Being a woman is hard.
That isn't to say that I think men have it easy. I would hate to live life knowing that if I were to have a bad day and as a result broke down crying in the middle of the office at work, that everyone's level of respect for me would hit the ground and never get back up. I would hate to live life knowing that if I ever had a child, I would be assumed to be the secondary caregiver, and that the school would always contact "Mum" before "Dad", regardless of the fact that "Mum" might be out of town on a business meeting, and "Dad" might be at home making the beds and fixing dinner. I would hate to live life knowing that if I took time out to be a dad, when people asked me what I did and I answered, "I'm a stay-at-home dad", the looks I would receive would be different to if a woman answered the same question with, "I'm a stay-at-home mum." I would hate to live life knowing that I must shave my face every morning or else risk looking like sasquatch, though I suspect I might have to anyway once the menopause hits. I would hate to live life with testicles. Those things look like they get in the way.
But I do think that women have it harder. Just sayin'.
There's biology, for a start: hormonal rollercoasters every month, blood gushing out from between the legs, doctors shoving things inside you every few years to check for pre-cancerous cells, childbirth, saggy stretch-mark ridden skin that will never be the same ever again, swollen milky boobs that are destined to wind up pointing south, the capacity to be a parent having a time limit, hot flushes, to-HRT or to-not-HRT... From the onset of puberty until we leave the world, we put up with regular shit, and that's just biology. There's also society, and society is, if anything, the biggest bastard of them all.
We live in a world where women are all of the above, and yet we are told to be something else entirely different, or at least to pretend to be. We are hormonal and suffer from occasional (and sometimes constant) low self-esteem, yet we are told to be confident and beautiful, or else we are crazy and high-maintenance. We have periods every month (sometimes more frequently), which more often than not come equipped with debilitating pain, yet we are told to get on and go to work, look yummy and not speak about it - and don't let anyone see your tampons! Our bodies are put through massive rapid changes during and after pregnancy, and yet we are told that we are meant to "glow" when pregnant, and are expected to look like these celebrity mums who personal-trainer their way to anorexia six weeks after giving birth. We are told breast is best, and yet the length of maternity leave in this country doesn't really allow for the government's current recommendation of two years, nor do people feel comfortable seeing a woman breastfeed in public, because apparently breasts are not breasts, they are tits. We are told we can achieve the same high-paid professions as men, and yet can we? Or do we have to choose between babies and career? Or do we wait, and run the risk of finding out that our eggs have gone bad and it's now too little, too late? We are expected, as "sexi ladiez", to fill the bars and clubs while filling our stomachs with cheap promotion alcohol, and yet are told not to travel home late at night by ourselves because we might get raped - and if we do then it's actually kinda our fault because we shouldn't have been wearing that dress, and really - what do we expect? When we hit 40, we have to choose to become either "past it" or "a MILF", because for some reason the option to be a "silver fox" or "distinguished" is reserved solely for men.
The world wants us to be confident, beautiful, intelligent, classy... and up for it. There is something intrinsically wrong with us if we're not. Apparently.
Every time I walk into a newsagents these days I see women's magazines with eye-catching headlines like "HOW TO GET THE PERFECT SUMMER BODY" and "HOW TO TURN HIM ON" and "HOW TO GET FLAWLESS SKIN". You know what I would really love? I would really love it if we stopped asking ourselves the question "How do I do this?" and instead start asking ourselves "Why the hell should I?"
Wednesday 23 May 2012
Saturday 12 May 2012
Welcome back.
When I was younger, like a lot of kids, I had a debilitating fear of death. I know you're probably thinking that a fear of death can't debilitate a nine-year-old, and that perhaps the only person it can debilitate is maybe a funeral director, or the person who puts makeup on dead people to make them look less... well, dead. But it debilitated me. I stopped going to church, I ducked out on a few funerals (I know, I know) and I used to lie in bed at night staring up at the ceiling, thinking to myself, "It's gonna happen. One day, it's gonna happen."
Around this time, I was taken on a family outing to Highgate Cemetery (if you're not familiar, it's a pretty famous burial spot, where the likes of Karl Marx and George Eliot have taken their final resting place). Confronting a fear head-on? Maybe. The thunderstorm didn't particularly help, though - nor did the fact that as we ran towards the gates of the cemetery, our shoes slipping on the wet ground and the thunder crashing in the dark grey sky above us, we found that the gates were shut. And thus ensued my first ever panic attack.
I was remembering this moment yesterday, and wondering what it is, exactly, that makes cemeteries and all things relating to death so terrifying. No one really wants to die, and if they do then either they have lived a full life and feel their time is now, or something is very, very wrong. If we did all want to die, we'd be jumping off cliffs left, right and centre and our species as we know it now would simply cease to exist - so of course a fear of death and a fear of the unknown is perfectly normal, and I accept that now. I just don't understand the tingling sensation that creeps up and down your spine when you walk into a cemetery or a morgue, and why that is feared by so many. Why don't we feel the same way about the remote control when the batteries run out? Just imagine the scenario:
John lounges on his sofa late at night, flicking through the channels. As he reaches E4, he notices the volume button becomes unresponsive, but he assumes it's a problem over at 4, and nothing to do with him, and so he keeps flicking.
He reaches the music channels and stumbles upon his favourite band, Steps (yes, John like Steps). He happily watches their old hit 'Tragedy', even joining in on the dance moves he remembers - but then the song ends and the video fades into darkness, and the presenter introduces the next video: 'Oops I Did It Again', by Britney Spears. Ugh (John doesn't think much of Britney; he prefers Christina)! He goes to change the channel.
Nothing happens.
He presses the button again.
Still nothing.
He tries different buttons, even the eject button even though he hasn't watched a DVD in months, but nothing, no matter how hard he pushes and no matter how he angles the remote control, works. It is then that he realises that the remote control has died. The thing inside it that makes the remote control work has stopped, it's reached the end of its life. He glances up at the clock: Time of death, 20:34. He lays the remote control down on the sofa, takes one final glance at it and exits the room, closing the door behind him.
He goes to the kitchen. He sits down, thinks. Then he stands up again, paces to the cupboard and pulls out a glass, filling it high with whiskey. He downs it at once and slams the empty glass down on the counter, wincing and glancing back towards the living room, where lies the dead remote control. He suddenly feels a sense of panic rising over his spine. What if...?
No. He musn't think those things! The remote control is dead - remote controls cannot rise from the dead. And even if they could, what would they do, exactly? Float into the room in an eerie fashion, making "Wooo" noises, and try to eat his brain? No. No, that simply does not happen. It can't happen.
Two hours later, John's flatmate Sylvia arrives home, back late from a crap date. She slams the door behind her, fuming at her date's sheer audacity in trying to kiss her. How very dare he! She walks into the kitchen and finds John sitting there at the table, dark circles under his eyes, cradling himself and rocking backwards and forwards in his chair.
"John?"
John can't look at her. He opens his mouth, and the stench of alcohol creeps out.
"John, have you been crying?"
John's head hurt. He can't even concentrate on the tiled pattern on the floor. Sylvia touches the nape of his neck with her cold hand, and he jumps a mile.
"What the..." Sylvia says. "What's wrong?"
John stands on the other side of the room, still holding himself. Slowly, he lifts his gaze to meet Sylvia's eye.
"The remote control..." He begins. "It... I was just... I don't know what happened. It just..."
"John?"
"It died, Sylvia. It's in there now, dead. I can't even... What if..."
Sylvia takes one good, long look at John, and then asks him to kindly pack his bags and leave. Quite frankly, he's starting to give her the creeps. Then she fetches a pair of batteries out of the cupboard and inserts them into the remote control, which lives again.
Around this time, I was taken on a family outing to Highgate Cemetery (if you're not familiar, it's a pretty famous burial spot, where the likes of Karl Marx and George Eliot have taken their final resting place). Confronting a fear head-on? Maybe. The thunderstorm didn't particularly help, though - nor did the fact that as we ran towards the gates of the cemetery, our shoes slipping on the wet ground and the thunder crashing in the dark grey sky above us, we found that the gates were shut. And thus ensued my first ever panic attack.
I was remembering this moment yesterday, and wondering what it is, exactly, that makes cemeteries and all things relating to death so terrifying. No one really wants to die, and if they do then either they have lived a full life and feel their time is now, or something is very, very wrong. If we did all want to die, we'd be jumping off cliffs left, right and centre and our species as we know it now would simply cease to exist - so of course a fear of death and a fear of the unknown is perfectly normal, and I accept that now. I just don't understand the tingling sensation that creeps up and down your spine when you walk into a cemetery or a morgue, and why that is feared by so many. Why don't we feel the same way about the remote control when the batteries run out? Just imagine the scenario:
John lounges on his sofa late at night, flicking through the channels. As he reaches E4, he notices the volume button becomes unresponsive, but he assumes it's a problem over at 4, and nothing to do with him, and so he keeps flicking.
He reaches the music channels and stumbles upon his favourite band, Steps (yes, John like Steps). He happily watches their old hit 'Tragedy', even joining in on the dance moves he remembers - but then the song ends and the video fades into darkness, and the presenter introduces the next video: 'Oops I Did It Again', by Britney Spears. Ugh (John doesn't think much of Britney; he prefers Christina)! He goes to change the channel.
Nothing happens.
He presses the button again.
Still nothing.
He tries different buttons, even the eject button even though he hasn't watched a DVD in months, but nothing, no matter how hard he pushes and no matter how he angles the remote control, works. It is then that he realises that the remote control has died. The thing inside it that makes the remote control work has stopped, it's reached the end of its life. He glances up at the clock: Time of death, 20:34. He lays the remote control down on the sofa, takes one final glance at it and exits the room, closing the door behind him.
He goes to the kitchen. He sits down, thinks. Then he stands up again, paces to the cupboard and pulls out a glass, filling it high with whiskey. He downs it at once and slams the empty glass down on the counter, wincing and glancing back towards the living room, where lies the dead remote control. He suddenly feels a sense of panic rising over his spine. What if...?
No. He musn't think those things! The remote control is dead - remote controls cannot rise from the dead. And even if they could, what would they do, exactly? Float into the room in an eerie fashion, making "Wooo" noises, and try to eat his brain? No. No, that simply does not happen. It can't happen.
Two hours later, John's flatmate Sylvia arrives home, back late from a crap date. She slams the door behind her, fuming at her date's sheer audacity in trying to kiss her. How very dare he! She walks into the kitchen and finds John sitting there at the table, dark circles under his eyes, cradling himself and rocking backwards and forwards in his chair.
"John?"
John can't look at her. He opens his mouth, and the stench of alcohol creeps out.
"John, have you been crying?"
John's head hurt. He can't even concentrate on the tiled pattern on the floor. Sylvia touches the nape of his neck with her cold hand, and he jumps a mile.
"What the..." Sylvia says. "What's wrong?"
John stands on the other side of the room, still holding himself. Slowly, he lifts his gaze to meet Sylvia's eye.
"The remote control..." He begins. "It... I was just... I don't know what happened. It just..."
"John?"
"It died, Sylvia. It's in there now, dead. I can't even... What if..."
Sylvia takes one good, long look at John, and then asks him to kindly pack his bags and leave. Quite frankly, he's starting to give her the creeps. Then she fetches a pair of batteries out of the cupboard and inserts them into the remote control, which lives again.
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