Keris Stainton's Blog, page 13
July 12, 2013
Feminism Friday: Are you ready to be strong?
Not long ago, I saw a tweet that said something like “Discovering feminism is like pressing ‘reveal codes’ on a Word document.” Yes. Absolutely yes. Someone else compared it to The Matrix, but I can’t remember anything about The Matrix so I don’t know how useful that is.
Last year I read this wonderful blog post by Stella Duffy. It’s about coming out and this bit really stuck with me
If everyone who has ever had a homosexual love, desire, or experience came out right now, the world would change overnight. We could stop being interesting or different or special because we’re gay, and get on with just being.
And then last week, I read this article by Anna Ford about how to get more older women on TV. But it’s not just about that. It’s about sexism and feminism and the patriarchy and has actual suggestions for what can be done to change things.
Finally, I watched the last episode of Buffy. It was (like the rest of the series) completely brilliant, but this bit made me well up and also it made my stomach bubble with excitement. (If, like me, you’re years behind on Buffy, you probably shouldn’t watch a clip from the final episode.)
If we all stand up. If we all call out sexism when we see it. If we all complain to companies who insist on stereotyping both boys and girls. If we all report harassment. If we all say ‘Enough’. Then things will change. They will. They must.
Together, we can slay the patriarchy.*
*It pained me to write that, but I did it anyway. I’m sorry.
July 9, 2013
A toot from the past: Kool & the Gang at Live Aid
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve looked for this online. Actually, I probably could – it’s not that many, I’ve got a job (sort of) – but finally someone has put it on YouTube.
Skip to 4 minutes (unless you really like Cherish) and watch the trumpet player as he gets his big moment and can’t understand why nothing’s coming out of his trumpet. I watched this over and over immediately after Live Aid – I thought it was utterly hilarious, particularly when he manages one small squeak.
(I didn’t find it anywhere near as funny as I did when I was 14, but I’m still very happy to see it again.)
Cookies with kids
Cooking with the boys was something I wanted to do more of since Harry finished school, but Harry’s never actually been particularly interested. Joe, however, is a big baking fan, so I’m always looking for new, easy (I’m not very good) (also, I’m lazy) recipes.
So when I was contacted by a PR for BBC Good Food magazine offering me a free mag in return for posting about cooking with kids, I couldn’t possibly refuse. (I would pretty much never turn down a free magazine. I love magazines.)
I don’t think I’ve ever bought Good Food mag before, but I was impressed – there were some really interesting-sounding recipes that looked easy enough for me to manage. The one that jumped out was Blueberry & Pretzel Cookies. They have that sweet/salty thing going on. I love that.
Joe. Doing the egg.
So I bought all the ingredients and told the boys to meet me in the kitchen. Joe came, saying, “Can I do the egg? MAMA?! CAN I DO THE EGG?!” and then Harry came too. Harry read the ingredients out and helped with the weighing. Joe did a bit of weighing too, between yet more “IS IT TIME FOR THE EGG? HARRY! YOU’RE NOT DOING THE EGG! I’M DOING THE EGG!”
Once the dough was ready, but before I’d added the pretzels and blueberries, the boys wanted to try some. Of course they did. Joe tried some. Harry tried some. I tried some. And then, I’m not going to lie, we all ate quite a lot more. I considered abandoning the recipe and just eating the dough. Harry said, “Next time we make this, we should just not cook it.” Joe said, “CAN I HAVE JUST A LITTLE TINY BIT MORE?”
Finally, I chased the children out of the kitchen and put the cookies in the oven. There was a huge amount of mix (even after we’d finished with it), so I decided just to make six cookies and put the rest of the mixture in the freezer. They only took 15 or so minutes to cook (and then 10 to cool – “CAN WE EAT THE COOKIES NOW, MAMA?!”).
They were delicious. One of them had too many blueberries and so was a bit soggy and jammy, but I liked that one even more. (And maybe it would’ve been ok if we’d left them a bit longer?) We’ll definitely make them again.
July 5, 2013
Feminism Friday: Street harassment
‘I often thought that if men could walk around in the world for one day as women, and hear the comments from other men that women hear, they would rush to us in incredulous disbelief, and help us to form safety patrols.’
The above quote, from Succulent Wild Woman by Sark, reminded me that I wanted to post about street harassment.
I often find myself talking to David about harassment and, because he’s never experienced it, I really struggle to explain to him how common it is, how most (all?) women have experienced it, and how it can be genuinely frightening.
A while ago, a male friend wrote on facebook something like “Is there anything worse than being stuck in a train carriage with a hen party?” As I read it, I thought about how being stuck with a stag party would be much worse for me. And then I remembered something an online friend tweeted about (I have her permission to include the story here):
“I was on the Tube coming back from Bristol Women’s Lit Festival & this group of about 4 men came in to my carriage. They were being deliberately loud and intimidating, then started loudly discussing whether they’d ‘give me one’ and made a football chant up about how they’d fuck me up the arse, which they all shouted repeatedly. No others passengers in the Tube did anything, and I froze and couldn’t respond.”
I’ve never experienced anything as bad as that, but it seems to be fairly common on the tube. (Please read Louise Jones’s powerful post about her experiences with sexual assault on the tube.) However, I have experienced street harassment. A lot.
When I lived in Richmond, aged 18, I remember walking home and some men shouting something from a car. It was dark, I didn’t see them, I didn’t even hear what they said, but the shouting was aggressive, it made me jump and it made me feel incredibly unsafe. I walked the rest of the way home crying.
Waiting for the bus one evening in Richmond – it was early, probably 7-ish – a man asked me if I had the time and when I looked round, he had his penis in his hand.
Walking down the steps to the Tottenham Court Road tube, a man coming up the other side reached over and squeezed my boob then carried on as if nothing had happened.
I used to pass a man on the way to work each morning. He owned the local newsagents and didn’t speak much English, so we were mostly on nodding and smiling terms. I looked forward to seeing him because he was always so happy. And then one morning, he stopped and asked me my name. I told him. He said, “I want to lick you all over.”
One New Year, the man who worked in the local takeaway reached for my hand to shake and, I assumed, wish me a happy New Year. He then pulled my arm so hard that my feet actually came off the ground and kissed me hard on the lips.
The odd thing about it is that I laughed off most of these experiences. I turned them into a funny story. Only a couple of them upset me at the time. A couple of them made me really angry in the immediate aftermath. Mostly, I just thought it was just one of those things. But why the hell should it be? Why should women have to put up with this kind of stuff just for being female in the world?
Author and journalist Holly Bourne tweeted this recently. I have her permission to include the tweets here.
This is a really excellent video answering common questions – particularly those asked by men – about street harassment (with a great answer to “But isn’t it a compliment?”).
July 3, 2013
Writing for Teenagers course starts 1 August
I’m running my online writing course again from 1 August.
July 1, 2013
Life Begins at 22 (a blorgy)
Me at 22-ish.
At 22 I was living in London. I’d moved there age 18, which people tell me was brave. Actually, I think it was brave. But at the time it didn’t seem brave, it seemed necessary.
When I moved, I worked as a live-in “Mother’s Help” but by the time I was 22, I was living in a bedsit behind of row of shows, opposite Ealing Common tube. It had been advertised as a mews house, but it was more of a converted garage, the gaps at the tops of the bare brick walls had been plugged with empty bread bags and slugs danced across the carpet every night.
I worked for an accountancy firm that also had a Dublin office. For the Christmas party, the Irish contingent came over and joined us for dinner. The previous year, I’d had a flirtation with one of the Irish staffers, but had subsequently learned he had a girlfriend. This year, though, he was quick to tell me he was single. I was just as quick to get exceedingly drunk (although I still remember what I drank: bottled lager, wine with dinner – red and then, when the red ran out, white – a Tequila Slammer, a Black Russian, a White Russian, a Southern Comfort).
I left the hotel with the Irish guy and we staggered from doorway to doorway, snogging ferociously, until we were finally able to flag down a cab, the driver of which, I’m pretty sure, was sorry to have picked us up.
Back at the hotel, I announced to my colleagues – gathered in the bar – that Irish Guy and I were off upstairs. To his room. “To have sex,” I added from halfway up the stairs. You know, in case I’d been too subtle.
It was my first time. I don’t remember much about it. Which is probably for the best.
LIFE BEGINS AT 22 is a blorgy of sharing to celebrate the launch of BROOKLYN GIRLS by Gemma Burgess. Find out more about the book here and read more LIFE BEGINS AT 22 entries here.
June 28, 2013
Feminism Friday: Anger
In the video below, Margaret Kammer of Everyday Feminism discusses how angry discourse can be off-putting when explaining feminist issues to people who don’t identify as feminist.
“She reflects on her own pre-feminism views and stresses the importance of remembering that a destructive belief does not define a person, nor does it eternally damn them as sexist.”
This is something I struggle with – I can get really annoyed with, and dismiss (if only mentally), people for sexist remarks even with the knowledge that I’ve probably made (or at least thought) similar things in the past.
Partly it’s because I hate to argue… I’ll just pause while everyone who knows me laughs at that… But I do. I enjoy debating, but I hate arguing. But I also know that sometimes that changes too – you can start off arguing and end up debating – and it comes from a place of mutual respect. Plus you have to remove defensiveness, which I also find hard. I have a couple of good friends who have played a big part in My Feminist Journey™ and I’m pretty sure when we first started discussing these issues I was a defensive, sarcastic brat (in fact, I know I was – I still have the emails) and they didn’t tell me to do one, so I should try really hard to be as gracious.
Also, I need to remember not everyone’s on the same page – why would they be? I think of the friends I mention above as being at least a few chapters ahead of me in The Big Book of Patriarchal Bullshit, so I need to be ok with some people being a few chapters behind. (The people who haven’t even picked it up yet though? I’m a bit baffled by them, I must admit. But, you know, everyone’s got to start somewhere.)
It’s tricky online, I know. I have a tendency to second-guess people’s comments and immediately start arguing with them in my head and I’m trying really hard to wait and see if I’m right before weighing in. Or to ask them for clarification. Sometimes it turns out I misunderstood. Other times, they genuinely don’t understand and are asking for an explanation. Sometimes, yes, they’re just being wankers and I can either choose to get into it with them or I can just step away. This is also hard for me, because I want every argument discussion to end with the words, “You’re right, Keris.” I’m working on it, I promise.
Please do watch the video. It’s only four minutes and Kammer explains it all brilliantly.
June 20, 2013
Feminism Friday: This
I was planning a big post about body hair today, but I didn’t do any writing yesterday (spent the whole day trying to get my head around Scrivener) so you’ve got that to look forward to next week, you lucky ducks.
Instead, just read this. It’s fucking awful.
June 19, 2013
Join Quib.ly’s home education Twitter chat tomorrow (I’ll be there)
I’ve been aware of Quib.ly for a while, but haven’t really had the time to have a good look around the site, so when I was invited to take part in a home education Twitter chat, I jumped at the chance.
Quib.ly is a membership site focussed on children and technology. Members can ask questions – or answer questions posed by other members – on subjects such as Safety & Privacy, Toys & Gadgets, Child Development and more. Of course, Quib.ly has an education section that covers home education more than any other site I’ve seen, which is great for us since we’re relatively new to home ed. In fact, we’re coming up to the end of our first “school year” of home educating – Harry would have gone in to Year 4 last September, but we decided to keep him home instead.
The main thing I want to say about our decision to home educate is that it was much more a positive than a negative one. When people ask me about home ed, they seem to assume there was a problem with the school – it wasn’t that at all. Yes, we started out questioning school because the curriculum seemed so stuffed that Harry was feeling rushed and asking to learn more about certain subjects, but once we started learning about home ed, it became more about us being together as a family and the boys (Harry is almost 9, Joe is 4) learning through living.
One of the people who inspired me when I was considering home education was American blogger Penelope Trunk. This quote of hers sums up home I feel about home education:
“I love seeing how excited I can make them with the world around them… I want their whole lives to be like that… I want to teach them how to make that for themselves. In the meantime, they give that to me. At least once a day. And I think that is really why I’m keeping them out of school. So we can all have more joy, each day, together.”
On Thursday 20 June (tomorrow!) at 11am BST, Quib.ly is hosting a Twitter chat to explore home education. They are hoping to demystify and bust some myths for those curious (and maybe even sceptical) about homeschooling, celebrate the successes of homeschooling families and discuss all the tools and techniques that can make homeschooling, flexischooling and unschooling a positive experience for many families.
One of the things I love about home ed is that all home educating families are different and work in different ways, so I’m looking forward to getting to know the other bloggers involved and answering everyone’s questions.
To get involved, follow @quibly and use the hashtag #QuiblyQs
Disclosure: this post has been sponsored by Quib.ly and is cross-posted on my other blog, Happy Home Ed.
June 18, 2013
Me. This week. Sort of.
I (finally) started the rewrite of Cherry Season yesterday. (But shush, don’t get too excited, we might scare it away.) So I won’t be blogging til I finish it. I mean, I know I’m blogging now, but I’m only blogging to say I won’t be blogging so that’s fine, obviously. (And now that I’ve just watched this Spaced clip, I may well post a Spaced clip every day. But that’s all. Honest.)
