The Myth of the Invisible Young Feminists

The Myth of the Invisible Young Feminists

It seems a lot of people are very invested in the idea that there are no young feminists, that young women are turning away from feminism in droves, that young women just don’t care about feminism, that we are embarrassed and ashamed of it.

Well, all I can say to that is it is not my experience AT ALL. I know hundreds of young feminists. I am in touch with young feminists all over the country through networks and Ladyfests, and I am in touch with young feminists all over the world through social media and the blogosphere.

We’re everywhere. Get used to it.

Of course, not all young women are feminists. And a hell of a lot of young women seem to say “I’m not a feminist but” and then say they agree with a lot of feminist thought. But that’s ok, isn’t it? The thought is the thing, the badge can come later. I know women who shied away from calling themselves feminists, and now embrace the word wholeheartedly. Why? Because people are allowed to change, they are allowed to and they do change their minds. And the times, they are a changing. A lot of young women who didn’t identify as feminist may now be starting to do so, because they are sick to the back teeth of the way society views women at the moment. They’re sick of violence against women being ignored and low rape conviction rates, sick of exploitation, sick of objectification and sick of street harassment. Look beyond the UK and women are sick of how other women are treated globally, angry with FGM and floggings of women in trousers and televised beatings of women by the Taliban, of women being raped as a weapon in war, of women bearing the brunt of poverty. Ask these young women, and many will say how they are sick of how the patriarchy hurts men too. I know I am – and I believe that one of the ways to help fight injustices against men worldwide is to help fight injustices against women. The two are side by side.

Janice Turner wrote an article bemoaning the lack of young feminists. She obviously hasn’t heard of Google, as only fingertips away are groups of young women setting up feminist networks, setting up Ladyfests, organising Reclaim the Night and organising fundraisers, rallying to fund Rape Crisis Centres, organising marches, taking to the streets and flyering lad’s mags or hiding them in brown paper bags. We are everywhere! We are in your cities and your towns and we are making a lot of noise. Go on the F-Word, go on Feministing, pick up a copy of Subtext, hang out on my blog – young women everywhere are proclaiming feminism.

I have this week given up posting comments on the crazy world of Comment is Free as I was sick of reading all the nasty anti-feminist comments that in no way contributed to any debate, and sick of reading the nasty personal comments that abound. (as well as the ignorant ones – my favourite being that violence against women is always reported in the news but you never hear about violence against men. Uh – hello?) But one comment that came up over and over again was that all young women were rejecting feminism and so the movement was over. The comment was repeated over and over, even though myself and other young feminists were pointing out that we were young and feminist, ergo we exist. Why is this?

The only explanation I can come up with is that the anti feminist voice has a real invested interest in wilfully ignoring the rise of young feminists and the hard work they are doing in the UK. If they pretend we aren’t there, then they can proclaim the movement over, dead, defunct. If they pretend we aren’t there, they don’t have to face up to the inequalities that abound. If they pretend we aren’t there, they can feel smug that they are right. But the fact is they aren’t right. We are here. We’re very loud about it.
Most importantly – if they pretend we aren’t here, they can pretend feminism has failed. It hasn’t. it achieved huge leaps and bounds and we know we can achieve more.

The more confusing thing is when older feminists such as Germaine Greer deny we exist. This really troubles and worries me. But I guess the only solution is to keep insisting that we are here and we are working hard to make changes. We have to keep blogging, keep writing, keep marching, keep talking, keep consciousness raising, keep demonstrating and keep arguing. It is tiring to have to constantly try to prove we exist, but I believe it will be worth it in the end.

A further piece of evidence espoused by anti feminists to prove that we young feminists are mere figments of our own imaginations is their insulting insistence that young women and old women, especially young feminists and old feminists don’t get on. Well, I call bullshit on this one. Through Bristol Feminist Network I have met the most inspiring and incredible older, second wave women. Their stories of the second wave and their continued feminist fight never fail to inspire me. Their curiosity about how we younglings experience the world, how we deal with the aftermath of their battles, is one of respect and genuine interest. By making the contact between young and old we are able to see how far we’ve come, and we are able to see how far we have to go. The suggestion that old and young can never reach across an impenetrable divide is just another myth designed to perpetuate the idea that women are bitchy and catty. Instead, we support one another, offer advice, laugh and cry together. We are beautifully together.

We don’t all have to like each other, of course. We’re not all going to be bust friends. But that doesn’t mean we can’t discuss, debate and work together to affect change.

So, here we are. Young feminists, making noise, working together with old and young to continue the fight for women and men everywhere. Whether you like it or not!

a polite notice - comments policy

I've been reading a lot lately and have made the decision to start writing more feminist posts on my blog. Rather than just stories.
I used to do this back in the early days, and definitely when Crooked Rib was a beautiful little zine in print. But after some nasty negative comments on my blog I decided I wasn't sure I really wanted to read all the bile and mean-ness so stuck with the stories. (which i will continue to write). However, I now think that because some people think it is ok to be nasty and personal on blogs, safe in the knowledge that they can hide in the anonymity of the web, is not a good reason to stop saying feminist things.

in light of that, i am going to introduce a comments policy. it is quite simple.

Please do not make homophobic, racist, sexist, ablist, transphobic or hateful remarks on my blog. It isn't big, it isn't clever.

Please do not attack me personally or assume because you read my blog that you know me. It is just silly and quite hurtful. Criticise my writing, point out where you disagree, I am all for debate and questioning. I just don't want to read nasty things.

Similarly, please do not make assumptions about my class, background, history or lifestyle. What is the point? The ironic thing about when people make these criticisms is that they are actually being very prejudiced themselves, as it makes assumptions about behaviours of groups of people.

Please don't write blanket anti feminist statements on my blog, unless you can really back them up. As I say, it is great to have a debate and question why we think things, what we believe in and learn from debates. This is not the same as coming to a feminist blog with your mind made up that everything i say is already irrelevant and tell me so. It's just a waste of time! If you have something to contribute to a positive debate than that would be lovely jubbly.

I hope that is ok. One day we hopefully will live in a world where I wouldn't have to say explicitly to people to not be nasty but hey, we're not there yet and i think it is ok for me to politely ask for politeness.

Thanks and keep reading!!!

want to buy a book that's like this blog? now you can!!

that's right everyone, i have self published a book which you can buy online here

http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/794262

it is lovely and jolly good, i'm sure you will all enjoy it!

i am also going to try and order some copies to sell in the here shop.

enjoy!!

they pulled the devil out of the sea in a lobster pot

this story is for david cleave, who said he wanted to read a story about the devil being caught in a lobster pot. although, he was thinking of cornwall but we all know my heart is in the northumberland coast, so that is where i have transplanted the action.

They pulled the devil out of the sea in a lobster pot

“Did you know the devil lived under the sea, far down in the depths, to the bottom of the ocean and under the sea bed?”
“No, I did not know that.”
“And if you sail out so Budle bay is on your left and the Farnes are on your right, and Lindisfarne isn’t seen but is known, then you will be directly above the devil’s house.”
“No I did not know that.”
“And did you know 11 girls fished the devil up in a lobster pot, and those 11 girls were never seen again.”
“No I did not know that.”

The sea was grey like a silver platter, as smooth and as clear as Julia had ever seen it. Like a long wide road that Jesus could have walked on as the legends had it, grey as a tern’s wing in flight, flat like the base of any old iron.
Julia had cast her boat out from the shore, leaving behind the soft undulating sands of the beach into the flat never ever land of the ocean. Looking round her to Budle bay on her left and the Farnes up to her right, unseen but known to Lindisfarne further down, surrounded on the one side by solidity of land but stranded on the other in the cold stillness of the sea.
“Take out the lobster pots and catch something fresh,” her mother had asked, her mother who had always been worried since her husband’s death, never without a child hanging on her hip and a worn expression on her face, taking in sewing and selling the fish that Julia caught. And Julia knew better than to argue that the eerie quiet of the sea made her nervous, she knew better than to fight back that no lobsters could be found in such a smooth view of plate, she knew better than to say she was afraid of the jellyfish that swelled amorphously in a still still sea, for her mother had always been worried since her husband’s death, never without a child hanging on her hip and a worn expression on her face. And the lobsters she caught that weren’t good enough to sell were good enough to eat, and the lobsters that were good enough to sell were good enough to put more food on the table, and though she hated their grasping hands Julia took the boat down to the shore and cast off into the sea as still as a lake, a still as the millpond in the fairytale.

She threw the pots over the side, and the splash they made was not echoed by a splash of fish in the sea, was not echoed by the splashing in the waves, was not echoed by a splash of the seals that danced under the waves and flopped on the rocks, for the sea was as still as her mother’s heart now that her husband was dead. Splash they fell and into the deep, and Julia lay back and waited, and waited, and waited.

Out on the oceans, there you feel free. As the land fell from the sea out of sight, and the great emptiness engulfed her, Julia forgot to feel afraid of the jellyfish like lions that lay beneath her, and like a cot the sea caressed her boat, lulling her into its spell, taking her into its distance. But she knew better then to allow herself to fall asleep, she knew wisely that the sky as clear as her mother’s best glass could thicken into an apocalyptic landscape, and the sea that was so calm and still could swirl in to a dozen whirling dervishes from whose dizzy dance she would be engaged in forever. So she kept her senses and hummed and mused and watched the glassy surface of the sea, until the first lobster pot needed to be lifted.

And she heaved and she heaved and she thought my my this is a good catch of lobsters and she refused to let it drop as that is how you lose them and with a great big tug and a great big ho the lobster pot crashed in a wet heap on the floor of her boat. And out of the lobster pot fell not a catch of clawed crustaceans, but a beautiful woman dressed in red, with hair as black as the raven’s wing and skin as pale as the moonlight would be when reflected on the sea, and lips as red as a drop of red blood stark against a fresh white snowfall. And Julia gasped for she knew this was the devil, and she knew that she had brought the devil forth in her lobster pot.

“Oh Julia Julia,” said the devil, in a voice that was as sweet as the nightingale in the eveningsong, and as pure as the lark when the dawn would come, as wise and as ancient as the sound the bark of an oak makes when you press your ear against it in the stillness of the moors. “You have released me from the tumult of the world under the oceans, you have pulled me to freedom in your lobster pot, away from the icy depths and the boiling mantle and into the freshness of the sea air that blows against the moors.”
And Julia pressed her back against the boat and cried “get away from me devil, stay away from my flesh; keep away from me devil, my soul you’ll never get.”
The woman smiled in tenderness and laughed like the silver bells that Julia imagined rich ladies wrapped in furs had on their sleds on the steppes in Russia as they galloped through the snow.
“Don’t be afraid Julia. I may be the devil to some but not to the woman who has saved me from my fate under the oceans. To you I will play the angel and reward you with your heart’s desire.”
Her green eyes shone like the dewy grass that grew in the meadows by the forest, and glinted like the emerald Julia had seen on the duchess’s ring when she was a child and had watched her walk past in a state of grandeur that had haunted Julia’s dreams.
“I know what you wish and I know what you dream,” she whispered seductively. “I can bring you your furs and I can bring you your emeralds, and you’ll gallop on horses strung with silver bells. You have saved me and I will grant you your wish, just take me back to your shore and together we’ll live.”
And Julia pressed her back against the boat and cried “get away from me devil, stay away from my flesh; keep away from me devil, my soul you’ll never get.”
And with a great big heave she pushed the devil over the side, and she vanished without even a splash, without even a ripple on the smooth skin of the sea.

The next lobster pot was due to be drawn in, and with a tug and a ho Julia pulled and she heaved, and thought my my, this is a good catch, even the devil can’t keep my lobsters from me. It fell over the side and in a wet splash to the floor of her boat, garnished with weeds and jetsam, encrusted in a salty glaze. But no lobsters fell out, no fish struggled for life, and Julia stared in horror at what the sea had sent.
On the deck of the boat a raven stood, as black as the ocean on a moonless night, as black as the cassock the old priest wore, as black as the heart of the devil himself. And Julia shook in fear for she knew that she was faced with the devil a second time, and that she had raised the devil up in her lobster pot.
“Oh Julia Julia,” he cawed in a voice that had the history of the world in it, as wise and as ancient as the knowledge of the trees, as free as the wind that lapped a bird’s wing in flight. “You have pulled me from the depths of the icy oceans, from the boiling flames of the mantle, to the freedom of the sea air that I have craved and the sight of the shore that I have missed for so long. With you I can fly in safety and in peace, away from the tortures and the fears I have suffered.”
And Julia pressed her back against the boat and cried “get away from me devil, stay away from my flesh; keep away from me devil, my soul you’ll never get.”
And the raven cawed and called to the sky, and shook his head and his feathers in a ruffle of joy.

“I may be the devil and I may have haunted the earth, I may have caused harm to the souls of the world, but to the woman who saved me from the shivery depths I will only ever be a friend. I will grant you your wishes and your heart’s desire for rescuing me away from the horror of hellfire.”
Julia thought of the sad little cottage and her brother who didn’t have enough clothes for the winter. She thought of the cracks in the plates and the windows that let in the winds in from the north and the east, and the rains that attacked like knives. She thought of her brother’s sad face as he chewed nervously on his old toy, staring with wide eyes at his mother’s tears for her husband.
“I can bring clothes to your brother and wrap him in wool, he’ll sleep in velvet covers and he’ll never feel the cold. On his bed will lie a soft toy that will guard him through the night, and your mother and you will laugh at his antics, as he runs around carefree in a cottage as cosy as it is large. The windows I’ll mend and the cups I’ll replace, and you’ll eat from fine china and drink from cut glass and the nights will never haunt your rest again.”
He flapped his wings and he raised his beak, and in his beady eyes that were as ancient as the bones in the earth itself Julia saw the freedom from misery that her brother could have. But she saw the devil in his wings and the devil in his beak, and she knew her misery she would keep.
And Julia pressed her back against the boat and cried “get away from me devil, stay away from my flesh; keep away from me devil, my soul you’ll never get.”
With a heave and a push she threw the raven off the side of her small boat, and it fell without a splash and without a ripple, back to its home in ocean’s depth, back to its home in the heat of the mantle. Exhausted she lay back by the empty lobster pots, and wondered what she would tell her mother when she returned with nothing to eat and nothing to sell.
“This last pot must bring me a catch,” she muttered. “Or I don’t know how I will be able to go home.”
And with such thoughts in her mind she heaved and she pulled and she dragged with all her might the final pot onto the floor of her boat.
It landed in a splash of salty water and jetsam and sea weeds, encrusted in salt, and Julia checked that no jelly fish had stuck to its sides, as she knew the pain of being at sea with a burning sting, and she was afraid enough of the stillness at the sea.
And out of the lobster pot stepped a man, tall and broad with a sailor’s beard, and a pain struck her heart as Julia recognised the burnished skin and close curled hair, the piercing eyes that were as blue as sea when it dashed on the rocks, the face of her mother’s husband, the face of her father. And tears fell down her face as she knew this was the devil to visit her once more, that she had raised the devil from the oceans in her lobster pot, and that she wanted to take the devil in her arms and cry out the sorrows that had struck her heart since her father had fallen in a hole in the ocean.
“Oh Julia Julia,” he sang in his voice, as pure as the winds that blew the waves of the ocean. “You have pulled me from the depths of the icy oceans, from the boiling flames of the mantle, to the freedom of the sea air that I have craved and the sight of the shore that I have missed for so long. With you I can live in peace on the land, and sail on the sea as my home.”
And crying in fear and sadness and terror, Julia pressed her back against the boat and cried “get away from me devil, stay away from my flesh; keep away from me devil, my soul you’ll never get.”
“The devil I may be who once haunted the earth, and I may have brought fear and temptation its way, I brought in the frosts that stopped the fruit growing, and I conjured up storms that frightened the fish from the shore. I may have brought sadness and sorrow to lives, but to you, dear Julia, I can only be a friend, for you are my saviour, you gave me life, for you pulled me up in your lobster pot. And to you I can bring your heart’s desire.”
Julia looked at the devil with her father’s face, and she remembered the days when he’d tell her stories, when he’d pick up her brother with a laugh and smile, and her mother never seemed sad, or so worn or so pale. She thought of the cottage that was once spick and span, and the walks on the shore where he pointed out the sea birds to her, she remembered her mother laughing and her father laughing and her brother playing on floors that weren’t worn with dust and sadness.
“I can bring back your father and laughter to your house. I can take away the worn look from your mother and give her a husband that is her heart’s desire, and the four of you will smile and joke and sing, and a new baby child will lighten your hearth. You’ll sail on a boat by your father’s side, and your mother will wear bright colours again, her hair will shine and her teeth will gleam, and all of her cares will vanish in one.”
And Julia dreamed of the future that could be and the home that she once had, but she knew the devil and she knew the stories and that no good could come of taking his gift.
And Julia pressed her back against the boat and cried “get away from me devil, stay away from my flesh; keep away from me devil, my soul you’ll never get.”
She pushed and pushed but her devil father took hold of her hands and as he fell from the boat’s side he pulled her down with him, and Julia and the devil fell into the sea without even a splash, without even a ripple.

Down down down through the silvery depths he pulled her, as the fish swam upwards and the seals swam upwards and the lobsters crawled from the sea floor up up up to the surface, and the jellyfish floated upwards too, amorphous and patient, but Julia and the devil kept on going, down further than Julia ever would have dared to believe the ocean sank.
And when they reached the ocean floor he kept taking her further, through the sandy bottom and the rocky corals, into the earth, towards the fired mantle. And Julia’s tears filled the sea with salt water, but soon her tears faded when she realised through them she was becoming one with the sea.

And the devil took her to his land under the ocean floor, where ten pretty maids stood all in a row and they sang to Julia that they like her had refused the devil’s gifts and now they like her lived their days in his house under the ocean floor. They sang of what they had wished for and they sang of what they had refused, and they sang a welcome to Julia who stood, dumbstruck and amazed, at the grandeur of the devil’s house.

And the eleventh maid was captured, and lives far off in the deep. And we never take a lobster pot out onto the sea, when Budle bay is on your left and the Farnes are on your right, and Lindisfarne is unseen but known. For the devil’s house is there under the sea, and he is looking for a lobster pot, he is looking to be free.

Judy

i wrote this today - it is kind of inspired by Judy and the Dream of Horses by Belle and Sebastian and is my first attempt at writing from a male perspective.


Judy arrived when I was 17. Just like that, turned up in my English literature class, long legs in a denim mini skirt, small waist and shoulders in a stripy jumper, hair in a bob and those dreamy brown eyes that made me wonder.
“I'm Judy,” she said, her higher pitched voice not suiting her husky look. “Can I sit here?”
I nodded and we opened our copies of Measure to Measure.

I wanted to be her friend, that was clear from the start.

“What do you think about Mariana?” she asked, just like that. “Sex object plot device or fully formed character?”
I shrugged. I didn't know. I got all confused by her use of the word sex.
“I'm Steven,” I replied. “I like your top.”
She shrugged back. “Thanks, it's old.” Then a pause. “Sorry, I do that. People pay me a compliment and I have to semi refuse it.”
“It's ok. It's fine, really.” I wasn't sure what she meant, but I knew I wanted to make her feel ok about whatever it was she was apologising for.
When she smiled at me I knew that it was. Ok.

This, of course, was ten years ago, nearly as long as it has been since I saw Judy. But she's the one you don't forget.

That day Judy and I hung out at break and lunch time together. I found out that she had moved from the other side of town and had moved schools with it, “coz, you know, it's a pain all that travelling. But it's a pain moving schools too. Not that, like, there was much nice going on in the old school.” She would roll her own cigarettes and smoke them like a beatnik. I didn't smoke, but was happy to watch her smoke them. There was something ancient in her, and when she smoked her cigarettes you would notice it more. Sometimes she would wear this black hat that looked old, and when she wore it, she looked even more like a beatnik. She didn't look like anyone else I knew, or had known up until that point. She didn't look like the girls in school, or the girls that I saw around. She looked like Judy.

“What do you like doing?” I asked that day, clinging on to the teenage vernacular that I knew was the questioning uniform.
“You know, the usual,” she had replied. “I like reading, I like reading a lot.”
“Cool,” I nodded. “Reading. So, you like Measure for Measure?”
“Yeah, it's ok, you know? I like the fact that people were writing about sexual politics so early on. But I guess I'm not sure about the angel whore thing, you know? Like, that seems a bit, I don't know, I guess it's a signifier of the period.”
I didn't know. But I could see it was something Judy had thought about, and something we hadn't yet covered in class.
“What books do you like reading?” I asked, hoping I wasn't too obviously glossing over with my ignorance of the questions about sexual politics in the Shakespearean era. “I like reading,” I added lamely.
“Hmm.” she seemed distracted. “Yeah. I like, you know, a lot, a range of things really. I'm reading Kurt Vonnegut at the moment, Slaughterhouse 5. And I read Catch 22 recently.” She took a long drag from her cigarette. “Sounds a bit war obsessed I guess!”
I laugh. “It's cool.”

That night I dreamt about Judy. We were walking in a park and she held my hand. She whispered in my ear and told me about her life and about all the secrets that she had never told anyone else, all the secrets girls have that they never tell us because we are scared we won't understand. I learnt about her body and her thoughts and the tales she had learnt from the books she had read. We went through the woods and she whispered her desires and I held her in my arms and her life in my hands, her bobbed hair falling over my shoulder as I kissed her neck and when I kissed her mouth it was like all her secrets entered my body and I could hold her inside me forever. Against the bark of the trees and the leaves on the ground we held each other and I knew that Judy would be with me forever, because I knew all her secrets.

In the morning I woke up and groaned because I knew some how I had to get the sheets changed again and it was so frustrating.

My friendship with Judy blossomed as she played me Sonic Youth, and I taught her Beatles chords on the guitar. She lent me Catch 22 and I lent her Iain Banks. She showed me the Breakfast Club and I showed her The Godfather. She smoked her cigarettes like a beatnik and I watched her smoke them, and sometimes we'd drink rum and whisky and giggle, smoking a joint, like children, telling funny stories and laughing at jokes that aren't funny but that were funny at the time.

“Have you had sex?” she asked me once, bluntly. “I mean, if you don't mind me asking.”
I did, I did mind. But it was Judy, and the question in her mouth seemed no different than if she was asking “Do you have a pet?” or “Have you ever climbed a mountain?”. I looked at the floor. We were sitting in the park, smoking a joint.
I can't remember my exact words. A lot of mumbling, wells you knows what I mean is wells you knows.
She smiled sweetly, in this way she had when she felt sorry for causing embarrassment but was kind of amused by the chaos she had caused with it all at the same time, and wasn't sure how to recreate the sense of peace that we had had a moment before.
“Sorry, I'm a nosy parker.”
The archaic phrase and her beatnik face made me laugh, and I remembered how I knew all her secrets and so she could know that I hadn't had sex, that knowing Judy she already knew.
“I have,” she replied. “Once, when I was fourteen.” She took a drag on her cigarette. “I haven't done it since. I don't know if I should have done it then.”

I tried to imagine Judy when she was 14, but I couldn't see her being any different. She seemed, so much herself, so much the essence of herself, that she was probably as Judy when she was 10, or 4 as she was now, at 17. When I was 14 I had felt halfway between everything, now that I was 17 I probably think this is ok but things will change again. Judy was eternal. She was Judy in the fifties, she was Judy in the twenties, she was Judy in the 1800s.

My friendship with Judy was raising eyebrows and causing comment amongst the boys in loose jeans and tight t-shirts and the girls in tight jeans and tight t-shirts, in the natural order where a boy and girl were not friends in the school yard, where drinking and laughing together could only ever mean the precursor to sex, and Judy would laugh and say how silly, all this obsession with sex because we are the opposite sex, when we could easily have sex with the same gender, and I would laugh and feign nonchalance and then go home and hold her memory in my head until I came.

“Have you fucked her yet?” the tallest and broadest guy in the class asked me, as his girlfriend, all spray on clothes and spray on tan and high giggling insecurity, laughed and flicked her hair. “She's hot man.”
“Really,” his girlfriend asked, her flicking and shimmying and preening suddenly edged with fear.
“Yeah, different you know. Different, but fit.”
She fell back, biting her fingernails nervously, pulling on the ends of her hair.
“We're just friends,” I murmur. “Nothing like that, just friends.” But I suddenly understood the bragging need, the desire to say she was my piece of ass, that I fucked her in all which ways, that she worshipped me and would suck my cock at will. Even though I would never think I was the kind of boy to want that, that I was never the kind of boy to say those things.

“I had a dream about a horse,” she told me, and I wanted to tell her that I had a dream about her, that every night it would be a dream about her.

I kissed Judy, one day, about six months after she turned up. We were sitting in the park, as we always were, she talking and me listening, agreeing, about books and films and music and the staple diet of the “alternative” teenager conversation. She was looking straight at me, straight at my eyes and I knew that all I wanted, all I could ever want, was for Judy to look at me like that forever. Her hair, her eyes, her body so nervously sitting in her summer dress, a smudge of eye-liner and a twist in her lips, the lips that seemed to contain all the knowledge I wanted, all the stories I wanted to hear. I leaned over and clumsily kissed her lips, my virgin softness against her female softness. She caressed my lips with hers, and let them stay there. I reached for her hungrily, and placed my hands on her waist, on her breasts, and her body became a place for my hands to lie upon. I wanted so desperately to lay her on the grass and slide my hands inside the skirt of her dress and allow myself to be enveloped inside her, that inside her I would be safe, and free. But I was too nervous. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know what she wanted. So I just kissed her.

She stood up and started dancing. She was singing Into the Groove by Madonna and danced, the sun setting behind her. Against the background of the park, my mouth still wet from her lips, dancing to the tune she sang, was Judy.

i love gloria steinem!

that's it, i love her.
she's an amazing woman.

i am also at the moment enjoying ariel levy's female chauvinist pigs. that book explains so much in such a rational and wonderful way.

last night we had a Bristol Feminist Network meeting about body image. when i left, i felt like i was walking on air. there was such a wonderful energy in the room, as this group of women, most of whom didn't know each other, shared their throughts and feelings on this personal topic. we talked about why we felt the way we did about our bodies, what had influenced these feelings and what we could do to change our negative conceptions.

sitting at BFN, i realise how stories about how women can't be close, how we backstab and bitch and are catty to one another are just another way to keep women down and divided. yet, in this room together, we were so strong, i felt like we could do anything.

it was real sisterhood.

me and my mooncup!

Me and My Mooncup

It all started with a vague feeling of unease and a lack of change in my purse. Ever since I got the first spots of blood when I was 14, I had had really heavy periods. The kind that made me feel like an embarrassed teenager, plagued by a week of the month where I would be in excruciating pain, constantly having to go to the bathroom, and getting through a packet of tampons a month. My periods made my teenage years a constant, unsettled, nightmare. I couldn't believe or understand why my body, which I had enough issues about anyway, had become this monster that insisted on interrupting my month. Indulging in the melodrama I was so fond of as a teenager, I mourned my years of comfort and youth, and decided that the rest of my life would be ruined by “the curse” that I had been taught to be embarrassed about.

By the time I hit 23, my periods were still heavy, however they weren't monstrous any more. Like most women I had grown up out of my teens to see my periods as something that are just part of life, rather than this unfair imposition that I didn't want to think about. I even began to learn about how my periods were important to me as a woman, how they weren't the curse or a punishment, they were a part of me and my existence that should be recognised and celebrated. I also calculated that since that day back when I was 14, I had spent around £300 on tampons.
£300 might not sound like a lot of money, but considering this was just after 9 years of having a period, and I potentially had another 25 years of having a period to go, the sums add up. It seemed ridiculous to me that I had to spend so much money on something that I needed to buy, to own, in order to live my life in a normal and easy way, to allow me to go out and about and to work and not be cloistered in my home, worried about blood.

I was also increasingly concerned about the waste that I was creating through my dependence on a pack of tampons a month, not to mention pantie liners and towels, and tissue paper. Living in this time where we sort our rubbish obsessively and concern ourselves with the waste in landfills and litter on the beaches, I was consistently unnerved by the thought of the amount I was wasting, and that no matter how furiously I recycled and no matter how much I read up on climate change, I was being forced to help build up the piles of waste that were harming our environment. By using tampons and the rest of the range of “sanitary protection” out there, I was being forced to contribute to the mountains of waste that I spent the rest of my life trying to avoid.

“Forced” may seem a strong word to use. But that was the primary emotion I had. No one told me that I didn't have to use tampons and disposable methods every month. There was no information available to me when I was at school saying that there are alternatives to tampons. In fact, women's dependence on the two major methods of “sanitary protection” is so ingrained in our culture that most school girls are visited at the ages of 12 and 15 by a sales woman from one of the leading tampon brands, offering a brief education on your period and a talk on how to use tampons. As far as I was concerned, there was nothing else out there. It was tampons or staying in doors.

The last straw came when I read about toxic shock syndrome, and the practice of using bleach in “sanitary protection” to make it look clean and white. I'd had enough.
The bombshell came at the age of 23, when I read about the mooncup. The mooncup – also known as a keeper or menstrual cup, is a small silicon cup that you insert inside you to catch your blood, empty and rinse as it fills, and then use again. And again the next month, and again the next. I felt like a door was opening to me. Here was a solution to all the concerns and niggles that I had been thinking about for the previous few years. The mooncup was a one off cost, removing the financial burden of constantly restocking on tampons. It was re-usable, solving the problem of excessive waste. And it was made of organic silcon – removing the unease I felt about having bleach put into my tampons.

The journey with my mooncup began. Nervously holding it in my handbag, my heart racing against my chest, I felt like something momentous was about to happen. I was saying goodbye to my dependence on a system that I felt uncomfortable with, and I was beginning by taking control of my body, of my menstrual cycle, of my life. For 9 years I had felt controlled by the box of tampons on my dresser, beholden to an industry I didn't understand and who I felt didn't understand me. Now, I had this cup, and I was ready to take control.

As soon as I started wearing it, I felt a consciousness of elation. Walking down the street, moving around at work, cooking at home, I felt free. I had not expected this strength of emotion. My reasoning for buying the mooncup had been primarily economical, with concerns over health and the environment coming second. But making this change to how I approached my periods seemed to open up within me a new sense of personal freedom. Once a month my life was no longer governed by having to rush to a shop, scrape change together, faff around looking for a bin in male friends' bathrooms or flush used tampons down the toilet, whisper to girlfriends to ask if they have a spare. Instead, I carried my mooncup around with me, ready for when I needed it. And, when the time came, I could rinse it and wear it, until it needs rinsing again. After each month I sterilise it in hot salt water, pop it back in my purse and forget about it.

The mooncup does take time to get used to. Due to my near pathological hatred of my periods as a teen, removing, cleaning and emptying my mooncup was initially a challenge to me. However, after the first time, the experience changed me. I realised that my body, and my period was nothing to be nervous about or ashamed of. Emptying and rinsing the blood in my mooncup became as powerful an act to me as buying the cup in the first place. I was taking control of the my body, and learning about my body's processes. It was a moment of acceptance, a moment where I learned that my periods weren't icky or gross or a curse, but just my body's natural way of preparing for pregnancy, and cleaning out. By forcing me into contact with my period and my body's processes, my mooncup began to undo the lies we learn that periods are messy, annoying, shaming, secret and smelly.

I started to read about other forms of non disposable pads and catchers. There's the mooncup or keeper, my preferred method and excellent if you suffer from heavy periods. Some women use pads made of fabric that they can wash, or rags. Other women use sea sponges, which you can use for a few months in a row and are totally natural.

It would have been wonderful if when I had been at school, instead of the tampon sales lady taking us in to a separate room from the boys, we had been visited by a health expert who had talked me through all the different methods available. Someone who could have explained to me that I could choose between tampons, organic tampons, towels, mooncups, sponges, reusable pads or rags. That I didn't have to see my periods as something not to be spoken about in front of the boys in our class, that they are a natural process rather than “a curse” or something to hide. Imagine if instead of seeing adverts praising tampons for being so discreet they can be mistaken for sweet wrappers, we had adverts extolling the virtues of a range of safe, environmentally and women friendly products that don't view periods as shameful! If all women were told about the alternatives, it doesn't mean that all women would choose the mooncup or reusable methods. They might not suit all women, just as tampons don't suit all women. But it is important to know that there is a choice out there.

I've been using my mooncup for nearly two years now and I haven't looked back. Because the mooncup has given me the experience of feeling more at one with my body and more comfortable with my periods, I find having a period less painful and less irritating than I did before. I feel more comfortable and more at one with my cycle. I feel very happy that I have cut down on waste and spending money on a company that I don't believe have women's interests at heart.