Angry, impolite, shrill-sounding, hysterical women

Calm down, dear. David Cameron was undeniably patronising towards female MP Angela Eagle, but there’s more to that phrase than just superiority and arrogance. I’ve done a lot of thinking lately about my own tone, particularly on online platforms like Twitter, wondering if I should indeed calm down. I’m furious with the Tories over the cuts; I’m sick to death of the widespread sexism in media; I tell brands who cement old-fashioned gender stereotypes to piss off; yes, I’m pretty sure that if you ask any of my followers on Twitter, they’ll say if not that I need to calm down then at least that I seem pretty angry a lot of the time.

So I thought to myself that maybe I should take a chill pill. Maybe this is not how deliberative politics should work, after all. Michael Kelly of The Irish Catholic certainly finds the anger a bit much: people should be able to disagree on various issues without the debate getting out of hand, he insists. We must be polite.

There you go, I thought, an Irish Catholic who has more sense than I do – I definitely need to calm the hell down. So far so good. But Kelly uses the word ‘calm’, too. Senator Ivana Bacik claimed during a hearing that the Catholic Church’s anti-abortion stance was based on sheer hatred of women, an opinion which, according to Kelly, wasn’t expressed quite calmly enough:

‘Calm? Hardly. … A gentleman is one, the old saying goes, who can disagree without being disagreeable. The same surely applies for ladies. Shrill caricatures have no place in mature debates.’

See, I don’t think this is about civilised debate.

‘Many Irish people passionately believe that gay couples ought to be allowed to get married, many others believe that marriage should be a unique institution between a man and a woman. This should be a point that people of good faith can legitimately disagree about. … Sadly, however, it usually descends into name-calling and charges of homophobia.’

This is a bit like the neoliberals who don’t like to be called neoliberal, not because they aren’t, but because the word is sometimes used in an accusatory manner. You know, thinking you have the right to tell someone what they can or can’t do simply because they’re gay is homophobic, at least in my vocabulary. Calling a spade a spade is not name-calling.

But when Cameron tells Eagle to calm down and Kelly refers to Bacik’s voice as shrill, they consciously or subconsciously evoke the idea of female hysteria. What Kelly fails to understand is that the abortion debate simply cannot be polite and civilised – that’s the nature of the debate – and this is the case with most women’s rights issues. We can disagree politely for all eternity, but politeness is not – I’m sorry, Caitlin Moran – what gave women the right to vote. Asking politely is not what changed this shocking situation in the 1970s in Ireland.

‘Any woman trying to speak about [sexting] will be greeted with a volley of “you’re just jealous as no one wants a photo of your fanny”,’ as Grace Dent put it. Or you’re not polite enough. Or you need to calm down. Or your voice is starting to sound a bit shrill. Or you’re just hysterical and need a good seeing to. ‘Too often in our political discourse reasonable voices are shouted down by shrill opponents. It’s not a sign of maturity when some voices are silenced or bullied out of the public sphere,’ says Kelly. Or, maybe, voices become shrill, loud and angry in a discourse that keeps silencing them. Because you can say a lot of things about the climate for the current abortion debate in Ireland, but you can’t say that the conservative, anti-choice voice is being bullied by a bunch of progressives in a liberal left-wing hegemony. You can try, but with only 15% women in the Dáil and a constitution that still talks about women’s duties in the home, as a middle-aged white man you’ll only sound pathetic at best. When one group starts telling another to calm down, you can be pretty sure that they’re not in any major rush to challenge the status quo.

So am I angry? No, I’m well beyond angry, and no, I won’t calm down. I’ll calm down and be polite when women are treated as equals – in political debate and in society as a whole. Until then, I’ll be as shrill as I want to be.

We need to talk about choice

I don’t quite know what to say about Savita’s death. I’m lost for words, but I have to say something, because silence is acceptance, and acceptance is condonation. I wrote, fuelled by anger and frustration, about the Irish abortion laws a while ago, and I think that post explains pretty well how pathetic I think any excuse not to legislate in the wake of Savita’s death would be. I don’t need to write that post again.

I need to add, though, that I’ve been uncomfortable with some of the debate that’s taken place since that post was written. Some pretty powerful campaigns were carried out, and some very admirable efforts were taken to bring this debate back onto a mainstream media platform – and quite successfully so – but all these progressive voices had one thing in common: the word ‘if’.

Taking on the pro-life forces in Ireland is a huge challenge, I realise that. Yet, I find it hard to accept that this has been allowed to compromise the message of the pro-choice, or I should say pro-choice-if, campaigns. The conservative Catholic heritage appears to be so powerful that no one dares to get down to the core of the issue and say that choice must be about a woman’s right to make decisions about her own body, no matter what. The so-called progressive voice has had to settle for bite-sized baby steps, working hard to bring into force legislation that legalises abortion in very extreme cases, if…

Every little helps. Of course. And this is what the women in the Guardian article I mentioned in the aforementioned post understandably argued: they should have had the right to terminate their pregnancies, because they were already deemed futile – their babies were incompatible with life. This is what some will argue in the wake of Savita’s death, too: one should have the right to terminate a pregnancy that is already about to end, if the mother’s life is in danger. Abortion per se, then, is still considered morally wrong; there is no choice to talk about, after all.

Going from the current embarrassing state of affairs to one where abortion is legal and accepted might seem impossible. I understand that. I’m just not sure the debate, in its current shape, is doing much good. It’s a tough challenge for pro-choice campaigners, but right now we’re only beating around the bush.

We need to talk about the fact that the Irish government still thinks it has the right to control women’s bodies. And we need to talk about the fact that, as a result of this, women are dying. Now, if the government is in control and people die, whom should we hold responsible?

Pretty in pink and cool dudes in blue

‘Pretty in pink’ and ‘Cool dudes in blue’ read two of the three headlines in my first ever mailout from Mamas & Papas. High on excitement about becoming a parent, I had somehow gone and allowed myself to hope that it wouldn’t be like this, that things really can’t be quite as bad as they seem. The mailout, then, came like a slap in the face of my ideas about gender-neutral parenting, and I tweeted Mamas & Papas and told them to grow up and piss off. Needless to say, they didn’t respond.

A friend did respond, though, saying something along the lines of ‘no shit, they’re still playing that stupid colour game’. No shit. And sure, it is hilarious that in 2012 you still can’t go to a kids’ clothes shop without being told that it’s great that you know that it’s a boy so that you can stock up on blues and forget all about the yellows and other in-betweens. It’s laughable that Mothercare, despite having a non-gendered newborn tab in their drop-down menu for baby clothes, feel the need to add a caption below the picture of babygros in pink saying ‘for girls’ – just to make sure you don’t misunderstand and, god forbid, buy pink clothes for your unborn son. But it’s not about the colours, really, is it? I’d happily dress my baby boy in head-to-toe blues, even if it happens to be one of my least favourite colours. Frankly, I think good parenting is about much more than fashion.

But what’s in a colour? ‘Pretty in pink’ and ‘Cool dudes in blue,’ read the headlines. And no, it wasn’t the colours per se that made me explode in a tweet. The colours, of course, are just signifiers for gender stereotypes and the expectations we put on little girls and boys of what they should grow up to be. Dress your girl in pink as much as you like: it’s not until you start telling her how pretty she is that you really start to tell her what matters. When your son is labelled as ‘tough,’ it’s no longer about the colour of his t-shirt. And as Mamas & Papas describe your daughter as ‘precious’ and your little boy’s jeans as ‘durable,’ we’ve gone way beyond fashion as simply a visual experience.

Last year, it was discovered that Lindex, a big Swedish high street chain, produced clothes for boys that were bigger than the same size clothes for girls, despite using ‘centilong,’ a size directly related to the height of the child in centimetres. The rationale, a Lindex staff member explained, was that boys like to mess around more and need loose-fitted clothes. In other words, parents can’t be trusted to know their own children and decide how tight-fitted clothes they need; instead, a boy centimetre was made bigger than a girl centimetre. Pure logic.

So boys need durable, loose-fitted clothes, because they mess around; softer fabrics will tear, and tighter clothes will be restrictive. Girls, the implication becomes, are calm and quiet. And as a friend warned us that boys can be a handful as toddlers, more so than girls, I realised that this is a widespread preconception.

I’ve been told countless times since having my son that boys are more ‘hard work’ than girls, and that may be true – I really don’t know, and frankly I don’t care. I may be of the belief that we are pretty good at living up to society’s expectations of us, and that even kids become a lot like what people tell them they should be, but the thing is that even if I’m wrong, even if the majority of boys are born louder, messier and more active than girls, there will always be exceptions. There will be bold, lively girls and calm, quiet boys – so why the need to tell them to change, to presume that deep down they’re not naturally like that? Why the need to make them feel inadequate only because of their gender?

I don’t know what happens when we tell boys that they are tough and cool, but I can guess. I don’t know how girls respond to being complimented on their looks, but research on body image tells a tale. ‘Pretty in pink’ and ‘Cool dudes in blue’? Grow up and piss off, Mamas & Papas.

Fuming with anger: on Irish political cowardice

I have just watched the video attached to this Guardian article about the increase in Irish women seeking help for abortions abroad, and I am beyond myself with anger, frustration and disbelief. I know that this is what happens in Ireland; I know that it’s inhumane and barbaric yet allowed to go on, but sometimes I forget. Sometimes I forget, and then an article like this comes along and I feel like taking the next ferry over to Dublin and knock on the door of every Fine Gael and Labour TD and tell them about Oliver and show them that there is no sense, no reason, no high-held religious principle that can justify what goes on.

I want every woman and every couple to have the right to free abortion with no questions asked, and I know that such a claim can sound both extreme and unrealistic in a climate like that in Ireland. But all subtle nuances and gestational distinctions put aside, how anyone can listen to these women who wanted so badly to be parents, who lost their children, who were given no choice and who without even blinking can say that they would have welcomed a disabled child with special needs had that been their lot, who were forced to go through their grief being judged by their own society, and say that the current abortion laws in Ireland make sense – that is, like these women say, just barbaric, inhumane and completely crazy.

When couples are given no choice, when they are told that their baby has a fatal abnormality, sticking our heads in the sand and saying that abortion is wrong because an embryo immediately after conception becomes an Irish citizen does not lead to a world where more women carry a dying foetus to term and we can go on with a clean conscience knowing that nobody’s been killed, let’s not pretend that that’s what’s happening. What these laws are saying is pretty clear: we can’t be bothered to take difficult debates about life and death, a couple’s right to choose and a woman’s right to control her own body, so we throw equality out the window and make it all about class.Under the current Fine Gael and Labour government in Ireland, and under all previous Irish governments, a woman’s right to make decisions about her own body is all about class.

The fundamental right, as such, does not exist – but you can buy it. I never quite got my head around Fine Gael’s ideological stance, but that something like this can go on in the name of a modern Labour party, that’s both ironic and a bit hard to stomach. Can you afford to travel abroad for your horrific procedure? Then go, have it done; just don’t do it on Irish soil. We don’t want your morally complicated grief here. Can’t afford it? Well there you go – your dying baby is a dying Irish citizen. Watch and feel it grow.

Let's talk about having it all

There’s a debate on twitter at the moment around the hashtag #havingitall: about the women who want to have it all, and about whether or not they can.

It’s funny how the having-it-all discussion gets stuck at greedy, career-hungry women who are stupid enough to think that they can do well professionally, lead a good life, and have a family at the same time. No one talks about the greedy, career-hungry men who are stupid enough to think the same thing. And, much more annoyingly, no one gets that, really, the discussion we should be having is about choice as opposed to greed.

Can women really have it all?, people ask. How about we change that to: Why can’t women choose from it all? Or, even better: Who’s allowed to choose what they have?

Arguing for women’s right to the opportunity to create a rewarding career for themselves while also having a family, or for men’s right to decent paternity leave and the opportunity to be a real presence in their children’s lives, is not the same as advocating a rat race kind of lifestyle where more and faster are better. Zen and mindfulness are popular enough at the moment for me to guess that most people have begun to think that less is more. You could almost say that most people probably don’t even want to have it all.

What we should be talking about is how to create a society in which every individual and family can choose for themselves. We should enable careerists to climb the ladder they want to climb and family people to spend a lot of time with their family, whether they’re men or women, while making sure that it’s actually possible to keep a job and do it well without having to neglect your children while you’re at it – if that happens to be what you want, that is.

Let’s not kid ourselves: the way things stand, not even men have that much freedom.

Is choice still choice with strings attached?

According to the documentary The Right Child [Det rätta barnet], which was broadcast on Swedish television recently, a prenatal screening programme in Denmark has started a trend which, if it continues, will lead to no more babies being born with Down’s syndrome. With more advanced screening technology, more and more parents are choosing to terminate pregnancies when the condition is diagnosed.

In a leader editorial about the documentary, Hanne Kjöller raises her concerns for the kind of society prenatal diagnostic testing creates. Highlighting that she is a pro-choice advocate, she asks what will happen when screening programmes that can detect autism in foetuses are introduced. How narrow can the perception of the perfect child get?

Kjöller’s problem is in the qualifier. She insists that she is pro-choice, but the choice, it seems, is only really valid under certain circumstances – if you choose to have an abortion, your choice must be justified using principles acceptable to intellectuals like Kjöller. “I want the decision to be the parents’,” she maintains, continuing: “But I want everyone who stands before the decision – about testing or no testing, and about abortion or no abortion – to see that the choice in the long-run is also about the kind of society we want.” Now that’s what I call choice with strings attached.

I feel Kjöller’s pain. Of course it’s about what kind of society we want, and by making abortion services readily available we open up choice to people whose decisions we can’t control. It’s as scary as democracy, really. I used to be keen on the “I’m whole-heartedly pro-choice, but…” phrase too. Until I ended up in the situation where the sonographer turned away the screen and got that look on her face. It would be easy for me to say that in our situation, it wasn’t about choice; we didn’t have one. But that would be to dodge a difficult conversation.

See, I have a problem with Kjöller’s argument, and my problem, too, is in the qualifier. She is pro-choice, but only on the condition that she retains the right to judge those taking advantage of that choice. She is pro-choice, but she reserves the right to blame parents making that choice for creating a narrow-minded, judgemental world. Truth be told, she is not really pro-choice at all, because she is not prepared to be open-minded enough to take the consequences.

It should be said, of course, that Kjöller’s reservations reside primarily within the prenatal diagnostic testing realm and not within that of abortion services. Naturally, if parents don’t know whether their babies are healthy or not, the choices they make are completely blind to unjustifiable justifiers, and as such, their decisions can be considered pure and innocent. But modern technology doesn’t allow for an opaque veil of ignorance, so where do we draw the line? And, really, aren’t there plenty of other ethically questionable justifiers? How, for example, do we feel about termination for convenience? Whose moral compass gets to decide when we’ve crossed the line? Kjöller’s?

The abortion debate is difficult for a reason, and yes, it has to be nuanced. But surely the basic principle of choice (though I must reiterate that the parents facing it are unlikely to feel like they’ve got one) is based on the belief that only the parents themselves know whether or not they are ready and able to be parents? I highly doubt that giving them the right to make that call only once it has been proven that their baby is 100% healthy, or only if they can assure us that they are completely and utterly ignorant in regards to their baby’s health, simply because we have agreed that aborting a baby with a chromosomal abnormality would be evil, would somehow lead to a more open-minded society.

It has been said that the personal is political, and that is true. This is why we legislate around these issues. But Kjöller’s definition of choice, making it into an ethical stance like any political decision, is problematic in this situation; when the toughest of decisions becomes more personal than political and the rest of society stands there watching with its politically correct and ethically romanticised fists in the air, open-mindedness goes out the window.

It’s not easy, but you can’t have it both ways. After all, choice isn’t really choice if it’s conditional. The same way that Kjöller finds some abortion qualifiers problematic, I find that pro-choice qualifiers of any kind sit quite uncomfortably alongside the context within which the fight for universal abortion rights has been and is being fought. No, I don’t want to live in a society where the perception of what is normal gets narrower by the day either. But that doesn’t mean that I’m prepared to sign up for one where even pro-choice campaigners sneer at the choices made by women who simply couldn’t cope.

[All Swedish-to-English translations are my own.]

A new opium for the masses

Three children die, because they don’t get the medicine they need. Three children die, but not because there is no medicine and their illness can’t be cured. Three children die in vain, because their father, a religious pastor, chooses not to bring his children to the doctor but to stay at home and pray.

“Prayer is,” Swedish blogger Lisa Magnusson writes, “humility, submission. But its consequence is that all suffering is, if not self-inflicted, at least something that can be rectified by believing enough and praying sincerely enough” [my translation].

Reading this, it hit me: absurd as this situation seems to many of us, it is all too familiar to a system in which we, as consumers, are ourselves omnipotent, and we, as consumers, have only ourselves to blame when the suffering strikes. Because with choice as the all-pervasive solution to all problems, who can we blame other than the person who chose wrongly?

Zygmunt Bauman writes that our fears have been privatised: in the neo-liberal world, individual problems and risks never add up to collective matters. We stop asking for help, start feeling insecure, and assume responsibility for our misery. “There is no such thing as society,” Margaret Thatcher famously said.

Perhaps neo-liberalism isn’t all that different from older forms of Christianity, lingering still today in some parts of the world, which preach about original sin and forgiveness. Perhaps, in an increasingly secular world, neo-liberalism is our new religion, an opium for the masses, the fear of a strict, condemning god replaced by the fear of individual failure.

We laugh at the thought of prayer as a substitute for scientifically-proven medication. Why is no one laughing at the idea of the hero-like, omnipotent, self-sufficient consumer in place of community and solidarity?

Capitalism 4.0 and the platitude that is economic growth

People are talking about a Capitalism 4.0. Capitalism must change for the better, they say, and become more responsible. The financial crisis that started in 2008 has demonstrated that very clearly.

I don’t know much about macroeconomics, but I find this whole discussion almost as disappointing as I find it interesting. Surely it doesn’t take an economics professor to see that, far from promoting Capitalism 4.0, the financial crash punched market economics right in the face?

Critics of the current set-up often argue, and convincingly so, that our alleged free-market economy is far from free: rather, we’ve got fully-fledged socialism and market regulation for the rich – while indeed the 99% have to put up with the harsh conditions of the market. But neo-liberals don’t like this argument. It’s childish, they say, and it’s getting old.

The fact that the only thing they ever seem to be able to counter with is an arrogant frown or a patronising smile and head-tilt would perhaps be quite the give-away if it wasn’t for the fact that the framing of the debates they take part in is always inherently neo-liberal, making any statement critical of the free market sound absolutely absurd. Just like capitalist critiques are only ever met with the rhetorical question ‘So what do you want instead?’, those in search of a Capitalism 4.0 seem to, despite agreeing that the current system is massively flawed, base their reasoning on the assumption that there is no alternative to capitalism. It came, it saw, it conquered; and now it’s here to stay. Except it didn’t quite conquer. It fucked up.

Many have argued that, as part of Capitalism 4.0, the market needs to be more responsible. Fair trade must pay off, as must environmental consciousness. We must promote innovation and long-term strategies. When it pays off for businesses to be responsible, we will get a responsible capitalism. Voila!

Here’s the beef: these people are insisting on a free-market economy, yet they’re dreaming of ideals which are antithetical to the normative principles of market logic. The market doesn’t reward responsibility – it rewards efficiency which leads to the maximisation of profit. It’s plain and simple: the market doesn’t care. Yet we’re so wrapped up in this obsession with the market as the solution to all problems that we think we can nudge it into a position of promoting justice and equality, despite the complete opposites of those values being inevitable symptoms of a capitalist system. If anything is getting old, it’s that naivety. We clearly want state regulation of markets. We clearly have to admit that this is the end of neo-liberalism.

Oh, and one more thing: let’s just clarify once and for all what this economic growth that is being repeated like a mantra really is all about. Economic growth is about the rise in demand for commodities (we want more things!), and economic success is about consumers’ increased ability to purchase those commodities (we’re spending more money on things!). Viewed in a long-term perspective, capitalism has done a good job promoting economic growth – those numbers don’t lie. Yet, it doesn’t come as news to anyone that the inequality between the people buying those things and those unable to afford any things at all is increasing steadily.

Economic growth, then, is about comfortably rich people being able to get more comfortable. And really, in all honesty, how much more comfortable do we middle and upper class people need to get? How much stuff do we really need?

I’m sick of talking about capitalism, free markets and economic growth. Call me banal, but the only economics I want to talk about is the economics that puts people first.

The norm, the exception, and a fragile bridge

Is Dame Helen Mirren an actor or an actress? In the Guardian, she’s an actor, and a recent article on the subject explains why. While readers wondered why the profession of acting wouldn’t deserve the same kind of distinction between male and female as titles such as duchess and duke, the style guide editor explained: “We described Harriet Walter as one of our greatest actors. Calling her one of our greatest actresses is not the same thing at all.”

This is of course something he’s put a lot of thought into, and I’m sure there’s fine egalitarian reasoning behind his decision. The irony is that through his statement he pinpoints exactly why this is complex: if saying that someone is one of our greatest actors seems like more of an all-encompassing compliment than suggesting that they’re one of our greatest actresses, we suggest that the latter is the exception, that one can be our greatest actress without for that matter necessarily competing with male actors at all.

In a recent episode of Stephen Fry’s new linguistics show, Planet Word, he pondered how our linguistic identity affects our world view, and a guest on the show explained how the word for ‘bridge’ carries different qualities in different languages. Germans, for example, are more likely to describe a bridge as beautiful, slender, even fragile, while Spanish people tend to talk about bridges as tall, strong, and solid. Why? Because in German, the word (die Brücke) is feminine, while in Spanish it (el puente) is masculine. Further to making me want to avoid German bridges, this says a lot about our psyche. Just think about the implications of our linguistic make-up for our world view!

There is of course nothing wrong with distinguishing between traditionally feminine and masculine, and I doubt anyone would suggest that we should get rid of these distinctions altogether. What this highlights, though, is that these traditional values and properties are deeply ingrained in our culture, and if we are likely to judge a bridge by them, we are probably very likely to do the same with people. Moreover, the fact that there’s always a norm means that there’s always an exception. That the norm is more often feminine in regards to professions to do with care, physical weakness, childcare and tidying won’t come as a surprise to anyone, and I’ve argued the case for dentists and surgeons before.

I would never dream of criticising a bipolar homosexual (that’s Mr. Fry) for a lack of understanding for those deviating from the norm. In fact, I’m not trying to criticise anyone here: expressing cultural heritage through the use of our dear language is not only a necessary exercise, but one can prove very interesting. I am merely hoping to act as a spotlight on that cultural heritage. And I’m hoping that the next time you cross a German bridge, you will think about this whole thing with masculine and feminine, norm and exception, once and for all.

The token woman and the panel show

Four episodes of this season’s BBC1 panel show Would I Lie To You have been broadcast so far, and they all had one thing in common: a token woman.

Please forgive me. I don’t mean to underestimate the value these female guests bring to the show, or suggest that they don’t have what it takes to join forces with the regulars who take up a majority of the panel show air time available today (and there’s plenty). In fact, I’ve avoided writing about this simply not to do that, not to make them into a token, a gender and a box ticked. Until I read Elin Grelsson’s column on the topic, that is.

Grelsson writes about the artist Marie Capaldis, whose paintings were displayed at the Gothenburg museum of art alongside a sign explaining that the museum since 2005 has a gender awareness policy which is taken into account when art is purchased.

Gender perspective? Well done. But in describing a woman’s art while boasting about the institution’s gender awareness policy, all they do is highlight the fact that the male artist is still the norm, completely undermining Capaldis’s work.

“How can you promote marginalised groups without making them into exceptions, which in the long run only reinforces the norm?” asks Grelsson. I think the answer is that it’s incredibly difficult, and this explains very well my reaction to the Would I Lie To You trend.

Friends who work in the industry will say that it’s not due to lack of effort. The few successful female comedians around are approached indeed – but they don’t want to take part. You can’t get women on the panel shows, goes the explanation.

I think they’re telling the truth, but I don’t think it’s good enough. When you week in and week out invite a relatively unknown female comedian to take part in a show with a male presenter, two male team captains and three famous male guests, you’re merely ticking a box, while the culture that stopped other female celebrities from accepting the offer remains as strong as ever.

All the token woman does is clear the conscience of production companies that should be asking themselves where it all went wrong.

I don't know how he does it

“If you want to have it all, it’s your job to work out how to do it. If you can’t, give something up.” That’s David Cox’s advice to Kate, the high-flying fictitious character in the film I don’t know how she does it.

I suspect we’ll read many a harsh critique of the super-woman film, but I wasn’t quite prepared to read this in the Guardian. I’m not saying that this Hollywood plot doesn’t need some ripping apart – the have-it-all approach to life indeed deserves questioning – but your way of criticising something says a lot about your outlook on life. And I guess, somehow, I keep forgetting that even the most liberal publications in the UK look at parenting as a one-woman job.

Many would agree – and I’m sure I will too if I ever see the film – that the plot is nothing but a boring cliché. My idea of the real world, however, differs quite a bit from Cox’s. He answers the question of how she does it with the accusation that Kate uses her poor husband, a man who wishes to focus on furthering his own career but is forced to bring their injured son to the hospital when selfish mammy is at work. He explains her success by pointing the finger at the way she expects of her employer to be flexible, thereby, he suggests, somehow undermining the efforts of women who don’t need flexibility at work because they don’t have a family: they’ve had to make a sacrifice, means Cox, so why should we let selfish Kate get away with not making one?

“Motherhood is voluntary,” Cox reminds us. But “fulfilling all other aspirations at the same time may or may not be practicable.”

This is where I lose him completely. We’re supposed to look at Kate as a “scumbag” for wanting it all (but, he insinuates, not doing it well enough), yet her husband is described as a victim. Isn’t fatherhood voluntary as well? What does he mean?

Here’s what I think he means. Fatherhood isn’t that demanding, after all. Most fathers manage very well to combine fatherhood with successful careers, thank you very much. And so no one ever says, ‘I don’t know how he does it’. Why? Because parenting is a mother’s job. It’s a mother’s fault when a child is malnourished; the mother is the one who’s neglected a child who doesn’t learn to talk when other kids do. Laundry, school runs, hospital visits – it’s all done while the father’s at work. That’s how he does it: he’s got a wife.

About mothers, Cox writes that “if they can’t work as hard as their childless colleagues to get a seat on the board, they could manage without one.” But of course, a majority of the board members aren’t childless. They’re fathers. And fathers don’t have to make sacrifices, we all know that. Right, Cox?

[All of the above is of course based on yet another of the patriarchy's great myths: the idea that not getting to spend a lot of time with your kids isn't in itself a sacrifice for fathers. But that's another discussion for another post.]

Voluptuous doesn't cut it: androgyne is the new pinup

“In this society, if a man is called a woman, that’s the biggest insult he could get.” The words are Andrej Pejic’s, and he sure has a point. But his life story turns this idea upside down, and then back around again: he has not only been dubbed the prettiest boy in the world – but also, to quote his mother, “the most beautiful girl I’ll ever see in a wedding dress.”

It’s a heart-warming story, the one about Bosnian Andrej who as an 8-year-old moved with his mother and siblings to Melbourne in Australia via Serbia, discovering hair dye and make-up along the way, eventually returning to the more androgyny-friendly Europe to realise his dream of becoming a professional model.

He is the boy who left his “gender open to artistic interpretation” and denied the need for a strong gender identity: “I identify as what I am.” Mixing appearances on men’s catwalks with jobs showcasing women’s collections, Andrej allows fashion gurus to, as New York Magazine puts it, “feel progressive without having to actually challenge the aesthetic norm.”

It’s probably the progressiveness without challenge that rubs me up the wrong way. While Andrej is free to be who he really wants to be – and I salute that whole-heartedly – it’s difficult not to feel like the fashion world is jumping on a very tempting bandwagon that is really only opportunism in disguise. New York Magazine hits the nail on the head over and over again without even realising it, writing that “he is six-foot-one, thin as the stroke of a paintbrush”, that in Melbourne “he was too beautiful to be an obvious choice for men’s campaigns”, and that “spending time with Pejic is like losing a race to someone who’s not even running: if he were not a man, he would be the most beautiful woman I have ever seen in the flesh”.

Everyone’s full of praise for Andrej, but while he himself is talking about moving beyond gender, it seems like his employers do nothing but use him to reinforce unobtainable ideals for both men and women. Despite being thin as the stroke of a paintbrush, Andrej admits that he has had to lose weight to fit into women’s wear; at the same time, he didn’t fit the bill for the “relatively macho Australian market”, and still in the US he says that he tries to be stronger when working with men’s wear – and it was not until the then editor-in-chief of French Vogue put him in women’s wear that he really made it as a model.

There’s nothing new about this, really. I think about Rickard Engfors, the Swedish performer and drag queen who was once voted Sweden’s hottest woman. “I lived up to all the female ideals, but I wasn’t good enough as a man,” he told DN. “I was too thin, too unfit, not well-endowed enough” [my translation].

Andrej talks about how his behaviour wasn’t acceptable for a boy, how he “closed in” for years before eventually letting the platinum blonde out. A moment of freedom for him, of course; but it seems sadly ironic that the fashion industry confirmed that it still isn’t acceptable for a boy – that you don’t make it as a boy with platinum hair, you make it as a boy who is constantly assumed to be a woman. Or, like Rickard, as a drag queen.

What really made me think twice, initially, was probably the fact that I didn’t hesitate for a second when I saw a picture of Andrej on the catwalk, shirt unbuttoned to reveal a flat, hairless chest: to me, Andrej was doubtlessly a woman. Why? Because not even the complete lack of breasts would make me question the catwalk ideals that are so ingrained in my way of thinking. In the world of fashion, voluptuous doesn’t cut it – no womb or ovaries or oestrogen will ever win over “the impossibly hipless and curveless women the fashion industry fetishizes” [sic].

And that’s what I take away from all of this: that women are no longer unfeminine enough to fit the bill in a fashion world that can’t deal with diversity but is still as focused on gender as ever, that still indeed differentiates between men’s and women’s collections, no matter how much they brag that they don’t want to put their models in a box. To me, that’s got nothing to do with “side-stepping the gender issue”. Andrej may be beautiful and flexible enough to work on both sides of the gender divide, but he’s still always forced to act either/or: strong and masculine or brittle and feminine.

Androgyne appears to be the new pinup, but the way we talk about gender tells a tale. The masculine and the feminine are still as defined as ever – most of us are just never quite good enough. And that dissatisfaction, of course, is the secret to the success of the fashion industry.

There is no '12-week rule'

The first thing you get when you go to your GP and say that you’re pregnant is a calm congratulations, and then a reminder that one in four pregnancies end in miscarriage. Not exactly fireworks.

There are reasons for this, of course. First of all, it’s true, and most people are not aware. And maybe, maybe, when you have your first miscarriage, knowing that it happens all the time can help you deal with it differently and stop you from blaming yourself. But this is part of a much bigger picture, and, the way I see it, quite a problematic one.

When Victoria, the Crown Princess of Sweden, and her husband Daniel announced the other day that they are expecting, everyone seemed to have an opinion (quite amusing, considering the number of Swedes that are critical of the monarchy). Many opinions were more or less identical versions of Peter Wolodarski’s – the Political Editor in Chief of one of the biggest liberal dailies, who boasted about the fact that he refused to change the plan for the editorial leader spread in order to write about the big news – which pointed out that it seemed a bit risky to make a big deal out of it at such an early stage in the pregnancy.

It’s the idea that it’s risky that leaves me feeling a bit confused. As if it’s only really risky once you say it out loud: if you pretend nothing’s happened, no one’s going to get hurt.

Pregnancy books all say that it’s up to you when you start telling people about your good news, and that many people choose to keep it a secret until after the first trimester, since the risk of miscarriage decreases significantly then. As a couple with no previous experience of pregnancies, you get a pretty clear message: if you go and tell the world you’re pregnant and you end up miscarrying, don’t say we didn’t warn you.

But this fear of jinxing it is built on the idea that we shouldn’t share painful experiences, and that if you do, it’s a little bit embarrassing: you’re a failure, and you’re putting everyone else in an awkward position. What more is, it completely disregards the fact that there are no guarantees. If we are so scared of having to grieve publicly, what about when the unexpected happens? Should we have to apologise for going through hell? Should we actually feel GUILTY?

We live in a world where whoever is happiest wins. Subsequently, we live in a world where happiness must be measured, because otherwise we’ll never know just how well we’re doing, and hence we’re constantly chasing points: partners, houses, careers, promotions, exotic holiday trips, babies. It’s like life is a never-ending merry-go-round where every spin gets better and better, until we’re so manic and everything’s so shiny that we can’t even see that the sun is shining.

I don’t think true happiness equals constant elation, and I don’t think make-believe surface-level happiness does anyone any good. Whatever they tell you, there’s no right or wrong time to tell people you’re pregnant, there are no guarantees, and there certainly isn’t any ’12 week rule’. If you choose to wear your heart on your sleeve, and your grief with it, I hope that the people around you will carry you through and admit that life has its ups and downs – not turn a blind eye, think ‘I told you so’, and wish you’d put on a brave face and kept your embarrassing misery to yourself.

Inequality and social unrest - this is politics

“Keeping people safe is the first duty of government,” said David Cameron in the House of Commons after recalling parliament. Not a particularly surprising statement coming from a true conservative. But put into context, where what the prime minister is really saying is that the government’s main task is to protect one part of society from another, it not only explains to some degree how we ended up in this situation in the first place, but also expresses the idea of an ‘us’ and a ‘them’ which could lead to further segregation and unrest.

Cameron went on to say that the riots were “not about politics or protest – it was about theft,” and that “in too many cases, the parents of these children, if they’re still around, don’t care where their children are.” In other words, don’t blame the government – blame the parents. Which parents? Those in the ghettos, who don’t belong to ‘us’. Those from whom the government will protect you.

It’s easy to fall into the mindset of anger and vengeance and agree with Cameron. We’re all angry about what’s happened to our city: the amount of people who have lost their homes and livelihoods; the amount of taxes required to recover from this; how many of us suddenly no longer feel safe in our own streets. These crimes are inexcusable, so why pretend they’re justifiable?

They’re not, of course. This kind of deliberate destruction is never justifiable, be it in London or in Norway or in Iraq. But that doesn’t change the fact that it feels a bit as though a rhetoric comfortably suitable to the boys in charge – and I’m talking about the government here, not the rioters – has been shoved down our throats and we’re too angry to question it.

There’s an inherent flaw in the argument that these people are mindless scum and hence the whole thing is apolitical. Aren’t we suggesting that they’re too ignorant to see what they’re doing to their own communities? Aren’t we saying that they’re mindless enough not to care? Well that, people, is politics.

If thousands of young citizens are convinced that there’s no place in society for them, if they’re so disconnected from their own city that they feel like they have nothing to lose and it makes no difference if they go and smash it to bits and burn it down, then we’re failing somewhere.

It could be the British class system and the segregation, or perhaps the increase in higher education fees and slashing of means-tested grants. Perhaps it’s the sometimes completely unjustified stopping and searching of certain groups of people (intended to keep other groups of people safe, I guess). Maybe it’s a cocktail of all of the above, along with a long list of issues which I, as a middle-class creative in Crouch End, don’t even know exist.

Then there’s the added complication of the fact that peaceful protests don’t work, that people came out in droves to show their dissatisfaction with the suggested increase in higher education fees and were ignored. Some would say that the government lost its mandate right there and then. Those rioting in the streets of London and other cities may not have had a political agenda in mind, but we’re not exactly encouraging them to either: it’s pretty clear that the politicians don’t want to listen to them. That politicians, on top of that, show a complete lack of respect for public funds by abusing the expense system probably doesn’t help.

We’ve got to dare to ask ourselves what went wrong that led to these riots, and in doing so we have to admit that these people are real citizens who have to be a part of society. The right-wing rhetoric of making the rioters into mindless monsters may fit very well in with an ideology that insists that a certain level of unemployment is necessary as an incentive for people to work hard, but it’s not only proven wrong by the events in Britain over the past week – it’s also exactly the kind of talk that confirms to these people that they don’t belong and that society doesn’t want them.

Cameron wants to protect one part of society from another, the one outside of it. On Twitter, another suggestion came up: how about social justice and equality instead?

How the predictable can be sad

Who would have thought that some sympathy would face so much criticism?

When Amy Winehouse died on Saturday, we didn’t just lose one of the greatest singers of our time. Her parents lost a daughter, many lost a friend. Yet, most of Amy’s obituaries, along with endless angry tweets and facebook updates, were preoccupied by pondering the apparently surprising scenario that her death left thousands if not millions of people shocked, sad, almost speechless. Amy’s destructive lifestyle had been well-documented by the media: we shouldn’t be surprised, so we shouldn’t be sad.

As if the death of a young person could ever really be comprehensibly predictable, because of addictions or depressions or self harm or long lists of pills you don’t even know the names of. I knew back in 2006 that my sister was thinking about killing herself, because she told me. Still, when she did, it shocked me to the core. Because no matter how sick you are, how many demons you’re struggling with, the unthinkable remains unthinkable.

As if the predictable can’t be sad; as if fact equals acceptance. Would you have said the same thing to me the day before I went in to give birth to my fatally ill son? I knew that he wouldn’t survive, but that never stopped me from mourning the loss of my firstborn.

But Amy was just a drug addict. She brought it on herself. (Or, as someone said on facebook, “I couldn’t give a shit about Amy Winehouse. She was an idiot and she brought it on herself, so zero sympathy.”)

Focus on Norway. Now that’s a tragedy. (Yes, many people were seriously offended by the amount of attention given to the death of the troubled singer, because they felt that it should have been over-shadowed by the much more devastating events in Norway.)

As if an addict doesn’t deserve being paid tribute to. As if losing a miserable, self-destructive daughter would somehow be easier than losing one who is happy, generous, blissfully unaware of what’s to come. As if it’s a competition and you have to choose: pick no more than one terrible incident at any one time, and grieve that. And don’t you dare mention that mess of a drug addict called Amy.

People can be as cynical as they like about it all and say that sad things happen all the time. I’m aware of that, and I don’t mind them taking the piss out of people like me, who are shocked again and again by bad news. I don’t even mind if they feel the need to compare and say that Norway is worse – because even if I don’t see how comparing loss is possible or even appropriate, I understand that it comes from fear and not ignorance: it was a deliberate attack on democracy; many victims were innocent teenagers; and, that notion that’s so hard to digest – that they were all just normal, sane people, just like us.

What bothers me is the narrow-minded view of addiction: the idea that a girl who goes from eating disorders to self harm and addiction only has herself to blame and that she’s somehow worth less than other people, in extreme cases the opinion that she actually deserves to die. It makes me feel physically sick that there are people in my online network who genuinely don’t understand that self harm and addiction are more complicated than the thing we call choice. It’s not only a heartless stance, but one that says a lot about the society we live in.

The death of a 27-year-old woman is a sad thing no matter how predictable you insist that it was. The death of Amy Winehouse was perhaps particularly sad, because of the hostility and ignorance it exposed in us.

Selfish, depressed fuckers

I sat on the tube the other day as an announcement came: “The Piccadilly Line will from now on run with some delays due to a person under a train at Arnos Grove. We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.” In front of me: a row of tired, annoyed faces. Tutting and sighing all round.

That particular day, for some reason, the absurdity struck me: it was an announcement like any other, a reason for delays like any other. Yet another voice mechanically apologising for the inconvenience of someone killing themselves on the particular tube line YOU depend on.

People are in a hurry, you know. They have meetings to attend, emails to reply to, bosses to face. Almost everyone in the whole world is busy enough to get seriously annoyed when someone picks their train to jump in front of.

I interviewed some internship candidates that day. One of them called to say that he was running late, and when he finally arrived and shook my hand he said, “I’m so sorry I’m late. There were severe delays on the overground due to a person under a train. Some people are selfish, aren’t they?”

I laughed, because I didn’t know what else to do. Selfish, depressed fuckers. Ruining everyone else’s day because of their misery.

That guy didn’t get the internship. It wasn’t because he was late.

Ideology v politics from the gut: why you have to choose sides

I’m not going to lie: it did disappoint me when David Mitchell wrote that politics shouldn’t be about ideas but about money. Maybe because I admire him so much, both as a writer and as a political commentator, and I didn’t want him to eliminate every bit of hope I’ve ever had for the world. Maybe because the truth hurts.

Or maybe it was because I’ve been wanting to write about the importance of ideology for some time now, and his black-and-white reasoning challenged my arguments further. And I’m just not sure I’m quite ready to start arguing with Mr. Mitchell.

I’ve seen a lot of political freestylers around on Twitter lately, many of whom are highly intelligent, politically clued-in writers. They advocate what you could call a go-with-the-flow kind of approach to politics, suggesting that you don’t have to sign up to any particular school of thought but can make your mind up about any given policy in complete isolation.

I realise that this isn’t exactly what David Mitchell is saying, but in the absence of the fancy ideas he’s laughing at, we’re kind of left with nothing but freestyling, whether we like it or not. There is of course something quite attractive about this trust-your-gut attitude that people are promoting, but it’s got a flip-side too: if politics is all about money, surely it’s not a go-with-the-flow kind of person we want in charge? At the end of the day, how can we trust that tomorrow she’ll spend money the way yesterday she promised she would?

Mitchell’s column was inspired by the news that retail guru Mary Portas had been hired by the government to save the high street, and he’s got a point: it’s a gimmicky idea that probably does a better job ticking PR boxes than saving a sinking retail ship. Agreed. But he draws the conclusion that ‘we get distracted into thinking that politics is about ideas, innovation and “thinking outside the box”, rather than seeing the mundane truth which is that it’s primarily about money. Governments decide how much tax we pay and what to spend it on. They should express their values and priorities through how they take money from us and how they give it back – and that’s what we should judge them on.’

There are two important words here: values and priorities. To me, these words sum up politics better than any budget or equation ever will. When a government acts – when a budget is drawn up, when cuts are made, when funding is moved from one area to another – it puts our money where its mouth is, to use Mitchell’s clever words. But this is only one of many steps in a political process which, I will continue to insist, depends on ideology as some sort of backbone.

Like Mitchell writes, the way a government spends money is an expression of its values and priorities, and this is key; the values come first, not the money. At the very heart of a democratic system is an electorate that votes for candidates who represent their values and worldview – and the day they vote for something else, be it charisma, populist promises or a PhD in Economics, accountability goes out the window.

Let’s think about this go-with-the-flow attitude. In fact, let’s use as an example last year’s general election in the UK. Say you’ve always voted Labour. Then a wildcard is thrown into the pot, promising to abolish higher education fees. This is important to you, so you vote for them – it’s just one of many policies, but one you really care about. The wildcard, also known as Lib Dems, goes into coalition with the Tories and compromises on the one issue you really cared about, probably hoping that its sympathisers will appreciate a number of other liberal policies they manage to push through. Labour ends up representing the opposition. Now what? You feel robbed – but as long as Lib Dems keep fighting for their liberal core values, you can’t really complain.In addition to values, Mitchell mentions priorities – because there’s a lot of prioritising and compromising in politics. This is why the freestylers have it wrong: you do have to make your mind up, sign up to some sort of ideology, and choose sides. You do have to decide what kind of world you want to live in, and accept that politics is about more than just the money in your wallet at this very moment. You do have to accept that in order for your values to be represented overall, compromises will have to be made – but it’s keeping your eyes on the goal that will make it all make sense.

That is why the go-with-the-flow people have it wrong. Motions get ignored and policies get compromised on. Circumstances change. But scrutinise yourself, and you’ll find that your core values – the way you look at people, your idea of what justice really is, your opinion on freedom versus obligations – don’t change that quickly. They’re bigger than that.

Decide where you stand and vote for a party that stands near you, and soon you’ll find that – more often than not – they’ll use your money to create your kind of world. Or go with the flow. Freestyle. Vote with your wallet. Follow your gut and vote for whatever feels important today, right now, for you. And end up feeling robbed, like those responsible for Lib Dems’ success in the last election – the students.

What the royal wedding taught us

1. You are what you wear – if you’re a woman

If I hear one more fashion editor’s orgasmic praise of the stupidly expensive creation of some ‘it’ designer of the moment, or see another picture of a ridiculous headpiece that does nothing but hinder its owner from entering a building with normal doors (as if that would ever happen on the day of a royal wedding), I think I might throw up. Seriously. The stupidity of one commentator’s outbursts fades in comparison to another’s, and the scrutiny of the bodies and dress senses of the women who were invited to today’s big event seemed endless. Was anyone betting like crazy on what colour suit Prince Charles would wear or what stylist would get the honour of doing Harry’s hair? Did anyone really care that Nick Clegg looked like he hadn’t slept in weeks?

2. A veil is a veil is a veil

As the burqa ban in France is dubbed “a victory for tolerance” on the basis that covering one’s face is an act against liberal values and openness regardless of its motivation, and similar laws are considered in other European countries on grounds of equality and women’s rights, Kate covers her face with a silk ivory-tulle veil as her father walks her up the aisle. Not as an act against openness or because she needs it to protect her, nor because her future husband refuses to share her beauty with the world, but maybe to invoke a sense of purity and innocence, or perhaps simply because of tradition. But as she is handed over to the prince and her veil is lifted, rightly or wrongly, the fact that a veil is a veil becomes painfully clear; us westerners suddenly seem hypocritical at best, and I can’t help but wonder: what’s behind the veil, when does it stop being beautiful and start being controlling, and who am I to decide what another woman can or can’t wear?

3. The monarchy, along with the wider aristocracy and the church, is patriarchal through and through

The royal wedding was like a satire of something from the early 1900s, where women are good for nothing but pleasing the eye. While no one will be surprised that The Very Reverend and his buddies were all male, I was surprised and disappointed – perhaps naively so – by the fact that not one single woman bar Kate’s sister, who mainly got to run around like a servant, got to participate in the ceremony in an active way. The interiors were thought out by a male designer, the music was provided by a boys’ choir, and the wedding song was composed by a man. And as much as I hate to sully the fairytale tradition of a father walking his daughter down the aisle to hand her over to the new man in her life, the restrictive, almost aggressive way in which this was done as Kath’s father lifted her hand and put it into the priest’s, whereby he grabbed it and lifted it across to put it firmly in Will’s, made me wonder why she bothered at all to remove the line where she would vow to obey her husband forever.

4. Britain’s class system is as strong and present as ever

That a well-educated woman who went to a private boarding school and whose parents are successful business owners is repeatedly referred to as a “commoner” is just one of many signs of how protective the aristocracy is of its status, but as millions of Britons of different backgrounds clearly think that it’s perfectly normal to watch these two random people get married, spending billions of tax payers’ pounds, I’m forced to admit that it’s not just the well-off themselves who seem keen to preserve status quo.Some people have eagerly suggested that Kate, the commoner that she is, will change the image of the royal family forever. I wouldn’t hold my breath. As Guardian writer Amanda Marcotte was quoted to have said, “I’m glad that the royal family has caught up to the 1920s. I look forward to an exciting new future when the women start wearing pants and the men learn how to hold infants.”

Baby on board - shout it from the rooftops!

“I like to think I’m a fairly tolerant person. I’m not, obviously, but I still like to think it. In truth, as I get older the list of things that disproportionately annoy me gets longer. Grammatical errors. Tourists who walk too slowly down busy London thoroughfares. Pregnant women who wear “Baby on board” badges when travelling on public transport. That kind of thing.”

I read the first paragraph of Elizabeth Day’s column in The Observer last weekend and thought: I like her; she’s a bit like me. Because not only am I a notorious grammar stickler, but I used to think exactly that – in fact, I still feel a bit like that – about those stupid badges.

Still today, I refuse to wear one. Despite finding out that the back pain and exhaustion that comes with pregnancy can turn up way ahead of the neat little bump, nine weeks on from being diagnosed with pelvic girdle pain and spending a week completely housebound with pain, I still don’t wear one.

What is it that the ‘Baby on board’ badge says that’s so offensive? Does it communicate weakness? Is it something about the blatantly ticking biological clock that our career-minded society can’t stomach?

A nice, middle-aged lady stood up as I got on the tube the other day and gave me her seat. Then she smiled and said, “You should get one of those badges. You’re only very tiny, and people can’t tell.” I’m sure it came from a good place, yet I felt attacked. After all, she clearly could tell, couldn’t she?

“You’re only very tiny,” what does that mean? Is it a compliment, meaning that I’m skinny (in which case it’s a lie)? Does it mean I don’t actually look that pregnant after all (in which case it feels a bit like a slap in the face)? The bump will bloody grow, won’t it? And, as much as I appreciated her giving me her seat, who is she to decide whether or not I choose to publicise my current state in order to get comfortable during my commute, and how I choose to do so? Is it really that embarrassingly awkward for people to stare at my belly for a few seconds to try to figure out what’s really going on, and if so, is that my fault? I’m not moaning, am I? Or am I ruining the rush-hour peace with my sheer presence?

Of course she’s got a point. Elizabeth Day may be a fantastic writer with plenty of self-awareness and an ability to laugh at herself, but at the end of the day it’s not the middle-aged woman on the tube who is pathetic for thinking that a simple badge might help. Maybe I should learn to laugh at myself too, and get over what seems like nothing but a superwoman complex.

(By the way, a clearly blind woman with a walking stick got on the bus this morning. I waited for a second, but no one, not a single person, gave up their seat. So I got up. You know, I’m only very tiny, after all. But what do they want from her? A “Watch out! Blind person!” badge?)