It's Raining Again...

Well, no-one expected the sunshine to last over the weekend did they? That never happens.
Continuing the theme of women in sport, this struck me as interesting. We need our own Title ix in Britain. Enjoy your day!

My New Language

I have spent the last few hours learning HTML in haphazard fashion! I know enough now to add links and put in underlining! I don't understand pingbacks yet and I can't get my blogroll button to work but hey, you can't have everything!

Feeling a bit better now.

This cheered me up somewhat! have a look and feel inspired!

It's sunny in Salford today! The sun almost cheers me up but not quite. Last night's national news left one Salford feminist feeling angry and depressed. In the middle of all the "serious" news was a lighter topic: Theo Walcott and his surprise place in the England football team. We were told that it is "every young boy's dream" to be in Theo's shoes. I suppose it is. Sadly, young women can not aspire to the same achievement since their football teams are not afforded the same television time, the same sponsorship deals and the same credibility as men's teams

During a segment documenting the daily routine of a young woman with a crippling and rare disease, we were given insight into the ambitions of "EVERY young girl" in Britain. Turns out to be karaoke. As if we needed to be told....

I am so fucking sick of it. We are constantly fed this kind of editorial bullshit about what girls desire and aspire to. It is so common and so insidious that it is barely noticed anymore. I too often feel weak and powerless in the overwhelming mass of it.

Still, there's always the good weather....

My daughter smokes (Yes, it is the title of an Alice Walker Essay)

Oh My God I cannot believe that the tiny red headed freckly baby is a smoker. I am so angry about this that I am almost incandescent. I finally gave up two years ago after fifteen years of smoking thirty a day. It was hellish but I did it. My daughter hated me smoking. She loathed the smell and my stained teeth and hands. She also has asthma. So why is she smoking now? It can only be peer pressure. Her new college friends smoke in clubs at weekends and she wants to be like them? When I ask her she shrugs and smirks and tells me I am making too much of it. I don't get it.

Alice Walker's fabulous Essay "My Daughter Smokes" in her collection Living by the Word is in part an exploration of the politics of smoking and the pain of watching your child inhale toxins and carcinogens; it also gives a short account of her father's death from pneumonia and his battle with bronchitis and emphysema. I shall be making my daughter sit down and read it. It will mean nothing to her and she will think I am stupid. I wish I could do better on her behalf but I can't. The smoker's need for a cigarette will nearly always overwhelm any common sense desire to quit. I used to long for a cigarette so much that I would be able to convince myself that I was actually warding off disease with the smoke. It is a vicious addiction and I despair for my daughter and her fine young skin and her compromised lungs.