Tag Archives: girl

What’s wrong with being a feminist?

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Today’s Stylist magazine (terrible name for what’s actually quite a good magazine)  had an article on what it means to be a feminist today and why we should all be feminists.
Rather than argue it all through again, I’d recommend you read their article, and consider whether you think the conclusion is a bit weak?

Also consider this… it’s not feminism that gives you hairy legs, it’s marriage (where you’re loved no matter what) and childrearing (time to pamper yourself is the casualty when trying to hold down a job, run a house, raise a child with their own activities and priorities etc. etc.) – feminism merely means saying do you know what, my legs get hairy sometimes.
That’s normal in women.
I’m not making a big deal of it so nor should you.
But it’s funny how it still has the power to shock!

Confessions of a partial polyglot political mummy blogger…

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untitled

Um, bit embarrassing this.

I’ve been wondering why, in amongst the spam I get from various Russians offering me photos of Miley Cyrus, why I keep getting hits on my blog from www.google.de and in particular from http://maedchenmannschaft.net .  I had a look at the site, but couldn’t see any reason why a site that was apparently called “makeover team” would have any interest in my blog on politics, parenting, women’s issues, faith etc. so I deleted the trackback as a spam thing.  Oops.

I don’t speak German, but there’s a good reason for this, honest. 
When I was at school, languages were still compulsory (nowadays they are introduced in primary school but are optional after age 14 which of course has led to a decline in the number of Brits good at languages).  However, my school had 4-form entry and decreed that two forms would learn French, Latin and Spanish and two French, Latin and German. 
My thirteen year old self thought about this: I was good at French and felt at home in France, and as my Mum grew up in Germany (sort of, it’s a long story) and we’d always had German christmas foods at home – lebkuchen, stollen, that sort of thing (God bless Lidl for giving us an easy source of them this year) so learning German looked like a sensible, logical step. 80 million native speakers, nice climate, not too far from home… so I chose Spanish. 
I looked at the total number of speakers worldwide (452,480,979 apparently), the fact that practically the whole continent of South America speaks it and calculated that if I was going into the world of business I’d be best off learning Spanish.  Besides, Spanish is a romance language, like French, and therefore relatively easy to pick up if you’ve learned one…

At university I got to live in Barcelona to study (in an Erasmus group, which meant that actually I was learning Spanish in a group with French and German students) and was allocated a Spanish student to “buddy” me (she prefered to speak Catalan, of course, this being Barcelona). 
I got to spend a big chunk of time in Basel, Switzerland, because my boyfriend at the time was doing his language placement there, and because he was working I got to pick up some German language (which when I use it now, makes native German speakers laugh becasue apparently I speak a few words not of German but of Schweiz Deutch, which is rather like a German saying they speak a few words of English and coming out with Geordie…) 
I’ve bought two CD-based German courses (intended to use while breastfeeding at night but a DVD would’ve been better).  I’ve been to Germany on more occasions than I’ve been to Spain, but I still can’t really do more than ask my way to the U-bahn station and buy 500g of ham.  Oh and apologise in Swiss German for barely speaking German… 
But despite all this, somehow I’ve just never got around to learning German properly, although I’ve picked up restaurant Italian and Simpsons/ Buffy the Vampire Slayer-subtitle Dutch in the meantime… 

But as the references keep coming from that same website, I did a bit of investigation and played with translating the webpage that apparetnly mentioned me.  Here, coutrsey of Google Translate is why I keep getting links from http://maedchenmannschaft.net/jetzt-vorschlagen-die-bloggerin-des-jahres/:

Jetzt vorschlagen: Die Bloggerin des Jahres von Susanne

bloggermaedchen09Es gibt so viele tolle und wichtige Blogs von Frauen, wir selbst kommen gar nicht hinterher, sie euch alle vorzustellen. Und weil bloggende Frauen noch immer viel zu wenig Aufmerksamkeit bekommen, es aber mehr als genug Perlen in der weiblichen Blogosphäre gibt, wählen wir 2009 zum ersten Mal das Bloggermädchen des Jahres.
Ab sofort und bis zum 31. Dezember 2009, 18:00 Uhr könnt ihr hier in den Kommentaren eure Lieblingsbloggerin vorschlagen (einmal reicht), sehr gern mit einer kurzen Begründung, warum ihr Blog so toll ist. Die Abstimmung über das Bloggermädchen des Jahres 2009 läuft anschließend vom 2. bis zum 31. Januar.
Viel Spaß! Eure Mädchenmannschaft

There are so many great and important blogs by women, we did not even come afterward, introducing you to them all.
And because blogging women still receive far too little attention, however, there are more than enough gems in the female blogosphere, we choose 2009 for the first time Girl blogger of the year.
Effective immediately and until 31 December 2009, 18:00 Clock can suggest it here in the comments your favorite blogger (once is sufficient), very happy with a brief explanation of why her blog is so great. The vote on the Blogger Girls of 2009, then runs of 2 31 January.
Enjoy! Your girls team

And here’s the link to me, courtesy of Euroblogger Julien Frisch:

Julien Frisch sagt:
9. Dezember 2009 um 00:24
Ich weiß nicht, ob ihr auch englischsprachige Blogs akzeptiert, aber ich würde Bit more complicated… vorschlagen.
Die Autorin Jo ist Mutter und bezeichnet sich daher gerne als “Mummy blogger”, schreibt einen tollen Mix aus persönlichen und politischen Beiträgen – und wenn sie twittert mischen sich oft politische Tweets mit Anmerkungen zu ihrem kleinen Kind.
Letzte Woche hat sie erst ihren Sohn in den Schlaf gelesen und dann als eine von wenigen Frauen am ersten Skype-Wave-Twitter Eurobloggertreffen mit Bloggern aus ganz Europa teilgenommen.
Ein tolles Profil! 

Julien Frisch said:
9. December 2009, at 00:24
I do not know if she accepted English-language blogs, but I would suggest bit more complicated ….
The author Jo is a mother and is therefore happy to refer to herself as a “Mummy blogger,” she writes a great mix of personal and political contributions – and if she twitters her tweets often mingle with political comments about her small child.
Last week she read only her son to sleep and then took part as one of the few women on the first Skype-Wave tweet blogger meeting with bloggers from all over Europe.
A great profile!

 Thanks Julien for the nomination!  It’s lovely to read how others read my stuff, and it’s true, I’m more a mummy tweeter than a mummy blogger (partly because I try to guard my son’s privacy a bit which is easier to do in 140 characters than a long blogpost). 
But I want to show that female bloggers, even though motherhood is a massive part of a woman’s life, don’t lose their ability to have interesting thoughts on wider issues too.  Why shouldn’t I combine the two?  My son thinks it’s perfectly normal that Daddy does the shopping on line but Mummy writes, talks to people and can make the compter play his favorite songs from Cbeebies. 
I desperately wanted to be part of Joe Litobarski’s Euroblogger’s meet up even though it clashed with my son’s bedtime -and let’s face it, if someone like me doesn’t get involved how will the experience I’ve got of work, politics and life and the ideas I want to be able to share and debate get out there?  Life doesn’t stop when you’re a women that’s got kids, it changes and you have as much place and as much right to have views as everyone who doesn’t, or is a man, or has children that sleep…

You may or may not know that the subject of the Eurobloggers discussion was the problem of the fact that we all blog in different languages.  There are various ways of dealing with this, from amchine to manual translation, but I’ve added a tool to the right sidebar (go on, take a look) so you can, if you like read my site in German.  Happy reading!

And finally, this post has taken ages to write because my son refused to settle to sleep so we’ve had stories, two different pairs of pajamas, a baby doll that needed a nappy change and a refill of milk.  That’s why there’s not so many women mummyblogging who get to spend time on other issues… it really is a full-time job and there’s no 39 hour week legislation in force for this job…

A few thoughts on feminism…

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MotherhoodImage(Image from the brilliant http://www.womensmediacenter.com/ex/101408.html)

I’ve joined the British Mummy Bloggers social network. While the new blog hasn’t covered much parenting yet, it will do.
I was struck by the categories used as forums on the site, and joined the foodie, writing and feminist groups immediately.

Feminist?
Yes, I feel a bit uncomfortable with the word.
Here’s my comment on the forum in all its glory…

For me, feminism is not about being and acting like men, but about gaining respect for things that are important to me as a woman.
The dungaree-wearing, man-hating, bra-burning stereotype seems to me to be fading away, but feminism still seems to be a dirty word.
It tends to be used rather than in the equality sense as a way of portraying strong women as being in relentless pursuit of men to put them at a disadvantage, or used by usually younger women that take their clothes off in public to justify what is essentially titillation as something that makes them feel less uncomfortable ethically about something that’s earning them a lot of money…
I feel inherently uncomfortable with the term – having gone to a girls school and having had it thrown at us as an insult and often used as if it were a synonym for lesbian as opposed to a political position.

The most obvious issue on which I feel feminist is work – while of course my workplace is pretty good, why does it continue to be acceptable in the main to require parents (or others with caring responsibilities) to fit to a working pattern than causes stress and complication in their lives?
Surely you’d get the best out of people by acknowledging that they are in fact people and have lives outside the office?
Why isn’t there more term-time working/ work patterns that fit with school or nursery hours?
Do workers that work flexibly and/or part-time get taken as seriously?
Is working long hours a prerequisite for good annual reports and/or promotion prospects?
And is enough being done to help younger women focus onprofessional jobs with prospects and a future rather than just hairdressing, childcare, etc.? I hope so these days, but this is in itself complicated because in order to work I need some people providing childcare that doesn’t cost so much that it’s not worth me working…
These are the issues that I feel are what the modern feminist should focus on.

I also think that feminists need to be making the case that having children is not a “lifestyle choice” but an essential part of the continuation of the human race, and raising them is as valid a way of spending time as pursuing a “career” (I say this as someone attempting to do both, of course) but that we have the right to do both to the best of our abilities.
Women are our own worst critics – we seem to trumpet the superiority of our personal situation over those of our sisters (older women saying that younger shouldn’t have it easy because they didn’t, the constant SAHM – v- working mum rivalry, the look our best -v- accept us as we are arguments…)

But it’s more complicated than that, of course. I don’t think that being taken for fools by fashion that’s designed with an eye on women changing their bodies to fit an unattainable flat shape rather than the curves we’re meant to have (size zero? The UK average is a 16 – who are we kidding?) is something that we could or should accept – fat is a feminist issue as it used to be said.

And to continue on from that, I think that feminism has lost its way a bit.
It’s not about a right to be near naked in public or to sleep with as many men as possible and not be called a slag when theres no real male equivalent term.
It’s not about telling Muslim women not to wear a headscarf (more about listening to each woman’s reasons for choosing to do so or not, and being supportive either way).
It’s not about championing abortion as if it is a consequence-free event, ignoring the support that women need if they choose to end a pregnancy (which is a lifechanging event).
It’s not about coveting the next designer bag, latest clothes, perfect hair and grooming – we should be valuing women no matter what model of beauty they do or don’t conform to.  (I myself am Reubenesque and so a few centuries out of date…)
For me, it’s about championing the idea that women, collectively and individually have as much right to do things their way and develop as individuals and members of families and society as men do and to be encouraged, supportedand taken as seriously as men are while doing it.

I simply cannot understand why we have fewer women in politics than some in some developing countries (and was horrified by the comments from one man that only pretty women would make it past selection procedures), and so few women in very senior management roles etc. unless timeserving counts more than anything else (such as decision-making ability, leadership) and unfair selection procedures are in play somewhere in the process.  Of course a good way of doing something about this would be to incentivise men’s flexible and/or part-time working so that there was a more equal balance of men and women taking on caring roles so that this element could not be built into decisions on employing a woman as opposed to a man so easily as there would be a much more even “risk” of them needing not to work all the hours God sends…

I think feminism will either get a bit of a shot in the arm – or will be susumed into a wider set of issues of a similar nature - once you get more Generation Y in the workplace… bear with me on this.
There seems to be an expectation amongst employers that the current attitude that is perceived in GenY will eventually be replaced and that they’ll knuckle down and conform, as if thinking they can have it all their own way is youthful naiveity.
I disagree – I think that in a world where there’s no job for life, no final salary pension etc., the attraction of being a corporate drone is much less than it was say a decade ago.
This is a generation used to downloading what it wants to, instant communication with friends, mixing the personal and professional with confidence.  They’re a product of the 1980s and 1990s in which they grew up – consumerist but green, individualist and (perhaps because of having spent more time in educational or childcare environments?) more used to being indulged by working parents.  They do no easily accept being told “no”.
The only downside if you like is the constant exposure to rap music with its objectification of women and the risk that this passes over into the generational attitude… but then my husband points out that “Skins” is not actually a documentary…

So let’s hope in particular that GenY women kick up one hell of a stink if they feel they’re being treated unfairly in the workplace, or in life.  And let’s hope the men do too – after all a fight ofr recognition of the needs and diversity of the individual applies to them as much as to women.
And as the generation before them, let’s be helpful, supportive feminists to help them get there.