Wednesday 19 September 2018

Blood, sweat and tears: a perspective on menstruation from one of the 51%

Aunt Flo from popular and bizarre 70s
children's cartoon, Bod. Did they know??

The other day, I shared a post about a woman’s recent thesis about the taboo of menstruation with the following words: ‘Ffs. It happens to half the population of the world. Let's talk about it.’ And quite a few women did want to talk about it. For too long, the stigma of menstruation and having the biological equipment that enables it, has forced the vast majority of the menstruating population into hushed conspiratorial tones and a look of embarrassment whenever the topic rarely rears its head. Until very recently, all adverts regarding sanitary products contained blue liquid and women in very tight white jeans jumping about to upbeat music. Ask anyone who has ever menstruated and they will tell you that this is about the last thing you feel like doing and white anything is a massive, massive risk. And you won’t be accidentally dying your underwear blue either.

Some anecdotal facts about my menstruating experiences:

Blood
·         I have messed up two hotel beds in my life. This is crushingly embarrassing.
·         I started my period at school just before a chemistry lesson, and the sanitary towel the school nurse gave me looked and felt like a small mattress in my knickers. When I returned to the lab, I was convinced all the boys could see it poking my skirt out like some kind of compacted cotton wool banana.
·         I was introduced to my new immediate manager at a school (a man) at a Teacher Training Day who put out his hand to shake mine, but I couldn’t shake his because I had a tampon concealed in my right hand and up the sleeve in a ‘manoeuvre of shame’ and was on my way to the toilet at the time. Cue embarrassed shuffling, rustling and sleight of hand repositioning of the offending item worthy of Paul Daniels. Actually it wasn’t smooth. He saw it and got equally flustered.
·         I used to avoid male checkout staff if I was buying sanitary items because of, you know, the shame of it all.
·         I used to go out with a Tunisian man who genuinely believed that when you were on your period, you should not wash or allow any water to come into contact with your lady parts. He had two sisters who apparently observed this rule and goodness knows what kind of hideous discomfort they must have gone through every month.

Sweat

·         Periods seem to make my body temperature rise and I don’t sleep well during mine. I have heard other women talk about this too, though it doesn’t seem like it’s a widely known phenomenon. However, I used to go out with someone who complained about sharing a bed with a woman on her period because it was like sleeping next to a furnace. Try being the furnace! Obviously his empathy knew no beginnings, unlike his sense of entitlement which knew no bounds. He also refused to ride buses because of their working class associations. I’m not entirely convinced these things are not linked. Funnily enough, the relationship did not last.

Tears

·         Sometimes my cramps are so bad that I feel like crying. Once, in an exam, I sat there with silent tears running down my face unable to write more than a page of mediocre scribble, which was unfortunate because this was an English exam. But mostly I am very stoic though I am known to groan a bit.

Not everyone experiences pain and suffering. Maybe a few drops of blood here and there and no cramps like my lucky sister who tells me of her quick wipe and then done monthly event. But some people, like me, have a truly spongy and prodigious womb lining experience on a regular basis. For example, I once tutored a young woman who had periods so bad that she vomited and had diarrhoea every month. I had to leave her house mid-session because she was too ill for the tutoring.  As well as looking ashen and clearly being in a great deal of pain, she was also very embarrassed to tell me why she was so ill.

So what do these experiences tell me? They tell me that in spite of living in a relatively progressive country in such matters, we still have a very long way to go. The amount of ignorance surrounding menstruation is astonishing. Apparently, some men still believe that periods can be held in at will, like urine, and that any accident is a result of slovenly behaviour rather than something entirely involuntary. And the lack of understanding from non-menstruating human beings about the debilitating effects of menstruation, both physical and in terms of stigma and shame, not to mention the financial burden, is widespread and contributes to continuing suffering here and abroad. Period poverty is an issue in the UK whereby girls and women are missing school or work, or having to choose between food and sanitary items because they just can’t afford them. This should not be happening in a civilised society.

Women and girls should not be made to feel ashamed for a biological function that ultimately results in the existence of every single human being who walks the globe and who has ever done so.

On an optimistic note, I have to extol the virtues of the glorious menstrual cup. For someone who struggled with tampons until my late twenties, the idea of shoving something with a rather wider circumference into my vagina did not appeal. And indeed, I did struggle with it when I first bought it over five years ago. However, I decided to give it another go this year after getting some tips on insertion from the wonderful women at No More Taboo, a not-for-profit social enterprise who tackle period poverty and challenge taboos around menstruation. Six months on and I am pleased to say that the combination of the cup and reusable pad means I am no longer shelling out for disposable sanitary products every month (sticking it to The Man), or cluttering up landfill, or subjecting my delicate areas with irritating chemical treated cotton wool. I can honestly say that I get fewer cramps. And you can leave the cup in pretty much all day and sort it out when you get home. That said, I have mastered the wash out in public bathrooms as well so it’s all good. And far from being icky and disgusting, it is actually a more hygienic alternative to more conventional methods.

The fact that menstruation is still considered a taboo topic, a 'dirty shame' the world over, tells us all we need to know about how much the world hates women. This is one part of the struggle for true equity but a fundamental one, as ideas about women's bodies and attempts to control and deny our basic biological functions underpin so many other dysfunctional behaviours towards women and girls. Perhaps when we start educating everyone properly, properly, about menstruation, men and boys as well, and treat the process with the respect it deserves, we will see an end to the segregation of women and girls during menses from communities in developing parts of the world. This has resulted in actual deaths. Perhaps this destigmatisation of the so-called ‘mysteries’ of female biology will result in a greater respect for female bodily autonomy. Perhaps we will see an end to a tax on essential sanitary items which is without question a tax on female biology. Perhaps we will also see an end to other terrible behaviours towards women, like FGM, as women and girls gain a greater understanding of their own bodies and what a healthy one looks and feels like.

The last time I had my period, I took a hot water bottle to work tutoring. My two male students asked me why. I told them. Period pain. I would not have shared that information a few years ago. In fact, I would have left the hot water bottle at home as I would have prioritised their potential discomfort at learning their tutor was an adult woman who menstruates above my own very real physical pain. Did they faint? Nope. They filled it up with hot water for me. Perhaps, finally, the times are changing. I certainly hope so.

Monday 2 April 2018

If it’s broke, try to fix it!


Question: What’s free, helps the environment, helps you to meet people and make new friends, skills you up, let’s you have interesting philosophical chats (or is that just me?), drink tea and eat biscuits, and saves you money?

Answer: The Repair Café.
I can’t remember when I first heard of the Repair Café phenomenon sweeping the globe, but I do remember the first time I went to one. It was held at the St Paul’s Learning Centre one Saturday morning in November, and I went along clutching a non-functioning blender and low expectations. I remember approaching the group of friendly volunteers, busily unscrewing things with screwdrivers, sewing things up and generally being industrious and convivial. I was encouraged to take my blender apart and given advice on what to look for, and then shown that my blender had worked all along, and it was just an attachment that was at fault. I remember my sense of wonderment. After all, this was happening in my ‘hood, for free, no charge, gratis, and with free tea, and plenty of smiles. Awesome. It seems that there IS such a thing as a free lunch, or at least, a free fix of a household appliance otherwise destined for landfill from a person who is just doing it for the love of it. It’s striking that in our modern society where everything has a price tag, that this is such an alien concept.

So when they told me that there was another one opening up in my local library, about 1 minute’s walk from where I live in Easton, I went along. More fixing successes followed; a vacuum cleaner unblocked and a zip replaced on a favourite dress. And because things happen organically in a totally cooperative organisation with no hierarchy and no constituted structure and absolutely no profit involved, I ended up being a co-host for my local café. Although I have no particular fixing expertise beyond sewing on the odd button, I am good at talking to people and organising and things, so I just let the very capable volunteer fixers do their own thing and hope to absorb some of their skills and knowhow by osmosis. I am woefully underskilled in practical matters, and the repairs café gives me a great opportunity to take things to bits (fun) and put them back together again (satisfying). I also learn about how things are made, what bits can be replaced, what can’t, and what to buy in future so that I don’t end up with an item that’s likely to go wrong, and end up in landfill within a year or two. And like so many others who end up volunteering at the Repair Café, I have a newfound confidence about my ability to solve simple household or gadgetry issues. Confidence – you can’t put a price on that!

There’s nothing quite like the buzz of a successful café, with lots of happy people taking their mended possessions home with them, or with tips and knowledge on how to fix their item, even if it hasn’t been successful on the day. I have really enjoyed being a part of it, not least because I have met lots of pleasant, interesting people who are as keen as I am to end the consumerist cycle of constantly replacing broken items with new. But more importantly, it reminds me that I am part of a wider community. That people, even complete strangers, are approachable and kind. And this is an incredibly valuable and potent thing to know, especially in a fractured society where we are separate and encouraged to remain so.
A society made up of the fearful and the un-trusting is a society that is easy to manipulate, either into spending more money on crap we don’t need, or into supporting suspect political causes that result in the election of governments which operate in the service of big business, banks and corporations rather than ordinary people like us, living in ordinary communities like ours.

The Repair Café phenomenon is just that. Started in Amsterdam in 2007 by Martine Postma and with over 1500 cafes globally, and currently four in Bristol (St Pauls, Fishponds, Bedminster, and Horfield) it is an idea that has captured the public imagination and taken off in ways that no one had imagined. But perhaps we should be less surprised. After all, it is a common sense solution to so many of our collective woes: it helps people save their money, helps to keep the environment clean and safe, helps to promote community and cohesion, and counter loneliness and isolation. It also encourages skill sharing, problem solving, team work and the sense of a good job well done. The importance of the ethos of the Repair Café cannot be overstated AND if everything operated along similar lines, we would have a more equal, happier society. We’d be living in a world where we are truly mindful of the consequences of unimpeded waste and environmental destruction. Essentially, this is one idea where we are sticking it squarely to ‘the man’ and having a jolly good time while we’re going about it.

Conversely, it seems that our institutions and governments are less taken with it. For example, while individual people within local government here in Bristol might see the merit in what we are doing, the machinery of our bureaucratic institutions are creating obstacles, and in some cases, there is suspicion and downright hostility from certain quarters. It seems that there is still some misunderstanding about what the Repair Café does and does not do. For example, we don’t take revenue from charity shops, since charity shops don’t sell broken goods or clothes. And we’re not a charity ourselves, and so we don’t take any money from anyone. We are not professional fixers, and so if you take something to a Repair Café and it subsequently breaks, we are not liable, but since no money has exchanged hands, nobody feels cheated. However, we do have an approximate success rate of 85%, in line with the international average of Repair Cafes, and that’s surely something to be proud of.

I think it’s important for us that we leave money out of the equation, since it turns something that is done out of a genuine desire for good - a purer motive - into something where somebody somewhere has a vested interest. Much has been made of ‘sustainability’ but I would argue that money does not necessarily equate to sustainability. In fact, it often stifles it. There are many among us who want to show that it’s possible to do something differently, without money and price tags muddying the waters. Perhaps this makes the Repair Café unique, but surely that’s the point. I fervently hope that in time it will prove to be a less unique model.

Sadly in Easton, we lost our place at the local library with a casual email sent with less than 24 hours’ notice of the commencement of the café. We only have one a month, so the timing really could have been better, particularly as we had made an effort to promote it locally. Posters up, flyers sent, social media invites out and…sorry, no café. I don’t want to be negative or turn this blog post into a rant about Bristol City Council, except to say that there are better, more courteous, ways to deal with the citizens of this fair city. Instead, I would extend an invitation outwards to any member of any government institution or political party, and ask them to come to a Repair Café themselves. Come along, have a cup of tea, get something fixed, see what we do, and then decide whether or not it’s a good thing for Bristol and what you can do to help us. Be part of the change we so desperately need to see.

In the meantime, after some further discussions with BCC who did offer an apology or two, we are on the lookout for another venue for Easton as it would be a shame not to have one here. We have had some initial offers and will be looking into these, but if anyone has any further suggestions, we would be grateful. Please check out our Facebook page for the Bristol Repair Café network to find out when and where they are happening. I’ll be going to the St Pauls café on 21st April so maybe I’ll see you there?

If you’re reading this from further afield, perhaps there is one happening near you? I’d really like to hear from anyone who has a positive story to share about their local café, so please feel free to comment!

Tuesday 20 March 2018

All Woman - My experiences as a volunteer with the International Women’s Day event at City Hall on 3rd March 2018


100 years ago this year the first women in the UK achieved the vote. The struggle for women’s suffrage was long and arduous, spanning decades, and with its roots in the campaign to abolish slavery. The fact that only rich white women over 30 were granted the vote in 1918 spoke less to any entrenched bigotry in the movement, but far more to the patriarchal elitism coupled with infantilisation of women of the government of the day. Indeed, so glacial has the pace been on shifting perceptions of women in wider society, we are still battling some of the same deeply, deeply erroneous and ingrained misogynistic views today.

And so this is why, in spite of some murmurs of discomfort, I believe that it is a wonderful thing to be celebrating such a watershed moment in women’s history. And so wonderful to have been part of this truly amazing event put on by Bristol Women’s Voice at City Hall on Saturday 3rd March 2018, 100 years after women began their journey into public life beyond the role of monarch, which only one woman at a time could occupy anyway. This was the start of the recognition of women as human beings in their own right, and paved the way for increasingly diverse women to enter spheres of power and influence, assorted careers, and to gain access to a greater variety of life choices. That there are still barriers, and that we have still not achieved anything like equality is a given, but let’s not underestimate the huge leaps forward that the feminist movement has achieved in the last century. And so, with a gladness in my heart, and surrounded by fabulous people doing all manner of wondrous things, I began my day of volunteering at the event.

Prior to my first shift on the front desk, I had a chance to chat to a few stallholders, including some of the women representing the Feminist Archive, a group responsible for collecting and archiving feminist memorabilia from the women’s movement from 1960 to 2000. We chatted about the work they do, the underground nature of women’s work and activism, the paucity of women’s history represented in the mainstream, and especially the history of ordinary women. With my background as a student and teacher of history, it struck me that I had never reconciled the two conflicting ideas in my head. I knew that there was little women’s history available because of, you know, how sexist everyone was in the old days. But what I was really unable to reconcile was the fact that in a time when all those battles were fought and won, and when equality had supposedly been achieved, there were still very few books or lessons on women’s history. It seems that women’s history, like so much of women’s endeavours in general, are still barely given a thought. This is one of the reasons why the work of the Feminist Archive is so valuable. Little girls need to grow up in a world where women’s achievements, both historically speaking and currently speaking, need to be spoken of and celebrated.
 
Then, onto my first stint at the front desk, greeting event-goers as they entered City Hall with a smile, a programme, and a Suffrage purple wristband. It was a lot of fun ticking off names and signing people up to Bristol Women’s Voice, and I was struck by the diversity of people keen to attend in spite of the snow. Although the majority of folk at the event were identifying as female, there were plenty of men and boys too, representing Bristol’s ethnic diversity and age range, as well as people with disabilities. I enjoyed a laugh and a joke with the event attendees, and my fumbling attempts to get wristbands on without trapping arm hairs certainly lent some unintentional comedy to proceedings. I also really enjoyed chatting with my fellow front desk volunteers. Some were as young as eleven or twelve, and doing an astonishingly assured job of it! And a kind fellow volunteer who responded to my hunger pangs with a timely yoghurt covered rice cake deserves a mention too!

So, a quick dash off for lunch and then back to the exciting task of being a roving reporter for the day. Thus followed a hectic ten minutes or so where I bumped into lots of familiar faces, and even had some time to interview one or two, including Carly Lightbown, who organised the first Bristol Women’s March in 2017, an event so big that it even got a mention in political scientist Cynthia Enloe’s The Big Push. She has also coordinated the setting up of Bristol’s Female Empowerment Network or FEN, which is an online community of some 6-700 people who are interested in discussing issues that affect women and girls, share stories of inspiration, opportunities for training and jobs, and attending Bristol’s feminist events among a myriad of other things. She explained all the various things she was hoping to do at the event, and said:

‘I love what Bristol Women’s Voice do. They do so much around the city and we’re so lucky to have them.’

Bristol is also lucky to have inspirational women like Carly, whose work within various communities was recognised later that day with a Wonderful Woman award in a touching ceremony where each recipient was given a posy of spring daffodils, in spite of the wintry weather outside, in front of an appreciative audience of supporters.

Next, I took a look around various stalls, particularly attracted to the brightly coloured posters and pins designed by graphic designer Jess Augarde of Augarde Art. I’d already purchased a ‘Well behaved women rarely make history’ postcard for my mum for Christmas a few months before, so it was lovely to take a few moments to chat to her and buy three badges with fun but pithy quotes on them – ‘Nasty Woman’ now takes pride of place on my lapel. Apparently the stall had attracted a lot of interest, and the incidentally the ‘Well behaved women’ badge was sold out. Thanks to Jess and the event, there are now plenty of young girls in particular sporting similar badges around Bristol. I bought one for my niece with ‘Girl Power’ on it. The Spice Girls might have made the quote famous but it still bears repeating in a world where girls’ power is rarely acknowledged and seen as aberrant, and where running or throwing ‘like a girl’ is still an insult.

The range and breadth of workshops and talks on that day was truly breath taking, and it was very hard to decide which ones to go to. In fact, some were so popular, you couldn’t even get in the door – the Women in Media panel discussion was a non-starter for me as I got there way too late and there wasn’t even standing room.

One area of particular interest to me is the way in which education either reinforces or challenges existing stereotypes. As a teacher and as a tutor, I have been on my own voyage of discovery when it comes to how we deal with different genders in the classroom, and how our educational approaches and expected outcomes are influenced by unconscious bias and pre-conceived ideas about how girls and boys learn and behave. I was luckily able to attend the first half of the TIGER (Teaching Individuals Gender Equality and Respect) workshop and watch them introduce the topic and begin a series of activities inviting participants to consider their own experiences in education or as parents.

TIGER are a group working places of education, including schools and universities, who work with educators and students in order to facilitate often difficult conversations around the topic, and to raise awareness of how unconscious bias adversely affects girls in particular. One particularly striking example they gave was that in a blind maths exam, where the teachers had to mark anonymous papers, the girls were marked higher than boys overall, but when the same papers were given with names to teachers who knew the students, the boys were marked up and the girls marked down. Apparently, 71% of 11-21 year old girls have reported gender stereotypes used by teachers, and with this example in mind, it shows just how important it is to have gender stereotyping and sexism being countered in the same way that racist bullying or homophobia has in recent years.

Natalie Bennett who works with TIGER explained how the workshops give young people the opportunity to think critically about their own identity, and the identity of their peers, and how sometimes although it might appear that no difference has been made, the workshops often start the process of awareness in students:

‘We’ve had some students where you feel like you’re not making a difference or that you haven’t done anything. But then they’ve gone away and I’ve found out that a couple of months later they’ve started a feminist society. So even the people you’re not sure you’ve changed…you’re still planting the seeds you’ve had these conversations which is really, really powerful, and they’re going to see stuff around them, about gender and how identities are being represented, and start critically thinking about that because of the conversations that we’ve had.’

Ours was a really insightful conversation as well, and certainly chimed with my own experiences in schools and working with students as a tutor. Institutional sexism and gender stereotyping is rife in education, as in all areas of our lives, because of the pervasive culture that teaches that boys and girls are fundamentally different in ways that create an artificial hierarchy which places boys and men above girls and women. She mentioned the particular challenges the group has faced when offering these workshops, and the resistance and defensiveness, often coming from male members of staff, who feel threatened by the messages they are trying to convey. It is unsurprising, given how much of this culture goes unnoticed by all of us, but just underlined for me how essential this work is and that we need to challenge gender stereotypes from a very young age.

This is an issue very close to my heart as an educator, and I will be exploring this issue in more depth with more details of my conversation with Natalie in a separate article in the near future, so look out for that on my blog!


Determined to pack as much into my day as possible, I decided to attend one of the panel discussions held in the Lord Mayor’s Reception, on Women in Public Life. Chaired by Bristol Women’s Voice, Penny Gane, the panel was made up of women who had achieved a public role and the powers and responsibilities that come with it, including Cleo Lake (Green Cllr), Marg Hickman (Labour Cllr), Eve Szczelkun (Youth Mayor) and Sumita Hutchinson (Race Commission). They were discussing why it is important to have women in public life, and what can be done to encourage more women into roles like these.

I have considered representing my ward as a Councillor myself, so it was very interesting to hear what these inspiring and hardworking Bristolian women had to say. They were clear about the particular challenges women face when trying to push themselves forward (‘cut-throat’ was mentioned along with entrenched resistance to change, particularly from the right of the political spectrum) but equally open about the opportunities to shape change and direction that would otherwise have been closed, such as positions on boards etc. This is why it is so important that we have diversity that reflects the true make-up of our societies, or the decisions made by one type of person only reflect the needs of that particular group. We all know only too well what it feels like to live in a world where only one type of voice is dominant.

One particular message that struck a chord with me came from Marg Hickman, who emphasised a need for a different type of politics – a ‘heart-based approach’ which more room for the feminine, as we currently only value masculine-coded survivalist qualities. In a world dominated by voices of fear and hatred and ruthless competition, we have never needed a different approach, a feminine led approach, more than we do right now.

One more talk. This time a more academic one, given by Silu Pascoe, on intersectional barriers to suffrage. Although I couldn’t stay for the whole thing, I found her account of the lesser-known individuals who fought for the vote, such as women of colour and men of colour who supported the movement fascinating. It certainly filled in one or two blanks in my knowledge of the struggle and reinforced my passion for different stories and for a fully rounded history to be taught as standard, instead of the dusty trawl through the successes of rich white men and military leaders that it is today.

After all the listening and recording and furious scribbling of notes, I decided to spend the last hour of the event browsing stalls and seeing who I might bump into. The No More Taboo stall selling reusable sanitary products and supporting women in period poverty drew my attention, not least because of my own desire to stop using disposable products that harm the environment and my back pocket every month. I didn’t even realise until recently that period poverty was even a thing in this UK, but as 1 in 10 girls aged 14-21 in this country (this country!) haven’t been able to afford sanitary protection, it seems that unless we get this on the table and start talking about it, many more girls will miss out on education because of an unavoidable part of being a woman.

I’d been able to talk to Jenna from No More Taboo earlier that day, and she had been effusive about the success of the event:

‘It’s been a really nice day. We’ve had lots of interest at the stall and made some sales and really raised awareness…lots of people asking lots of questions so it’s been really positive in that respect. We have had a lot of people who are menstrual cup curious who come over and ask us, how does it work, is it comfortable? And lots of people asking about the pads because that for a lot of people is something totally new.’

Indeed, it was new for me, so I purchased a pad, got some advice about how to insert the menstrual cup I’d purchased five years ago and totally failed to use due to, I assumed, my unique anatomy. I also felt genuinely excited about having my next period – a phenomenon I hadn’t experienced since I was thirteen and still hadn’t had one yet!

What then followed was a flurry of chats and interviews with all sorts of folk, including the wonderful women from the Somali Kitchen who were at the event showcasing Somali food and spices. They do essential work in their communities, raising awareness of how proper home cooked food is so much better than the cheap takeaways that proliferate in the parts of Bristol where they live, and to encourage pride in their cultural identity through the medium of food. ‘Food brings people together’, Sahra told me, and I couldn’t agree more.

I chatted to 69 year old Linda who had attended for the day, who proclaimed the event ‘amazing’ and saw ’so many parallels’ with the women’s movement in the 70s, which she had been actively involved in. I had a chinwag with Gus, 35, who was there to support his mum who was received a Wonderful Woman award for her work bringing the diffuse community of Jacob’s Wells together. I also managed to exchange a brief word with another recipient of an award, Hannah Hier, who at 15 is the newly elected Youth Mayor, and had managed to fit in a Charleston or two (jealous). And finally, Rhea Warner, 18, who I’d marched and hollered with on the recent Times Up Women’s March in January, who remarked on the great diversity and the atmosphere of the event:

‘It’s been great..I haven’t been in Bristol for a long time…and it’s so nice to be in this environment. Bristolians are hungry to create change and create spaces like this and when they are created you can tell that everyone who comes into them are so eager to be there, so ready to be in that space and to be creative with whatever that space is going to build.’

Yes. This is the point of events like these. You come away brimming with ideas, enthusiasm and potent energy, ready to take on whatever challenges come your way. You feel empowered in the truest sense of the word. And proud – extremely proud – to have been part of something so much bigger than yourself. As Cleo Lake said earlier in the day, we need new stories. I wonder how many new stories were started in the toasty environment of City Hall that day?

As I stepped out into the rapidly thawing streets of Bristol, I could not help but feel humbled by the incredible things I saw and heard, and heartened by the very many friendships and connections I had reinforced or created in one day. I was a little sad that I didn’t get a chance to make a cyanotype photograph, practise the Charleston or get up and improvise some spoken word poetry, but you can’t have everything. Maybe next time. After all, the centenary for women’s suffrage comes once in a lifetime, but the International Women’s Day even is held every year, and I will most definitely be there.

Thursday 1 February 2018

Breaking the silence, marching for a voice

Leading the march and stopping traffic along the way    Photo by Hannah Hier
5+ million worldwide, 673 marches on all seven continents including Antarctica. One of the biggest global mass demonstrations in all of recorded history
Photo by Mya Kalaya

Marching onto Cathedral Green    Photo by Hannah Hier





When I blogged about the Women’s March in 2017, I said I would march again and on Sunday 21st January 2018 I did just that.

No matter the weather...     Photo by Mya Kalaya
Glorious signs!    Photo by Jazzy Maya
I’ve read so many wonderful blogs and articles on the Women’s March movement, galvanised as it has been by the year’s many flagrant injustices – the #Metoo and the #TimesUp campaigns – and the increased sense that in spite of the backlash, something is happening for the better. That in spite of the many, many egregiously damaging things that are done to women and girls everywhere, all over the world, from countless micro aggressions to the truly hideously macro, there is a shifting in consciousness taking place that threatens to unseat those people who have enjoyed power at the top for too long. What can I add to their brilliance that hasn’t already been said?

Except maybe that’s the point. 

As women and girls, we are too often socialised to believe our voices are less important than those of the men or boys in the room. We have been told repeatedly to shut up, that we talk too much, that we’re shrill, that we nag. We may have shelved the scold’s bridle – a medieval torture instrument worn by the unfortunate victim of a husband who deemed his wife too vocal, but there are still plenty of places and spaces and people who will do the same job. The internet, social media, parliament, a Daily Mail reading middle aged man in a café in Keynsham will all tell you that your voice is too loud.
Photo by Mya Kalaya

Fuck that shit. Fucking fuck it. *

One of the biggest impacts of last year’s marches for me was seeing all of those fine women of all ages and all colours get up on a podium and speak for the world to hear. Not before or since had I ever seen women hold the floor in this way. It had such a profound impact on me because it WAS so unusual. I am used to hearing the occasional token female voice, but I am not used to hearing it as standard. No one is and we NEED to. Everyone needs to. It needs to be a sound we hear, as standard, as often as we hear a male voice. The fact that we don’t is one of the reasons why men on the whole believe that they talk less when they talk more in meetings, and that women talk more when they, in fact, talk less. ** It’s the unconscious bias of privilege at work. But not just at work. Everywhere, including the Waitrose café in Keynsham. Did I mention that some strange little man tried to shut me up in there? Apparently I was talking too loudly on my phone, and he felt it was his duty to inform me of just how loud my voice was, while standing over me and getting right into my face. He got more than a toasted tea cake back (I slightly hope that I managed to precipitate divorce proceedings from his clearly long-suffering wife who was disgusted with him ‘Stop it Alan!’ etc).

And so, yes, I marched and I shouted. More specifically, I samba-ed and shimmied through the streets of Bristol, in highly inclement weather while brandishing a disintegrating sign. I helped stop traffic. I waved enthusiastically and whooped and hollered at the many, many cars of people who were beeping their support, and the dancing woman standing in the multi-storey car park. I marched with women and men of all ages, and with kids and the occasional canine. I stood among a sea of umbrellas as several brilliant women stood on a park bench and gave some great speeches at the end. My pussyhat was soaked through, as was the hat I’d knitted our fearless organiser of the march, Dalia. I was cold and wet but with a warm heart, a glowing heart actually, and a fierce sense of purpose.

Since last year’s march, I have written things and read things, and stood up in front of a crowd and read a poem about my boobs (!), and I have smiled, and wept, and got angry, and laughed, and shouted with brilliant women. I have held them and they have held me. I have told men like Alan that they are rude. I have never felt so powerful before in my life, and never, ever felt less alone. Together we are powerful and our voices will only get louder. And so I will march again. 

And again. And again. 

And I will keep marching until we hear women’s voices as often and as loud as we hear men’s.


*We’re not ‘supposed’ to swear either. If it’s good enough for Brian Blessed, it’s good enough for me. I wish I had his booming baritone. I am working on it.


**Language and Gender, Mary Talbot (2010)

Sunday 14 January 2018

Living with PTSD as a species, and what we can do about it in 2018

If we view the human race as suffering PTSD from all the horrible stuff that’s been going on for the past millennia, 2017 starts to make a bit more sense. Some people have called it a horrendous year, rivalled only by the year before, when the world went collectively mad and mad as hell with Trump’s victory, and Brexit being voted a great idea, and all the really good famous people dying. It is all too easy to list horror after horror in a kind of retrospective of grotesquery and decay – Trump gets sworn in and becomes the least qualified and most obviously mentally unstable president in all of history, and has multiple fights on Twitter with other toxic men with similarly unstoppable egos and vacuums where their hearts should be. And these guys have the codes to the kinds of weapons that could wipe out all life on earth over and over again many times over. We had burning buildings, poverty and homelessness rising to new levels scarily quickly, increased levels of isolationism, nationalism and ‘othering’, and other forms of hate crime and speech proliferating among a vocal and significant minority. We had tiki-torch brandishers and mass shootings and more men driving vans into innocent people and blowing up teenagers at concerts. We had the handling of Brexit being trusted to a bunch of incompetents. We saw the most catastrophic effects of climate catastrophe so far, with the devastating hurricanes in the Pacific. And we bore witness to the sex crimes of powerful men in Hollywood and everywhere, and their non-apologies. If 2016 was the year of the unthinkable happening, 2017 was the year of the toxic male, shouting and raging and harming indiscriminately, while kept in a state of legitimacy and buoyancy by the #notallmen-#alllivesmatter-#whatabout crowd.

So I think we could be forgiven for feeling a bit, well, wrung out by it all. The urge to only watch videos of cute kittens doing cute things in perpetuity is very strong. But, if we are to extend the PTSD metaphor a little further, and I’m not sure that it IS just a metaphor, the first and hardest part is acknowledging the very real hurt and damage that has been caused, either to the individual or to all of us. I see 2017 as a year of us, as a species, finally starting to face up to what has been done and what is continuing to be done in the name of maintaining the status quo that keeps a few toxic individuals in power. The outrageousness of the last couple of years means that we can no longer ignore what’s going on. After all, it’s getting closer and closer to home. We find it literally on our doorsteps in the form of environmental pollution, homelessness, drug and alcoholism, to name a few visible symptoms. Or it’s in our workplaces, it’s in our homes. What we saw as ‘normal’ once because of its very ubiquity, we are now starting to see as symptoms of a profoundly sick society.

It is painful to witness, painful to acknowledge, and the injustice of it all can have a significant psychological impact which can make us feel overwhelmed and helpless. But like all sufferers of PTSD, the next step is to work out what our triggers are, what are our toxic habits? For example, reaching for the bottle, not talking about stuff, constantly reading doomy articles on social media – the sort of responses that keep us in a state of sickness - and how to change and overcome them. Making practical changes to our lives, however small, can shift our mind-sets from powerless to powerful. When we take responsibility for our recovery, while gathering support from our friends, families, neighbours, online gaming communities, whatever, we start to feel better and we start to effect meaningful change. We connect, we empathise, we energise ourselves. We start to heal.

I can identify the cause of our profound sickness, and indeed, many people already have. Clue: it starts with ‘Pat-‘ and ends with ‘-riarchy’. Neoliberalism or neo-conservatism, or whatever you want to call the political drive towards psychopathy that seems to have gripped nations once held as bastions of ‘civilisation’ like our own, is but a mere child of it; the inevitable result of centuries, if not thousands of years, of an extreme imbalance of power that has caused untold misery to civilisations the world over. Exploitation of women, of workers, enslavement, colonialism, environmental destruction etc all stem from the same set of ideas; that to be selfish and individualistic is the only route through this thing called life. And, let’s not forget ruthless competition as the cornerstone of everything we do. That brings with it a sense of entitlement, and a lack of empathy, compassion or feelings of any kind. After all, emotions are feminine and ‘weak’, except for anger, which is only an emotion if someone other than a man is expressing it. Preferably a white heterosexual one.

This dominant cultural mind-set has been responsible for all of our collective ills, but in 2017, it took a great big sucker punch to the chest.  And please excuse the combative metaphor – this too is a symptom of the wider culture where everything has to be a ‘battle’ or ‘war’. But I think in this case, it’s somewhat apt. Weinstein didn’t see it coming, did he? It is possible that we have seen a major shift in awareness. Finally, real conversations are opening up about where we’ve been going wrong and how to change things for the better, and how to make sure the horrendous stuff is no longer coded into the system. People who have used bullying and intimidation, as well as their privilege, to get into and preserve positions of power are finally being challenged. They don’t like it. This is reason enough to rejoice.

And as an antidote to all of the horrible things that I listed at the beginning of this piece, here are some examples of good things that are or very soon will be happening. Real inroads have been made in tackling disease, health issues like smoking, and in starting to tackle some of our greatest environmental challenges such as banning bee-killing pesticides, shifting towards renewable energy, and attempting to do something about our plastic waste problem with proposed ocean clean-ups, and using recycled plastic to build roads. We’re seeing attempts to tackle food waste as well, and larger corporations seeing the wisdom in sustainability in response to consumer awareness and demand. Tesco just announced that it intends to put an end to edible food waste by March 2018, and it is hoped that other major food producers will follow suit. We’re also seeing some meaningful moves towards gender equality, with Iceland the first country to make equal pay compulsory by law, and the appointment of the first female president of the UK Supreme Court, Brenda Hale.

There is also real reason to believe that a change of consciousness is emerging. We are starting to see and hear alternative narratives. Our heroes are coming in different shapes and colours and thanks to social media, we’re actually hearing about them! Traditionally marginalised groups are finding their voices through activism and through the arts and media. In the USA for example, the top three grossing movies of 2017 were all female-fronted. Australia voted for same sex marriage. In the UK, Robert Webb and Grayson Perry contributed to conversations about gender roles and toxic masculinity; Webb with his series of talks and book ‘How Not to be a Boy’ and Perry with his book ‘The Descent of Man’ and popular accompanying exhibition. And let’s not forget that the biggest and most peaceful global demonstration against all that Patriarchy, the Women’s March, happened in January of 2017.

And this is why I am more optimistic about 2018, and I think you should be too. When I was feeling more than a little despondent about the human race at the end of 2016, a talk by Charles Eisenstein really helped me. In it, he predicted that Trump would win the election, but that it could usher in a new age of global compassion. I believe he may be right. More people are good than are not - it’s just that the psychopaths and malignant narcissists have been running too much of the show for so long, we’ve forgotten that there is an alternative way of doing things. But there are signs that things are changing for the better, and that we may yet become the compassionate, empathetic, resourceful, cooperative, and remarkable human beings that we all have the potential to be. As soon as we realise, and many of us already have, that the challenges that we now face will only be solved by a collective approach, by making equality of opportunity and preservation of our planet our greatest aims, we can achieve far more than we as individuals could ever dream of.


So, 2018? Bring it.

Monday 1 January 2018

Newyear, newme?

It is tempting to go on a bit of a quest for reinvention at this time of year. Articles abound with announcements to renounce alcohol or animal products, or kickstart some kind of daily exercise regimen that would make Jessica Ennis-Hill look like a shirker. Every year for a while now I’ve had the same urges. Do something dramatic. I’m always naturally attracted to the dramatic after all. But, this year…do I want to reinvent myself? Erm…nope.

Encouraging a bit of self-reflection...
I do believe that a bit of honest self-reflection is necessary in life to grow as a person, and grow we must, if we are to make the most of our experience here on Earth. I know that I started last year with the good intention of spending more time outdoors, walking in nature. Things have tailed off a bit in the last few months, but I did make a point of doing it through last winter, and it definitely helped with my wellbeing. I note that now I am spending less time plugged in to my tunes when I'm out and about. Not because I've gone off music (as if!) but because I genuinely want to hear the sounds around me, the birdsong in particular, and if I were permanently plugged in, I would miss the sometimes nice things that random strangers say to me in passing. It's not all catcalls. Perhaps I'm trusting and finding that the world is a friendlier place now?

So I could probably keep that good intention going. Along with my intention to keep writing. Last year, I finished a children's story I'd started twelve years ago. I got six whole weeks through The Artist's Way (50% ain't bad)! I wrote poems, including one I read out at an open mic event. I wrote songs. I launched an EP, for goodness sake! I started a new blog (this one). I wrote articles for an online magazine. I want to write more and more and more. And if I spent a bit less time responding to comments on Guardian articles and used that time writing creatively, I could probably finish a novel by the end of March. But hey, I'm not giving myself too hard a time about it. Sometimes a good comment is enjoyed by many. I even got the top comment on one Guardian article before the end of the year. It's the little things.

Yes, I could probably do with cutting down on alcohol. Just a little bit. But I’m not cutting it out entirely because I like it and my usage and abusage of it has been trending downwards for quite a while. It seems I don’t need AA or anything that dramatic. No interventions needed here.

I could do with cutting down on sugar but I’m not going to cut it out entirely because I like it and I’ve upped the exercise so I’m not too rotund. A life without chocolate or cake is one definitely less worth living, but I will try to go for quality over quantity. Gone are the days when I’d wipe out half a tub of Ben and Jerries chocolate fudge ice-cream off the back of a Domino’s pizza in one sitting. I was at my heaviest and, crucially, unhappiest in my twenties. Food is not love, you shouldn’t eat your feelings etc. I don’t. Well, I try not to. I’ve been okay at that for a while so no diets or punishing exercise regimes for me either!

I have already cut animal products down if not out of my diet. I’m okay with that. I’m the type of person that if you say I can’t have something, I will stuff my face with it at some point out of pure defiance. I’m not an extreme sort of a person really. But if I say I can have something, that it’s not on some kind of forbidden list, I will probably just not fancy it all that much. I understand my own psychology so much better now. I guess that comes with age. I’m cool with the ‘flexitarian’ me. I certainly consume a lot more plant products, and that’s got to be a good thing. I certainly feel a lot better.

2017 had its challenges for sure. But I got to the end of the year without feeling hyper anxious, which is a small victory! Last Christmas Eve, I watched the Star Wars movie in a state of discomfort and fear following a panic attack in Exeter High Street. I don’t recommend it. I kept thinking about Carrie Fisher’s heart attack and how I was going to have one, just like her. I’d also had a massive panic attack in Cabot Circus a couple of weeks before. It wasn’t pretty. I rang my sister and she talked me through it, but I must have looked a sight, sitting outside Patisserie Valerie clutching my chest, crying and hyperventilating. This year? Chilled. Totally. Almost totally. No panic attacks though, that’s the important thing!

And there’s the most significant part. The realisation that for me 2017, though definitely a bumpy ride (when will I ever have a ‘quiet’ year?), was a year that when I got to the end, I didn’t feel like I had massively taken a wrong turn or needed to sort my shit out in some grand way. In short, I am finally pretty comfortable with myself and how things are going. In conversation with a good friend of mine today, we concluded that the only thing I could probably work on is not giving myself such a hard time. So I am winning because, so far, I’m not.


Of course, it’s only 1st January, but I’m ahead of the curve on almost every other year in recent memory, so I’m quietly optimistic.

'You cannot think yourself into right living. You live yourself into right thinking.'