Something Complicated...

As a pro-choice, pro-abortion radical feminist, I spend some considerable time in any given week thinking about abortion. I contemplate the possibility that one day, in the UK, abortion may not be legal. It's already difficult to come by, too expensive for most women and still has an air of irresponsibility attached to it. I consider the multiple arguments put forward by the anti-choicers: the "right to life", a foetus feels pain, abortion hurts women, and on... I am never convinced by these people and rarely find their arguments intelligent or even well thought out.

Then I think about the various processes of abortion. It's not a pleasant procedure, it's messy and difficult but statistically it's not as dangerous as childbirth. I think about the indignity of the procedure and the inappropriate questions that often accompany any consultations. I dwell on the morality of paying to make a choice to end a pregnancy. It worries me that people make a profit on these procedures.

I think about my own pregnancies. I dig about in my brain for the sense memory of my daughter scrolling around in my belly. I remember the thick clot of my second pregnancy's sudden and convenient end. There are personal and political reasons for my thinking about and understanding responses to abortion.

I am always appalled by the rhetoric and motivation of the anti-choicers; the sanctimonious placard wavers show little interest in exploring the realities of women's lives. They accuse women of heartlessness, selfishness and a callous disregard for life. In my experience this is just not true. Abortion is a huge and difficult decision to make, and in my experience women who choose abortion feel somewhat conflicted about their decision. Some women believe that their foetus is a living thing and still make the brave decision to terminate their pregnancy. Some women abort for financial or health reasons and feel terrible grief for what they feel is their lost baby. Some women have no feelings about the foetus and abortion is a relief. Every experience is different and every experience is valid. For these reasons, I believe in being careful about how I talk about termination. One woman's parasite is another woman's heartbreak.

I absolutely support every woman's decision to abort. I can not stress this enough: termination should be free, on demand and easily accessible.

I'm Listening To:

Despite Our Differences, the Indigo Girls new album! Yay!! I finally got my copy. I'm swaying to Last Tears. Buy your copy and sway with me.

This Bears Repeating...*

If a woman is drunk, don't rape her.
If a woman is walking alone at night, don't rape her.
If a woman is drugged and unconscious, don't rape her.
If a woman is wearing a short skirt, don't rape her.
If a woman is jogging in a park at 5 am, don't rape her.
If a woman looks like your ex-girlfriend you're still hung up on, don't rape her.
If a woman is asleep in her bed, don't rape her.
If a woman is asleep in your bed, don't rape her.
If a woman is doing her laundry, don't rape her.
If a woman is in a coma, don't rape her.
If a woman changes her mind in the middle of or about a particular activity, don't rape her.
If a woman has repeatedly refused a certain activity, don't rape her.
If a woman is not yet a woman, but a child, don't rape her.
If your girlfriend or wife is not in the mood, don't rape her.
If your step-daughter is watching TV, don't rape her.
If you break into a house and find a woman there, don't rape her.
If your friend thinks it's okay to rape someone, tell him it's not, and that he's not your friend.
If your "friend" tells you he raped someone, report him to the police.
If your frat-brother or another guy at the party tells you there's an unconscious woman upstairs and it's your turn, don't rape her, call the police and tell the guy he's a rapist.
Tell your sons, god-sons, nephews, grandsons, sons of friends it's not okay to rape someone.
Don't tell your women friends how to be safe and avoid rape.
Don't imply that she could have avoided it if she'd only done/not done x.
Don't imply that it's in any way her fault.
Don't let silence imply agreement when someone tells you he "got some" with the drunk girl.
Don't perpetuate a culture that tells you that you have no control over or responsibility for your actions. You can, too, help yourself.

If you agree, re-post it. It's that important.


*Hat-tip to Jared and Lost Clown et al.

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!

It's About Time...

This has me so excited. It's such a giant leap forward in UK rape legislation. What shocked me was the information that only 5% of alleged rapists are convicted. I don't know why but I thought the number would be bigger. I really shouldn't be surprised. Now we have to work on convincing the general public that drunk women aren't fair game for rapists.

I wanted to blog about this amazing little story last month but it felt too raw then so I left it alone. Tonight it seems somehow appropriate.

Some twelve years ago my friend was brutally assaulted by a stranger. She was walking her dog in a field close to her home. A man grabbed her and threatened to kill her, then subjected her to an horrific sex attack. When she staggered away and called for help I went to be with her. I wasn't allowed to hold and comfort her because her clothes were evidence and I might have contaminated them. I was allowed to stand with her as she undressed and I bagged her clothes and passed them to a policeman. I remember thinking how small and shattered she was. And how humiliating for her to be naked and vulnerable in front of strangers. It was a terrible day.

This year they caught him! Twelve years later his DNA from another case gave him up. He is now serving three to six years and it isn't nearly enough but it's something. And I almost can't believe it. But it's true.

Getting on With it All...

Thanks for the lovely comments that you all left on my last post! It's been almost a week since we lost Tiger. I keep thinking I see her on the sofa, on the bed, in the garden. I trip over her in the kitchen while I'm cooking, (she used to rub around my legs and get stepped on!) and keep little bits of nice food aside for her. Then I remember. Oh.

I think we will get another cat. After Christmas we'll start looking for a suitable candidate. There is always an abundance of them just about then, because idiot people get newer, better pets as presents.

Again, thanks for all the support... I'll let you know when we are Catful again. Wish me luck!

Catless....

Yesterday we had to have our cat euthanised. At the young age of four she had developed what the vet suspected was renal failure. We cried a lot and then waited while the vet did her thing...it wasn't pleasant but it WAS kind. So, after we lost our other two last year to cancer and old age, we are now catless and quite heartbroken. I don't think we will have another. Tiger was the best kind of cat. We will miss her.

Just Testing!

Let's see if this works.... If it does, enjoy!

Yes you are in the right place!

I switched to the Beta! And it is great fun... I'll keep adding to the blogroll as I go along. No messing about with HTML anymore!

Porn. Yes, That's What I said....

So, today my Daughter comes home from college RANTING. She was absolutely furious because of a discussion in her philosophy class. The subject was pornography. Daughter explained that most of her class found porn acceptable and even desirable, men and women alike. Bulldog-like, my tenacious daughter fought her anti-porn corner only to be told by one young man that her opinions are "outdated fifties feminism"; this same man jokingly threatened to strangle her, going so far as to get up out of his seat and approach her. What humour! What fun! The irony of his behaviour was lost on him. The general consensus was that porn is acceptable because women in porn have a choice. They have agency. They are using their bodies to make a living.

I have stayed away from the subject of porn so far in my short blogging career, but today I'm having my say. Porn is NEVER okay. Porn is about male domination, aggression and ownership. Porn is about humiliation, violence and control. Women who use and participate in porn are condoning the abuse and rape of other women. Men who use, buy and celebrate porn are promoting violence against women. If you like to see women sexually degraded, whether or not you think they have been paid for their suffering, you are enjoying someone else's misery. If you think that monetary compensation is all it takes to legitimise violence and rape, you might ask yourself if it is okay to go around raping people and giving them money afterwards.

Porn apologists trot out hackneyed words like "consent" and "choice" and "sexual freedom". They accuse radical feminist women like me and Daughter of sexual dysfunction, misandry and frigidity. It seems that we just hate it that there are liberated women out there who love to have sex and enjoy earning money for doing what they love... we are simply envious hags who can't get laid. We've heard all the insults; there's no new rhetoric coming from the pro-porn brigade, the reasoning to which it clings is old and tired and sad. But it is becoming obvious to me that there are new, if unintelligent and inarticulate recruits in the pornography army. My Daughter reports that she and a friend were the only people in her class of fourteen who were anti-porn. What is to be done?

As If Things Weren't Bad Enough...

This beggars belief. The treatment of this woman is nothing short of disgusting. CodePink has some information as well as other excellent anti-war resources. Here is Suzanne Swift's own site. Please visit and offer support!

(On the diabetes front, I am feeling really well and healthy at the moment. I'll post on that later this weekend.)

About How I get a Bit Pissed Off...

I went for all my extra blood tests last week, for liver function, fasting lipids, blood sugar, and about four other things that mean nothing to me. Everything came back normal. Well within healthy limits. I was jumping for joy! Woo hoo!! The doctor was wrong! Yes, I can get on with my life, I can get out of this awful feeling of dread and depression. I can run away from diabetes and daily testing and exchange diets. I am capital letters two exclamation points FREE!! Except I'm not.

It turns out that a fasting blood sugar test is meaningless. I'll say it again and highlight it: meaningless. The results count for nothing. I have to go for more tests that will "catch" the lurking, reluctant to show diabetes. Now, my point is not "why bother having a test that is meaningless?"(although that would seem to be a question worth asking). No, my point is, why don't I know about all this? How can it be that no-one has explained this to me? I feel pissed off and let down again.

Positive sides: I have bought a book, "Diabetes: The First Year" and I will familiarise myself with all of its contents. I have been eating really well since the initial diagnosis. I am getting used to the masses of veg and no chocolate!! My almost continual headaches have all but disappeared and my skin looks better than ever. I am still very conflicted about dieting and fat acceptance but for me this feels like the right way to go for now. I feel in control. I think that has to be sufficient for the time being...

BTW Many thanks to all who have sent support, I appreciate it more than you can imagine. xx

Pippa's Big Fat Dilemma...

I am so conflicted about this whole healthy eating thing. I know that I have to do it for my health, I have to try and cut down my risk of stroke, heart attack etc. But I am a compulsive eater. I have been trying for years to get to a place of comfort and safety where food is concerned. I have been learning to love my body as it is, which meant accepting my fat and my weight. Now everything I have learned has been thrown right back at me. It is NOT okay to be me. Being me is dangerous.

I loathe the idea of Weight Watchers, Slimming World, Slim Fast etc. I absolutely can not agree with the philosophy behind any of them. But where do I go for help now? Where do I turn for advice on losing weight without it becoming an exercise in body fascism? How do I reconcile my need to be smaller and healthier with my fat woman politics?

I am struggling today; all I want to do is find refuge in the foods that I love. Suddenly, frighteningly, it isn't a safe option.

Pippa Feels Somewhat Despondent

How is THIS even possible in this day and age? How can we still be fighting to control our own bodies? Third party notarization? This is the thin end of the wedge and I am terrified of the implications that this has for Texas' women.

(Just so you know, I switched to Blogger Beta and for some reason your comments are getting eaten alive! Yes, ALIVE I tell you! I'm sorry about this and I will try to fix it. Not least because it looks like nobody is reading my incredibly incisive and intelligent writings. Sniff.)

meme!

Why are they called that then? Here's my contribution...

Why Do You Blog?

Because it's a bit like having a therapy session. I get to moan or just say things that aren't relevant to anyone but me. It's my space.

How Long Have You Been Blogging?

About four months. A baby blog, mine is!

Self-Portrait.





Why Do Readers Read Your Blog?

I have no idea. I like to think that they can connect with me a little bit. I would love to feel that some things that I say can be supportive to other radfems. I tend to shy away from saying more radical stuff, I'm not too confident yet! I'll get there...

What Was The Last Search Phrase That Someone Used to Get to Your Site?

"breasts pointing south". Yes. Well. You couldn't make it up.

Which of Your Entries Unjustly Gets Too Little Attention?

My Stop smoking advice post!! I want to spread the word. I am aware that I too often evangelise about smoke free living. And Pies.

Your Current Favourite Blog?

Oh sinister girl. Ms. Jared is always my first port of call in the morning! I'm such a suck up...

What Blog Did You Read Most Recently?

see above answer.

Which Feeds Do You Subscribe to?

None. But I intend to. I waste entirely too much time chasing up new posts that aren't there and then I miss all the best ones!

What Four Blogs Are You Tagging With this Meme and Why?

Kevin
Edith
Laura
Jake

These people interest me. None of them takes any guff! I aspire to that attitude. Thanks Jared for tagging me! xx

Ms Jared makes my day!!

Oh I've been so down these last few days. Just laying about feeling a bit scared and a bit out of control. I thought I was okay but I'm not, and allowing that to just be the truth is going to have to be the biggest effort I make for the time being. I'm not working, I'm not taking good care of myself, I hurt all over, you know the score... I haven't even managed to read all my favourite blogs.

Tonight I felt a big moment coming. A moment of complete chaos in my head, where I lose all rational thought and just panic. I felt it start to surge up and I CHOSE to turn it away. (Note very important capitalization of word!! I made a choice! I didn't get swept away by my feelings! Yay!) I came to my computer and looked for some friends and some comfort. And good gracious if I didn't find all that I needed on Ms Jared's blog!!! I had some catching up to do and I started with that delightful photo of a blond Ms J. She's going back to school. Go Jared! I moved on to her latest meme, and she tagged me!!! My second ever tag. I feel honoured. I'll get right on it. Thirdly I fell into the post about appreciating ourselves and how great we are. Bright Eyes singing "first day of my life" really made me feel good. I feel rejuvenated. Thanks Ms. Jared.

What's in a Name?

One of my hobbies is genealogy. I spend a lot of time trying to trace my family tree and I can get quite obsessive about it. As a consequence, one of the things that I think about often is the way that women disappear into history because very often we don't have and keep our own names.

I married in 1988 and lost my name. It didn't occur to me that I could keep the name I had been given at birth. It certainly didn't occur to me that my birth name obscured the existence of hundreds of women in my ancestry. When I took my degree I reverted to using my original surname. I wanted my degree to have MY name on it and not the name of my father-in-law and that family who wanted to so wholly own and control me.

Now I am ready to find another name. I have reached such a point in my feminist journey that it no longer seems acceptable to have this name that has been passed down through the male line, laying waste to the sacrifice, hardship and determination of so many women who go on to be forgotten or unidentifiable. But how do I make this enormous choice? I would love to hear your suggestions!

I've Been Away

And now I'm back! I had a fast depressive slump; it crept up on me and caught me. The GREAT news though, is that I was able to work through it on my own and I'm on the way up in record time. Yay me! It's my first crisis since I finished therapy and I was really caught out by it. I drew on my coping strategies and even though I'm not 100% I feel that I can manage my anxiety. I don't expect things will always go this well, but it's promising isn't it?

Dawn French. Again.

It was part two of "Girls Who Do: Comedy" last night. French asked if women comics found that their humour attracted boys. Does being funny act as a man-magnet? Or instant man repellent? (Form an orderly queue, people. When I've perfected the formula, I'll bottle it and start selling.)

I was worried about the way that French really seemed convinced that ALL women are trying to catch a man; we're not ALL straight. But then she changed her pronouns when she interviewed Sandra Bernhard and I wondered if she had tailored all her questions to fit what she already knew about the sexuality of each interviewee. I'd be interested to know the answer to that.

That aside, I actually found it very important to understand what happened when women were funny in mixed company. One or two women were explicit about the way that men found their humour threatening. Funny women are powerful because they can destroy the male ego. Funny women are intelligent and can expose men's frailties.

On the other hand, French explained that she had learned from an early age that if she wanted to "get snogged" at the end of an evening she had to let the boy have the biggest laugh; she couldn't take all the applause for herself. It seemed that if you kept a lid on it, being funny could actually get you some action. For most of the women interviewed, it seemed to be about "beauty". It boiled down to the idea that pretty girls don't need to be funny.

Here's the thing: if you have classic good looks than you don't need to be able to make people like you by being funny. This got clearer and more unfunny as Jenny Eclair recounted the tale of her miracle perm. Sometime in her teens, she had her hair permed and suddenly became very pretty and recognised that she didn't need to settle for the role of comedian anymore. Ruby Wax talked about being ugly and funny. Meera Syal was a big fat girl with a facial "twitch". How depressing to find that even these amazing, talented, powerful women are still stuck defining themselves by their appearance.

I remain delighted by the programme. The credits rolled and I felt an adrenaline rush from just listening to these honest, flawed conversations about women and comedy and life and power and all the attendant worries. I feel like I am in the conversation; I am included. I feel empowered by this kind of television. Even when what is being said drives me mental, I'm loving the saying of it.