was incensed about women's hour and suggested that was the real problem.

So after a week's thinking I've come to the conclusion that technically I probably am wrong to say that pool noodle aerobics is nothing but sexist devil's work, but the spirit of my argument and feeling on the matter is the right one. I'm suspicious of dumbing down activities for the sake of popularity - see UKIP, Page 3 in The Sun etc - or an easy life. I think the value of this special place is not done justice by pool noodle aerobics and, being something of an evangelist for swimming, I think these women are missing out on the King of Sports.

Monday 3 June 2013

Deeds, not words - What really happened to Emily Davison?

The 1913 Derby: Emily Davison is killed colliding with Anmer, the King's horse.

Two very different TV programmes captivated me this week, and they shared both obvious and subtle connections heightened by my happening to watch them back to back. In the depressing spin cycle of feminist setbacks there is something to be said for taking an accidental 100 year view on the 4th June, the day feminism took to the track.

The first programme was Clare Balding's 'Secrets of a Suffragette' on Channel 4 (view here on 4OD), and the other was 'The Queen: A Passion for Horses' on BBC1 (see BBC iplayer), also presented by Balding whose grandfather, father and brother have all trained racehorses for the Queen.

In the first programme Balding and her team examine one of the greatest events in British feminist history - that of the death of Emily Davison at the Epsom Derby 100 years ago under King George the Fifth's racehorse, Anmer.

Emily Davison, a member of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) which was formed in 1903 by Emmeline Pankhurst, has largely been presented in history as a madwoman who deliberately went to Epsom to kill herself in the name of her movement. Her death, three days later from internal injuries, divided many around the country. Some argued her actions were necessary, many said she was a lunatic, and others have since said she set her own movement back in achieving its goals, particularly given the popularity of the Royal Family at the time, though it was widely believed the collision with the King's horse in particular could not have been planned.

Quite apart from the event itself the programme showed me how little I know about the sufragette movement, the women who developed and participated in it, and the theory behind their motto 'Deeds not words.' Before the programme my hazy assumptions would have been that Davison ran onto the track to kill herself to fight for her cause. Brave, yes, but probably unbalanced of mind too.

This has been disputed since the day itself but Balding's Channel 4 programme goes further to try to uncover the truth. They investigate Davison's known militant history, the consequences of her multiple terms in prison for violent attacks and arson, and her serious attempt to injure herself by throwing herself down an iron stairwell to bring an end to repeated force feeding regimes the imprisoned women faced in answer to their hunger strikes. This side of the investigation was particularly hard to watch - the mouth clamps, the funnels and tubing. They were lucky if wardens found their stomachs, and unlucky if they had gruel poured into their lungs. Apart from the mental trauma, many women suffered gastric and other illnesses for the rest of their lives.

But the main focus of the programme and of the team's investigation was footage of the Derby race itself and how it brings new evidence to light which suggests that Davison did not mean to die that day. The programme shows Davison and her actions on that day from new angles, and consolidates it with evidence found on the track. In summary, the footage appears to show Davison seeking out the King's horse from a vantage point good enough to allow it. It then shows her dodging several other horses, and then seeming to draw something from her clothes - a sash, it is thought. The argument goes that a sash, embroidered with the words 'Votes for Women' was found at the scene of the collision by a race official who saved it from the turmoil and later passed it on. It was bought recently at auction by writer Barbara Gordon who, importantly, outbid the Jockey Club itself. Clare Balding argues that the strong bidding by the Jockey Club points to the authenticity of the sash and the theory that Davison did not intend to kill herself at Epsom, but instead intended to attach the sash to the horse, perhaps to its bridle as it galloped by, as a high profile way to petition the King directly for her cause. The sash now hangs in the Houses of Parliament.

A sad postscript to this story was that the jockey who collided with Davison, Herbert Jones, killed himself years later in 1951, as it was said he never recovered from the sight of Davison's face as he rode into her. He attended Emmeline Pankhurst's funeral, in 1928 (the same year women achieved universal sufferage), where he laid a wreath for both women 'to do honour to the memory of Mrs Pankhurst and Miss Emily Davison.'

In watching the programme I was struck by how little the women's suffragette movement survives on. A few interested societies, a few historians who uncover pieces of evidence here or there, a grave in Morpeth with the slogan 'Deeds, not words.'

In Balding's lighter piece, charting the Queen's history and passion for horses, we watch another Regent's bid to become a Derby winner...one of the only major races to elude her stable. But apart from this obvious connection to Davison's history and her grandfather, George the Fifth, there was a wonderful moment in this programme where, the day after attending Baroness Thatcher's funeral, the Queen takes to the Winners Circle at Newbury to receive a trophy for a horse ridden to victory by a young woman, Hayley Turner. The pictures tell a thousand words.

And so I went to bed thinking a hero, a monarch, an owner, a TV star and a winner. That is the difference 100 years makes.

Tuesday 21 May 2013

Anti-abortion bill comes to Australia by stealth


By Gabrielle Jackson
The latest American cultural import comes to Australia via the Democratic Labor Party Senator for Victoria, John Madigan. He has introduced a bill to ban Medicare funding for sex-selected abortions in Australia.
Sounds reasonable, doesn’t it? Especially when you consider that most sex-selected abortions result in the termination of female foetuses.

Or does it?

If we believe a woman has the right to choose, then we must believe that all women have the right to choose, whatever her reasons may be. We cannot say that only educated, liberal, westernised feminists have the right to choose because their reasons are more amenable to our beliefs.

A woman’s reasons for choosing to abort are neither my business nor my concern. Her right to choose is my only concern and it must be defended at all costs. I’m not sure whether –in countries such as Australia – the provider should even have the right to ask a woman’s reason. Aren’t we capable of making this life-changing decision all by ourselves? Or do we still need the circumspection of others (usually men) to ensure we’re making the ‘right’ decision?

It’s the same argument that is used for free speech. I don’t believe in that right because I like to listen to the opinions of people who agree with me. I don’t defend women’s right to choose because I assume she’s choosing to abort because she was raped, or she’s young, or for any other ‘good’ reason. Women, and men, fought for abortion to be legalised because they believed a woman had the right to control her own body. To start introducing clauses is to diminish the crux of the defense of abortion in its entirety.

And therein lies the secret of this spurious bill. There is no evidence to suggest that sex-selected abortions are happening at a concerning rate in Australia at all. The bill, called the Health Insurance Amendment (Medicare Funding for Certain Types of Abortion) Bill 2013, has been referred to the Standing Committee on Finance and Public Administration, which has received many hundreds of submissions, overwhelmingly in support of the bill.


‘Were sex-selective abortions taking place in Australia on a systematic basis, this would be revealed through skewed gender ratios. Australia has a normal ratio of male-to-female births.

‘Looking at data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics from 2011, just over half (51%) of all births registered were male babies, resulting in a sex ratio at birth of 105.7 male births per 100 female births. This is a biologically normal sex ratio at birth and does not indicate a skewed sex ratio in Australia.

‘Taking a view of the population overall, we see that at June 2011 there were 124,700 more females than males residing in Australia, with 11.2 million females and 11.1 million males.’

In the latest posting of Anne Summers Reports – which does a good summary of this debate – Summers claims that the make up of today’s parliament is no longer pro-choice. What will happen to women’s right if the anti-abortion activist Tony Abbott becomes prime minister is anyone’s guess. (Let’s not forget that as Health Minister Abbott tried to personally veto the import of the abortion drug RU486 - a drug that is on the World Health Organisation's list of essential medicines and is already available in more than 50 countries. Under the current government, it has been recommended for cover on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, which would make a safe, legal abortion available for as low as $12. A final decision is imminent.)

This isn’t to say that sex-selected abortions aren’t a public health issue everywhere. I was in many hospitals in India and was confronted with countless posters and pamphlets addressing the issue. Posters reminded doctors and patients that sex-selected abortions are illegal. Doctors face heavy penalties and even licence restrictions for performing these terminations. But these penalties were framed within a wider public campaign promoting the dignity of the girl child.

Of course, this campaign has a long way to go. Girls who aren’t aborted are often left to fend for themselves. Abandoned, abused and ignored. All countries, not just India, should be looking to build a society in which it is not a burden to give birth to a girl, where her rights are respected and she can grow up to be a valuable, loved and loving, member of her family and the society she lives in.

If we don’t want women to abort female foetuses, we should be promoting equal opportunity for women, not banning her right to control her own body.

And we should see this bill for what it is in modern day Australia – an underhanded way to restrict abortion by stealth.



Do look up this Anne Summers Reports newsletter, which includes an impassioned article by the American feminist and abortion provider Merle Hoffman.


Monday 22 April 2013

Dress code politics: how not to stand out at a wedding.

Aubrey Beardsley: 'The Peacock Skirt'

Difficult thing, weddings. Who to marry for starters. That's a tough one. Where to do it, that's another. And don't get me started on buffet vs seating plan. Diplomatic relations between India and Pakistan are more straightforward. But the angst that gets top billing on my wedding list is what to wear. Sure, if you're the bride or groom it's easy: avoid pale blue and anything that sounds like nouveau cumulo nimbus. But as a guest, it's as stressful as wearing fur to a PETA conference.

My mate Ellen (shout out to you, lady, the countdown's on!) is getting married on Saturday. A top bird marrying a top bloke. OK, so I've never met him but I trust her judgement and, more importantly, we know he likes old Landrovers.

But, what's this? Monday night mayhem. What to wear!? I've come to the laptop in a panic of orange Tommy Hilfilger, high street gold, a navy smoking jacket and a hat last worn at Queen Victoria's court. I dance about in front of the mirror thinking I'm ready to steal the show at this little knees up when suddenly - panic! - I've remembered that's exactly what we aren't supposed to do. And don't I know it. I've got form in this political arena. It's all come flooding back....

A long time ago, in a land further away than almost any other (yes, Australia) I was invited to the wedding of friends of my ex. The dress code said 'Glamourous.' You with me? OK good. Now, if you wrote that dress guidance for a wedding in Witby, you might start thinking 'Spanish Armada' and then notch it down a peg to 'Sea Shanty Chic'. If you read that dress guidance in, oh I don't know, Exeter, you might think 'Versaille' and then step it back to 'county luxe' (that's basically where you dress like an unfamiliar Aunt in head-to-toe Coast). However, this particular wedding was a night time affair on Sydney Harbour at an exclusive location, in the height of summer. Now that is glamour. Glamourous international couple, glamourous international wedding, glamourous international guest list. In fact, it was the second of three ceremonies. That's how top class this marriage was, they were getting married three times. It was going to be sultry and sexy. You get the picture.

I thought it would be the perfect occassion to air the jewel of my wardrobe. I had only just bought  this dress and under auspicious conditions. Firstly, I bought it on a day off work. I almost never take random days off work. Secondly, I found it totally by chance at Notting Hill market (Ladbroke Grove end) when you never know if you'll find a vintage gem, or an old goat. Thirdly, I didn't try it on because I knew in my heart of hearts it would fit. And it did. And fourthly, it cost only £30. All those small satisfactions - as well as the dress itself - magnify this garment in my esteem almost beyond words. I will never sell this dress, or donate it to charity. I will always own it. I will either be cremated wearing it, or find some fabulous girl to give it to (naturally only after they've undertaken some kind of character assessment).

What I didn't know at the time was that this floor length, cream, halter neck dress featured the work of an artist called Audley Beadsley. All I saw on the fabric was the print of two oriental women wearing similarly fabulous gowns. But I'll come back to that.

On the night in question we met our fellow glamourous guests at the Opera House and took a delightful sunset cruise to the ceremonial location. Some of the internationals had slightly downgraded their glamourousness with second degree sunburn, but hey, I've always said that if you think you might only visit Coogee once, make it memorable! But, truth be told, I cannot remember a single outfit of any other guests. I can only remember how amazing my lovely, lucky find looked. I was also delighted not to be wearing it to some nasty City awards ceremony (though it's done its fair share of those), but a proper public occassion of  festivity and hope.

I knew I might have misjudged things when a small crowd began to gather around me. And ask to take my photo. This had never happened to me before, and has only happened once since, in a small rural village in Iran where they were unused to ginger women. I thought initially my God! My 'gangly teen to supermodel' dream was coming true! Albeit at the unlikely age of 26! But soon I realised they were not taking photos of me. They were only taking photos of my dress. And they kept murmuring and pointing to it. They were shooting the dress, and getting quite excited about it. Eventually one of them stopped snapping and explained.

'The print on your dress...it's Aubrey Beardsley.'
'Huh?'
'Aubrey Beardsley...the print on your dress, it's by Aubrey Beardsley.'
'Who's Aubrey Beadsley?'
He groaned and stalked off to find more cultured chat.



Aubrey Beardsley: 1872-1898.

Later at home I discovered that Aubrey Beardsley was a British illustrator and writer who lived for just 25 years in the late nineteenth century. His drawings 'in black ink, influenced by the style of Japanese woodcuts, emphasized the grotesque, the decadent, and the erotic', says Wikipedia. 'He was a leading figure in the Aesthetic movement which also included Oscar Wilde and James A. McNeill Whistler (and) his contribution to the development of the Art Nouveau and poster styles was significant.' So there you go. I had no idea.

In any case, the young man knew how to draw (he specialied in drawing figures with enormous genetalia, though not in the case of my dress. That would have cut a dash!). On my dress was the illustration above, 'The Peacock Skirt'.

I thought perhaps the bride hadn't noticed the kerfuffle. But, as the night wore on and the dress received more compliments I knew the jig was up. Nothing was mentioned on the night, but at one of the apres-party events she singled me out and said quietly, 'I liked your dress. It got more attention than I did.' Ouch. 'Ha ha ha!' I laughed desperately, 'No it did not! You looked AMAZING!' But we both know I had no idea what she looked like because I'd been blinded by the quality of my outfit and, literally, the flashbulbs of appreciation. I felt ashamed. I had misjudged the occassion, and the outfit. If only I had known about nineteenth century Art Nouveau designers. To make some amends I  practically wore a tracksuit to her third wedding...to which she wore a sari.

Now, I am well aware that the title of this blog is Notthestylepages, but this isn't about slavish fashion trends or outspending your supply, it's about politics and dischargement of social duty. Your duty as a guest is to blend into the general gaiety and background of the occassion. As my grandmother in law says, you don't need to be an onion in a petunia patch, but neither should you strive to be a black orchid in a bunch £1 M&S daffodils.

I'm not the only person I know who's had this kind of trouble at weddings. Fellow blogger, Gabrielle Jackson, had a similar experience at my own wedding when, during her reading, her much-anticipated Vivienne Westwood gown blew up over her head in the wind and exposed her backside in its own special wave. It can happen to anyone. At my sister's wedding the features editor of Harpers Bazaar magazine actually turned up wearing the same Collette Dinnigan dress my sister had selected for the big day. They'd even talked about each others' dresses on the phone, but hadn't quite twigged they were describing the same dress. Ms Dinnigan actually happened to be a guest at the wedding and could be heard hissing loudly, 'For God's sake! Someone throw a pashmina over that woman!' Tense.

In an effort to be careful I called Ellen the other week to ask what the dress code was. Flippantly she joked, 'Well as long as you're not wearing a long, white gown...' and I had such a distressing flashback from the Aubrey incident I briefly considered not attending. So, here I am, four days ahead of the day in a full and fabulous orange skirt with an all over Galliano feel, unsure if the look says 'Spring wedding cheer!' or 'Unrepentant exhibitionist!' It's a tough call. And I know I'm not really a reformed character because, when I ask my sensible husband's advice I know, deep down, I'll be disappointed when he suggest the safe pink Marc Jacobs option, even though it's also from a Notting Hill emporium of pre-loved style with an amazing Samuri sword sleeve design you just have to see to believe....

Katherine Burgdorf is an ardent lover of fashion 'with character', which means she'll wear almost anything from a secondhand shop.


Thursday 18 April 2013

The Iron Legacy.


When I was 19 I applied for a job at a new hotel opening in Sydney. I went to one of those mass interview days and one of the 'speed dating' style questions was 'Which celebrity would you most like to meet and why?'

Panic! I was stumped. I racked my brain. Did I want to meet Elle McPherson? No. David Boon? No. Tom Cruise? Hell no and that was before we knew how crazy he really was. Suddenly I realised! It was Maggie Thatcher. Mrs T, the Baroness of Grantham. 'Margaret Thatcher' I said, 'Because I think it must be amazing to run a country. I'd love to ask her about it.'

I didn't get the job. Turns out they really wanted to hire people who wanted to meet Elle McPherson, Boonie or Tom Cruise (though, if you know Sydney you know the urban myth that everyone has already met Tom Cruise doing lines of Coke in the bathroom at the Pacific Blue Room on Oxford Street). Perhaps my would-be employer thought Elle was more likely to stay at the hotel than Maggie. Maybe they thought I'd badger Boonie for his political views, or irritate Tom with questions about his secret plan to fight inflation.

I have never been bothered with celebrity. In the olden days they were mostly people who pretended for a living (actors) or who hit, swiped or sat on things (sportsmen). Today they are orange-coloured people from Perth or Essex who take their clothes off in the jungle while cooking up a 10 course food storm in Dorset. I am not interested in these people. They are focused on feelings - anger, sadness, triumph, depression. And, to paraphrase Maggie in the film the The Iron Lady, it is ideas and action that is interesting, not feelings.

But why, living on the other side of the world and not even a teenager when she left office, was she so top of mind? I doubt at 19 I could have named a single policy of her time as leader and if I could, I would probably have disagreed with many of them. I've worked out, in this last week, that I think what attracted me to her was power. Her conviction, and convincing leadership, communicated power and it was power dressed in the form of a fellow woman. I must have seen someone who thought, then spoke, then assumed everyone who disagreed was insane. Heaven. We aspire to be what we see around us, or we don't aspire to what we don't see around us. What I love when I see reels of Thatcher is her suredness, and someone who says what they think.

Since her death, Channel 4 newsman Jon Snow has run much footage of his interviews with Maggie over her 11 year Premiership. Poor Jon (or, 'that dreadful Pinko' as Maggie may have remembered him), tried his best to best her. But it was never going to be. He would ask a question, she would respond with a silent stare, followed by the crushing line 'What a STUPID QUESTION!' or 'I think I've given even YOU enough material to write a decent story.' Brilliant stuff - Maggie, over 30 years ago, squashing them verbally left, right and non-committed centre. But she was also, by many accounts this week, a very personable listener and communicator. Even as the Falklands rolled on, it is reported she went every week to her constituency to hold surgeries as usual. Her plain funeral service this week - very deliberately not a memorial - reflected her thoughtfulness on the subject of God and service. You do not read, even from detractors, that she was in politics for personal gain.

What attracted people to Margaret Thatcher is what attracts people to Boris Johnson - both sound as if they mean what they say. It is power through conviction. When we listen to Osborne, Clegg, Cameron or Milliband we hear politicians prevaricating. We expect u-turns and we get them. Of course that is our fault. We say we want one thing (conviction) but we vote for another (coalition consensus). We want politicians who stick to their guns, but we swing our favour like a judge on the X Factor. Maggie spoke like the skilled workers - the 'C2s' in marketing speak - who consistently voted for her (and still poll strongly in favour of her) - because she came from their stock. Boris appeals to the rag tag urchin in all of us, because he's a rag tag urchin. They appear as outsiders on the inside. One of them was.

The lesson I take from not meeting Maggie is not to aspire to power but to aspire to finding a path of conviction, and enjoying the pursuit of it. In the face of personalities like Maggie, it is difficult to measure up. It is hard, sometimes, to remember that life is not over today, or tomorrow. It is not too late. There is time. Not infinite time. But time.

Katherine Burgdorf

Wednesday 17 April 2013

Women musos on top in UK rich list

By Gabrielle Jackson

Every year, the Sunday Times releases its list of British millionaires.

This year they've released two other lists:
  • Music Millionaires, and
  • Music Millionaires Under 30
There are no surprises in the first list, being topped - as usual - by Paul McCartney and riddled with the British music heavyweights of Elton John, Andrew Lloyd Weber, Tom Jones, Robbie Williams and Gary Barlow.

The surprising good news is the next list, the Under 30s. Nobody would be surprised to discover that Adele tops the list with £30 million, a £10 million increase on 2012.

But, you might be surprised to discover that the top eight music millionaires under 30 are all women. In fact, out of the richest 23 musicians under 30 in the UK, 12 are women.

Kylie Minogue is the top female musician in the Music Millionaires list, making it in at equal 39th position. The only other single female entries were Sade, in equal 48th spot, and Sarah Brightman at number 50.

Olivia and Dhani Harrison make it in at equal ninth spot but since their millions are largely inherited from George, it hardly counts. Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne make it in in equal 20th spot, and given Sharon's management of the band, it's a deserved hurrah for women. Gwyneth Paltrow makes it into the list alongside Chris Martin in equal 23rd spot, but...need I go on?

Now, that's girl power, and there's not a Spice Girl among them!

It also cheers me up after the last post I'd written on females in music sent me into a deep depression.

Does this signal a permanent change in female fortunes in the music industry? I can't see how not.

I don't subscribe to the Sunday Times. I was alerted to this fab news by the business blog from Conversis, The Conversation. You can see both lists there.


Thursday 11 April 2013

How I came to understand Margaret Thatcher through a Halloween mask

By Gabrielle Jackson
 
As Australians, I don’t think we can ever understand the impact Margaret Thatcher had on the lives of the British population.

She was such a huge force – for good or evil, depending on where you stood. She was bigger than a politician. Her influence was greater, arguably, than any politician this country has seen. She was completely polarising; people either loved her passionately or hated her fiercely. Where you stand on this defines you.

I didn’t know all this before I moved to London in 2003. Of course, I knew she was the longest serving British prime minister who was known as the 'milk-snatcher' (she cut government sponsorship of free milk in schools) and breaking the unions, but I didn’t appreciate just how divisive she was.

In 2011, when Thatcher was already quite ill, I decided to go to a Halloween party dressed as her. I bought a rather lifelike latex mask that fit right over my head, providing me with both her face and distinctive bouffant. A twin set, pearls and brooch completed the look.



I left my home and marched down the Kingsland Road in east London. I immediately heard horns beeping and people screaming. It didn’t take long before I realised all this attention was directed at me.

‘Why don’t you just die!’ someone yelled out of their car window.

Others banged on the glass of the take away restaurants we past. Some waved benevolently. Others issued rude hand gestures.

When I arrived at the party, things didn’t pick up.

‘You RUINED my family’s life!’ one man spat in my face.

‘Why her?’ another lamented. ‘Why’d you have to ruin my night?’

It was Halloween; I knew I was supposed to be scary, but I had not anticipated this reaction.

I should have.

My first job in London was on a magazine at an engineering firm. I was invited to attend an event with the communications team at the company. Part of the event was to stand up and talk about the best and worst moments in your life; what had made you who you are, in other words.

Two of the four senior managers in the team described Margaret Thatcher weeping on the steps of 10 Downing Street, after being forced to resign, as the greatest moment of their lives.

On the other end of the scale, Simon Stillwell was compelled to write this about her in his post for this blog:

‘I love the Iron Lady. I do. I really do. She is my heroine. She was, and remains, an inspiration and I cannot think of a single global figure who had such an influence on my life.’

The overriding theme of the coverage of her death is that she was a conviction politician; that she will be remembered for that.

In Britain, nobody needs to be reminded of her legacy, at least not those aged over 30. They feel it deep in their bones, as deep as we Aussies feel about a sunny day.

Saturday 30 March 2013

Where football meets porn, there's rape



By Alex Saint

It’s been an interesting week in rape news. By ‘interesting’, I mean, of course, ‘depressing’.

On the one hand, there was the story of the 15-year-old Maldivian girl, who was sentenced to 100 lashes for the crime of being repeatedly raped by her step-father, which provoked international and cross-gender outrage.

On the other, there was the Steubenville rape case, in which two High School football ‘heroes’ were convicted of raping a 16-year-old girl and publicly broadcasting it, which provoked outrage only after a load of feminist shit hit the fan following CNN’s expression of sympathy for the rapists.

The two cases are horrible in their own right, not least because they show up the culture of rape-victim blaming in all its nasty glory, with the outpouring of horror over the Maldives case being put into stark contrast by the amount of “Weeeell, if you’re 16 and are drunk at a party what do you expect (stupid bitch)?” sentiment for the Steubenville case.

What was particularly astonishing, though, was the sympathy for the Steubenville rapists, promising young men with glittering careers ahead of them who had - “tragically” - fucked it all up by a night of high jinks. High jinks, that is, that involved kidnapping a paralytically drunk girl, parading her from party to party, raping her vaginally and anally, urinating on her, generally degrading her (see the picture) and broadcasting it to a rapturous audience. (One 12-minute video they posted was tagged #rape and #obscene.)

What was particularly grim was the amount of bystanders who witnessed it and who joined in on the online orgy (“The song of the night is definitely Rape Me by Nirvana,” said one tweet. “Some people deserve to be peed on,” said another).

Along with the perennially disturbing thought that many think the victim got what was coming, is the thought that the two boys raped her because they thought it was, well, a funny thing to do.

It’s hard to pin-point what’s behind this kind of sadism and, crucially, what normalised it - after all, we all have mob mentality in us and people can do atrocious things when the boundaries are blurred...

... but my money’s on football culture and internet porn culture.

America’s obsessive football culture starts early in the US, with stadia-filling High School football often being the centre of small-town life, putting the players simultaneously under incredible pressure while perching them on lofty pedestals. Not only is the players’ football-star status constantly lauded and applauded, there’s not much of anything else in these teenager’s lives to provide counterbalance to their seemingly singular male brilliance.

This rarified existence, with its implied impunity, is fertile ground for a sadism that, at its core, uses the advantage of privilege to take pleasure.

Adding fuel to the fire is internet porn, a more frequently violent, humiliating and degrading - in essence more sadistic - version of porn than its print counterparts of yesteryear. If you don’t believe me, compare a search online to a copy of Penthouse circa 1983.

And, of course by virtue of technology, internet porn is now everyday. The trickle-down effect is that kids can access hardcore porn in the playground, be under pressure to sext images of themselves to people they hardly know, tweet or Facebook their sexual experiences without so much as a backwards glance, post sex tapes...

... and not only think it’s perfectly normal, but also think that the version of sex being espoused - the cum facial, spit-roast, ass-to-mouth version - is the *only* version there is.

The bit where football culture and internet porn culture cross-over is where things get nasty.

If internet porn represents women as dumb bitches for men to fuck every which way they want and football represents men as untouchable demi-gods - and, crucially, there aren’t enough boundaries or contradictions in place, then it doesn’t take long for stories to emerge... stories such as the Steubenville Two, who probably didn’t realise they were rapists until they raped.

Sunday 24 March 2013

Women, listen up, stop apologising at work.


By Katherine Burgdorf.

I tell you, the one shelf I hate in the library of Feminism is the one where the books are titled 'Women And Work/Life Balance' This shelf is also stacked with books called 'Can You Have It All?' or 'You Can't Have It All' or 'Why Work and Children Don't Mix' etc etc. You get the picture. This topic in my opinion is eye-dryingly boring. So I'm a bit cross at having to enter the debate and contribute my own short rant but I need to because I might be able to put a stop to it all.

If I seem distracted at any point during this blog it's because Simon is doing pilates in the same room and the fabric of his shirt (yes, it's formal attire for pilates in our house) is making a sort of swooshing rustling sound which is a bit distracting. As is the intermittant grunting. He's doing some weird side to side hip swing that I haven't been taught since I was demoted from sharing classes with him, but I'll tell you about that one later.

Anyway, so I'm writing about the wretched 'We Can / We Cannot Have it All' subject because Sheryl Sandberg, the COO of Facebook, has been condemned recently by every woman who has a newspaper column for writing in her book, 'Lean In', that women should aim to get as high up in the career ladder as possible before having kids so that when they come back to work they'll be in a better position to negotiate their own terms, which will make being a working parent easier. Or that's what I think the book is about, I haven't actually read it, but I have now read about 43 columns on why Sheryl Sandberg doesn't know beans from eggs so I'm fairly confident that's what the book is about. I am going to read it though, because it sounds like fantastic advice.

Sheryl Sandberg is successful, if you call having a great job and being well paid a success. Which I do. She's a woman. She's rich. Do you know what people hate more than a successful, rich person? Yes, you guessed it, a successful rich woman and even more than her, a successful rich mother. Do you know why? No, me neither. But apparently being a successful, rich woman in charge of a few million kids in hoodies at Facebook means you have Lost Touch With Reality and Are Unable To Give Advice. This is according to such notable bods as Arianna Huffington (Media baroness), Kirstie Allsop (Television producer, I LOVE her), and Anne-Marie Slaughter (ex State Dept chief). Apparently the only person who agrees with Sandberg's advice is Marissa Meyer, CEO of Yahoo, who is disqualified from being right because she's so successful she's had a nursery put in next to her office. Do you know what? If Sheryl Sandberg offered me 20 minutes of her time in order to give me some advice on any subject, I'd take it.

(While doing his 'clams' exercise Simon notes we have some Easter egg wrappers under our sofa which is why you should never do pilates at home).

Now here's the thing. Sometimes, if I'm in a decent frame of mine (not often, not often, but occassionally) I also think I've made a fairly successful run at life. I am employed, I am fit, I have a pension and I've been to the dentist in the past 12 months.  Those are the four main measures of success in the Burgdorf family and who are you to tell me that they're not acceptable standards? And while I'm rich on a relative Governmental/statistical type basis I do not travel by private jet, so I'm not too rich to give you my advice. So here it is: to mothers who work, or women who think they might one day be mothers who work.

Don't explain, don't apologise.

That's it. That is my advice.

And here's what it's based on. I work in a stockbroking firm of 150 people. It's an industry which is, arguably, cut and thrust. I mean it's not local council, although ocassionally someone turns up also wearing a short sleeve shirt. If leaving the EU means we can sack people who wear short sleeve shirts then I'm voting UKIP at the next election. I digress. Anyway, so about 18 per cent of people at my firm are women. I think about half those women have kids. But I would say of all the women at work, maybe three per cent of those women are revenue earners (traders, analysts, salespeople). The rest are back office or 'support staff'  i .e secretarial, admin, HR etc). So to take the extreme end of being a working woman in the City, only one has kids. That's one out of 150 people in London and New York. So basically, like, no one. And here's the thing. I know nothing about whether that person has a work/life balance or not. And since she is the only revenue earner with kids...wouldn't you think the spotlight shone brightly on her? Wouldn't you think that everyone saw how much time she spent arranging her life around her kids? But...here's the thing. I have no idea. And I bet no one else does either. I think we all probably assume she gets on with her job and sorts her kids out as she sees fit. And actually, I don't care. And I mean that in the nicest possible way. Whether she is, or isn't, adjusting her work life to make room for her family life is totally unknown to me and simply not of interest. Unless she turns up with a shotgun and offers to kill me, then I'm just going to leave her to it. And the police haven't called which presumably means they don't care either. But my point isn't really about her. It's about the 82 per cent of other people in the office. The men.

Let's say roughly half the men in my office have kids. There has been a significant baby boom in the UK in the five years since we set up our company. Lots of them have photos of their kids and wives on their computers or on their desks. It's nice. And here's the thing. They spend an awful lot of work time going to watch their kids at school. Athletics, plays, presentation days, school interviews. You name it, and middle class dads in London will be there. I think in my school career my parents turned up to a day time event once apiece each. In 12 years. In London, I would guess mums and dads turn up to school events about twice a term, so about six times a year. I have never heard a man in my office apologise for leaving early to watch an egg and spoon race. Ever. I have never heard a man in my office apologise for leaving at 4.30pm to go to a school interview. Ever. And I have never heard anyone question them for taking time from the day to go and watch their kids at school.

Because....no.one.cares.

If you don't make it 'a thing' then it's not 'a thing'. Let's call it presumptive parenting. You work hard. You own a small, future taxpayer, that sometimes requires flexible work time. Deal with it. If you're good at your job, your company wants you. If you're crap at your job, it doesn't matter how much time you spend at work, your company would rather you left and spent more time with your kids.

Honestly people, no one really cares whether you go and see your kid's sack race at the school carnival. No one minds if you duck out at 2pm to see your child play Jesus's donkey at Passover. I promise. No one will notice. Not your boss, not your team, not your clients. Unless. Unless you fret over it, and mention it, and apologise for it, and mention it again twenty three times in the lead up and fifty six times afterwards. And then quite possibly it will be used against you by a backstabbing teammate who wants your job. Quite possibly your charming but sexist boss will use it against you to pay you a smaller bonus. But you'll never know that, because he's not going to tell you that is he? That's a wider issue of institutional sexism. Which is NOT boring, and which is precisely why you need to lean in, as Sheryl would advise, and take his job before you have kids. But institutional sexism need have nothing to do with your day to day ability to enjoy your job and your kids (or indeed your life, if you don't have kids).

Women really are their own worst enemies when it comes to feeling 'guilty' about work. Guilt is humanity's most useless emotion. My riding teaching taught me that about 20 years ago and it stuck with me. Guilt doesn't move anything forward. It's a selfish preoccupation with an issue you're too lazy to deal with. Women are too meek and too mild, and spend too much time apologising. Watch Amy Cuddy's TED Talk on the psychology of positive posture and tell me is doesn't ring a thousand bells. Employers want to give senior jobs to people who get shit done. Women can be those people. But not if they spend four hours of every day explaining why they were factionally late or must leave fractionally early. No.one.cares.

The confusing thing to me is hearing new mothers talk about understanding the smugness of other mothers. You've bred, and delivered a new human to the world. You've reproduced! I read about mothers who say 'before I had kids I lacked ambition / was scared of my own shadow / was directionless' and after kids they say 'I was so motivated / I became fearless / I realised I'm a mother, I can do ANYTHING' but then when they return to the workplace they start apologising for being parents, for having other commitments. They start apologising to their own staff, or worse, their bosses. Or, frankly, anyone who will listen.

Before any readers start howling, I am not saying being a working parent is easy. The concept of 'having it all' is as ridiculous as it sounds. No one on earth has it all. Not the oligarch, not the Vicar, not the FTSE CEO. Having it all is the most dishonest starting point for a conversation as ever existed. I am not writing about the pull of work vs child. That's a totally different subject. I am talking about women who have kids and are working. Sheryl Sandberg might be rich now, but she wasn't always. Richard Branson might be a man, but you can take his advice. Women really are their own worst enemies in the office. If your employer truly makes it impossible to leave work to attend to your kids here and there then move department or move company. It's a marketplace of talent out there, and if you don't believe me, you've obviously never tried to hire staff. If you're good, you're sought after. With or without kids. It is not to say pervasive sexism isn't at work....it is. Having kids very sadly might mean you aren't hired for a senior role. But if you're IN the job you like already, don't make a meal of it just because you do have kids. Men don't. They operate from that position of presumptive parenting. If you need to leave at 5pm on Wednesday's to get to your nursery, then leave at 5pm. If you're 20 minutes late to work, don't broadcast it to the firm. Try to look as it you're in charge, because you probably are. Also try to avoid marrying a useless man in the first place. That would be my other piece of serious advice to women. Don't marry the useless men. And please don't reproduce with them, because that's the last thing we need. And don't apologise.

It really is very simple. There are so many other aspects of the battle for feminism we have little control over...Page 3, genuine equal pay, assault, female genital mutilation. Those are the issues worthy of books. Achieving a happy medium of work and family life in the First World is entirely possible. Just act as if what you need to do it right and, I promise you, 90 per cent of the time it will be, and the other 10 per cent isn't going to matter in the real scheme of things. They are calling this a 'mancession' in Europe for a reason. Men have turned out not to have the flexible careers and skills they can work a downturn. Women do. So get on with it and give poor bloody Sheryl Sandberg a break because the last time I checked being successful was a great reason to pass on some advice.




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