Boy with pink hair

Hey all ❤

Today I was going round Lidl and there was a mum with a baby and a boy about three or four in her trolley. As I passed, the little boy literally yelled ‘MUMMY THERE IS A BOY WITH PINK HAIR’.

Now look. I realise it’s a very small child but … You’d say SOMETHING, wouldn’t you? Even if it was just ‘Shh’ – or one of the countless things my mum would have said to Baby Me like ‘Don’t shout in the supermarket’, ‘It’s rude to point at strangers’ etc. But she said literally nothing. Like Not. A. Word. Instead they followed me up and down two aisles with the boy continuing to stare at me, intermittently shouting ‘Boy! Pink hair! How did the boy get pink hair?’ while his mum completely ignored him. It was pretty embarrassing.

I KNOW before you go on a rant about mum-shaming – I don’t know what she’s thinking about, what sort of morning she’s had, anything going on in her life. I’m not, honestly, but I reckon you ought to talk to your kid. He’s bored. The comments are after all addressed to his mum. But also I’d have used this as a little lesson for the kid. Something along the lines of

SHE’S NOT A BOY.

Like, as if she didn’t even say that???!!!! I think that’s so rude?! Haha.

A child CAN grasp very simple concepts like:

• Girls can have short hair
• Boys can have long hair
• Anyone can have whatever hair colour they want when they get older
• It’s rude to shout, stare, and point at strangers

Maybe leave the gender-is-not-binary topic till he’s a tiny bit older, seeing as you’ve clearly already started on a binary path, but for real though how can you just let your kid follow a woman round a shop yelling BOY WITH PINK HAIR and remain completely silent? Odd. Very odd.

Also sad because obviously the bigger picture here is that gender and gender roles and expectations are clearly already drilled with military precision into this little kiddo which is disappointing because in my Ideal Universe ™ we’re well on our way past that shit and only very old people say things like ‘I mean… rather, ahem, masculine, but a nice person, and we don’t talk about certain things’ and everyone rolls their eyes.

Watched a great video yesterday about how ingrained these processes are even at an early age – a class of schoolchildren were asked to draw a firefighter, a surgeon, and a fighter pilot; seventy-five of the drawings were of men, and five were of women. But as everyone knows…. ‘There’s no need for feminism any more! You’re equal!’ Um well no. Because women don’t even occur to children for certain roles and how is that anything other than blatant sexism in social culture?

Down with the patriarchy!!

Yours very boyishly, apparently,

Georgie

In Other News, Better!!

Convo with my landlady at the weekend and I’d had two pints and no lunch, so was a little bit more emosh and expansive than I normally would have been.

She informed me that her daughter, living abroad, previously assumed straight, now has a girlfriend! And she said, “I don’t mind, I’m just really happy that she’s happy! My only concern is starting up a relationship when she knows she has to come back to the UK soon… I don’t want her to get hurt. But I don’t care who it’s with. I know the church doesn’t all agree but I don’t think it matters.”

I loved her very much as she was saying this because I imagine it was really quite a shock for her, so I gave her a big hug and felt almost teary. I was really delighted for her daughter! I was like, “I’m really, really happy for her! And for you!”

She told me a bit  about the girlfriend, and then said that both of her daughters decided they were bi at the same time so had each other to talk to (more shock!!) I was honestly just weirdly overjoyed for her daughter(s) haha. And she was looking at me and I was stuffing pizza into my face at the time in a slightly tipsy way but I suddenly just seized the opportunity and went “Me too, by the way.” She laughed and said “I thought so somehow,” which I found quite funny.

I mean, then she made it weird by saying she’d heard women make much more considerate lovers and I choked, but still, she was trying.

And then yesterday in the kitchen she said, “How’s that – the person you’re seeing? I’m sorry, I just realised I’d assumed it was a boy,” which warmed the cockles of my cold heart once more and see, the world is making progress and we all need more cute people like her in our lives.

I am a Feminist

Hey hey readers, I hope you’ve been having lovely weeks. They seem to be going too quickly for me.

Are you ready for a slightly heavier topic this week? Here it is: why I’m a feminist. This is not an all-encompassing argument – I could go on for many pages. I’ve missed a lot out, especially men’s role in feminism and the damage of singular images of masculinity. Ah well, one for another day, eh?

I am a feminist. I believe men and women are equal. I don’t feel equal sometimes. I mean, it’s not like I’m a child bride, or banned from school, or paid for with a dowry, or seen as my husband’s property. But these are still things that happen all over the world – including here. We just don’t like to think about them so much. But they happen.

My personal choices don’t mean I can or can’t be a feminist. There is no box in which all feminists will sit – indeed, we don’t like being put in boxes, that’s why we’re here. Our forebears tore that box up, the one they were forced to sit in – they fought their way out and then sat proudly atop it, daring the hecklers to push them back in, because each time they were pushed back, they would fight harder than before, and stand taller, and shout louder.

This spirit remains in feminism. It’s the shout for equality.

I didn’t understand what feminism was, until recently. And then I discovered that awful buzzword – ‘society’s expectations’ – and realised that’s exactly what they are. Expectations. Judgements. On women, not men. The regulation of women’s bodies, not men’s. The female dress code. The prizing of female virginity. The concept of slut-shaming, versus, I suppose, stud-congratulating.

I am a feminist because when I helped tidy the dojang after a martial arts lesson, my instructor told me I would ‘make somebody a good housewife one day.’

I am a feminist because of all of those cat-calls and whistled shot after me in the street. I’ve never seen that happen to someone male-identified. And it’s far less likely to happen if you are with a man.

I am a feminist because a harasser is more likely to leave you alone if you tell him you have a boyfriend. Not because they respect you as a person, and your wish to be left alone, but because they respect another man far more than they respect you. This is an implication that you are seen as property. I don’t want a man’s actions blamed on what I wear. I want consent to be given, not assumed. I want to have the choice between being a stay-at-home mother or having a career, and not judged as ‘weak’ or ‘career bitch’, when the same choices for men are acceptable (although equally a stay-at-home father is new; another advance in equality, or in what feminism stands for). I don’t want to be made to feel ashamed for the way I look – the hair that grows naturally on my body. This is my choice, and whether or not I choose to be influenced by today’s expensive and unnatural standards, that is my choice. I am a feminist because the unrealistic body images that torment the minds of young girls are a cold ploy of advertising; nobody has flawless skin, that perfect airbrushed body. Cellulite is paraded as disgusting when almost every woman has it due to the configuration of her muscle cells; wobbly bits are banned because nobody wants to see. Breastfeeding is taboo, while breasts are used to sell products such as perfume and cars. I mean, come on! Who wants to see a breast being used for the purpose it was designed for, hey? That’s disgusting!

In the double standards, it seems a woman can’t win. If she gives up work for her children, she’s weak or lazy. If she goes back, she’s heartless and selfish. If she enjoys sex, she is a slut. If she doesn’t want to have sex, she’s frigid. A low-cut top makes her a slag but a turtleneck makes her a prude. Wearing make-up is for air-heads and bimbos, but going without implies carelessness and being ‘unshaggable’. Shaving her body hair makes her a conformist, but keeping it makes her disgusting. If the man was drunk, he couldn’t help it. If the woman is drunk, it’s her fault. Long hair means girlie and vain, while short hair means masculine and lesbian.

Sometimes these also apply to men, which can be equally harmful. A man who waits for sex is in some way deficient, as though all men must be desperate for sex otherwise they can’t really be manly. A man who attempts to buck the gender trends in terms of childcare, chores, or anything else, is considered a ‘pussy’ (feminine insult) or a ‘puff’ or something intended to be equally as insulting.

Women are told from media that all they are good for is sex, fashion and being mothers, but are considered sluts, air-heads, or weak for actually being interested in these things.

I am a feminist because, when I was twelve, I was harassed at a bus stop. I’m a feminist because when I was fifteen, a man tried to persuade me that my mum was inside his house and I should come inside with him. I am a feminist because I don’t feel able to walk the streets alone in the dark. I am a feminist because aged seventeen, I was followed through town by a man who asked me who I was meeting, when, and if I had a boyfriend. I am a feminist because people assume I can’t parallel park – because I am a girl. I am a feminist because I am sick of being told I ‘hit like a girl’ – newsflash: I am a girl. Another newsflash: why is being a girl the worst insult you can throw at me? I am a feminist because I am very, very bored of people asking me whether I have a boyfriend yet, as though I need a man to complete me. I am a feminist because so many insults specifically refer to the feminine: Pussy. Bitch. Slag. Slut. Whore. Bint. C***. Girl.

These are not generally echoed towards the male quarter.

This doesn’t even account for education levels or the pay gap or the division of household chores; we still aren’t equal. In fact, influenced, I think, by social media, there has actually been a recent revival of misogyny. The ‘banter’ type; the ‘go and make me a sandwich’ type; the ‘this is my bitch’ type.

Misogyny is also harmful to men, giving them unrealistic hyper-macho images to live up to. Not every man is the muscle-bound martial artist businessman with a silk tie and a scantily-clad girl at home. Not every woman is the scantily-clad type, in the kitchen making dinner for her masculine executive weightlifter.

Feminism is also a voice for the sidelined – the LGBT community, for example. Others who tore up their boxes before climbing on top of them to shout out their existence, demand their rights.

We need feminism. Feminism is revolutionary. Feminism is necessary. Everyone should be a feminist – feminism is everyone. Feminism is equal.

Georgie

In Other News, I nearly forgot In Other News

Today I have partaken in my favourite sport of Tussock-Hopping. I work on the moors or heathland or culm, and on the really good bits where it’s completely waterlogged and just basically a giant puddle interspersed with huge moorgrass tussocks, my colleagues and I compete in the Tussock-Hopping stakes. Three strikes and you’re out, and there is a significant element of danger in twisted ankles, but it’s great fun. You get trick tussocks and trick puddles and it is all a game of chance. If you miss your chosen tussock you can end up doing an impression of Atreyu in the Neverending Story – that swampy bit with the giant turtle. I won today’s round – happy days.