Today's Shocking news.

Gary Glitter is dirty old man.

Women are in the news again, this time they are spending too much!

Apparently women are more in debt than men (although I am yet to find a link - I heard about this on the radio). Expert financialists and media types speculate why this is.

Could it be women are being coerced into buying more things, things they cannot afford because the magazines tell them to? Maybe. Could it be they take out store cards that have ridiculous interest rates because they are not given the full information about that card on which to base their decisions? Maybe it’s that too.

It might even be because when relationships break down women are more often than not left to care for the children. It might also involve the fact that if these women are left to care for the children they cannot work, can only work part time, if they work full time they have to pay extortionate amounts for childcare, or it could be that they can’t get the higher paid jobs because they have responsibilities outside of the office.

Our whole society is geared up for man-woman partnerships, whether you’re raising children or not. If this doesn’t exist, then the system falls down.

Quit work have babies

Recent scaremongering news reports claim women are putting off having kids until they are old (the horror!) and this delay is making it more difficult for them to conceive. This makes them very bad and selfish, or so news reports claim. (Thanks to Gendergeek for the links)

I have not really experienced the direct effect such reports have on women. Until yesterday that is, when during role play in my counselling class my ‘client’ spoke about her ongoing decision making process regarding starting a family, juggling her particularly stressful, competitive and male dominated career and her progressing age. Recent news items and events in her life had brought all her concerns to the front of her mind.

Her particular worry was based on the ‘if you are too old you won’t be able to conceive and you will have terrible trouble and complications’ message in the recent news. She has a career planned out, she knows she had the smarts and ability to be successful, but her occupation and particular work place require total dedication to career, and have a less than favourable maternity leave set up.

The feminist in me fought against the (trainee) counsellor in me during our talk. Counsellors should not advise or pass judgement, nor should they steer the conversation to their own ends – but I wanted to tell her it was a crock. Instead I tried to help her think about the future, what she wants, how she could achieve it and not loose out. I encouraged her to look at the facts behind the scaremongering.

I was thinking about the strange double standard in our society regarding women and childrearing on the way home after my class. On the one hand working women are under pressure to put their career on hold (or abandon it altogether) to have babies, quick!, before it’s to late.
On the other, women having babies ‘too early’ are equally pressured, they have made mistakes that will ruin their lives, they are unfit, they are irresponsible!

Now or later, it would seem we cannot win.

Bleurgh.

Public toilets are horrible. They are much much worse when you have to put your hands on the seat and your face in the bowl.

They are especially terrible when you are being sick in them. And on the floor, and on your shoe. The sickness is made worse by having your head next to a tampon bin. The smell alone makes me wretch.

Why have I not gone home yet?

Gender roles and psychoanalysis. Lowering the tone.

For some strange reason I will sit and watch a full episode of ‘Shopaholics’ on BBC3 when I channel surf upon it. For those of you who don’t know, Shopaholics is a reality tv show that attempts to reform people who overspend to the point that they are in thousands of pounds in debt.

Thrilling viewing pleasure, I can imagine you’re thinking, why on earth is she telling me about her viewing habits now? Well, there are two reasons, and they are completely unconnected

1) Gender role reversal

The two person team on Shopaholics is made up of one women and one man, already there is balance. In a shocking reversal of stereotypes and a swooping move to turn the viewers world upside down the woman is the financial advisor whiz and the man is the caring airy fairy emotion centred psychologist type (I am not sure if he’s a proper Psych-o though).

I like this.

2) Psychoanalysis bites

The caring airy fairy emotional psychologist man seems to be a lover of the psychoanalysis. I myself am rather a hater of the psychoanalysis.

We watch him try to pin every single Shopaholic’s untamed spending habits on depression, triggered by some kind of childhood trauma. When he cannot find a childhood trauma he does the psychoanalysts trick of making everything into a trauma thus confusing the poor Shopaholic into thinking they’ve had a terrible life and their childhood was full of sorrow and pain.

Being a psychoanalyst it appears he thinks every problem stems from childhood. Being a psych graduate who likes to short loud her opinions on all kind of topics and who thinks she knows something about some stuff, I think he is wrong. Yes, I do believe childhood and adulthood trauma can trigger psychological distress, but I don’t think that’s the root of all psychological distress, or the root of all the Shopaholics’ particular wild spending habits.

I believe that learned behaviour could play a large part in the development of a Shopaholic and their debt, as well as the development of other psychological problems. I also believe that addressing and challenging this learned behaviour, along with why it is carried out, can do more to help some people than creating childhood traumas. Don’t that fuck you up more?

I do no like this. I shout-a at the man on tv.

Yes, this was a half cocked discussion of gender roles and psychological approaches to treatment all combined to form an odd post that lacked any kind of conclusion. I should probably leave off the blogging for a while, at least until I can write a post based on something other than me and the tv, so I do not anger readers any further with this waffle.

Proud to be a feminist

That’s what the badge I picked up from FEM05 proclaims. Damn straight.

FEM05: A review

The conference was a great success. It ran smoothly, all due to my excellent cloakroom and welcome desk skills (erm…no!), it was interesting, and well subscribed.

My early cloakroom duties meant I missed the opening talk and the first seminar on violence against women, but my other job involved me being in the auditorium so I was able to catch the second seminar on women in the work place, which was excellent.

There were three speakers, Sheila Wild from the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC), Rachel Gill from the Trades Union Congress (TUC) and Vivienne Hayes, Director of the Women's Resource Centre. Of the three, Rebecca Gill stood out the most for me. Her speech not only challenged the gender inequalities in the workplace, but also stirred passion among the audience to arm themselves to fight against it.

In the afternoon I attended a workshop run by Jennifer Drew, Chair of Object, on Challenging the Normalisation of the Sex and Porn Industry. I had high hopes for this seminar which focussed specifically on lads mags, but actually found it provided little new information, lacked organisation/control and failed to offer useful and proactive channels for the anger many women in the seminar felt about the topic.

On reflection some interesting points were raised, particularly that the ASA are self regulating body funded by the publishing industry (so that’s why they’re so ham fisted and reluctant to strike back) and it also exposed the astounding double standards of the ASA in their strong censorship of gay mens magazines such as Gay Times as opposed to lads mags such as Zoo. For example a cover of Gay Times showing a buff man in just his Jockies was censored for being explicit, where as Zoo or Nuts could have a naked woman on the cover with just tassels covering her nipples and her hand covering her muff. It also reminded me that teen girls magazines are highly censored and strictly monitored, but there’s no one checking up on these mags that are being sold to boys as young as 10.

It was also interesting and quite surprising that this workshop filled up the quickest, was over subscribed and appeared to contain no pro-porn feminists.

The final seminar of the day was entitled Feminism, and aimed to argue why feminism is still important. This was another great seminar, with speeches from Prof Jeff Hearn (of Swedish School of Economics, Helsinki, Finland & University of Huddersfield, UK) a Profeminist who spoke on Masculinities and ‘the problem of men’. His was a strange talk, which left me with the impression that he believed men needed to be oppressed in some form to ensure women can become equal. An idea that doesn’t sit very well with me. I didn’t take up the feminist cause to oppress men, and I don’t think that’s the way to gain true equality.

Jenny Westaway of The Fawcett Society also gave a great speech on the paygap and why feminism is as relevant as even and Jo Salmon, National Women's Officer, NUS and feminist and LGBT blogger, spoke on issues relating to students at university and beyond, again mentioning the paygap, and an disgraceful fact that within 5 years of leaving university women can expect to be paid 15% less than their male counterparts when doing exactly the same job!

An interesting discussion started up after the seminar, from which I remember one specific question that struck me. A delegate asked whether equality can ever be achieved in a capitalist society.

It can’t. Capitalism relies on the cheap labour of the underclass to grease its wheels. To achieve equality we need not only to fight for women’s rights, but against capitalism. I will write more on this soon.

All in all FEM05 was a long day, but a good day. And I got a free lunch, a free t-shirt and a lot of inspiration and ideas for this blog and Subtext for my trouble.

My only criticism is that it focussed too heavily on what’s wrong, and not how we can work together to put it right. I think if Subtext can balance these two things, and give readers options how they can work towards equality in their community if not on a larger scale we would be on to a really good thing.

Smiling means you're mad

04Smiling, originally uploaded by mentalnurse.

I am totally buzzing.
Bzzzzzzz.
I can’t sit still.
I can’t do any work.
I can barely think straight.
I am pure energy.

Words zip in and out of my mind.
Cat.
They don’t mean anything.
I can’t control them.
Tea.Coffee.Mouse mat. Pen.Ball.Kite
They’re not useful words.

It’s getting in the way.
My mind.
It’s stopping me thinking.
It’s stopping me working.
I can’t sit still.
Bzzzzzz
I am totally buzzing.

Faster is better.

Dan Osman was an amazing climber (he died some years ago when his rope failed during a jump). He's a hero to many, and his lifestyle was the envy of pretty much every climber.

Here's a video of him speed climbing that I've just found. It's truly amazing.
Watch out for the 'dyno' near the end, where he lets go of the rock completely.

If you're scared of heights, you might not like it.

Women in F1

Katherine Legge is set to become only the fourth ever women drive in Formula 1 (of these four only one woman has competed, Giovanna Amati, who failed to qualify for the Spanish Grad Prix in 1992). Legge, the 25 year old racer, won the Toyota Atlantic Championship in the US, has been driving karts and then single-seater racers since aged nine.

I have followed F1 since I was small, I always watched it with my Dad on the weekends, and it’s great to see another woman on the scene. The culture of F1 is very masculine, and among the teams it has been long believed that women couldn’t handle the g-forces in the car on the track, although this has never been scientifically proven.

Despite this unfounded and archaic belief that women are ‘weaker’ than men, Paul Stoddart, of Minardi, makes this refreshing statement:

"We have always said that if a sufficiently talented woman racing driver arrived on the scene, who appeared capable of handling the performance of an F1 car, we would have no hesitation in giving her an opportunity to show what she could do. I believe Katherine has done more than enough to warrant that chance."

This is especially encouraging as until now the main female roles in Formula 1 have been in “marketing, catering, PR or on the grid, wearing a short skirt and a smile while the blokes get on with the serious stuff” and the commercial rights holder Bernie Ecclestone can get away with saying:

"What I would really like to see happen is to find the right girl, perhaps a black girl with super looks, preferably Jewish or Muslim, who speaks Spanish."

Go Katherine!

It's not grass

Vegetarian animal lovers, the French government have passed a law to protect the history and future of their ‘delicacy’ foie gras. Don’t be fooled by the name, this has nothing to do with grass – it actually describes a pate made for the livers of ducks and geese. Ducks and geese who have been force fed the equivalent (for humans) of 28 pounds of spaghetti per day. Up to half a kilo of grain and fat is force fed to these birds, two or three times a day via pneumatic machines that can dispense it into their mouths in a matter of seconds.

After two or three weeks of this torture the livers of these birds will have swollen to between six and ten times their natural size. The birds cannot even move at this point. They are then killed, and I am only guessing, are most likely to have their livers removed and the rest of the bird disposed of.

Anthony Warrell Thompson (celebrity chef) and Bruce Anderson (food critic) were interviewed on the programme. Warrell Thompson is outspoken against this practice, and as a result will not serve, eat or support manufacture of foie gras, however Anderson claims if the ducks and geese are sentient, they will know their death if for gastronomy and be happy about it! He claims these ducks waddle over to the feeder, delighted to be getting their next helping of fat and grain, forced down their throats at a rate of knots.

I wonder if cannibals stewed him up in a pot he’d be happy about it? After all, it’s for the delights of gastronomy.