Speaking of Pole Dancing...

Over at Twisty's there's a post about Tesco's astonishing decision to stock the Peekaboo pole Dancing Kit. Yes, folks, you too can be sexually liberated in your own home! As if women and girls weren't already vulnerable to sexual assault by family members, now we can make them dance for money! Fantastic, empowering, liberated stuff.

I was out shopping in the centre of Bolton today when I was approached by a tall, heavy-set man who was carrying an umbrella. Now, like all good RedFems I am always on my guard against any male approach, and I must have looked a touch wary, because he said as he approached me: "Don't worry love, I'm not going to stab you. I haven't got a knife." Ah, the old "murder" gag. Can you see how he started to use humour to put me at my ease...

He then leapt into a cheeky chappy, havin' a laugh, geezer character. He followed up with "Do you like fashion, love?...We're looking for women to be pole dancers...no, not really, ha ha ha" For which read: laugh at me, I'm young, male and over-familiar. I'm hysterically funny and I might just fancy you, isn't the new mainstream sports activity of pole dancing a laugh... Oh, you get the drift.

He seemed less enthusiastic about inviting me to gyrate for him when I snarled at him that I didn't want what he was selling and then pounced on him, beat his face to a raw mess, grabbed his pathetic shrivelled balls and ripped them off and smashed the bloody remnants into his mouth and broke his teeth.

OR: I growled "that's not even funny, dick head" and walked away as he yelled after me (his enormous ego bruised) that I have no sense of humour and EVERYONE ELSE does, therefore, I am somehow defective.

Yes, people, I AM a humourless crone. Tell me something I don't know. Wanker.

How I Feel About Being A Feminist

On one of the genealogy websites that I visit, there has been a minor thread about the actions of of and reaction to English Suffragettes (I prefer the US term Suffragists, it just sounds more serious, but, well, I'm English). The general gist of this thread went along the lines of - those women had too much time on their hands- they were over-privileged women who didn't work- the women were an embarrassment to their families- and so on. It was an amazing little discussion. And then I noticed that all the contributers were women and my face just fell. How can this be?

Some days I feel tired of fighting. Tired of objecting to "EVERY SINGLE TINY INSIGNIFICANT THING"*, exhausted by my own attempts to counteract the bad things with good thoughts, positive thoughts, empowering thoughts. I get dragged into hating myself. I allow myself to be shrunk down and stepped on. In the face of overwhelming pressure to conform and be "normal" it just all gets too much.

Then I think of something peculiarly feminist, like oh, an Indigo Girls song, or labrys badges, or being a good Mum, friend, sister, human. Or Mary Daly's amazing Wickedary, the Bronte sisters, Audre Lorde's poems, the women who lived and breathed and died for women's Suffrage and I just feel amazing again. Powerful. Fleshed out and whole. I become re-excited by radical feminism and the promises of grace, agency and imagination contained within those two spiky, precious words. Today I may be knackered and burned out but tomorrow....



Watch and Enjoy!


* Quote courtesy of my always lovely, non-feminist mother!