Book review 2021!

Hello guys, we’re back for the annual event! Happy third birthday to the Thoughts Unqualified Annual Book Review.

I’ve actually cheated here because there are 21 books on the list but I have only finished 16 of them. Poor effort. I aim for 20 books a year at least. When I was in Mauritius, I read 34 in six months, but then I didn’t have the swirling attention plughole that is the internet.

I have also already read a book in 2022! So the 2022 review has already started.

Well, here’s your 2021 picks.

1. Chasing the Light, Jesse Blackadder. 7/10. Although I feel like 7 might be a bit generous. Although, although, this has really good reviews. Maybe it’s just me. My friend lent me this ‘novel of Antarctica’ because I am desperate to get to Antarctica and she really enjoyed it but I spent about 500 pages just REALLY wanting to get to Antarctica. Spoiler alert, in the last couple of pages they put feet on it for five seconds. I felt like it was a whole, very, very long book of women being bitchy to each other and creating misunderstandings (simplification) and I am not here for it because women support women. There were good gory whaling bits (I’m not bloodthirsty, I promise, I am very ‘save the whales’, but the descriptions were fascinating, and I didn’t realise the scale of whaling and how far fleets were pushing to meet their grisly demands, and I am FURIOUS with humanity for being so STUPID. Anyway). My favourite bit of the book was the afterword, which explained a little bit about the actual women this fictional account was based on. All in all, I wouldn’t really recommend it. But equally I wouldn’t dissuade you. You’d probably get something different out of it. There, that’s useful, isn’t it.
2. Who Owns England, Guy Shrubsole. 9/10. Will infuriate and galvanise. The first few days I read this, I would text random facts about Britain’s privatisation, land hoarding and sceptred isle inheritance bullshit to my mum, until she said ‘Please don’t tell me any more! I knew it would be bad, but not THIS bad.’ Spoiler: It’s really fucking bad. Between literally landed gentry descended from William II’s barony, and corporations … You wouldn’t believe. Read it.
3. The Book of Dust: La Belle Sauvage, Philip Pullman. 8/10 I read this in two days, no joke. It started great. I was super invested in Malcolm (and, as a side note, started reading just after attending my grandad’s funeral. His name was Malcolm.) I thought he was a genuinely lovely boy and I wanted him to do really well. I trusted him. And he does – he is lovely. But the story started to get really weird. And it was like turbulence. It wasn’t Pullman’s previous His Dark Materials slow descent into highly plausible dark fantasy. It was plodding along, canal, pub, nuns, books, and then BOOM a fairy on an island, a god in the river (that seems to have no purpose), a heaven/hell where they’re invisible. It all went a bit haywire for me until my suspension in the fantasy universe just felt too obvious and I could feel the elastic creaking.
4. Nocturne in Iron, Eli Auslender. 8/10. This is another total privilege by me of another unpublished novel! I do have marvellous creative friends. I think this will be published. As a first draft it’s very good. I don’t feel able to leave you a comprehensive lowdown, because it is bound to undergo metamorphosis. But it’s set in a highly realistic, believable future New York, with the definition of humanity in question, and it’s a great story of moral and ethical dilemma, family turmoil, trust, mistrust, and futurism. The characterisation was really very good – Eli makes you root for a very questionable antihero.
5. Māori Myths and Legends, compiled and described by Alistair Campbell 8/10. It would be 10/10 for the myths and legends obviously, but I feel Campbell has sanitised them a bit and removes some of the background. However, if you’ve never investigated Māori culture may I take this opportunity to encourage you to. I used to live in NZ and even as an ignorant ten year old I was fascinated, enthused, started to learn te reo Māori, learned songs and dances, visited marae and a hangi, and I remember almost everything because I was so interested.
6. The Book of Dust: The Secret Commonwealth, Philip Pullman. 7/10. I just don’t know. I enjoyed His Dark Materials SO MUCH when I was a kid. Is it that I’ve grown up? I felt like this was – well – a bit childish?! Haha. I am not a fan of books that are a journey for the sake of a journey, really. And this is all journey. It’s incredibly heavy on characters, many of whom seem to be introduced for no reason, and minor ones who make a reappearance are like squidging through silt at low tide, trying to prise them out of the mud in my brain. The purpose of going on the journey also seemed very tenuous – Pan is missing, sure, but his note is so minor. Why would he go to a place they don’t know exists? It just seems so improbable and pointless. I’d sit still, if it were me haha. The book sped up towards the end – the last few chapters are when I really got engaged – but it’s a bloody long book to get to that point. And just when you think ‘Hold up there are suddenly way too many questions and the pages I have left are JUST NOT ENOUGH’ whoops it’s the end and there’s another book to come, which I didn’t realise at first. It is good in terms of a bit of political intrigue, religious intrigue (we know Pullman doesn’t shy away from controversy in that department, but I am a bit on edge wondering what’s to come), surprisingly bloody in parts. I don’t know. Not the best I’ve read, not even Pullman’s best, but I am going to hang in there for the end.
7. 52 times Britain was a Bellend, James Felton. 9/10. Seems weird to give such a high score to a book about atrocities, but it manages to be entertaining as well with a sorry, dark, dry humour. And I learned a lot. I listened to it as an audiobook, my first audiobook, read by Mat Baynton (I have loved him forever haha) and he’s so easy to listen to. So if you are interested in history, especially hidden history, and if you want to dig into national disillusionment rather than the flag-shagging currently being celebrated, and if you give a shit about knowing some of the background to why other countries hate us so much and why we should be thoroughly ashamed and make some small amends in whatever way the more informed people see fit (anti-racist movements, reparations, returning stolen treasures), this is a must-read. I mean, he describes Britain as an ‘EastEnders amnesia Hitler’. We dropped our records of colonial atrocities in the sea in weighted crates, or burned them in huge bonfire before breaking up the ash, so even we don’t know what we did, but how bad must that be …
8. The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through The Madness Industry, Jon Ronson. 9/10. My brother sent me this, and I don’t think he’s ever given me a bad recommendation. I really enjoyed it. It manages to be funny and entertaining, introspective, educational, and thoroughly interesting and thought provoking all at once. Ronson beautifully weaves narratives together (to the point that his bringing in another interview to his self-doubting passages seems almost like an in-joke). He leaves you to try and make up your own mind in the sea of doubt he has thrust up around you – which is exactly the point. Who knows anything any more?! I immediately asked my brother to send me Men Who Stare At Goats.
9. Orlando, Virginia Woolf. 9/10 I’ve never read any V.W. before, which seems a huge cultural omission, but I never beat myself up about that, because one cannot do everything. However, I recently invested in a bunch of queer books, feeling like I should know my forebears and all the work they were doing before I was allowed to live openly as I do. Orlando is Virginia’s love letter to Vita Sackville-West, and honestly, it reads like one huge in-joke. It is so self-aware. I read it guiltily, like I do when I’m really enjoying a delicious meal – my senses are so delighted that I hurry it down, the more to enjoy it faster, but the rush means I don’t savour it like it deserves. Its delectability leads to my disrespecting it with haste. I think this will be a book I revisit multiple times, because I think layers will keep revealing themselves as I grow older and learn more about myself (and more about early 20^th century literature, probably, as I’m well aware that I will be missing defining contexts, e.g. her literary circle and influencing friends). Anyway, I really enjoyed it. It’s a treat.
10. Mrs Dalloway, Virginia Woolf. 8/10. The waters can always be a little muddy but I felt like this was the high tea of books. I could see the sights, sniff the scents, feel the sun on my back as I walked behind Mrs Dalloway with a parasol through town. I followed Septimus through his rooms. Her set pieces are so vivid. And at the book’s end you can’t help but link it to the knowing of her end.
11. Where the Crawdads Sing, Delia Owens. 10/10. Best fiction book I’ve read in a long time. I was there. I lived it. I have seen the marsh and the gulls and the fireflies. I have listened and heard the silence. I cried. Can’t praise it enough.
12. The Pink Pigeon Parade. I shan’t give this a rating, because I wrote it myself, but it is full novel length. I wrote it in 2017 and just fancied seeing what I was getting up to back then. It’s not exactly great literature (it is my diary, largely, from my time working as a bird ecologist in Mauritius) but it did bring back some fantastic memories, and it also made me laugh out loud.
13. The Well of Loneliness, Radclyffe Hall. 10/10. Up there with Where the Crawdads Sing, but with the sheen of the past lingering beautifully, a book in the light of dusk. Just the scope and emotion of it, in all the shades of grief, in the moments of pure happiness, and its strange aura of prophecy. Known as ‘the lesbian bible’, I completely see why, and its honestly and rawness will claw at your heart. I will warn you that there are a couple of lines which jerked me right out of the misty dream it otherwise enchants the reader into – lines of really horrible racism. I can’t help feeling Radclyffe Hall must have been behind even her contemporaries. But it is two sentences in a book from 1928 so I have accepted it as part of her, and our, ugly history. But it shocked me.
14. Normal People, Sally Rooney. 5/10. This is a weird, frustrating, and in my opinion, extremely overrated book. I started watching the BBC adaptation and gave up a couple of episodes in because it was just pointless sex between unbearable, unsympathetic characters. I thought the book would be better – they generally are – but I wouldn’t necessarily say so here. I did get to the end, because it hooked me enough to want to find out how they end up, and YOU DON’T EVEN FIND OUT, so if you’re halfway through and on the fence, just put it down and go and find a Daphne du Maurier. Connell is a dickhead, a soft dickhead with some redeeming features, but nonetheless a dickhead. Marianne is more sympathetic but also just keeps wasting and waifing away. There’s no explanation or context for her family situation, which feels gratuitous without justice. The book plays up to all my least favourite tropes – a woman damaged by men and keeping crawling after them being the main one. Wtf even is that Swedish dude and why is he in the book, what purpose does he serve at all? The main characters are just two fucked up people, treating each other horribly, and having a bunch of usually bad sex. I don’t like them. I don’t like the book. I don’t like the end. It had some entertainment value, but most of those five points come from some sparse but very sage and beautifully phrased observations about things like class, money, and art. For balance: my mum really enjoyed it and made me read it. There you are.
15. A Walk in the Woods, Brian Bilston. 9/10. Love a Brian Bilston book. This was written in 1996, for some reason I thought it was more recent. But that brings a lovely charm as well – before phones and GPS and battery packs etc. It’s a brilliant tale of a very normal bloke’s attempt at the Appalachian Way. It’s hilarious in parts. It’s educational. It’s warm and friendly and a very easy read. What less would you expect of Brian Bilston? I loved it. And I want to get more books on Appalachian history now.
16. The Beauty Myth, Naomi Wolf. 7/10. She says a lot of true things and a lot of things I agree with and a lot of things I already knew. However, Wolf also makes some leaps that I think are a bit of a stretch. Definitely worth a read though.
17. How many lightbulbs does it take to change a planet? Tony Juniper. Unfinished (as yet). This is a really good book. I’m tired of all the disaster. I KNOW the disaster. It haunts my every waking second. This is a book of SOLUTIONS – not foolproof, not total, not entire. I don’t even always agree with him (he is anti-GM, for example, whereas I find it difficult to write it off as yes, it poses problems, but it could solve a lot too). But they are solutions, goddamit.
18. Everyday Life in the Extraordinary Era of the Norsemen, Kirsten Wolf – unfinished (as yet). This one I’m working through as a reference book to the book I’m writing myself. It’s very good, interesting.
19. Homo Deus: A brief history of tomorrow, Yuval Noah Harari – unfinished (as yet). This is absolutely cracking, I’m really enjoying it.
20. On Anarchism, Noam Chomsky – unfinished (as yet). I should really stop opening new books until I’ve finished a few, but I like a smorgasbord. You’re not always in the same mood, are you? Anyway, God bless Noam Chomsky.
21. Kleptopia, Tom Burgis – unfinished (as yet). I’ve barely started this really – couple of chapters into a hefty book – but OooooohhhHH. Come and find the secrets.

Is that it?! oh my. It is. I think I might have a better year this year. Hopefully those bottom five will be (almost) at the top of next year’s list.

See you soon and I wish you a very very happy new year

Yours perusingly

Georgie

In Other News: The Dating Pool

My city ain’t the biggest city and not long after I moved here I had a lovely little fling with someone, who turned out less lovely by dumping me and moving to London with a boy. I did what any girl does, and joined Tinder. I got me a date. She asked me if I wanted to take a stroll to the bog. Obviously, yes. So we strolled to the bog which is actually quite a long walk and we were only halfway when she mentioned the last girl she’d dated, saying she was emotionally distant. I nodded fervently. ” She ended up dumping me for a boy.” Mild buzzing noise begins in my head. “Actually, she started doing a PhD in OurCity.” Buzzing becomes mild alarm bell. “But she quit.” Alarm bells very loud. She looked at me. “Oh God, you know her don’t you?”

“Is is Alice?” I said.

“Yup,” she said. “Did you date her?”

“Yup.”

Small towns, man. Bit awkward after that.

Listen to us when we tell you…

Hello friends,

Guys I just found an amazing article (I read amazing articles all the time, I really should link them more often) THIS https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/the-reality-that-all-women-experience-that-men-dont-know-about-kelly-jrmk/ read THIS honestly so much love.

Like I told my brother about that idiot Wally at induction and he literally just brushed it off ‘Does it actually matter? He was probably trying to be funny. And not everything’s because you’re a girl.’ Literally just dismissing me, even though I was there, and I deal with this shit all the time. No, not EVERYTHING is because I’m a girl, but I think, as a girl, I can spot when it is.

And at my first training day some creep came up and wasted eons of my time and then gave me a hug, all six and a half feet of brick shithouse of him, and I didn’t even have the wherewithall at the time to be like ‘Ew no wtf get off me.’ Because it shocks you and what else was I supposed to do? The good thing to come out of this was that the guy I was working with was even more shocked than me, and just as repulsed, and was like ‘That has never happened to me! What the hell, that was SO creepy!’ and when I said ‘Sadly it’s an occupational hazard of being a girl’, he didn’t dismiss me. He just looked very sad. And while he tried to make light of it, he genuinely felt it, and he also really stuck up for LGBT rights (these are just asides gleaned during a day of work) and I decided this chap is really great. But I shouldn’t be so surprised that a guy took me seriously on the whole ‘literally because I’m a girl’ thing, but again, symptomatic of dudes denying stuff they don’t see, like white privilege. But not all men, yay. And hopefully not all white people either but you may have noticed that I never talk about race issues. This is because I am a white person and whatever I say will be tainted in some way by privilege I don’t even register (like my brother brushing me off) – because I am a white girl in a white town, and even though the UK is well ahead of the US in this area, we sure ain’t perfect – and recently seem to have got worse – so I don’t feel able to. I will leave that to other more educated and clearer voices and just try and educate myself and give my 100% support, whatever that is worth.

Anyway I totally digressed.

Just as an aside, it was my first day of work today and it was shit. No new sign-ups (my job is signing people up for something) AT ALL. No break. Someone shouted at me about conservation taking away all their fishing ponds. The gazebo was broken when I started and is now about 74 x more broken and I’ve pulled two muscles hefting it about. I got stuck in rush hour traffic, for the whole rush hour. I didn’t even have time for a wee when I got home before dashing out again. And I’ve had a phishing email – or what I hope is a phishing email, otherwise I’m down £27 on my never-used iTunes. The funniest thing that happened to me today was that I went to the hairdresser’s and she cut my ear and drew actual blood.

Wish me luck for day 2 and keep kicking ass y’all.

Yours tiredly,

Georgie

In Other News, Let’s Revisit N

Work buddy N and I were comparing tales of mad grandmas and he said ‘The last time I went to see my ninety-something-year-old great grandma, well, she really likes me. Like, a lot. She full on got off with me.’ Wtf hahahahaha. ‘No, like full-on snog! For a really long time as well, and no-one else in my family said ANYTHING. Imagine having an old lady just hanging off your face… she’d suck your soul out.’

Feminist Interview

Hey guys! HAPPY NEW YEAR (for tomorrow)!!! Last post of 2015!

Seriously, where has the year gone?

I did my 2015 round-up last week, so back to a fairly normal topic for me, inspired by talking feminism down the pub with my mates.

Here I am, interviewing myself with hopefully relevant questions to people who aren’t sure about the point of feminism. I’m like a sad teenager with a teddy bear and a hairbrush, talking to myself in the mirror. Here goes (it’s a long one).

“Do you describe yourself as feminist?”

Yes. There is a general view that women are equal now, which we aren’t. People believe women have the same rights now, so they pay less attention to ingrained culture and media portrayal of gender roles, stereotypes and body image.

“Is it right to ban the Sun from SUs and campus shops because of page 3?”

Nobody is forced to read the Sun. I think it is a terrible newspaper and Page 3 is degrading, but you need to educate people to make their own choices rather than banning it for them – that way they don’t learn anything and dismiss the feminist cause as a killjoy. But seriously, people who still read that need to ask themselves whether it gives a message they want their sons and daughters receiving – that it’s OK for boys to ogle girls, because that’s what they’re there for. Yeah, healthy…

“Do women shave their body hair due to pressure from men?”

Yes, but men are often influenced by what they see in porn and the media. And I think women are more influenced by competition from other women and their beauty standards, who are influenced by other women in magazines and TV. I’ll never forget one of my close male friends saying once, “I think body hair on girls is just gross.” Why?? Do you not see that that’s really hurtful – and purely from social conditioning?

“So – porn?”

I think it’s probably OK in small doses as a healthy functional adult – but I’m really worried about kids watching it, seriously, the idea really freaks me out. The general aim of porn is to get a guy off as quickly as possible – no actual pleasure, the woman is frequently dominated or even abused, it’s full of smooth hairless bodies, there is no emotional bond, and the sex is not real sex. If this is what kids are using to learn about sex, it’s so messed up. And don’t watch too much of it, please. As an adult, you need to be aware of all times what’s real and what’s not. And porn, definitely, is not.

“Should boys be taught in school not to rape?”

Yes. Women are taught not to get raped – don’t go out alone, don’t walk at night, don’t wear revealing clothes – when they are perfectly entitled to walk around safely, whatever their situation. People don’t really say look out for women and respect them because they are people. Men are taught that their desires come first, and that masculinity is virility. This is so wrong. It does not even give men credit for being able to control themselves – it teaches them not only that they can’t, but that they don’t have to try. Women are blamed for men’s lack of control – but men CAN control themselves and it’s insulting to suggest they can’t. And it should be taught not just in school, but from birth, that boys and girls are equal, equally deserving of respect, and that neither sex has any superiority over the other, despite historical views (which also need to be taught, and then explained why they are wrong).

“Do you have a feminist idol?”

I don’t have just one. I respect and admire all the women (and men) who have worked for women’s rights, from when that was gaining the vote and constitutional rights, to being able to wear trousers or choose who, and whether, you marry, and now trans and racial feminist issues – these aren’t separate and the movement is widening (hooray!!). I think Jesus comes pretty high – he was the original feminist in Westernised culture.

The Mighty Girls page on Facebook is great for learning about feminist role models and game changers.

“Is lad culture a problem at university?”

The drinking culture, ‘beer goggles’, the groping in bars – ‘lads’ think that if a woman is in a club, she is there for their entertainment. If they buy a girl a drink (whether she wants it or not) they think she owes them sex. They take conversation as a green light for snogging/groping. They brag about who they’ve slept with and call them slags or bitches, and I find their double standard infuriating – they gain status while women lose it for exactly the same behaviour. They egg each other on to see who can be the most degrading towards women. They think they are God’s gift to women, but they deliberately target girls with low self-esteem because they believe they’re more likely to get them into bed. They treat women as sex objects, not people. This is fuelled by male competition and alcohol, on top of a lack of basic understanding. They will try to excuse their behaviour as ‘banter’ without realising the damage they do. So yeah, it’s a problem. And not just at university.

“What is the overall reputation of feminism?”

It’s still got a negative connotation (man hating, bra-burning, no fun, ugly, lesbian… all used as insults) but perception is changing, with a new wave of young, intelligent women, and popular culture figures identifying as feminist. A better understanding of the issues being fought for is coming through. People are beginning to realise there is still a problem. However, feminism still causes people to judge you, feel it’s OK to ask you personal questions, or deliberately insult you to get a rise. And many people, bizarrely, even if they agree with your argument, have a problem with the word ‘feminism’. I think this is very odd – and if someone has an issue with the name of the movement being female-centred (after its inception and history) it just proves how much work there is still to be done.

“Are most men sexist?”

It is frequent, but they don’t actually realise it – but so are many women! For instance, a man buying a girl a drink and then sticking to her all night – and the girl expecting a guy to buy her a drink. My dad lets my brother do things he’d never have let me do – biking, camping with friends, going out alone. Sometimes women have this terrible double standard of accepting sexist behaviours which might fall in their favour (opening doors, paying for dates) which really aggravates me – you want equality, or you don’t; you can’t pick and choose. As for the gallantry side, which is seen as ‘positive’ sexism – well, can’t you just do those things for everyone, regardless of gender? Traditional gender roles remain strong – in my house, my mum and I do all the cooking and cleaning. The roles are even present in my flat. There are sexual double standards regarding ‘numbers’. Adverts appeal to men using women in revealing clothes, or in subordinate physical positions, and men respond to these. Men, and women, are so conditioned to these roles that it takes someone to call it out before anyone normally even sees it.

So I’m here to call it out!

Thank you for reading this far, maties.

Yours feminininististly, Georgie

In Other News, No Make Up

I’m a bit iffy on the area of make up to be honest. I’d rather everyone agreed it was just fine for us all to wear it, than for someone to take away my eyebrow pencil because as a feminist I should stoically stand up for my eyebrowlessness, because I should not be judged for my exterior…

So anyway, new boyf about to see me without make up for the first time.

“Are you ready to see me without eyebrows?”

“I don’t know – it can’t be that much of a shock, can it?”

“Well, I don’t quite turn into Sloth Fratelli when I take my make up off, don’t worry.”

“I have no idea who that is,” he says, smiling.

He wasn’t smiling for long when I told him to Google it.

Tattoos and piercings and bodily autonomy

Greetings friends,

Sorry, late again, story of my life.

Today we discover tattoos and piercings and bodily autonomy…

I’ll start off with saying I have seven piercings, and my parents don’t like any of them. In fact, my Dad hates them (“Why would you do that to yourself?!”). Mum is more indifferent. She doesn’t like them, but when one of mine bled in the night and made a huge scab that nearly made me pass out, she was very nice about it and cleaned my ear very gently while I lay on the sofa with my head in her lap. She did laugh a bit, but still.

My parents don’t particularly like tattoos either. My brother has six now. Dad always rags him about them and makes fun.

But here’s the thing: they don’t actually care.

So I had this disagreement (it was mild, but it was extremely early in the morning and I wasn’t awake enough to have the full filter on yet) with my friend’s mum about tattoos. Her son wants one and she really hates them.

Her argument is that tattoos are permanent; people judge you for them; some employers don’t like them. These are all perfectly valid (although they shouldn’t be: seriously, employers? Get a grip, it’s 2015. Over 20% the population of Britain has a tattoo. Seriously). However it’s the fact that she is SO dead against it that I find odd.

Does it really matter?

It’s his body. Sure, I think as parents you can definitely go, “I wouldn’t really like it. Have you considered all the ramifications to this (future employment, judgement, positioning, possible removal, cost, etc.)?” But then I think that you should trust your kids (especially if they’re old enough to get a tattoo – 18 – so also old enough to vote, to drive, to marry, to live alone, to have a mortgage, to drink, and all that other stuff which arguably requires more maturity). It’s fine to put your point across. But then you must also respect their decision as a person.

I think to say ‘Don’t you dare do this, or else this …’ is not respectful of a person’s autonomy, their ability to make their own decision. It’s exercising a right over their body that actually, whether their parent or not, you don’t have. It’s teaching them that their body isn’t entirely theirs. It’s teaching them that your decision must always be right. It doesn’t let people make their own mistakes, which is sometimes the only way people will learn (like my own absolutely darling, wonderful and ridiculous brother). A stance on one subject like tattoos has larger ramifications.

And does it matter? Will you love them any less? Of course not. But they might harbour resentment towards you, if you stop them doing something they’re set on, and will that be conducive to a great relationship? Consider which battles to fight. That’s something my mum said to me ages ago, when I asked her why she just let my brother swear. She said “I pick my battles.” She decided swearing in the house was just not worth falling out about. It’s not important.

I’m not trying to give anyone parenting tips, hell no! I do not have kids and I don’t know if I ever will, to be honest. So I’m speaking as the kid in this scenario. I told my parents and Dad said, “We have a laugh and a joke but in the end, does it matter?” I said “If you’d totally banned me I’d probably have got a tattoo,” and Mum laughed and said “Well that’s human nature isn’t it?” Haha.

So, respect to all parents, man. You have the hardest job in the universe. But kids do, in the end, grow up and will learn, and see the world differently to their parents, and come to different conclusions and different views – and don’t you think that’s exciting? If you raise someone intelligent and mature and who can reason and think and decide things all for themselves? Who can analyse and see things totally different? I said to my dad once, when I was about 13, “Isn’t it weird that you have kids and teach them, but they grow up and make all their own decisions and are like their own person with all their own thoughts and stuff?” and my dad looked a bit surprised and said, “I suppose so. But that’s good if you think for yourself.”

I sort of lost my way a bit here. It got a bit profound for a minute. Steady on.

Anyway, basic point: respect kids’ bodies, boundaries and decisions, and they will too.

Yours many-earringedly, Georgie

In Other News, Mum Again

I was in my parents’ kitchen and helping my mum cook and I got thirsty and couldn’t be bothered to get a glass, so when her back was turned I just stuck my mouth under the tap like a heathen.

Only then my mum turned round and yelled ‘REALLY?!?!?!’ right down my earhole, causing me to jump, bash my face on the tap, and spit out a mouthful of water, all in one beautifully elegant (not) motion.

I feel her reaction was not the most productive here.

View of a Politician

Hello dear readers.

Don’t worry, this isn’t political party-wise or anything. I don’t like politics. I just see a whole bunch of problems really. How I wish Cameron and Clegg and Miliband – and all politicians, past, present and future, might read this! But they won’t. They probably have better things to do, and anyway, what do I know? I’m not a politician and therefore my views are irrelevant. But I’m getting ahead of myself here. (This is also based on UK politics so apologies to any American friends.)

The election is four months away and already I am sick to death of election crap being rammed down my throat.

And it’s not even ‘Look at us and how good we’re going to be’; it’s all ‘Look how shit the opposition is!’ Well, that sums it up. We’re in such a state that even the parties are finding it a struggle to come up with positives about themselves.

What’s this about an EU referendum in 2017? That’s what the Tories promise. The problem is, the general public are looking at immigration and nothing else; the idea of a referendum terrifies me because Joe Bloggs doesn’t know the half. I don’t know much. But I do know our entire trade would collapse, the farming industry would go bust, and there would be absolutely zero conservation without the EU; no subsidies for farming, trade, water, infrastructure, health and education; and not to mention that immigration probably wouldn’t change because our border controls are so incredibly lax anyway. Nooooo. The EU isn’t all good, but it’s too late now, we’re in too deep. We need European Union whether we like it or not, just like the Scots need the Union with Britain (go Scotland, yay!).

I can’t find any party that I wholly agree with. Some are closer than others. I once told a Conservative councillor that I dislike all parties equally, but I corrected myself; groups such as the BNP and UKIP don’t even deserve to scrape the sludge off the bottom of David Cameron’s wellies after he very reluctantly visited the Somerset Levels when they spent months underwater. And then blamed the floods on the Environment Agency.

But I’m still going to vote, because, as Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg recently put it, (quote!) “It’s like at Nando’s, asking someone else to put in your order and then you get something you don’t want.” The smartest and most relevant thing I think I ever heard a politician say.

Because your average politician seems to me to be like a public schoolboy who never left home; sometimes well-meaning, but more often ill-informed, completely out of touch, and interested in the perks and salary rather than improving the economy, environment, or life for the average person. Politics as a career, rather than a calling; politics for its own sake, and nobody else’s.

The way to get people interested in politics – because we appear to be in the midst of a vast wave of apathy here in the UK, particularly among young voters – is to be honest with them. To be personal but not condescending. To not punch them in the face, Mr Prescott. To not call them plebs, Mr Mitchell, or bigots, Mr Brown (whether they are or not, you’re not helping yourself there). Politicians should be helping people to understand how a true, positive solution to a problem works, and showing they actually care about the issues raised. They need to allow people to ask questions or submit causes for concern, and actually listen to their feedback. Be honest if a policy doesn’t work, don’t just try to cover it up or smear the other side – don’t treat us like we’re daft, please. Help people to understand that the best policy isn’t necessarily for the quickest short-term (often financial) gain, but that we need to invest now to ensure we actually have a food supply, countryside, energy, water and so on in future. EU policies should be made more relevant and transparent, displayed factually and without bias, and information about the EU’s entire role in UK politics (the publicly-perceived ‘good’ and ‘bad’ bits) made common knowledge. People should be able to object to EU policies. Most of all, parties need to show people that the government has the country’s best interests at heart, not their party’s or their evanescent political leader, and that winning the next election is not the be all and end all of their aims. Because at the moment, everything is money-grabbing, attention-seeking, short-term, short-sighted chaos; the government has never seemed so detached from reality for the majority of the population, and has never seemed so opposed to the general public and its needs. Building on green belt, investing in coal, raising taxes, freezing wages, increasing inflation, ‘red tape’, student loans, tuition fees, the education farce, the crippled NHS, political scandal, and constantly squeezing people to the degree that food banks are springing up like dandelions after rain.

Come on, Britain. We can do it. Let’s make it a proper democracy. Let’s stand for what we believe in and vote for – well, if not what we believe in, then the closest thing to it, that’s what I’ll be doing until something better comes along, grr… And despite all our gripes, which will be ably expressed, we will be queueing down at the toll booth in the rain, because that is what we do. We carry on!

Yours stoically, if rather grumpily,

Georgie

In Other News: Erm, a Little Bit Rude

My Grandma has dementia. At present, she’s on a dementia ward. It is a very surreal place. She has her ups and downs, but we visited this week and she was kind of OK. She’s very tiny and underweight and has big thick glasses and so her eyes look truly enormous. And she was lying on the sofa with Mum next to her, and suddenly Grandma stopped talking and jerked up and gazed with really intense massive-eye contact at Mum. Really intense. And then sort of slumped back again. Mum opened her mouth and then suddenly went “WERE YOU JUST FARTING?” and Grandma looked really pleased with herself. “Yup,” she said happily.

Intense eye-contact farting. That is a new one.

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.