Tag Archives: Women

And another thing

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While I’m on the subject of women being OK with their so-last-century decisions, here are a few more I’m perfectly at one with:

1. Our child has her Da’s surname. Fetch the smelling salts, Morag; we have a few down at the back. Anyone who feels compelled to point out that two parents with two different surnames are responsible for the creation of their child as a justification for a double-barrelled surname, is on a hiding to a boot up the hole. Not because it makes perfect sense. But rather because it makes such perfect sense, even to those who only rarely dabble in logic. And most of all, because nobody cares. So don’t mind the rest of us of, or how, or why, we choose to do otherwise.

2. Mammy guilt. I get it. Compromise is commonplace. Something’s gotta give etc. Just don’t assume we all have it. Stop volunteering on behalf of it for me because it has led me to hatch a rare strain of guilt over lacking this other kind of mammy guilt. And since that risks portraying me as a love-free A-Mammy throwback from the maternal factory line, I’d better eat something just to cope with the judgement. Oh thank God I’m still able to exhibit classic female emotional behaviours sometimes. Mammy guilt – nothing mythical about it. Commonly felt, commonly understood. But I’m in danger of developing an allergic reaction to it, if I’m force fed any more of it.

3. Glass ceiling collisions, coma, and confusion. It pisses me off, too. There’s not enough women in the board room. The disparity in wages, the rife sexism, the challenges of returning to the labour force post-early years rearing. Yep. I hear ya. I’m right there next to you on the street with a placard. But I couldn’t give a monkeys if I never made it to management. I would rather wax my own arse lying prostrate across our town centre roundabout than size up my chances of climbing the career ladder. Lack of ambition – grossly underrated, erroneously mistaken as lazy and lacking drive. Personally, I find it the opposite. I’ve decided to quit while I’m ahead. Hardly from the most vertiginous rung on the ladder, unless I’m a ladybird. Which also plays it own small imperceptible role in the eco-system.

Failure to politicise every facet of my personal life does not undermine the fight for equality. It doesn’t corrode my feminism. It doesn’t make me an enemy of it, or the worst enemy of myself. It doesn’t mock my solidarity. Choice is not a rule of compliance. The line between choice and subtle coercion feels trapeze-wire thin at times.

If I want to have a home birth/give my child a dose of surnames/sharp elbow my way to the pinnacle of my potential, you’ll be the first I’ll call to thank you for imploring me to “at least think about it”.

And that concludes this month’s series of rants in pissed off minor. With any luck.

Women and the web

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One of the by-products of blogging I hadn’t anticipated, is the level of interaction and commentary between bloggers. Which seems daft now given the congestion when making my way towards a few favourites.

Before taking the leap into the virtual wilderness with WordPress, I got off on trading banter on a couple of message-boards of varying purpose and personality. I still do. The chat deviates from what it says on the tin (music, matrimony, cheese appreciation etc.). Topics are flung up at random, and the discussion belongs to all in common without the original poster’s work coming under heightened scrutiny. At some stage, everyone will unite against perceived injustices carried out by an invisible board administrator. Lyrical will be capital-lettered on the benefits of free speech and fears over grave threats to the ‘community’. However off-beam and barmy that speech can deteriorate into. Conversation is less about responding to the person who makes the point that kicks it off, than all grabbing the topic to play tug o’ war with it until they knock themselves out after 50 pages. We’ve all been there. The dynamic differs. Sensitivities wither more rapidly.

In the fifteen years (yikes) since dipping my toe in on-line chat, social media continues to thrive as a much lauded instrument of democracy; a civic forum transcending officialdom providing unfettered access to channels for the creation of public ‘opinion’ from the comfort of our kitchens. A challenge to consensus. Mostly by people who comment on-line. Its status as an apparatus of the people comes into sharper focus with the centrality of citizen reporting in contemporary front-line news packages. An integral component of modern life in which everyone has an e-print of their own. Even Daily Mail readers.

But is it inclusive of everyone? The opportunity to swap chat with folk scattered across time-zones suggests a compendium of the world has never been more reachable than through a keypad. It’s hard to argue with that when you’re busy arguing with someone else 10,000 miles away over the merits of U2’s output since Achtung Baby. The lack of a consensus on that topic is on-going and set to intensify with each successive album release.

As a relatively busy person with the concentration span of a bubble (so busy I get to sit down and tell you), and an allergy to discussions on U2 exceeding five minutes, I can’t devote myself to making the case for their overdue break-up. Hopefully some youths will fly the skull ‘n’ bones flag for me. They have a toolbox of acronyms to speed things up, IYKWIM.

Most of us are contending with busy lives, so it is not possible to fly the flag for every conceivable injustice or inequality all of the time. We can’t diversity-proof our life’s experiences and posts. Nor should we have the desire to do so. Our powers of inclusion and empathy are not limitless. Most of the time I come on here to blog top five cheeses, which I must get round to doing soon.

Even so, I get instinctively jittery when walking into what feels like on-line cosy consensus at times. On parenting matters, for example, particularly the challenges to women, and all the attendant anxieties of inhabiting that role. A singular narrative creeps in and a new consensus threatens to dominate. From the risk of glass-ceiling concussion, to best ways to hide butternut squash in a veg-resistant child’s meal. Certainly, these topics are as worthy of a chin-stroke as the umpteen other common denominators that divide and console our daily difficulties.

Still, I wonder how much of the prevalent views on social media are representative of women’s experiences as a whole. Women for whom the term glass ceiling means something entirely different. For whom the challenges of balancing childcare and career fling insurmountable barriers in the way of their hopes rarely discussed, let alone realised. A diversity of women, whose lives don’t fit with a prevailing commentary often alien to them. The women that trickle-down feminism doesn’t ever seem to reach.

Which is where I think message-boards have a slight edge over blogging. The neutrality of a public space dissolves consensus and social niceties more readily; whereas crossing the threshold of someone’s virtual living room helps keep them intact.  Being surrounded by another’s carefully chosen décor and family portraits will naturally influence conduct and contributions.  It does mine, at times. The ugly side of anonymity on message-boards needs no defending, but the benefits of anonymity cannot be dismissed either.  Assumptions and generalisations are exposed to a more rigorous kicking from size 10 steel-toe caps than a less threatening pair of pumps.

That’s not to suggest blogging is free from fisticuffs, or that message-boards provide a utopian level of interaction for all. Participation in social media hinges on a number of factors. Exclusion is part and parcel of the privilege, but that doesn’t mean those with access are required to apologise for making full use of it.

It’s just that in 2014, women in Ireland have never been more diverse in terms of ethnicity, class divide, income, and the configuration of their families. I’m not convinced they’re represented on-line, or that a lot of potential consensus on parenting and family life represents their experiences entirely. Because, it can’t though, can it?

And there goes the question mark it has taken me 832 words to reach. Far from a desire to issue sanctimonious full-stops, it’s just something I occasionally wonder about in the context of the web’s reputation as the great leveller. Something to bear in mind.

But not nearly as important as top five cheeses, which are as follows:

1. Cashel Blue

2. Stilton

3. Camembert

4. Richard Curtis films

5. Billy Joel’s Greatest Hits

 

Feel free to add your own.

The pregnant pause

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Snip. Snip. “What age is your wee one then?” Snip. “Coming two and a half”. Snip. Snip. Snip. “They’re some craic at that age” “Aye, indeed”. Snip. “Do you have any children yourself?” “No”. Snip. Snip. Snip. Snip. Snip. Snip. Snip. Snip. Snip. Snip. Snip. Snip. Snip. Snip. Snip. “What if I take another inch off the ends for you?” Snip. Snip. “Sorry?” “What about another inch off the end?” “Sure”

[later that evening]

Chat. Chat. “It’s a lovely party” [I still can’t believe I said that] “Yeah, it’s all confirmations and christenings with us at the moment”. “Good stuff, how are you enjoying your retirement?” “Very well. I’m just taking things at my leisure. And what about yourself? Aren’t you due sometime soon?” “Sorry?” “Aren’t you due in a few months?” “Ah, you must be thinking of my Sister-in-law….”

[earlier that day]

“No”. Snip. Snip.

Shit. What do I say? I know fuck all about this woman. What can I possibly say? Think, woman, think. I hate this small talk shit. Maybe she’s cool with it. Who am I to be volunteering on behalf of her private possibly non-existent disappointment. She’s what? late 40s? Maybe that was her plan. What do I know. What if it wasn’t? She must get this 50 times a day. And I only asked because it seemed like she probably had, and because I used to hate it when no-one asked me when I had none. As much as I hated it when they did ask me. I bet her thought bubble is urging my thought bubble to hurry the fuck up and say something. I’m going to have to think of something else to talk about.

“What if I take another inch off the ends for you?”

She did a great job of my hair.

[later that evening]

“Ah, you must be thinking of my Sister-in-law….”

*automatically sucks tummy in* Who the fuck heard that? *furtive glance around* Phew. I fucking knew it. And I can’t even blame this ridiculous floaty top. Just keep talking because this poor woman is mortified and I’d die if I were in her shoes. Don’t worry, love, we’ve all been there. Well, only once in my case when I thought it would be rude not to ask a hairdresser if she was due soon after maintaining a lifetime’s indifference to in-my-face bumps/women panting/asking me to get them towels/moaning about having a baby etc., just to be on the safe side. A sorry lesson followed by a tense 20 minute haircut, made worse by forgetting my purse and enduring an excruciating polite-off when both of us just wanted the ground to open up and swallow us whole. Like the ground was 89 months pregnant. Like a hump-back bridge. And now it’s my turn. Just talk this woman to death and move on, and hopefully I’ll get some of that Malteser cheesecake knocking about without her noticing.

“…Yeah, she’s due at the end of the month. Her other one is all excited, waiting for the new wee baby brother or sister. You know yourself. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah de fucking blah.”

The cheesecake was lovely.