Ay Corona

Hey there. Did you hear the one about the pandemic? 

Remember a year ago? When Corona was still a type of beer, ‘social’ and ‘distancing’ weren’t words that belonged together and facemasks were something that women wore in the bath. 'Furlough' wasn’t a word I could define, and isolating wasn’t something that everyone did. 

If you’d said then children wouldn’t be able to school, that theatres would shut down, that I wouldn’t be able to step inside my parents house or hug my brother, or that we wouldn’t dream of leaving the house without hand sanitiser, who’d have believed you? 

School’s out - again

I never realised how much my child’s right to go to school mattered, until it was taken away. I felt so sad as I took her in on her last day before lockdown. School symbolises so much - the opportunity to learn, to discover talents and interests, to build relationships, to have independent experiences, away from your family. 

Photo by Educators.co.uk via Flickr Creative Commons

Education is a hard-won right. Laws were made banning children from working in factories so they could get an education. It’s hugely important for their life chances - children from the most deprived backgrounds may be disadvantaged, but school gives them a chance at a better life. Without school there would be no social mobility and women would find it much harder to work. 

And without teachers there would be no school. Teachers work incredibly hard and this year they’ve worked harder than ever, as well as putting themselves in danger so that children could still get an education and people with essential jobs could go to work. 

Last weekend I had an email from my daughter’s school to say it was closed. Staff had tested positive for Covid and others had to isolate so there weren’t enough adults to run the tiny village school. Since then three out of the four classes have to isolate as they had been exposed to someone who tested positive. So we’re back to home educating. And I feel totally desolate, that she can’t have this so basic thing, of getting up and going to school every day. 

So what did you do during lockdown?

When this all started, I tried to approach it positively. I would likely have more time on my hands. I could do more writing, learn some new violin pieces, improve my tech skills.

Photo by Chi Wai Un via Flickr Creative Commons

Next time I hear someone say they used the time to learn Italian or write a novel, I may punch them, except that’s almost certainly in breach of social distancing. 

Louis Theroux, in his Grounded podcast, said that the pandemic had divided people into roughly two camps: those who had too much to do  - working, families and those who didn’t have enough - people living alone or furloughed not working. Neither is a whole lot of fun. 

The worst thing for me about combining work and childcare is the feeling of inadequacy. Whatever I do, I can’t give my work or my child 100% attention. I think I overcompensate, working more than I should. And my daughter is happy and healthy and hasn’t forgotten how to read. She’s also very adept at giving technical support to her grandparents over Skype. But I’m followed around by the feeling that I’m failing at everything

What did you do during lockdown? I tried to survive. I’m still trying. I’m one of the lucky ones. I’m healthy, I don’t live alone, and currently I still have a job. I’d take that over the alternatives, any day. But I’m seriously stressed. I’m actually so stressed that at night and during work I clench my jaw to the point that it’s so damaged I can barely open my mouth. I stopped taking my inhaler because it hurt too much - not a good idea in a pandemic for a virus that affects your lungs. 

When it’s over

I miss my parents. I miss my friends. I miss my colleagues. I want to sit in a crowded bar with sticky tables and stinky people. I want to dance and sweat and not care that I can smell the person next to me. I want to stop telling my daughter to wash her hands and keep her distance from people. I want a desk that isn’t the kitchen table. I’d also like to eat a sandwich without it being excruciatingly painful.

We lost all this stuff in an instant - the instant we left offices and locked down into our homes. It will come back, not all at once, but there will come a time when life starts to settle down again. One day I will wake up with a thumping headache after drinking and dancing too much, full of regret until I realise what I just did.

Strident, obsessive and sexy PhDs

Do you feel like your brains overshadow your beauty? Well weep no more. Amazon is selling a Sexy PhD costume, for women who want to make the most of ALL their assets.

This story has been cropping up all over social media, reported by i100. The story isn't the costume itself, but the review comments that follow it on the page, written by a range of 'Lady PhDs' who express their relief that sensible husband-hunting attire has now been provided for the thinking woman.

As a 'Lady PhD' myself, I was partly drawn to follow the links because the costume had the wrong hat. This is entirely beside the point, but anyone with a PhD knows that the hat is very important. Here's what it should look like. Quite sexy, I think you'll agree.

Anyway, so I read the story and enjoyed the comments.

I thought it was kind of funny that the headline of the article was 'Women with actual PhDs review sexy PhD costume on Amazon' - why the 'actual'? It sort of implies some incredulity at the idea of women having PhDs. But that's just me being touchy, I know it is.

Sexy costumes and comments

I don't really care if they're selling a sexy women's PhD costume on Amazon. It might be worse if they were selling a sexy men's PhD costume and not a women's one, because that might suggest women aren't clever enough to have PhDs, or that women with PhDs aren't sexy. Or something.

The thing that did get my feminist back up, was not the costume, or the comments on Amazon by 'Lady PhDs'. It was the comments left on the page of the article. This was one of the more articulate, the other were variations on the theme:

'It's a costume. Get over it. If you have an actual PhD you should understand the concept. Does your strident, obsessive feminism have to bleed through everything in your lives? Grow up.' Mr Grevy

What's bitten Mr Grevy? Can't he see that these women were just having a bit of gentle fun at the expense of an objectifying/objectionable (delete as preferred) costume?

Does our strident, obsessive feminism have to bleed through everything in our lives? Well now you mention it, yes it does. That's kind of the point of being a feminist.

Strident and obsessive

Having a belief, or a philosophy should bleed through everything you do, because it affects the way you view everything around you. Loving feminism is not like loving cheese. I enjoy a nice bit of cheddar, but I am very capable of going days at a time without touching the stuff.

(That's actually a very bad example because I've now realised quite how much cheese I eat. If I want to get into that costume, I'm going to have to cut back on the yellow stuff).

But I live feminism. Every day I drive my own car, live in my own house, spend my own money and go out to my job, which pays me, hopefully the same as it would pay a man if he were doing my job. These things would not be possible without feminism - it pervades everything I do.

Feminism-bashing is commonplace on the web. This is just one more example. Why do Mr G and his ilk feel the need to have a go at feminism? There is clearly something deeply offensive to them about the idea that their mothers, sisters and girlfriends (is that last a little optimistic?) should be treated as their equals. Who knows where that could end - we'll want the right to vote next.

You can read the article, and comments here.

Are we wasting our time with feminism?

Am I wasting my energy by banging on about feminism?

From trying to ban the boobs on page 3 of the Sun to putting a woman on British banknotes, there are more feminist causes and campaigns than you can shake a phallus at. But are we barking up the wrong tree?

Women in the west

There is an argument that feminism has done a lot of its work. Women are doing pretty well (in the west), so we should focus our energies on other issues and inequalities.

And it's true that in a lot of ways things aren't really that bad - women in the UK are entitled to free education, to maternity leave, we can drive cars, have our own bank accounts and own our own homes.

Women in the UK have more or less equal rights with men, even if we don't quite have equal opportunities, but that doesn't mean that the work of feminism is done. Sexism is still rife. A CMI White Paper on Women in Leadership this year found:

• Women earn on average £423,000 less than men in similar careers during their lifetimes
• 47% of the workforce is female, but only 32% of managers, directors and senior officials are women
• Only 15.6 of directorships are occupied by women on the FTSE 100
• Women receive less than half the bonuses than their male counterparts (£7,496 compared to £3,726)

Choosing a cause

There may still be work to be done before we have complete equality, even in the UK. But could our efforts be put to better use elsewhere? Should we put the feminist agenda to one side and be championing human rights or the eradication of poverty instead?

If you follow the logic that there are more important things to support, putting issues in a hierarchy, then we'd end up only ever championing a single cause - the one at the top of the hierarchy.

We'd have to decide a single topic that is most important and pledge our support only for that. Would you choose cancer or world poverty?

More than just helping women

Of course, feminism is intimately connected to a lot of the most important causes - to name but three:

• Education - girls are more likely than boys to be denied this
• Violence and abuse - women are more vulnerable to this
• Poverty - childcare means this often has a bigger impact on women than men

Pursuing feminist aims can have huge benefits - for example, educating women and improving their employment opportunities can help lift both them and their families out of poverty. This means that feminism does much more than helping women - it can positively benefit everyone, including men. 

Women may be doing OK, but we still need to pursue a feminist agenda, because it's only fair that women and men have equal rights and opportunities, but also because by providing these things we can improve life for women, men and children in so many other ways.

Woman's prerogative

If we're serious about wanting equality, then we can't keep expecting special privileges.

Female intuition, a woman's prerogative, feminine mystique - it's time to go cold turkey and give them up.

By mysteriously asserting that we know something because of 'female intuition', that we are entitled to the 'woman's prerogative' and that we are these ethereal mysterious creatures of instinct and emotion, we paint ourselves as fickle emotion-lead creatures, incapable of logical thought.

The right to change your mind

A woman's prerogative is her right to change her mind. Surely everyone has the right to change their mind sometimes? In asserting that this is the right of women alone, we suggest that we need it more, because we are more indecisive than our male peers. We are so charged with hormones and emotion that we will make irrational decisions that we later repent.

If we are really so notoriously unstable, then we probably shouldn't be trusted with things like the vote, and we certainly should be driving - think of all the dangerous mistakes we could be making out there on the roads. And there's no need to bother giving us a proper education, since we're so damn intuitive, we can just 'sense' all the things we really need to know.

Is a woman's prerogative the right to change her mind about sex? Again, why should it should be tied down to women? Both genders can be allowed to be a bit fickle.

Women and men are equally capable of making bad decisions on the spur of the moment, and in both cases these can be hormone-fuelled. What's wrong with the person's prerogative - your right to change your mind because you're only human?

Instinct

I'm not suggesting that there's no such thing as instinct, or that men and women are the same. Of course there are differences between the sexes that affect our outlook, personality and behaviour, and maybe women are generally more instinctive than men. Maybe we pay more attention to body language. But if we want to be treated seriously, we have to accept that we have no more (or less) right than men to change our minds, follow our instincts and refuse to be accountable for our decisions.

There are times when our gender will affect our behaviour. In a lot of areas women have it worse than men - mainly periods and pregnancy. And it's right that men (and women) should cut us some slack at these times. But that should be because of the particular experiences and issues we face at that moment, not just because we're women, and therefore a bit flaky.