Laurelin In The Rain

Moving house

2006-02-12T10:24:00.000Z

As you can plainly see, something majorly weird has happened to my site, and I don't have a clue what to do about it. So I'm moving here. Hope to see you there!

The Random Collection III

2006-02-07T14:33:00.000Z

03/02/06: Hospital notes
There is no privacy in a hospital, but I guess that's obvious to everyone. I can hear exactly what is going on with the lady in the next cubicle, and I feel embarrassed for unintentionally eavesdropping. When they draw the curtain back and hurry out and fetch something, I look in a different direction so that I'm invading her privacy as little as possible.

07/02/06
A Weight Watchers advert on Yahoo! depicts a box of heart shaped chocolates with the heading 'A box of chocolates is sweet. Losing weight is sweeter'. The ad is pink, and filled with obvious associations with Valentine's Day and thus, with sex and love. Why would a Weight Watchers' ad have a picture of 'bad' food on it? Why would it wish to torment those who feel the need to diet? Because that's how they make their money. The diet industry keeps its customers by playing on their bodily insecurities, by making them feel the need to punish themselves should they enjoy so much as a heart-shaped chocolate.

'Losing weight is sweeter'. For everyone? For every woman? Is there a point when losing weight becomes sour? Is it really 'sweeter' than enjoying one's food? What does it mean to put a picture of a sweet treat in order to inspire first temptation, then guilt? What intense emotions that picture must inspire for Weight Watchers to use it! 'Eating something nice is sweet. Depriving yourself is sweeter'. This is not an advert aimed at warning people of the health dangers of obesity. Rather, it is aimed at every woman who might like heart shaped chocolates for Valentine's Day, at every woman who will then feel guilty at wanting/ eating such a gift, to tell her that she would find it 'sweeter' to deprive herself.

It reminds of me of that TV show, You Are What You Eat. Dr Gillian would make a huge display of all the food that a family had eaten in a week as a sight to horrify and disgust. Food as a fetish, as a spectacle to put people off eating, to dismay them into self-punishment, as the scarily thin and pale mistress looks on.

Laurelin In The Ward II

2006-02-04T21:21:00.000Z

Yesterday I was rushed to the hospital with an allergic reaction after collapsing outside the London Eye. We think that the reaction was to, um, pomegranate. Yeah, weird, huh? Anyway, they pumped me full of liquids and drugs and gave me injections and oxygen, and I had the loveliest most kind doctors and nurses. They 'observed' me for a few hours and then discharged me. I got some steroids to take for the next few days to kill the eeeeeeevil pomegranate seeds.

'Scuse the bad grammar. I'm still shaky and weak. I think I will have to put blogging on hold for a while, until I'm back to my nonaphylactic-shock self.

Pomegranates suck.

Hopefully the comments section will work this time!

Laurelin In The Ward I

2006-02-04T00:39:00.000Z

ETA: Something's going all screwy with my comments section on this post, I promise I didn't delete your comment Lost Clown! For some reason it will only allow one comment at a time and it won't show them, so I'm going to repost this post above to see if that helps.

Thanks for your concern guys, it's heartwarming xxx

Notes on 'male sexuality', culture and nature

2006-02-01T13:53:00.000Z

The inimitable Times reports on yet another survey that will tell us The Truth About Male Sexuality. After all, it's not like we've ever heard anything about it before.

Well, in a way, we haven't. The problem with science is that it often considers itself to be objective and without influence by cultural norms, and the data it produces about a subject such as 'male sexuality' are taken to prove what male sexuality naturally is, rather than how it is expressed culturally. It ignores the social and political milieu in which men express sexuality and refuses to accept that what is cultural is not the same as what is natural.

The first assumption made when studying male sexuality is that Y chromosome (sp?) holders have a sexuality which is intrinsically different, even opposed, to that which XXers have. That this sexuality is untainted by cultural variables and is programmed into male genes. That somehow having different genitals means that men and women must have different brains too, and that any difference in their thinking is a result of nature demanding that it be that way.

In this article, however, the researcher uses the terms 'normal' and 'abnormal' rather than 'natural' and 'unnatural'. A 'norm' can refer to a biological standard, but it can also suggest a cultural one, and presumably is used here to avoid the implicit judgement of 'natural'/'unnatural'. However, there is no discussion in the article as to what precisely is implied by 'normal/'abnormal', and at least one of the rationales for using the term is to get men to admit to sexual fantasies that are violent, under the reassurance that they are 'normal':

An estimated 35 per cent of men admit to fantasising about rape. Waterman says: “If someone fantasises about rape, or forced sex, and does nothing about it, then to argue that that fantasy is abnormal has to be seen as controversial because the literature suggests that rape is a common fantasy. But if a person acts on their fantasy and rapes someone, that’s considered deviant.”

Is 'common' the same thing as 'normal'? Or more to the point, does something being 'common' make it acceptable/ natural? If 35% of men really are fantasising about serious acts of violence then it is essential to look at the culture that surrounds this. That culture is one in which sexualised and submissive images of women abound, where women are deemed 'sexy' when they are wearing restrictive and painful clothing, where sex is considered an act of domination by man of woman.

Sexual thoughts about children are another controversial area. Between 4 and 9 per cent of men report sexual fantasies involving children, with the age of the imagined children usually unspecified. Men are known to prefer younger women, because, as evolutionary theory would have it, youth represents fertility.

This theory makes no sense to me. Children aren't fertile. Young girls aren't fertile. Women are fertile, however, for a long period of their life; fertility does not begin and end in the space of a few years.Women with shaved legs are no more fertile than women with hairy legs. Not all sexual fantasies include the possibility of impregnation. Note the wording 'men are known to prefer younger women'. Men (generic) in patriarchal cultures are known to prefer younger women; this cannot be proven of men outside such a culture. Patriarchal culture consists of hierarchical structures in which the stronger rule the weaker, and in which men-as-a-class control women-as-a-class. This control finds it easiest when women are vulnerable, submissive and physically weaker- that is, more like children.

In our patriarchal culture, force is eroticised to the point where rape is confused with sex, and is then interpreted as being 'natural'. This 'natural' image of men as dominating aggressive beasts and women as submissive masochistic dolls is an insult to the humanity and soul of every man and woman. It dehumanises the sexes. It must be fought.

Why we do all we can

2006-01-30T15:33:00.000Z

Senators Obama and Biden have criticised the use of the filibuster as a tactic for blocking the nomination of right wing nutcase Samuel Alito to the US Supreme Court.

According to Obama:

We need to recognize, because Judge Alito will be confirmed, that, if we're going to oppose a nominee that we've got to persuade the American people that, in fact, their values are at stake

Yep. So tell the American people what Alito stands for, what a danger he poses, and do everything you can to block him, then.

There is an over-reliance on the part of Democrats for procedural maneuvers...There's one way to guarantee that the judges who are appointed to the Supreme Court are judges that reflect our values. And that's to win elections.

Aside from the fact that the evidence suggests that the Democrats did win the 2000 election, and that the voting irregularities in Ohio and elsewhere made the 2004 election result highly questionable, throwing up your hands in despair and not using every weapon within your grasp to protect civil liberties and women's lives is not going to help. Does anyone else hear 'We didn't win [sic] so we won't try' in Obama's wailing? You're a Democrat, it's your job to protect those who voted you in from these attacks; it is your duty and if you are not prepared to do it then resign.

Cue Senator Biden:

I think a filibuster make sense when you have a prospect of actually succeeding.

No. A filibuster makes sense when you see that the potential consequences of not acting are hideous. A filibuster makes sense when you want to be able to stand up to the scrutiny of the vulnerable, and the scrutiny of your own conscience when they ask you 'Did you do everything you could?' A filibuster makes sense when a very dangerous man is about to be given life-long powers which will threaten the wellbeing and freedom of your fellow human beings. If a filibuster is all you have then use it. It may be against the odds. It may well not succeed. But we don't only fight when we know we're going to win; we fight because it's the right thing to do.

To those Democrats who oppose the filibuster: if Alito gets in, and you did nothing to stop it, you bear responsibility. If Roe is overturned, the blood of women who die from illegal abortions is on your hands, because you did not act. If a woman does not have the right to her own body, then she has nothing; if you fail to act to preserve those rights for her, you are to blame.

Support the filibuster.

Update: 31/01/06
Senators Obama and Biden did in the end vote to support the filibuster. Good for them. However, they were in the minority and now Alito's confirmation looks certain. Jen has a list of who voted for what so you can see which senators do not value civil rights and women's right to physical integrity.

Rules of Engagement

2006-01-23T22:07:00.000Z

Thinking of posting a rude and/or patronising comment on Laurelin In The Rain? Here are some helpful tips to make your commenting experience the fun-packed adventure it should be!

1.
If I ever mean to say ‘all men do/think X’ or ‘all women do/think X’, then rest assured I will say it. I doubt I’ll ever need to, as there is very little likelihood that I will come across something that all men/ all women do/think. To make sure people are clear on who I’m talking about, I add words to show which group of men/ women I am referring to. To take an example completely out of thin air, if I write a post about men who use prostitutes, and then say ‘these men do/think X’, rest assured that that I am referring only to those men who use prostitutes, and I am not expressing some bizarre, irrational hatred of every male who walks on this planet.

Just to clarify, I will quote Biting Beaver in saying that ‘If you are NOT guilty of the things I post about then I'm NOT fucking talking to you.’.

2.
If you wish to disagree with me, there are polite and respectful ways to do it. I suggest 'Laurelin, I do not agree with you about X because of Reason Y'. Saying 'you are delusional/ wrong/ hate-filled/ stupid/ evil' just won't cut it. The best way to not get deleted is to address me respectfully and state what you disagree with and why you disagree. I may or may not respond, depending on what I feel is most appropriate. Some criticisms I leave unanswered for the other readers to mull over; some I reply to because I feel I have an immediate point to make. Simply said: be sweet or I'll delete.

3.
While I accept that people have the right to call themselves Anonymous, if you're here to argue you will make a much better impression if you put a name. I take full responsibility for what I say, and I expect the same from you.

4.
If you have come to tell me my blog sucks consider going and getting a life.

5.
I'm a control freak. I'm very protective of my blog space, just as I am with my physical and emotional space. So I am delete-happy if you piss me off. This is my blog, and I get to decide what stays here. Simple as.

6.
There are no bad names for feminists that I have not heard. So don't bother. Oh and I know I am obnoxious, opinionated, stubborn, self-righteous and sarcastic so don't bother pointing it out.

7.
Fan mail is always welcome. And I accept apologies.

Wonderful reading for all!

2006-01-19T11:22:00.000Z

There are times when you feel like you're continually banging your head against a brick wall, and that any words you say against what is considered The Standard Order of Things are whispers in the wind. Then you read the many brilliant, outspoken feminist bloggers, and you realise that those whispers are in fact screams, and that you are surrounded by fellow screamers, and that the problem isn't the wind or the wall, but rather people with their fingers stuck in their ears singing 'We like it this way. This is natural. This is how it's meant to be. La la la la la'. Despite that unpleasant chorus, you realise that you are not alone.

A couple of links:

Thank you to Lauren at Feministe for her wonderful work compiling the Carnival of Feminists which, as you may have noticed, extended my Blog Roll so that it is now so long it touches the floor. In her latest post Lauren explains how she's leaving the blogging world. Lauren, I'll miss you.

In today's Guardian, Katharine Viner has written a badly needed and insightful piece on the links between patriarchal capitalism and prostitution. Two choice snippets:

[P]rostitution is booming and official Britain has now acknowledged that the buying of sex is not just a fact of life but an expression of men's power over women, which would not exist in a free and equal society.

In many ways, the increasing acceptability of prostitution reflects our sacrifice of morality and equality on the altar of capitalist ethics. Sex has been resolutely commodified, and it is hard to argue against anything if you are making money, since the making of money has become an acceptable moral justification in itself.

The Random Collection II

2006-01-17T10:21:00.000Z

Last Week Sometime
Advert for some TV show where people compete to become fashion designers: 'you can't have fashion without victims'. A female dummy torso with scissors stuck in it. Never thought I'd say this, but I think I agree with the fashion industry on something- fashion has victims.

14/01/06: Note to self:
When on a train, don't leave feminist literature on the table when you go to the toilet. When you return you may find yourself getting talked at by a polite but nonetheless quasi-sexist and xenophobic man, and have to argue in defence of the book (which he has never read). It's not worth it, and you know that politeness will restrain you from telling him what you really think, that all you want to do is read the damn book, that you're not interested in hearing about his life, and that you're not just a blank surface ready to passively absorb all his beliefs, anecdotes and interests. Yet being polite, you just listen, give your tuppence worth where you can, question his unpleasanter pronouncements and hope that he'll shut up soon. After all, to sarcastically paraphrase Kingsley Amis, of course he likes 'ladies', they're so fucking nice.

16/01/06: Overheard on another train, words from another world:
'What if the company in the meantime wins a million pound contract?'
'We should fog the issue'

Fog used as a verb? I like it. I'm going to fog things when neccessary.

This 'fuss' about rape

2006-01-11T10:58:00.000Z

Mary Dejevsky has today commented upon the 'fuss there has been this year about the trafficking of women', which, as she concedes is 'quite right'. Unfortunately, to get the whole of the article online you have to pay for it, but you can also access her wisdom in today's Independent. (I was being sarcastic when I said 'wisdom'. Did you notice?)

She refers to the recent case in which five men were convicted of trafficking women for forced prostitution.
young women were lured to Britain with the promise of sightseeing or bar-work, locked up for weeks on end, forced to service a dozen men a day and paid nothing at all for their pain.

Note the use of the phrase 'forced to service' rather than the more appropriate 'repeatedly raped', and the flippant comment about payment. Since when does payment make rape acceptable? What on earth has payment got to do with this?

[This has] generated an entirely predictable outcry against the oppression of women, the wickedness of men and the base immorality of prostitution.

'The oppression of women'. Perhaps the outcry is 'predictable' because the oppression of women is a reality, and one that must be tackled? In my view, women who are imprisoned and raped are being oppressed, and a world in which such abuses are carried out on a large scale (or indeed on any scale) is one in which women are most definitely oppressed.

'The wickedness of men'? Well, I've not heard anyone cry out that because of this they believe all men are somehow wicked. That certainly was not the reaction of myself or of any feminist I know. I can't help but feel that Dejevsky is appealing to the lowest common denominator in proclaiming that people who question the abuse of women are somehow condemning the entire male sex. What I have heard is that johns who 'have sex' with trafficked women are now liable to prosecution for rape; in other words, they are now required to take responsibility for their actions, and the role their actions play in the trafficking business.

The 'base immorality' of prostitution? Some of us see a system which sells and abuses female flesh as being immoral. We're kind of weird like that.

Am I alone in becoming just a little exasperated with tear-jerking stories of virginal East Europeans tricked into prostitution for the delectation of foreign men?

I sincerely hope you are alone in such callousness.

But how innocent and gullible does a girl have to be to follow an older man who promises a free tourist trip or well-paid waitressing work beneath the bright lights of London, Paris or wherever?

Firstly, Ms Dejevsky, people who are poor and desperate, as well as unknowledgable about the West, may well believe these people when they offer them a chance. It is the promise of capitalism after all, that if one seizes 'opportunity' and works hard enough that one will 'make it'. Secondly, since when was naivete or innocence a crime, and since when was rape and imprisonment a punishment for crime? Nothing a rape survivor has done/ thought makes the crime against her any less of a crime, and indifference to her suffering because of her perceived naivete is unforgivable.

the word should surely have got out to every last god-forsaken village in Lithuania, Romania and Moldova

'God-forsaken'? I can't help but detect a note of contempt.

Dejevsky then suggests that the reason 'the word has not got out' was due to the governments of the countries she mentions, who had failed to warn their young women. This may well be true, and is a good point. But then she goes on to explain that

not all these girls are necessarily victims in the common sense of the word. For some, there is a trade-off that is more or less acceptable between a more prosperous or exciting life of prostitution abroad and a life without prospects at home.

According to Dictionary.com, a victim is someone 'who is harmed by or made to suffer from an act, circumstance, agency, or condition' or 'who is harmed or killed by another', or 'who is tricked, swindled, or taken advantage of'. If a woman comes to the UK in order to work in the sex industry, and is then locked up and raped and beaten, how is she any less of a victim? Women are people with rights. Prostitutes are people with rights. What is done to her is abuse. What is done to her is inhuman. What is done to her is a crime. Perhaps Dejevsky's 'common definition' of victim is somewhat different to that which the dictionary and I understand it to be?

[the Home Office Consultation paper] deals with human trafficking in all its forms. This includes men, women and children smuggled from every impoverished part of the world to feed the seemingly insatiable appetite of our economy for cheap labour.

As it should. Human trafficking is a brutal, worldwide 'business' that is fed by the greed of the wealthy nations. But,

by focusing on the plight of women smuggled for prostitution [campaigners are] pandering to moral prejudice and dealing in titillation.

There you have it. Don't complain about the rape of women kept in captivity, because you are merely providing entertainment. Don't call attention to one particular abuse of human rights, because by neccessity you are somehow diverting attention from all the other abuses of human rights. It is 'moral prejudice' to be concerned about these things, rather than human decency, and the sexual abuse of women, as always, is a punishment for the victims' 'naivete' or lifestyle choices.

Tag, I'm it! Four things...

2006-01-08T22:35:00.000Z

I've been tagged twice with the same meme! Thank you Happy and Winter.

Here goes: the Four Things Meme.

Four jobs I've had

- Administrative Officer Typing and stuff.
- Factory Packer I packed ready meals into their plastic containers in the freezing cold for minimum wage on twelve hour shifts. I lasted four days.
- Living Statue I stood very still in a costume for minimum wage, and children tried to scare me. I now know for a fact that even when you can see that a 10 year old brat is sneaking up behind you, it still makes you jump when he yells in your face.
- Supermarket Packer See above re: factory packer, and replace 'ready meals' with 'bread', 'freezing cold' with 'searing heat' and 'four days' with 'ten months part time'.

Four TV shows I watch

- Buffy the Vampire Slayer
- The Simpsons
- Futurama
- The Office

They're funny, they're clever, they're social commentry! What more could I ask?

Four films I can watch over and over again

- New Dragon Gate Inn
- Girl, Interrupted
- Muriel's Wedding
- Charlie's Angels

Four places I've lived

- Durham Very pretty, very hilly.
- Cambridge Very pretty, very unhilly.
- North London
- South London

Four places I've been to on holiday

- Greece Athens, Mycenai, Delphi, Thera, Crete... I wanna go back. Right now!
- United States Various states... will be going again later this year :)
- Italy Rome... I wanna go here right now as well.
- Hong Kong The food! *drools*

Four blogs I visit everyday

- I Blame the Patriarchy
- Mind the Gap
- Philobiblon
- Travelling Punk

..... and all the others on my Blog Roll

Four favourite foods

- Chocolate It damn well is a food. Supplier of vitamins Q, R and Z.
- Brie So soft, so yummy...
- Pasta Cook it with all sorts of things, it's the amazing 'make a meal out of nothing' food for lazy cooks such as me.
- Stilton Yes, another cheese, but cheese is a gift of the gods.

Four places I'd rather be

- In a second hand bookshop, with lots of time and money
- An ice cream parlour with a comfy seat, magical non-drippy ice cream and a book
- Somewhere warm, damnit!
- A kung fu movie, as the mighty heroine (yeah, I know, that's not a 'place')

Four albums I can't live without

(well I probably could live without them. Anyway, I listen to them a heck of a lot)

- Christina Aguilera: Stripped
- Skunk Anansie: Stoosh
- Hole: Live Through This
- Destiny's Child: The Writing's on the Wall

Four vehicles I've owned

Can't drive, don't cycle.

Four people who now may consider themselves tagged

- Frog
- Four Horsewomen
- Hippie
- Devious Diva

The Times, it ain't a-changing

2006-01-03T12:46:00.000Z

Thank you Mr Richard Morrison of the Times. You have given me material for a post after my holiday sluggishness, and have made the already very long list of 'People Who Pissed Me Off 2006'. Morrison is the author of a snappy little article entitled Sexual equality: the final piece of the puzzle. I intend to comment upon my favourite passages in a very picky-choosy manner.

The 30th anniversary of the Sex Discrimination Act has triggered a lot of “state of the sisterhood” articles recently, mostly written by middle-class females who see the fight for sexual equality entirely in terms of what their generation of middle-class Western females has or hasn’t achieved.

As we shall see, Morrison thought the best way to counter such myopic thinking was to write an article about the fight for sexual equality in terms of how it has affected middle-class Western males. I would like to suggest that Mr Morrison expand his reading habits a little, and perhaps even look to the feminist blogosphere (I can't write a post without some sort of self-promotion).

Wise blokes smile vaguely and keep their mouths shut when the women in their lives start agitating about perceived inequalities.

Well it beats actually trying to do something, no doubt.

The first [thing] would be to recognise that feminism has transformed the lives of more than women. No less profound, but far less discussed (because men don’t analyse gender anything like as much as women do), is its effect on men.

Of course it has changed the lives of men and women. No arguments here- it was damn well meant to. And of course men en masse don't analyse gender as much as women- men are treated as the default human being. The dominant class rarely analyses its position, or questions its authority. Men's truths are treated as universal truths, which is ridiculous in a world that ascribes different charactaristics to males and females.

What will happen, for instance, when the unstoppable force of the sexual-equality movement reaches the immovable wall of Islam?

Yes, because according to the Western View of the World, Islam is a never changing, easily defineable ideology which threatens us all. Here's a clue for you Dick: read some Islamic texts, even listen to some Islamic feminists before you make sweeping statements.

In fact the new [feminist] militancy alienated sympathisers. What did persuade the all-male Commons to give women the vote in 1918 was the vast contribution of women to the war effort. In short, women were empowered because, for the first time in history, men decided that the country would work better that way.

So what men decide is, as usual, the most important development. Never mind the argument that the vote was 'given' to women in order to silence those who wanted to keep their jobs and not go back to domestic servitude after the war.

[gender equality was] a complex revolution that would have happened anyway.

Yay! Down tools fellow feminists! All we have to do is sit around and wait for the men to make the right decisions! I'm going to go back to that crossword.

It was electric gadgets that liberated housewives.

According to Ann Oakley's studies on women and housework, electronic gadgets have not reduced the hours that housewives spend on housework, but rather given them new, harder to achieve standards of cleanliness and style to keep to. Don't get me wrong, I don't plan on ditching the washing machine, hoover or dishwasher. I'd just like to point out that it's a rather more complex picture than our friend suggests.

It was computers that liberated female office staff from the mindless slavery of the typing pool.

Because computer work is never mindless or dull, and this new technology immediately protected women in offices from sexual harrassment and unequal pay by... um... emitting gender-positive vibes.

It was labour shortages during two world wars which proved that women could do manual or managerial jobs.

Horray for war. It's not like anything crappy happens to women during war, after all.

And it was the Pill that liberated women from the shame and sordid backstreet abortions of unwanted pregnancies.

The Pill of course had very positive consequences. But it also reduced the perceived responsibility of men for the consequences of their sexual activity, made women more sexually available to them and did sod-all to change the attitudes that condemned women for obtaining abortions in the first place.

And there was one other vital strand in this revolution: the attitude of men. I don’t claim that, even among middle-class Western males, there was widespread support for female emancipation. But neither was there the incredulous opposition that would have greeted the notion in any century before the 20th.

That's why there wasn't ever a backlash against feminism in the (male controlled) press, why men have always welcomed women into their realms with open arms, why there is no longer any violence against women.... oh wait a minute....

Yet while whole forests have been felled so that the challenges facing modern women can be endlessly analysed, little attention has yet been paid to the revolution’s impact on men.

Feminism is to blame for the depletion of the world's forests? That's a new one on me. Very inventive. Don't say patriarchal apologists always lack imagination.

In the home, the office and particularly in schools, the prevailing ethos is increasingly female.

Apart from the minor details that in the office the high ranking ones are most likely to be men, that headteachers are mostly men and poorly paid classroom assistants mostly female....

So men, hard-wired since Neanderthal times to be competitive, aggressive decision-makers, suddenly find themselves floundering like ships without rudders, charts or compasses.

I decided not to be petty, and not point out that scientific research suggests that Neanderthals are not our ancestors, and thus whatever they did has bugger-all to do with how male homo sapiens live today. (Oh crap. I was petty. My bad). Instead I'd like to ask what exactly Morrison means by 'hard wiring'- is this biological? Social? Is it possible that he's made a vague statement to hide the fact that his comment is pure assertion? And how come men are 'hard-wired' to behave in this way, yet were always open to the arguments of feminism? Could this be a cheap gender stereotype that is always brought out to dehumanise both sexes?

Odd though it may seem, then, the final stage in the liberation of women may well need to be the restoration of a sense of purpose and self-esteem to the old enemy — men. But for our generation, I fear, that may be a paradox too far.

'Enemy'? Patriarchy's the enemy, mate, not men. Perhaps men could help themselves to restore their self-esteem and purpose? Yes feminism changed your lives, it was meant to. My advice would be to stop thinking of how you can be proper 'men' and think about how you can be wonderful human beings. How you can behave with courage and dignity, and oppose such dreadful things as the violence of the strong against the weak, the world wide sexual slave trade, pointless wars, the rich nations' abuse of the poor. This is what I'd suggest that both men and women do, and that feminism exists to do.

Your purpose and your self-esteem are in your hands.

Guys and gals and dancing dolls

2005-12-17T22:26:00.000Z

Strictly Come Dancing.

I admit to enjoying it. It's fun to watch, I love the sparkly costumes, and the feats of movement are artful and impressive. However, it is a show that upholds the gender contructions of masculine and feminine, and for that reason it also makes me uneasy. I try not to watch the female dancers' feet, for example, because the heels they are wearing make me wince. High heels seem to be made specifically so the female foot is twisted into a shape into which it does not naturally go, they are known to cause serious problems for the health of feet, they distort a woman's walk, making her wobble and thus look vulnerable; vulnerability being a feminine 'quality' in connection with masculine strength and aggression. A woman's mobility is severely restricted by heels, the boundaries in which she may move are confined. She does not walk with her feet firmly on the floor as men may do; she takes up less space, walks less easily, suffers pain (masochism being seen as thoroughly female) and thus is easier prey for an assailant.

The dress of the female dancer is always designed to accenturate the parts of her body that in our society are considered feminine, with comfort and ease of movement invisible as concerns. The female must always be shorter than her male partner, another way in which she is shown to be taking up less space. These things register with me when I'm watching at the same time as the skill and sparkle of the spectacle are dazzling me. I can't help but analyse.

The specific purpose of this post was for me to discuss the last dance given by Colin and Erin, which evidently puzzled the TV audience as much as it puzzled me. In their last performance, the dancers were dressed up in suits (the masculine costume) and each 'danced' with a dummy in a ball dress. The dolls were floppy, with their feet tied to the dancers' shoes, their heads fell forward and sported long manes of hair. The dancers pulled them around the dance floor, leading their lifeless partners. I wondered for a second why Erin had dressed as a man rather than a woman and danced with a female dummy rather than a male one, then it hit me. The women dancers can be replaced by dummies. The men cannot. The rational point is, of course, that the men lead the dance, and so naturally they cannot be replaced by lifeless images. Aside from the patriarchal origins of men leading women, something inside me was very shocked that the idea of the feminine partner leading a dance was less imaginable than a female dancer being replaced by a puppet. Femininity is all about 'being': passivity, modesty, humility. Being as opposed to doing, a function which a doll can perform even better.

I also wondered if Erin and Colin were perhaps being sponsored by the manufacturers of blow-up dolls.

Christmas Shopping: OCD Vs. the Voice of Reason

2005-12-09T13:13:00.000Z

Dramatis Personae

Me: British feministic person on a shopping trip.
OCD: 'Obsessive Compulsive Disorder', forever at my side...
VoR: 'Voice of Reason'. Has been spotted on several occasions since I completed therapy successfully.

Scene: I am in a shop, trying to chose between Generic Gift A and Generic Gift B, one of which is destined to be Recipient's Christmas pressie.

Me: I think A is more the kind of thing Recipient would like.
OCD: She'll hate it. You're going to get it all wrong.
Me: She likes this kind of thing.
OCD: No she just says that because she doesn't want to hurt your feelings. Whenever you buy her crap like this she is disgusted with your lack of taste. You don't know the first thing about her because you don't care. You can't give her A, no no no!
Me: Maybe B would be better then.
OCD: B looks cheap. You're so cheap, it's disgusting. A decent person would spend money, but you're selfish. You're getting it all wrong, because you're selfish and cheap.
Me: Shut up, OCD! [shivering, visibly anxious]
OCD: A and B are wrong. You'll never get it right. It's all wrong, all wrong. Whatever you do I'll be here, whispering in your ear. You're selfish, you're wrong, she'll hate the gift, she'll absolutely hate it because you have no taste and you don't know her because you care about no-one but yourself.
Me: I think she'll like B.
OCD: It's cheap, cheap, cheap!
Me: It doesn't look cheap, it looks lovely.
OCD: It's all about appearances with you. You're always faking, acting like you're better than you are and this proves it. You're so scared someone will think you're cheap!
Me: It doesn't matter how much I spend, so long as she likes it.
OCD: You're so cheap!
Me: I've had enough!
[enter Voice of Reason]
VoR: Breathe, Laurelin. That's better. Now think: what's the worst thing that could happen?
Me: She won't like the gift, and she'll be disappointed and she'll hate me forever!
VoR: Can you control whether she likes the present?
Me: No.
VoR: Is it likely that she'd hate you for something that's not within your control?
Me: No.
VoR: Is it worth this amount of mental energy and anxiety?
Me: No.
VoR: So what are you going to do?
Me: I'm getting B.

[Voice of Reason takes a bow as I march over to the cashier. OCD is sulking in the corner, muttering]

The Random Collection

2005-12-07T11:58:00.000Z

29/11/05
The front page of the Sun newspaper, which I am rudely reading over the shoulder of a fellow passenger, has two pictures. One is a still from the dreadful video depicting the abuse of naked (male) Royal Marines, with a suitably disgusted tagline. Next to this repugnant scene, the Sun has put a picture of a young woman, apparently unclothed, with a caption across her breasts reading 'Kelly Naked!' What does it mean to have pictures of scantily clad young women all over newspapers, magazines and billboards in a society in which nakedness is a sign of humiliation, degredation and vulnerability?

Undated supermarket musing
A friend pointed out to me that the voice instructing the customer to go to a particular till in Marks and Spencers is gendered according to the sex of the person serving the till. So if the cashier at Till 6 is female, the voice intoning 'please go to Till 6' is feminine. Can't help but wonder why it is so carefully done. If a male voice asked a customer to approach Till 6, but then the customer found a woman at said till, would the customer be overcome with confusion and be unable to type their pin number?

06/12/05
I've only got a damned cold- how come I feel so lousy? Bleugh. Time for tea, chocolate, scones and much reading in bed. Oh and copious self-pity, of course.

07/12/05

This advert has a partner advert of a man in tribal make up. On that piccie, however (which I can't find online damnit), the section of the screen over his face shows it free of cosmetics. The caption on both is 'See things as they really are'. So the Japanese woman 'as she really is' has a made up face; artifice is her reality. Underneath the tribal make up of the man is bare faced reality. Under a man's mask of artificial colouring one finds a person. Underneath a woman's natural face one finds a mask. Pandora for the 21st century.

Picture 'borrowed' from Catherine Redfern's article on advertisements at The F Word

Reclaim the Night- in memory of Andrea Dworkin

2005-11-26T20:17:00.000Z

International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, 25th November.

At twenty to six, my amazing blogger friend and I had reached Soho Square, where women were gathering in preparation for a march in protest against the worldwide pandemic of violence against women and girls. We huddled on the street behind a row of parked motorbikes. Next to us we saw the colourful banners that were to be carried with us propped up against the railings. A pile of laminated Reclaim the Night posters lay on the pavement beneath them, similar to the one I had saved from last year and brought with me to wave. Isabel Eden from the Poppy Project was being interviewed to the right of us, a brilliant pink feather boa about her neck. On the other side of the road, the wonderful London Radical Cheerleaders were practicing their routines, waving pink and black pompoms in the air. The crowd of women continued to grow as we chatted, stamped our feet, and wondered why we didn't think of bringing soup along.

When we were assembled for the march, with our police escort before us, I looked back and realised just how many women were there. In 2004 it was estimated that around fifty women marched. This year, there was at least triple that number. Behind us the Women's International Peace and Freedom League played trumpets, trombones and a large drum made out of an empty watercooler container, emblazoned with sloganed stickers. I wondered aloud why I hadn't reclaimed the similar container from my office, I would have enjoyed having a drum to hit. I'm sure I heard maracas, and I was soon to discover the incredible noise that my mate's quiet looking plastic whistle could make. We danced as we crowded there, and admired a golden sparkly banner held aloft by several women proclaiming Reclaim the Night. Women handed out leaflets, including the texts of the Radical Cheerleaders' chants. The atmosphere was incredible, and as my lovely pal remarked, we felt caged, desperate to get out there and shout down the streets.

When eventually we were given the signal, we started off down the side street in a huge procession, flanked by police and their motorcycles, and as we turned the corner we found our route led us right down the middle of Tottenham Court Road. There is a thrill in walking down the middle of a huge forbidding road in a group for whom the traffic has been stopped. Usually Tottenham Court Road is jam packed with cars and the associated pollution and noise, and in crossing the road, one feels as if one is taking some stupid risk. On each side of the streets people stopped to stare at us, and I found my eyes drawn to the windows of the tall buildings which line the street, as people peered out of their curtains at this unusual spectacle. We replied to them by waving frantically, and cheered when they responded in kind, or with thumbs-up signs as they realised why we were there. Passing the hated Spearmint Rhino (a lap dancing club), my companion started the chant from last year: 2,4,6,8 Can't you get a proper date? Simple and satisfying. The doorman had the look of one who wasn't quite sure how to react to the boos and hisses directed at his place of work, and of course the people we really wanted to shout at were the wealthy and overpriveleged men who sat safe inside the club, supporting the sale and objectification of women.

The march ended with a mixed sex rally at the University of London Union. Finn Mackay reminded us that the event was held in honour of Andrea Dworkin and her tireless efforts against patriarchal violence, and one of the speakers read out one of that great woman's Reclaim the Night speeches.

We had made a mark. People had seen us, heard our message, seen feminism and female solidarity striding down the middle of the road, holding back the traffic, and taking back the streets.

Women can't stop rape

2005-11-22T11:07:00.000Z

When I read the Amnesty report, I had two concurrent and contradictory thoughts. The first was an exasperated 'I thought we'd been through this before', and the second was a depressing 'How much am I not surprised?'

In the last month I've had two disheartening conversations about rape. One chap suggested that marital rape was justified because the woman 'had promised to give her body'. An interesting reading of the marriage vow 'I will honour you with my body', which is said by both parties. A man forcing himself upon his wife is not 'honouring' her. Nowhere in the marriage vows is there a clause in which the woman has to give up her human rights, become less than a person upon marriage. How could someone seriously entertain the idea that marriage gives a man carte blanche to abuse and dehumanise his wife? I was shocked that someone could still hold such views, and was angry with myself for being unable to argue more effectively.

More recently, I was joking with someone about blogging being the path to fame. This fellow suggested that the best way for me to become famous was to 'shag someone famous and then cry rape'. The implication that women do that, and that that was what I should do, as a woman, was absolutely appalling. On another level, wouldn't someone think twice before saying something like that on the grounds that the woman he was speaking to might have suffered sexual violence, or be close to someone who had suffered sexual violence? Wasn't he aware of the abysmally low conviction rate for rape, the low rate of instances of sexual violence being reported, the humiliation rape survivors frequently undergo in court as their conduct and life is judged? I thought these were well known facts- and this was an intelligent and well-read man. When challenged, he didn't seem to understand that his comment was offensive.

This poll had me, along with many others in the feminist blogosphere, depressed and anxious. It was hard for me to find any words to think or say on it. Luckily, many feminists have written brilliantly on this topic. Check out Yclepta, Andrea, TP, Gendergeek, and Volsunga for their more eloquent offerings.

All I can think to do is to repeat that which has been said a zillion times before, as it seems that it bears repeating. Rape is an act of violence, it is not sex. It is an action wilfully inflicted on one human being by another human being. The rapist is responsible. The rapist bears the blame. Women can take every possible precaution, but they can't stop rape. We can pile on as many layers of clothing as possible, we can lock ourselves in our houses (which wouldn't work as the majority of rapes take place within a domestic setting, rather than in the alley), we can paralyse ourselves with fear such as men will never know, we can live truncated, restricted half-lives governed by terror, but we cannot stop rape. Women cannot stop rape.

'Baby soft skin'

2005-11-09T14:13:00.000Z

Some cosmetics company or another is advertising its chemical-filled glorified moisturiser with a large picture of a grown woman sucking her thumb with the caption 'So that's what baby soft skin is like!' on the tube.

'Baby soft skin' is lauded as the attractive skin women want to have, and will have, through use of the advertised product. On the poster, baby soft skin turns the woman into a baby, sucking her thumb. Yet the pose is rather sexualised, as she is apparently naked, with her arms appropriately placed across her breasts, concealing what by law must be concealed, yet revealing her cleavage, and she is gazing coyly up at the viewer. Digit sucking, according to Sheila Jeffreys (in Beauty and Misogyny), is also a visual staple of pornography. Sexualised woman as baby- the web of associations is worrying, and the idea that it is desirable that a woman should be reduced to an infantile state, and that that infantile state is attractive is revolting.

Of tube mice and men and women

2005-11-09T11:36:00.000Z

Mice. I have a boundless admiration for them. Especially the one that is hanging around the pipes around and within my bedroom, who leaves evidence of his/ her presence in the most unlikely places, and who is far to clever to fall for the old 'scone and jam in humane trap' trick.

There are many things to do while waiting for a tube train. Examples include inwardly bemoaning how long four minutes is, trying to avoid the rambling drunk, staring at advertisements, wondering if the air down here is more likely to kill you than the pollution outside, attempting to make as many words as possible from the letters in the name of the station. While doing these or other things, you might find your gaze drawn to a fast moving piece of fuzz on the tracks. A tube mouse. They're tiny, with relatively short tails, and are almost the same colour as the tracks. Their speed is impressive, and they seem to have no fear of trains, people, lights, noise. I've always wondered what they eat, how they survive. How can they cope with the crushing noise of the trains passing over their heads? How do they relate to their world? How incredible it is to contemplate that there exists a species of mouse that will never experience natural light.

I've heard that the mice under the ground are different from the mice above ground, as they have evolved differently. I've never been told what those differences are, but only that they exist, and that it's true about mosquitoes in the tube network too. These creatures have never come into contact with their fellows on the surface, and so they have adapted differently to their environments. I assume that whatever differences exist between tube and surface mice enable the tube mice to live more easily in the bleak habitat of tunnels and dust that human beings have created beneath the surface of the earth.

I'm told that since Londoners have crawled through the network of claustrophic tunnels, sat exhausted on the trains, trudged through the pollution to work they have changed too. Apparently if you annoy a Londoner s/he will react more strongly, and more aggressively, than someone living in a different city. It does not take long to piss off a Londoner. We've all felt that involuntary and completely unwarranted anger when someone, lacking space, has walked into us, or stopped in front of us to look at a map, or got to the queue before us. When someone gets in my way, I get annoyed; if I get in someone's way I get annoyed that they are annoyed. Lots of seperate little worlds, all demanding a degree of personal space which is impossible, all trying to get to the same places at the same times, everyone being someone else's irritant. It is impossible to feel any degree of affection for the tube during rush hour.

Tube mice. They have adapted to the eerie underground world, and thrive underneath the man-made florescent lights. They are most often to be seen on the Bakerloo and Northern Lines. There's nothing like tube mice to take one's mind off the tube.

Subtext

2005-11-03T20:24:00.000Z

Are you bored with women's magazines that constantly bombard you with fashion advertising, and diets? That assume that your appearance is your biggest concern? That tell you how beautiful you are on one page and then betray you by issuing orders on how to dress and make yourself up acceptably and by advertising cosmetic surgery? You might be interested in Subtext.

Subtext is a work in progress, a new feminist magazine born of the UK feminist blogosphere, for which I'm working my way out of writer's blockiness.

Also, in London on November 25th the Reclaim the Night march is taking place, to protest violence against women and girls.

Writer's block

2005-10-31T10:51:00.000Z

It's a big heavy lump in your throat, or your brain, or your pen, depending on where you deem your voice to come from. I believe that Philip Larkin placed it in the stomach. 'That irresistable force meeting that unmoveable object in your belly'... or something along those lines. You may be thinking a lot when you meet the obstacle. Lots of things in your mind, ideas and images, but when you come to write them down the words are pale and lifeless. Or cliched. They die as they hit the paper. There are also times when the block seems to deaden your mind as well as your muse. Nothing comes to mind, yet you desire to write. You feel blank and the silence is deafening. You try to dive into that silence, to pull out the ideas, the words, the truths that the silence is choking. You know there is something there, and yet at the same time the doubt sets in.

Was I ever able to write? The questions fall thick and fast. Have I lost all my abilities forever? Was it all a lie? Was I faking it? Has my luck run out? Am I drained dry now forever? Was I never any good to start with? I didn't read enough, I was too arrogant, I was naive. Questions of identity, of one's place in the world all emerge from their hiding places, biting and grabbing. Maybe the muse was an illusion, or worse, delirium. Something you made up to forge some kind of meaning for yourself which crumbles when bathed in natural light. A figment of your imagination that cannot survive in the 'real' world. You put your head in your hands, stare at blank paper, glaring computer screen. Maybe you doodle. Maybe you just gaze at printed words until your eyes lose focus. Maybe you think about how strange words look.

You pick up the pen and write. You write anything. This is how recovery starts. You write writer's block, speechlessness, doubt. You know that you have to try, because if you try you might just say something. As long as some words come out, you know that nothing is lost.

I've been tagged!

2005-10-17T21:17:00.000+01:00

I've been tagged by the lovely Travelling Punk! I'm new to this, but it seems to mean that I have to post twenty random facts by myself and then tag other people to do the same thing... the trouble is that all the people I would have tagged have been tagged already... but I'll do the random fact thing anyway.

1) I have a jar of marmite on my desk.
2) I have been known to eat marmite straight from the jar when ill.
3) I was briefly employed as a living statue.
4) I can't stand seeing chewing gum stuck on stuff. Icky!
5) Yesterday, I didn't go out of the house the whole day.
6) I've just got back from a kung fu class
7) And I think I've bruised my arms.
8) I don't know my left from my right.
9) I wear disposable contact lenses
10) And there are old dried out disposable contact lenses on my desk.
11) I always carry a book around with me in case I'm stuck anywhere with nothing to do for a long time.
12) Today it was an anthology of women's poetry which I've rediscovered.
13) My room is a tip, and I only tidied it the other day.
14) I get lines from The Simpsons stuck in my head
15) and songs as well, both good and bad ones
16) sometimes I get a bizarre medley of different songs stuck
17) I talk to myself alot.
18) And argue...
19) Recently I've been wracking my brain over what new things to post about.
20) I used to write lists all the time, and they always had to end on a round number.

Hermit day

2005-10-16T14:23:00.000+01:00

I'm having a 'world go away' day. That's my (polite version) name for a day where I stay indoors eating chocolate biscuits in my pajamas, drinking tea, reading and writing in bed and not doing too much else. I'd like to say that these were regenerative retreats, something esoteric... but, no. It's mainly me in my pajamas sulking.

These biscuits are nice. I'm hoping to come away from my hermit day with lots of thoughts to post about, lots of inspiration, a newly energetic muse, some peace of mind... something other than crumbs on my clothes. But I'll settle for the self-satisfied feeling of having enjoyed a day of laziness. This is the life.

You don't know what you got...

2005-10-07T14:27:00.000+01:00

The old adage is true: you never appreciate the daily usefulness of the middle finger of your left hand until it is partially immobilised under sticky-plaster and hurts when you touch it after an incident with a vicious piece of furniture.

Only now have I realised that my injured finger, when uninjured, had many more uses than performing salutes to contemptuous authority figures. I will never again take for granted its untiring service in the forgotten struggles of my life.

Apples are not the only fruit

2005-09-30T10:16:00.000+01:00

This morning I woke up to a slot on BBC Breakfast about apples. The presenters were discussing the fact that apples are imported into our supermarkets from all over the world at the expense of our native types. The Apple Expert held up a piece of very shiny, red apple and explained that the skin had been waxed to make it look more appealing. Apples are not that red, shiny and flawless naturally. Supermarkets need their apples to be even in colour, shape, texture; they cannot tolerate difference or natural looks.

I'm sure you know where I'm going on this!

The two male presenters eating said apples looked relatively flawless too. The female presenter had hidden her 'imperfections' under layers of make-up. Women's magazines regularly encourage their readers to purchase new and expensive types of cosmetics, to layer their faces with artificial pastes to hide any 'blemishes', to create an impossibly even and uniform skin tone. Adverts push these products onto women, encouraging them (overtly in the case of a recent No.7 ad) to 'stay perfect', show them fretting over having spots or wrinkles and brandishing the magic formula. Female TV presenters are inevitably immaculately made up.

Supermarkets cannot tolerate any blemishes on apples. It seems that our capitalism cannot tolerate any 'blemishes' on women. No signs of age, experience, individuality are acceptable. The lines on a woman's face that mark the expressions she makes and has made are hideous proof of her experience in the world and must be hidden. They speak of human action, of imperfection, of personal endeavor, of a person who is ill-suited for the pedestal. Women may not show signs of having had an individual life. They may betray no signs of difference or experience. They must appear as flawless and blank as an empty canvas, unfrightening for those who wish to consume them.

A must-read

2005-09-26T12:08:00.000+01:00

Check out this brilliantly written article on misogyny and fashion advertising by Sour Duck. We are surrounded by these images of women, and to my mind it is vital that we try and look into them, see what they are trying to tell us, and what they are trying to say about us. How do they effect women and men being brought up in this culture? What can we do to mitigate their influence?

I'll write more later when I can rouse my muse from her slumber.

Notes on 'patriotism' and 'supporting our troops'

2005-09-19T11:06:00.000+01:00

Yesterday I saw my first 'Support our Troops' ribbon in the UK. I saw many on cars and billboards when I was in a very red state of the US a few months ago. When someone advertises a slogan on their property or about their person in such as way as everyone can see it they are clearly trying to send out a public message. They are presumably making a statement about their beliefs and their associated identity.

'Support our Troops' is an imperative. Do it. Now. It's not a question or a suggestion, it is a command. There are two reasons I can think of why and individual would wish others to follow a command: 1) they believe it is a command that all should follow, and 2) they believe others are nonetheless not following it.

In the States I was aware of the accusation directed at those who questioned the morals of attacking Afghanistan and Iraq: traitor. Hates America, hates the troops, hates freedom... we've all heard this kind of invective. Sentiments against the wars have to be prefaced 'I support the troops, but...' The erroneous claim that criticising the motives and actions of a government is equal to despising people dying for that government (or the ideals it supposedly represents), is being used to silence opposition. Someone suggested to me on a message board that my voicing of my opinions about the war was treasonous. I cannot express fully how much I abhor such intimidation.

'Supporting' is to do with loyalty, and 'Support the Troops' seems to be synonymous with 'support the government's actions' in this mindset. This introduces the question of who the troops are. 'The troops' are a group of people who for various reasons have chosen a particular path in life. How much choice each individual had in their decision no doubt varies, according not just to personal taste but also to economic status. The troops are not a homogenous lump. They are individuals with individual motives who have made a particular moral decision, which they are now risking their lives for.

In the UK tabloids I have often seen the troops referred to as 'Our boys'. This has always irritated me beyond belief. They are not children. They are adult men and women. They are not out on some fun adventure with a single aim. They don't belong to 'us' or to anyone. They are autonomous human beings. I will not claim ownership of them, nor deny them moral agency. Supporting someone surely means recognising who that person is, and the difficulties and details of their particular situation. One cannot support those one refuses to understand, and who one prefers to simplify and treat as one-dimensional beings.

I wish the same things for the troops that I wish for all people. I hope that they come home safely from their work. I hope that they are able to make a positive imapct on the world through their energies and efforts. I hope they are true to their consciences and stand up for the things they believe in. The reason I opposed these pointless wars was simple: I did not want innocent people to die. And to my mind, this includes those sent to fight the wars of the rich.

Those opposed to the carnage have been called 'unpatriotic', and have thus forced critics of the wars and the British and US governments to defend their 'patriotism'. I, personally, do not like the word 'patriot'. It comes from the Ancient Greek for 'father' pater and for their reference to their home as a fatherland, and their social structure as a patriarchy. I'm a feminist, and cannot use a term that suggests loyalty to patriarchy. When my country behaves in a moral way, I applaud. When my country behaves in an immoral way, I condemn. There are things I like about the UK, and things I dislike about the UK. But I cannot hold my country above all others, and cannot put my country's 'good' above the good of humanity.

The one loyalty I have, and the one I hope will always override all other considerations, is my loyalty to my conscience. It is the only guide I have. Betraying my conscience would mean lying about myself and all the things I hope to stand for. I cannot sacrifice that for anything.

The 100th anniversary of LitR

2005-09-16T13:09:00.000+01:00

Look! My counter has reached 100 visits! I should celebrate... anyone fancy a party? It's nice to know that it's not just me reading this thing.

Women 'defying nature'?

2005-09-16T10:46:00.000+01:00

Specialists are warning that there are health risks involved in women having children in their thirties and fourties. A couple of things come to mind when I read this.

Once an older woman does become pregnant, she runs a greater risk of miscarriage, foetal and chromosomal abnormalities, and pregnancy-related diseases.

They add: "Women want to 'have it all' but biology is unchanged.

I'm not going to argue with the medical evidence here, as I know precious little about biology, and these guys are the experts. What I would like to add is that the perception of what is 'natural' changes over time. In Ancient Greece, for example, women were married at a young age to older men. There was a perception that pregnancy was essential to a woman's wellbeing, and that it was adviseable for a woman to be pregnant for as much of the time as possible. This would seem to be in direct opposition to the damage that mutiple pregnancies and childbirth can do to women, not to mention the life threatening nature of childbirth itself. Medicine has a social context, and what is culturally acceptable is frequently assumed to be what is natural.

This passage really caught me, and illuminated the nature of the problems that women face in our patriarchy:

"Their delays may reflect disincentives to earlier pregnancy or maybe an underlying resistance to childbearing as, despite the advantages brought about by feminism and equal opportunities legislation, women still bear full domestic burdens as well as work and financial responsibilities."

The definition of the 'having it all' in the first quote is made clear in the second quote. 'Having it all' means what men having always had- a career and a family- without being criticised. Women are taking on double the burdens and it would be no small wonder to find these pressures having an adverse affect on their health. 'Having it all' for women also seems to mean 'suffering it all', and to have what men have always been able to claim means they have to work twice as hard.

On the art of writing haiku

2005-09-13T10:03:00.000+01:00

Haiku ain't so bad.
But I always end up with
an extra syllab

le.

(yep, some people will recognise this as I posted this elsewhere. I'm plagurising myself- the irony!)

A Thursday workplace whine

2005-09-08T16:32:00.000+01:00

They've got the cricket on the telly in my office, luckily with the sound off. Then they'll all start talking about it. I keep hearing words like 'over' and whatnot. My one fellow cricket-hater is away today. Alas, I'm on my own, and I can't stand cricket. A match takes five days! Most of the time the players just stand around! Where's the fascination?

I should start putting lousy soap operas on in the middle of the day. Or give 'em a dose of Trisha or Ricki Lake.

That'll teach them.

For shame, George

2005-09-06T20:09:00.000+01:00

To the residents of Mobile, Alabama, Bush had this to say:

We've got a lot of rebuilding to do. First, we're going to save lives and stabilize the situation. And then we're going to help these communities rebuild. The good news is -- and it's hard for some to see it now -- that out of this chaos is going to come a fantastic Gulf Coast, like it was before. Out of the rubbles of Trent Lott's house -- he's lost his entire house -- there's going to be a fantastic house. And I'm looking forward to sitting on the porch. (Laughter.)

The jokes people make can say a lot about them. And I, for one, cannot imagine a worse time to crack a joke than after a natural disaster, made worse by human incompetence and indifference, has made a whole city homeless and been responsible for the death of thousands. Bush presumably wanted to lighten the atmosphere somehow, and give an example of the 'fantastic' rebuilding that would take place.

Trent Lott is, of course, the rich senator from Mississippi who infamously celebrated the segregationist Strom Thurmond. He is alive. He was rescued from his home. He has the money to do some 'fantastic' rebuilding. Many more people did not make it out alive, and many more survivors do not have the resources they need to begin their 'fantastic' task so easily and eagerly. As Bush made this joke, people were dying in New Orleans because they did not have the privaleges that come with being George or Trent. They are going to make New Orleans like it was before- with the rich white men sitting on their 'fantastic' porches, and poor African-Americans struggling to make ends meet.

Katrina

2005-09-02T14:10:00.000+01:00

Here are some organisations accepting donations for relief for the people affected by the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.

American Red Cross

Salvation Army

Second Harvest

Turtle

2005-09-02T10:20:00.000+01:00

An Italian turtle for everyone.

Sloppy science and gendered intelligence

2005-08-26T10:50:00.000+01:00

According to an Australian website a new study of 24,000 British students has suggested that men are on average more intelligent than women, having in general higher IQs.

Now, we all turn wan and pale in the face of overwelming scientific evidence don't we? We all sit back and gasp, knowing that these very very clever people (men, of course) have shown us incontrovertably that something society has told us from goodness-knows-when was in fact correct all along. So women, is it all very clear now?

Well actually, no. IQ tests, to start with, are not the best way, or indeed the only way, of measuring intelligence. They measure one kind of intelligence; a kind of intelligence that patriarchy considers valuable. Even if it could be definitely proven that men do have higher IQs than women, it would not be logical to therefore declare that men are more intelligent than women.

Then there is the huge factor, significantly ignored in the Australian article, of social context. We live in a society where different behaviour is expected from men and women, and where attributes and qualities are gendered. Women are constantly being told that they are not clever, and that their value lies in their appearance and their function as carers. To imagine that a test created to measure the form of intelligence considered superior is ideal to test the general intelligence of the group considered to be lacking these attributes is beyond ludicrous.

Genetic differences in intelligence between the sexes helped explain why many more men than women won Nobel Prizes or became chess grandmasters, the study by Paul Irwing and Richard Lynn concludes.

Or perhaps, it is more likely to be linked to the fact that the Nobel Prize and chess were both invented under patriarchy, to involve men, and be a measure of rewarding and grading men? Coupled with the fact that women have never received the same education as men, and have never had the opportunities men have had? Could this idea of intelligence being in some way hierarchical and infinitely definable be to do with the fact that the patriarchal society we live in is based upon hierarchies of weak and strong?

I think it's worth mentioning that Richard Lynn is the author of a book called 'IQ and the Wealth of Nations', which apparently suggests that people in poorer countries have lesser IQs than people in the 'developed' West.

Never mind educational opportunities, social context, poverty and all those other pesky considerations. It seems that the patriarchal invention of the IQ test tells patriarchy everything it wants to know- or rather, wants to hear.

Things that have been stuck in my head lately

2005-08-18T14:30:00.000+01:00

1. Right now: 'A Question of Sport' theme tune. I neither watch nor like the show, and yet.
2. Lines from various episodes of The Simpsons.
3. 'Left Outside Alone' by Anastacia.
4. My voice asking 'what shall I write? what shall I write?' ad nauseum.
5. Michael Buerk's rather stupid comments
6. My brains.
7. Imaginary kung fu battle against imaginary enemies (with my imaginary skills).
8. The possible answers to 24 Down.
9. Longing for ice cream.
10. The idea of writing lists of things that have been stuck in my head lately.

I have writer's block

2005-08-05T10:30:00.000+01:00

My brain is stuck, and the gears are jammed.
I have a bunch of stuff on my desk that I don't know what to do with.
It's a denial day.

Okay, I'm just going to post this and perhaps I'll think of something intereesting to write later.
Perhaps...

A quick observation from my kung fu class

2005-08-02T10:50:00.000+01:00

One thing that I have been noticing for some weeks now, is how the men and women in the class react differently to the act of punching a punch pad held by the instructor. The men tend to put in a lot of energy and aggression into whacking the pad, as if it had done them some grievous harm in a previous life. The women are much more timid, and have to be encouraged by the instructor in the act of giving the punch pad what for.

Part of this is, of course, down to physical strength, but it is not the whole story. The amount of personal effort and aggression the men put in seems proportionally to be greater than that supplied by the women (I am including myself here). I spoke to some of my female classmates about this, and we all seemed to be having a similar feeling: we felt kind of silly punching the pad, and found it hard to use it as a focus for our aggression, and we were worried about what it looked like.

Aggression, frustration, annoyance are emotions common to men and women and we know that it is better for the sufferer if they are expressed in a cathartic way that harms no-one else: punching the pad is perfect for this. But somehow we women found it incredibly difficult to allow ourselves to a) express such feelings (and thus admit to having them), and b) do so in front of others. We all felt that somehow we shouldn't be acting this way, that it was improper and unsuitable- we are used to having women's anger censured. A woman who expresses her rage in such a fashion is at risk of being considered 'masculine', as being considered wrong, as other than 'feminine' in a world where people are valued a great deal according to the extent to which they fit what society deems suitable for their sex.

Yay, I'm back!

2005-07-26T10:19:00.000+01:00

Well kind of. The headaches seem to have been decreasing over the last few days, and I haven't been woken up by a migraine for the last three nights, so hopefully I'm getting somewhere. I had yesterday off work to relax, which was precisely what I needed, and I spent the time reading and sleeping and drinking endless cups of tea (not all at once). So hopefully it won't be too long before I have something to say other than 'Yay, I'm back!' I live in hope ;)

Headache Blogging

2005-07-18T16:46:00.000+01:00

It's headache after headache after headache for me these days. Every single day, usually waking me up at stupid o'clock, I get a throbbing headache. So I'm permanently exhausted and can feel the tiredness resting on my eyes. This is my excuse for my recent lack of bloggage. This has happened to me before, and last time the doctor gave me beta blockers. I'm trying to stay on top of this with paracetamol, but it's really rather getting me down.

Untopical, but never mind: America's Next Top Model

2005-07-12T15:20:00.000+01:00

So I was sitting in front of the telly with my housemate, desperately flicking through the channels in the hope of finding something on to watch. We eventually landed on America's Next Top Model, a competition between young women for a modelling contract. I found many aspects of the programme more disturbing than I had predicted.

During a photo shoot, the would-be models are told what to do and how to pose, and are criticised when they don't get 'it' right. When the judges go through the resulting pictures before their young audience, they critique the appearance of the model in the pictures. One thing I kept hearing was that a model didn't have 'It'. Now what the hell is 'It'? If it is a technical term, I'm sure the photographers and stylists can explain it to us somehow in laypeople's terms. But they deliberately do not explain what they mean. Other assertions about how the picture should 'come from within', requiring some contribution of the model's soul, were made. Modelling is surely all about outsides. How is one meant to bring one's soul to a photgraph which has been organised and arranged by someone else? If there is something 'wrong' about a modelling picture that cannot be clearly defined, why blame the model? Why not blame the stylist, the make-up artist, the photographer? Oh right- ,they're the ones who are judging the picture.

I came to the conclusion that there is not meant to be a definition of 'It'. If there was, all the women in the room could achieve 'It' and there would be no competition at all. It has to be an impossible task that the models are encouraged to strive toward, a task in which the rules can be changed at any moment by the controllers. Just as women are encouraged to strive towards some kind of perfection by beauty advertising (the trick is, of course, to keep women feeling insecure about their appearance, otherwise they would not buy the products), the models are pushed towards some unclear goal. They are the paradigm of what 'normal' women are supposed to be reaching towards, yet they themselves also are made to feel insecure, that somehow they are not doing it 'right'.

After

2005-07-09T13:14:00.000+01:00

I wasn't able to speak yesterday because I felt... well... speechless. That is the point of a terrorist attack of course, it is meant to make people feel helpless, hopeless, afraid. It's probably completely obvious from my previous posts what I'm going to say here, but I'll say it anyway. I believe it is vital that we do not let fear define us or control our actions. Whatever power, whatever voice we have must be utilised.

The vast majority of the coverage of this atrocity has been respectful. I would like to thank others in the blogsophere for their moving pieces on the tragedy, particularly Echidne, and to my friends for their concern for me and my loved ones.

London, July 7th 2005

2005-07-07T23:16:00.000+01:00

My thoughts are with the families who have been effected by these terrible events here today in London. I'm still shellshocked by it, and feel that I am very lucky to have been away from the danger.

I've already seen posts talking about 'crushing' people in response to these atrocities. We cannot answer this with hatred and violence, with more retribution that ends the lives of yet more innocents. Violence is a cycle.

Stream of consciousness about fear

2005-07-06T13:51:00.000+01:00

Fear is something I think about alot, because it has been so omnipresent in my life. Anxiety disorders are all about fear: fear of uncertainty, fear of danger, fear of rejection. This fear doesn't come out of nowhere, and we have seen how it has been created and spread to further political agendas and silence dissent in the last few years. We have seen people panicking because of the fear that is relentlessly drummed into them, of things that they for the most part cannot control.

Fear, of course, is an emotion with purpose; it is meant to make you keep away instinctively from things that can harm you. The reason we ultimately feel it is to preserve our lives. But fear is also harmful; it can paralyse us. We can't lose or deny fear, which is what OCDers try in vain to do, we cannot banish it from ourselves, as there is a reason we feel it. We have to live with it and learn to act in spite of it. This is what we call courage.

It is fear of the things that we cannot control, that we are told to be afraid of, of the unfamiliar that is harmful to us. Citizens are encouraged to be afraid of terrorists and to believe that the ruling class act in order to keep them safe, that measures which are immoral and cruel are neccessary, that if we don't hurt 'them', 'they' will hurt us. OCD makes the sufferer believe that if they act in a particular prescribed and rigid way, they will be safe, but that acting otherwise jeopardises their safety. Their fear of being 'bad' or having an uncontrollable problem is further increased by the fear shown by society towards those experiencing mental distress.

I believe that there is alot for everyone to learn from the behavoural therapy that encourages OCDers to act in spite of their fears. If we want to see a change from the patriarchal system of domination and exploitation of others, we will have to learn to follow our consciences, and listen to them in spite of our fear. We will have to be more afraid of the consequences of being silent, than of the consequences of not accepting the world as a place where one must either strike first, or be struck.

I have more jumbled-up thoughts on this, but I'll have to stop for a while, as I have a headache that just won't shift (staring at a computer screen is not the best medicine for this). I hope to write about the impact of fear in popular culture and in the mental health services, but for now I'm going to drink some water and feel sorry for myself.

Anxiety and Me

2005-07-05T13:49:00.000+01:00

I have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, with some General/Social Anxiety thrown in to complete the package. And I'm just going to jump straight into this one, without worrying whether I should be writing this, whether this is far too egocentric (hell, this is my blog, of course it's egocentric!), whether this is reaaaaaaallllly dull... see me now, jumping right in.

My personal variety of OCD is known as 'Pure Obsession', as it comes without physical rituals, and consists of obsessional thoughts. Often they are disturbing images, impulses and ideas; the Pure O sufferer catastrophically misinterprets these as being 'evil' or as revealing something dreadful about their true self. Really, of course, almost everyone has bizarre intrusive thoughts from time to time, and they don't assign them undue importance. However, I thought the 'bad thoughts' meant that I was an evil, terrible person; I thought I had done terrible things, and that my thoughts were evidence of how 'evil' I was. These false beliefs lead to thoughts becoming obsessional, and one ends up in a state of extreme anxiety. I finally got the courage to seek medical help aged 19. The response of the doctor was to give me an anti-psychotic which he told me would 'make the thoughts go away'.

This reinforced the false idea in my mind that the thoughts were something I had to get rid of. The GP chose the meds because he believed I was psychotic and that I had voices, and that my mind needed to be 'controlled'- another common false assumption of people with OCD. So the very logic behind the several different meds he gave me was skewed and backed up OCD beliefs rather than refuting them.

And then there was the sedative effect of the drugs. I couldn't do anything. The drugs effectively killed my body so it couldn't do what I wanted it to: I couldn't read, write (the two most important things to me in terms of my identity), watch TV, talk, walk properly, eat, swallow... I was effectively in a vegetative state. And I couldn't tell anyone what was going on. I felt so completely alone.

But I didn't have any intrusive thoughts. Nope. None. The reason? My brain was sedated, and could no longer maintain any thought process at all. The price of losing the thoughts was losing my mind, degrading it to a state of helplessness, trapped in a body that didn't work properly, that drooled and jerked about. The price was too high.

We cannot strive after complete perfection in our minds. We can aspire to behave according to our consciences, to act with integrity and personal strength, but it is impossible to take all disturbing thoughts out of the brain. The thoughts are normal; what we can control is our reactions to them. Everyone has 'bad' thoughts, urges, ideas that we cannot control; it's part of being human and killing all disturbing thoughts means killing the rest of our minds as well. The price is too high! We should all respect our minds and ourselves, and accept the uncomfortable thoughts and impulses which are meaningless and common.

These days I'm on a different type of medication which lessens anxiety, but doesn't 'cure' anything. Last year I was fortunate enough to receive some talking treatment known as 'Cognitive Behavioural Therapy'. CBT enabled me to uncover and deflate my self-deprecating beliefs and cognitive biases. It helped me to think in a completely different way, and helped me in finding my voice again.

I thought I'd just share that with you.

We-hay! Victory... or something like that

2005-07-04T22:53:00.000+01:00

My instructor just gave me my certificate for completing the first level in Wing Tjun Kung Fu. It seems to mean that I can punch vaguely in a straight line, and that I'm not overdoing my falling over quota. I'm going to spend all tommorrow boasting about it!

Okay, enough self-aggrandisement. I ache, and I need some sleep. Maybe tommorrow I'll write about something serious..?

One rainy day I thought about blogging...

2005-07-04T00:46:00.000+01:00

The name of this blog unfortunately has no greater, deeper meaning, is not metaphorical in any way and has nothing to do with the study of weather. It came about because one day I was walking home in the rain, and I made the decision to begin a weblog... or rather I found the determination to do so, despite anxiety, in the musty smell of rain soaking South East London. So, um, it's my name, and the weather conditions in which I found myself one evening.

Well, the whole point of this excercise is for me to be able to give my various opinions on things, rant, rave, complain, celebrate and tell silly jokes. I have a burning desire to write all these things down, to make some mark in a form more legible that my own handwriting. I'm hoping that this venture will evolve by itself... well we'll see. It may turn out to be nothing more than me rambling on.

I'm very nervous about pressing the 'publish post' button... but... I'm going to do it. Here goes...