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.

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.

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.

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.

No movies, no roles, no winners: just BOOBS!

By Gabrielle Jackson

I’ve written about the Bechdel Test for films on this blog before, but I thought it was worth traversing the territory again in light of the Oscars performance yesterday. 

Of the nine films nominated for Oscars in 2013, not one of them was able to clearly pass the Bechdel Test for films.

The Bechdel Test for films is a simple equation set up to highlight the lack of women represented in film.  

It goes like this:

Does the film
1. Have at least two named women in it?
2. Who talk to each other?
3. About something besides men?
If the answer to all three questions is yes, the film passes the test.

The test aims to prove that the film industry is structured to make films about men for men.

Alison Bechdel introduced something called ‘the Rule’ to her cartoon strip, Dykes to Watch Out For, in 1985. One of the characters in the strip decided she would only see a film that met the three criteria above. She started a phenomenon. It is now a widely studied and acknowledged rule with its website currently rating almost 4,000 movies.

Even the Oscar-nominated films with female protagonists, namely Zero Dark Thirty and Beasts of the Southern Wild, aren’t clear-cut Bechdel Test winners. While some people on the Bechdel site have voted them in as passing, there is a strong debate going on, with many others disagreeing that these two movies pass the test.

Silver Linings Playbook comes the closest to scoring a pass, but even there, the conversation that happens between two women about something other than men comes down to one scene at which two men are present. Many disagree that this scene scores the film a pass, and so it is officially ranked as ‘dubious’ – a title also given to host Seth MacFarlane’s decision to sing a song about boobs as an opening number.

This is how far we’ve come, ladies and gentleman – just when we get some female leads in film and female directors being nominated, our roles have once again to be reduced to boobs. Just to keep us in our place. And if you don’t laugh and see the joke, you’re just a big fat bore. And probably a lesbian. 

In the interests of not wasting my energy getting angry about things that others have already got angry about, I finish my rant here and offer these two brilliant reviews of Seth MacFarlane's Oscars performance:

From Jezebel: Sexism Fatigue: When Seth MacFarlane Is a Complete Ass and You Don't Even Notice

From the New Yorker: Seth MacFarlane and the Oscars' Hostile, Ugly, Sexist Night 

(You might be happy to know that MacFarlance won't be coming back next year. But I think Tina Fey and Amy Poehler might be busy...) 

Pant rant

Speed Blog, by Wendy Saunt

If there was ever a word that makes me feel decidedly unwell, it’s panties. I know it’s
meant to be sweet and innocuous, but it isn’t - it makes me want to be sick down my
front. It is, you see, the word of choice for glamour photographers, Japanese
businessmen and their ilk - as in “I know you’re only 15 but if you could just slip your
panties off, love” and “I know I’m married with teenage daughters but I really want
some panties worn by schoolgirls” - and that can never be a good thing.

And, of course, aside from the nasty ‘barely legal’ connotations, there are so many
better words for them: grundies, shreddies, underclackers or the achingly beautiful and
simple knickers, to name but a few.

Knickers - proper knickers, that is, with a proper back bit - are very important indeed
and it’s time to bring them back. Back, that is, to the lingerie sets they rightly belong to
and from which someone decided to replace them with fugly boy shorts and anus-
garroting g-strings. Seriously, did you, Marks & Spencer man, ask any woman about
this? Any woman over the age of 25, that is?

Seeing as I don’t think you did, let me tell you this: women love knickers - with their
canny ability to cover arse, be relatively flattering (unlike their respectively dowdier
and sluttier compatriots) and not have to be constantly retrieved from one’s bottom.
So, stop denying us ladies one of life’s great pleasures - a really great pair of knickers.

Wendy Saunt is a interior designer, writer and art consultant. She lives in London. You can follow her on Twitter @Wendy__Saunt

 

Why big knickers matter.

Do these fit? Available here

'Underwear...is the specialist clothing of being a woman. They are the female equivalent of the fireman's jumpsuit and helmet.Or the large shoes of a clown. (But) over the years we have made knickers harder and harder. Knickers have gradually become difficult. And the reason for this is that knickers have become smaller. Much smaller. Too small.' (Moran 2011, Chapter 5).

Caitlin Moran goes on to write in her book 'How to be a Woman,' that feminism demands larger pants. Big pants. And I think she's right. Not just because feminism is about the humanisation of women - just as anti-feminism is about the discomfort of women whether political, economic or physical. But because big pants are more versatile. I know a woman who led a terrified horse from a burning stable by putting her massive pants over its eyes and leading it calmly to safety. Another lady I know has not only given up plastic shopping bags but also those environmentally friendly jute ones. Instead, at the checkout, she just holds her big undies out from her waist and pops her tinned tomatoes and pasta shells down the front. Job done. And it's a no brainer that if you were a female Prime Minister you could not afford to collapse at Prime Minister's Question Time from a lack of blood to the head caused by too tight knickers. If you did you'd better hope they were at least a matching set.

The thing I can't understand is how we can get design so right - the Dyson, anything by Apple, Philippe Stark's Ghost chair, Armani jackets - but not for knickers. Surely someone out there can design underpants that are both beautiful AND comfortable...which is to say they actually encase your buttocks 100 per cent of the time and do not require surgical removal from your crack at the end of the day. This is, after all, the primary purpose of pants.

It's not as if we want to wear ugly pants. We definitely don't. We are all, I'm sure, scared by the memory of our mothers' underwear drawer, rammed with those horrible, shiny synthetic Triumph pants...seemingly only ever made in beige (even the word is hideous), grey white or static black. Possibly they were comfortable, though you wouldn't want to stand near a naked flame, but hideous. Where's the middle ground?

My husband likes to buy me underwear. He probably buys me a set each year and, because I buy my knickers in 5-packs from M&S for £3.00, it's always a welcome gift. La Perla generally gets the thumbs up for style and comfort. Fred & Ginger's knickers, on the other hand, are as beautiful as a geisha and three times as cruel...you may as well stick a hedgehog up your fanny, front and back. And so what is a wonderful thought can become a fractious gift. On the one hand anyone in long term relationship clings to romance like they would a dying child. On the other hand the thought of popping a hedgehog up your front and back bottom and adopting any kind of 'come hither' pose is physically impossible unless you're specially trained for it by the SAS. And since you can't take a pair of torturous pants back for a refund they tend to be wedged further and further to the back of your marriage, I mean drawer. Incidentally I know a man who refused to buy his girlfriend expensive underwear because what she wanted was skin coloured. Fascinating.

And that's the thing. The underwear we need for work isn't the underwear being designed and sold. Five days out of seven I need underwear that disappears under close-fitting t-shirts, shirts, dresses and blouses. It needs to be white, skin coloured or black, and seamless. It also needs to be tough enough for the washing machine. It's a lovely idea hand washing underwear but who the hell has the time? I promise myself I'll do it every time I splurge on a new set, but the commitments lasts precisely one hadwash and then I'm back to the spin cycle. Ninety-nine per cent of underwear for sale isn't what we need. It's like being sent in to bat without shin pads, or up that fire ladder without a helmet. It's like a Tory MP at your first day in Parliament and being forced into a 'Labour-red' tie. Men would not stand for it. Why do we?

But then, from what I read these days men are becoming victims of underwear too. Buttock flattering padded pants, Spanx for men ('Manx'), and a cornucopia of coloured designer cock covers are marching into the lives of our loved ones, wooing them like viscious lovers. It's tempting to watch it unfold but really, I'm not sure we'd be aiding humanity. Comfortable nether regions should be a universal right of humankind. I'm not altogether sure the Palestinian-Israeli conflict isn't caused by too-tight keks. And I'm telling you, if Al Qaeda isn't an organisation directly caused by bearded desert men getting too much sand up their clackers then I don't know what it is. Get those fellas in some of Gabrielle Jackson's anti-bacterial travel knickers and I think we could probably call the axis of evil 'closed'.

Whether for feminism or world peace I think Caitlin Moran is spot on. We do need to reassess our tolerance for uncomfortable underwear. We own fourth generation touch screen computer tablets, cars with heated steering wheels (well, not me, but I know they exist) and phones that can triangulate our location by satellite in relation to the nearest bottle of Pouilly Montrachet. There really is no excuse for someone not to have designed the perfect pair of knickers. As and when they do, we must buy them and leave the scratchy satin postage stamps firmly stacked in the stockpile of the man factories they come from. Like battery eggs, say 'NO!' to bad pants.

Katherine Burgdorf doesn't write as often as she should for Notthestylepages. After a mugging on the way home from a date in 2005 she felt unable to tell police the contents of her stolen handbag included a spare pair of knickers. (They were clean!)

Have you got an opinion on big pants? Tell us about it.
 '

Pop music is fucked

by Gabrielle Jackson

Now, I’m not one for popular culture, but sitting around in bars and cafés for hours on end exposes one to such things. For the most part, it’s been fun, and I’ve been seen bopping along to the tune of my keyboard in more than one hot spot. And then I started hearing the lyrics. And then, even worse, I saw the film clips!

At the risk of revealing of my age and my closet prudishness, I’ve got to say I was shocked. Well, no, shocked isn’t quite right since I realise I’m not expressing a highly original opinion. I’ve heard it said, but until you see it, you really don’t understand. To say I was profoundly disappointed would be more accurate an expression.

Is every song in the top 40 (do they still have such a thing?) about fucking? I use the ‘f’ word on purpose. I have no problem with songs about love or sex, really, my problem is with the way it is represented. Because it really is fucking we’re talking about here, rather more clearly than love or sex or longing or heartache.

I swear I heard a song – by a man – saying over and over again, ‘Tonight I’m fucking you’. I thought to myself, ‘Not if you keep that up, you won’t be!’ with a great hurumph for all womankind. And then I heard Rihanna singing a song about how she’s a good girl but loves a bit of S&M. AND THEN I saw some film clips and realised that, actually, that’s what they appear to want, these women, they want to be fucked. Not loved or longed for; fucked. Almost every song by a woman featured her in some skimpy outfit making suggestive – submissive – motions to the camera.

Beyoncé appeared to be singing a song about girls ruling the world while writhing around on the ground in a pair of underpants. I don’t know if the message we’re to take from this is that girls can rule the world by being fucked by all the men in it. Because, dear Beyoncé, I hate to break it to you, but we’re already being fucked by all the men in the world without having to ask for it.

Beyoncé’s sexuality is so instinctive, so primal, that my nephew, when he was four, exclaimed to my sister upon seeing one of her videos, ‘Oh Mama, I like the way she moves!’ There’s no doubt about it, she’s one sexy woman, and there’s nothing wrong with being sexy. I love Beyoncé, but does she have to go for it in every film clip? Surely, the sum of her talent amounts to more than her amazing body.

Perhaps the wealth of their talent lets Adele and Alicia Keys off the hook for having to submit to this kind of embarrassing exhibition. And I do hope it is the wealth of their talent that has them emerge as the role models for young women, because I really don’t want my nieces and nephews to grow up thinking that the point of being a woman is purely to be desired by a man.

Come on girls, it’s 2013, can’t we do better for ourselves?

This post originally appeared on KebabQuest

SHOCK CONFESSION: I’m addicted to granny knickers

By Gabrielle Jackson

I’ve got a confession to make: I’m addicted to granny knickers.

Fast dry, sweat wicking, anti-bacterial travel knickers from the French travel brand, Tilley (I’ve dropped the French in to give them some credibility that they don’t deserve) are now my go-to everyday knicker grabs.

I know they’re ugly. I even know they turned off a very attractive French man who was a sure thing (if you know what I mean). He hung around for a week while I wasn’t putting out or doing anything, really, other than reading my book and complaining about the Tanzanian heat.

We had some of the best kissing sessions of my life in the week I hung out with him. He followed me everywhere. And even though I hid from him for one whole day and when I saw him see me, I ducked, he persisted. He was practically begging for it. Some nights I actually saw the drool dripping down his chin.

In other words, I was doing everything right.

But then I got sunburnt (owing to his inexpert application of the sunscreen on my back – bloody people with nice skin have NO idea) and he caught me lying in bed wearing just my granny knickers. White cotton knickers that came almost up to my waist. The white had stayed remarkably white, if not bright, but there was some definite pilling action happening.

The passion died immediately. Nothing was the same after that. He was French! And pointing out to him that the horrible, saggy, humungous knickers were in actual fact made by a French brand did nothing to reignite the passion*.

What makes the situation even more remarkable is that I wore a matching underwear set every single day from the time I was 21 until the time I left for my kebab quest at age 34. Every day, I would dress in perfectly matching, bright-coloured bra and knickers. I wouldn’t leave the house without a matching set.

Granted, most of these sets were given to me by my mother every birthday and Christmas (they’re easy to send in the post), but I wore them and I loved them. When I felt horrible on the outside and hadn’t brushed my hair or washed my jeans, I felt good underneath.

For someone who works from home and pretty much wears the same uniform of jeans and a t-shirt/jumper every single day of the week, having something nice and special on her body is important. If I didn’t wear my lovely underwear, I may as well not even bother to wash. They made me feel good.

And then I travelled with my Tilley. They were wonderful things for travelling: they never got crusty or smelly, even after 20-hour bus journeys in the Indian desert. They were easy to wash and dried quickly.

But they were hideous too look at. Hideous! My travel companions were horrified by them.

So how can I admit that now, home to a place where it is not difficult to wash your knickers or change them regularly, where I have access to vast array of lovely matching sets, I am still wearing my fast dry, sweat wicking, anti-bacterial travel knickers? 

Should these knickers be hung out to dry for good?

Even though I know that they dispelled a man who was besotted** with me – the surest sure thing of all time – I am still addicted to them. Post travel. I only have four pairs and I keep wearing them, washing them, and wearing them again.

How will I break this vicious cycle? How can I get back to wearing pretty, colourful matching sets that I didn’t even know were uncomfortable until I became so well acquainted with my travel knickers?

And this is coming from a 35-year-old woman who is currently living with her parents, has no job, a deformed finger, a bulging bicep, can’t drive or use a knife and fork and is writing this article using voice recognition software because she can’t type***.

I don’t have much going for me so my nice underwear should be my ONE asset.

What am I to do?

*This isn't entirely true. Some passion did ensue, but I judged him harshly for judging me on my knickers and went off him - and the snog sessions - pretty quickly after that. I don't think he was too bothered.
**This may be a slight exaggeration. Although he did ask me to meet his parents. What do you think that means?
*** Owing to shoulder surgery I've had after being run over by a train in India (wearing said Tilley knickers. Turns out they can protect you from thrush but not trains. Good news is, even though I landed in a pile of oil and shit on the tracks and had to lay there until the train went over me, the Tilley knickers washed up a treat!)

Have you got an opinion on big pants? Tell us about it.  

ALSO READ:
Why big knickers matter, 
Pant rant
What to do about the visible panty line? 

Why do women look dumb on telly? Clover and Robyn on Q&A

By Gabrielle Jackson

The two women on the panel of Monday night’s Q&A made about as valuable a contribution to the debate as Posh did to the Spice Girls. Which is to say, you never heard their voices.

I think Ben Pobjie summed it up on Twitter when he said, ‘Clover, Robyn, if you hang around, maybe you can sweep up afterwards.’

I’ve got to say, I agreed with him. Sweeping up would, after all, be more of a contribution to the show than either of them had thus far made.

Q&A is Australia’s version of Question Time. For those not familiar with either show, it’s a format in which politicians, journalists and others in the public eye are invited to sit on a panel to discuss current events. The panel is balanced with people from opposite ends of the political spectrum and the audience puts questions to them, mediated by a 'neutral' presenter.

In the summary round of this week’s Q&A, all the panellists were asked for their final word on the Israel-Palestine conflict. The writer Robyn Davidson declined to comment, saying something like, ‘I couldn’t say it any better than that,’ while not making it 100 per cent clear to which of the previous male speakers she was referring.

When it was Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore’s turn, her enlightened contribution was, ‘I think we should be looking for a solution.’ Really? I mean, I don’t know what Australia would have done without that kind of insight.

But hang on a minute. These are intelligent, thoughtful women. Clover Moore is a controversial figure in Sydney, but I don’t think there’s any doubt over whether she’s capable of a deeper thought than Israel and Palestine should look for a solution to their conflict. Robyn Davidson has written a best selling book and delivered lectures all over the world.

And yet, on Q&A, they looked like they’d been leased from Madame Tussaud’s. Although I have a sneaking suspicion a wax dummy may have looked more alive.

Which makes me think, maybe there’s a reason. Why do women almost always come across badly on these confrontational TV panel shows? I did wonder this on Twitter. I said:

‘These panels are very confrontational and macho. I’m sure the women aren’t dumb but this is not the natural way women communicate.’

The first response I got was:

‘hang on, I thought men and women were equal? If they want to play lumberjack they got to learn to carry there (sic) end of the log!’

I replied:

‘Equality doesn’t mean we’re the same; just that we should have equal opportunity & I think #qanda is very blokey’

He went on to say that Germaine Greer manages to hold her own when she’s on and that he thought Moore and Davidson were bad choices for the topics covered. Maybe he’s right. The other response I got was perhaps more interesting. It read:

‘did you not see Catherine Deveny last week, maybe they learnt from her how not to be a loudmouth moron like she was’

Me:

‘see, when women try to communicate like men, they get called loud mouths and worse. It’s a no win for women to go on’

He didn’t respond. I’m not the first to have this thought. The debate rages in Britain about the lack of women on TV panel shows, particularly comedy panels. My feminist hero, Caitlin Moran, who writes a column for The Times and wrote the best-selling book How To Be A Woman, flatly refuses to appear on Question Time and other British panel shows. At a reading of hers I went to in London, somebody asked her why. She said it was because these formats were overly confrontational and male dominated. She doesn’t like competing for her voice to be heard and doesn’t like her chances of being given a fair hearing. She later said that these shows were set up to make it look like women don’t understand politics and don’t get political humour. It’s not always overt; sometimes it’s just the way a show is edited, or who gets to answer the question, or how long a mediator allows each guest to speak.

When British comedian Victoria Wood claimed that TV panel shows were ‘male-dominated, testerterone-fuelled and bearpit-ish in the extreme’, fellow comedian Jo Brand explained it to the Guardian.

‘Women don't want to go on panel shows for six reasons: 1) They won't get a word in edgeways. 2) They may be edited to look stupid. 3) They may get the piss taken out of them. 4) They may not be funny. 5) They don't like competing for airtime. 6) They may be patronised, marginalised or dismissed.’

Maybe it’s got something to do with men being more comfortable pushing their views than women tend to be. American author Rebecca Solnit recently updated an excellent article she’d written in 2008 for TomDispatch.com about how men explained things to her without letting facts get in the way. She talks of several instances in which she has been almost or fully silenced by confident men trying to explain something to her that was incorrect in a field in which she is an expert. Sometimes it’s easier just not to argue.

Let me just pick out two paragraphs of her excellent story for you to ponder:

‘Yes, guys like this pick on other men's books too, and people of both genders pop up at events to hold forth on irrelevant things and conspiracy theories, but the out-and-out confrontational confidence of the totally ignorant is, in my experience, gendered. Men explain things to me, and other women, whether or not they know what they're talking about. Some men.

‘Every woman knows what I'm talking about. It's the presumption that makes it hard, at times, for any woman in any field; that keeps women from speaking up and from being heard when they dare; that crushes young women into silence by indicating, the way harassment on the street does, that this is not their world. It trains us in self-doubt and self-limitation just as it exercises men's unsupported overconfidence.’

When smart women act dumb on TV, isn’t it time we started asking, ‘What’s wrong with this show?’ rather than ‘Why is that woman such an idiot?’

Why does it always come back to baking?

Do you remember how, earlier this year, I wrote here that I thought City sexism was on the last slow train from Waterloo - waving us farewell as it downed its last G&T, and lit up its last cigar?

You do? Really?

What's that?

Oh, that's so nice of you to say!

Well, anyway, it turns out I was wrong. Yes, I'm afraid so. Very wrong. To put it bluntly I was as wrong as a rat up an S-bend. Like a frog in a toaster. Wrong.

What do I mean? Well, yesterday at work (an investment bank) I received this email:

Sent: 10th September 2012 11.21am

Dear Ladies of <my bank>

Do any of you think you will have the time/energy to whizz up some cakes for our (charity) Foundation bake sale this Wednesday & Thursday?

Please do let me know...thanks,

<sender name withheld>

I'm tempted to stop writing here. You can see what I mean.

What's that?

No!

I'm not having you on. That's an actual, real email.  I'm protecting the identity of the sender. I don't mean to single them out for this, this...de-vancement of our status, shall we say. I'm just...distressed.

See, women actually died fighting for the vote in England. Oh I know you know that, but I wonder if enough people know that. I'm not sure they do. Or maybe they learned it, but have forgotten. I'm not sure what's worse!

You know, we only got that vote on equal age terms in 1928.

What?

No, no. The 1918 legislation gave us the vote at 30. Our vote was only lowered to the same age as men in 1928 - in those days 21 years of age. Campaigning for women's rights was a crime. Many suffragettes went to prison. Yes, jailed! I think the best you could hope as a campaigner was suffering only ridicule. And total social exclusion.

I know. It's bizaare to think of it now, isn't it? I mean it's so long ago (well, not that long really, but seems like it).  So...yes. I'm just a bit distressed, that's all. I wasn't expecting it. I mean, I was at work. In 2012. The thought that someone is here, looking around, thinking of women as the lone resource for...baking...well, it's got me worried.

Why does it always come back to baking, do you think? Baking for kids' schools. Baking for the village fete. Baking in films...even that great film Bridesmaids which showed women's conversations about cocks as they actually are (you know, in the cafe scene early on, when she makes some bollocks with her arms and closes one eye?). Yeah, even in that film the main character, Annie, finds love and resurrection through...baking! But at work too? Really?

What's that? Bigger picture?

Huh. You know what, you are totally right. That's how I should be thinking about it.
So by putting the 'women = always = baking' thing aside, as you suggest, this is actually about the economics of charity. It would be better to try and get as many cakes as possible to sell, right? I mean, I like cooking (of which baking is a sub-set), but Gordon 'WTF' Ramsey likes cooking too, doesn't he? And other men do too. So, well, why not ask everyone in the office if they would like to contribute to the charity day by baking cakes for sale. Because, and here's the clincher to your argument, us women like eating them! So if both men and women get the opportunity to bake, buy and eat then we're making more cakes and more money. And, this is the City - we like making money. After all, thanks to slow-but-wonderful laws I get to keep the money I earn too. I can spend it how I like (which wasn't always the case). I can spend my own money on cakes, on charity, on...whatever.

What? I'm still too serious you think?

Oh. I know. Yes it is funny. And it does make me laugh, I promise. Or it will tomorrow. Maybe.

If you don't laugh you cry, right?

What?

Who sent it?

Oh, someone in HR.

Cows, slags, moles and illegals: is this really modern day Australia?

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