Marriage, expectation and Pippa Middleton's bum

Okay, so this blog post isn't actually about Pippa Middleton's bum but good cod, you'd think it was made of solid gold the way people have been harping on about it. Not bad for a 'passably attractive arts graduate' (thank you, Daily Mail, for that most backhanded of compliments)

No, this is about marriage. You see, the recent royal nuptials got me to thinking. No sooner had they tied the knot than tongues started wagging about when their first child would be born. Now, either there's some seriously dodgy sex education floating about, or there's a very real expectation that a young couple getting married must be planning kids, and sharpish.

I've experienced this. I married at 21 (yes, it's young, no, I don't regret it, and no, I don't have to justify my reasons - just take it from me, I'm a married feminist) and the number of people who admitted, on seeing how utterly un-pregnant I looked on my wedding day, that they thought it was a shotgun deal was kind of astonishing. We're in the 21st century, I thought, surely we're past all of that?

Except that we're not. And it's one of those things I wish I'd known before getting married, because I would love to have had the opportunity to state my case. I didn't want kids. The idea of being pregnant, giving birth, raising a child...it all makes my flesh crawl. That's not to detract from those women who do have kids, and who are very happy about it; in fact, I sometimes question how normal it is to have such a visceral reaction to such a natural thing.

It's been three years since I married and I still don't want kids, which is a source of bafflement from some quarters. It's almost as if the ring on my finger means 'baby factory: opening soon!'

And so I react to this Royal Baby sweepstake bobbins with a measure of anger, because surely it's nobody's business but Will and Kate's? I wonder what would happen if they decided not to have children? It's almost a non-option really. The vows are exchanged, the ring's on the finger, ready, set, reproduce!

I've been very secure in my decision to marry, and I have never felt that it conflicts overly with my feminist ideals; my wedding was very egalitarian. We wrote our own vows (and 'obey' was nowhere in sight) My mum, dad and stepdad walked me down the aisle; his mum and dad stood with him. I took his surname, but only because my 'maiden' name was bloody horrible. I felt like I'd done my best to remove it all from its patriarchal roots.

And yet, I worry now that there is that piece of antifeminist baggage I can't shed; the expectation that I must, at some point, want children. There are only so many times I can smile and say 'no, I don't want children', and only so many times I can politely ignore the shocked reaction that follows. Is marriage, no matter how hard we try to ascribe new meaning to it, inevitably the shackle that ties us to the Bad Old Days? Is it impossible to remove it from the institution that created it?

I feel sorry for Kate. Whether she wants children or not, she will have to have them. At least I can make that choice.

Prince/ss

The Daily Fail can fuck off.

Well, ok, we knew that. But in this case, they can fuck right off, the fucking douchecanoes. He's five. And you know what - IF HE WANTS TO WEAR A DRESS HE CAN FUCKING WELL WEAR A FUCKING DRESS YOU FUCKING PRICKS.

The bit that really fucked me off is this -

"What young Dyson will make of this very public story of acceptance when he is older remains to be seen - most teenagers cringe when their mother brings out the baby photos, and such a widely available book will mean he has nowhere to hide."

Firstly, they're assuming that this is embarassing, that this kid who likes wearing clothing that doesn't fit with what "society" says kids of his gender "should" wear will not want to wear "girl's" clothing when he's older. Bollocks to that.

Secondly, they're assuming that he is going through a phase. He might not want to wear dresses when he's older - societal pressure might have made him decide he "should" wear trousers. He might decide that he wants to wear dresses when he's older, and decide to be a transvestite. He might be trans, and decide he wishes to become a woman. He might be trans already. Who gives a flying fuck? He's chosen one type of gendered clothing over another.

And you know what, Daily Fail? That's ok. His parents, and his sibling, are accepting of him as he is right now. That they're supporting him right now, and trying to change others' perceptions of this as "weird", is a good thing. That he's growing up wearing what he wants to wear, not what society says he should wear, is a good thing.

Dyson's mother Cheryl has it right -

"We need to start asking ourselves why we are condemning people and things just because they are different and make us feel uncomfortable."

If her son is transgender, and decides to transition, he will have a supportive family. He'll be very lucky. But he shouldn't just have a supportive family. He should have a supportive society - he should grow up in a culture that doesn't demand that boys wear trousers and play with guns and girls wear dresses and play with dolls - instead he should grow up in a culture where the clothes a person wears aren't invested with ideas of gender, and right and wrong. There are no "wrong" clothes for a child (push-up bras for seven year olds excepted). There are no "wrong" clothes for an adult, for that matter. Especially not predicated on ideas of gender.

[crossposted at Sensible Susan & The Ladylike Punk]

Sons and Daughters

I've just finished watching a documentary on Channel 4 called "Cutting Edge: Four Sons versus Four Daughters". I'm not sure it was quite as cutting edge as it appeared, although it did give some food for thought.

The opening mark that struck me was the mother of four girls saying people often asked her, on seeing she had four girls, "Are you trying for a boy?"; the documentary started as if it were about to start exploring gender attitudes and nature vs nurture debates. However, the producers chose conventional families - the daughters liked pink, took dancing lessons, and arranged flowers with their mother; the sons were competitive, played football with their father, and had toy guns.

Both families were, again, “ideal”; the mother was a SAHM (although the mother of four boys briefly mentioned a part-time job, it was made obvious that she was the primary caretaker) while the father worked in a masculine industry. Both families appeared affluent; they kept the de-rigeur middle-class chickens; the eldest son had his own car. Both were white.

These aspects of the families situations was not the main focus of the documentary, but it is important to remember the other aspects of social inequalities when examining one - their middle-class affluence undoubtedly affected the girls' access to ballet lessons and pony-owning, and the boys' access to after-school sports. As a result, their "girliness" or "boyishness" is affected by more than just their biological sex - which in turn affects how their parents relate to them, and nurture their children to fit a certain ideology.

The documentary's use of gender stereotypes is consistent; the father in the all-girl family (John) is henpecked and feels outnumbered, while the boys' father would want to have “sporty girls”. The boys’ mother (Karen) is looking forward to a “girlier” house, and being with other women. Women want the company of women; Men want sons to relive their boyhood through.

Karen & Steve – have sons

John & Marianne – have daughters

Both sets of parents equally uncomfortable with their "new" families; idea that boys much more rough-and-tumble is enforced from the outset as the sons put John through an obstacle course involving a trampoline and water guns. The girls, in direct contrast, give makeovers to both Karen and Steve (they are shown earlier giving their father, John, a makeover, which he calmly endures while being asked leading questions about whether or not he'd prefer to have sons). The girls help with cooking the evening meal – the boys don’t (though they do barbecue). Both mothers do the main bulk of the cooking and caring. The stereotypes continue - girls like shopping; boys like go-karting. Fathers like boys, Mothers like girls. A father is only one who can teach “a boy to become a man”.

Karen, mother to the four boys, comments to her new daughters “I think mums do too much for boys… I think girls want to do it, that’s the difference”; she is pleased that the girls help out in the kitchen, but instead of putting it down to routine, she appears to attribute their assistance to their innate femininity.

The documentary did raise some points – are parents creating their children to be what they expect children of that gender to be like? Do they see children of their own gender as a conduit to relive their own experiences? Would the outcome have been different if the gender stereotypes had not been so clearly defined between families, with tomboys and boys playing with dolls? Or if the gender roles of the parents had been less clearly defined.

At the end of their three days of family-swapping, the parents were urged to reflect on gender differences – but not about whether the behaviour of the children is down to personality or their own expectations of sons or daughters. They do not question whether girls require a mother, or if a male-identified parent is able to parent a girly-girl. The personality of the adults and their rediscovery of their masculinity or femininity - in relation to their family standing, their children's personalities in particular - is considered, again raising further questions as to the effects of nature or nurture on children's development.

Had the programme not reinforced gender roles so determinedly, the documentary could have explored a great deal more in terms of gender and children's gender roles; instead it raised more questions than it answered, and served to repeat the ideal of SAHM, breadwinner father, daughters who do ballet and sons who play football.

Redrawing the battlelines: I am not childless, you are not a mother. We are women.

To the naked eye, this article might almost look like it has the makings of a feminist piece on discrimination against child-free women. Almost:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1217345/Friends-selfish--having-kids-best-thing-I-ve-done.html



A few years ago I was pleased to see articles like this pop up; after all it was rare to have someone defend the position of the child-free by choice against the barrage of both subtle and direct accusations that choosing not to procreate made you a failure as a woman.



Indeed, this article was warmly received in some femi-circles I move in. But over the years I have realised: it's a trick. A dirty rotten trick.



First of all, this article isn't for child-free women, it's against them. See the way they repeat the accusation over and over, and put it in bold in the headline that child-free women are selfish? Fair enough, this woman says a friend called her it once, but I'm not sure that justifies the emphasis the article puts on it, which is increasingly suspicious when you realise that "selfish" is the Fail's very own favourite accusation to level at women who choose not to have children.



Second of all, if this were a book it would flop, because the protagonist is so inherently unlikeable. She's unbearably smug: not having children means she and her husband can go five on luxury holidays a year. And for the author of what momentarily sounded like a semi-feminist statement, she's the perfect embodiment of the Fail's sexist attitude towards women and mothers: by not having children she is able to devote every free moment to pampering her husband; it wouldn't be fair of her to have children because her having a career would mean she would be neglecting them (wherever have we heard that before?). I'm seriously starting to think this woman may be a plant.



But more than all that, this article does women, child-free or not, no favours, for two reasons. One, it's clearly designed to set women against each other. Look at the comments (a depressing 500+ of them), an equal split of "Who's going to look after you when you're old? You'll be in a home paid for by MY child's taxes!" and "Who's going to pay for your kid's education? MY taxes!". It's classic divide and conquer; we can't fight sexism if we're too busy fighting each other. Two, drawing such distinction between mothers and the child-free only serves to encourage women to define themselves by their reproductive status, which re-enforces the belief that a woman's sole purpose in life is to procreate, and once she has done that her contribution and usefulness to the world is over (hence the blatent discrimination of post-menopausal women by just about everybody). Well, that's simply not true. All of us, whether we choose to have children or not, have more to offer the world than our uterus. We are not just mothers, or the childless of child-free or whichever label you choose to use. We are more than that. We are women.

"I don't hate gays, I just don't think kids should know they exist"

...is the general theme of this ridiculous piece of fearmongering journalism, which I shall proceed to gently critique. And by gently critique, I mean 'expose as the hateful ramblings of a paranoid homophobe'

The first piece of telling evidence is contained within the first few paragraphs:

Of course, attitudes towards gay rights have changed a lot in the past 21 years. But it is still wrong for councils to spend their residents' money promoting homosexuality.

Ridiculous. Councils are not promoting homosexuality. The long overdue apology over Section 28 is nothing to do with 'promotion' of any sexual persuasion. Section 28 forbade councils to distribute any material which portrayed homosexuality as anything but abnormal. To overturn this rule, and then (rightly) apologise for it ever having been put in place (thanks, Tories) is NOT promoting homosexuality - it is recognising the right of gay couples to regard their lifestyle as normal, and for others to accept homosexuality for what it is - a sexual and romantic preference for the same sex present in a person from the day they were born.

There's the key; a person is born gay. They do not choose homosexuality like they choose to, say, dye their hair or wear skinny jeans. Homosexuality is not a trend or fad - it's a genuine, honest affection for the same sex.

Of course, the coincidentally named Harry Phibbs seems to think that telling our kids about gays will turn them all into the pink-wearing, limp-wristed flouncy poofters Conservatives still believe make up the vast majority of the gay population:

Another book called The Milkman's on his Way explicitly described homosexual intercourse and, indeed, glorified it, encouraging youngsters to believe that it was better than any other sexual way of life....From my experience of those children, it is difficult enough for them to understand normal sexual relations without having homosexuality foisted upon them.
'I find it horrifying that anyone would support that.
'All of that was stopped dead by Clause 28. Clause 28 was introduced for that purpose, and that purpose alone.
'It was not intended to harm people who, as adults, decided that that was the way of life for them.

Quotes from Baroness Knight, and may I humbly suggest she takes the stick out of her arse and begins to realise that learning about sex will not turn kids into little shagging demons with penises for teeth and STDs coming out of their ears. And Phibbs uses this as an apology for Section 28. He suggests that it was little to do with homophobia and more to do with a 'Won't Anyone Please Think Of The Children' type mentality.

But why shouldn't children learn about homosexuality? Why shouldn't they be given the opportunity to learn about some of the things that make human beings different? There are a lot of excellent reasons why kids should know about 'Daddies and Daddies' as well as the traditional family unit.

Firstly, as the Mail constantly bemoans, the traditional 'Mummy, Daddy and Baby' family is no longer the only valid option for parents these days. An increase in single parent families, adopted families and step families cannot be halted by closing your eyes and singing 'la la la' until they go away. Our kids will have better self esteem and become more well-rounded, less prejudiced people if they realise that growing up with two daddies, a mummy and a mummy or even just one mummy doesn't make you any less of a human being than the other kids whose parents married, stayed together and remain together. Children who hit puberty and discover their own homosexual tendencies won't feel trapped by their sexuality, won't feel forced into a false heterosexuality in order to feel 'normal' - all of this is progress, and all of this is good.

Unfortunately for the Fail, it also stands against the rigid, traditional values they hold so dear. But, as a final thought, what would the Fail say if a law were passed forbidding local councils to create or distribute materials portraying Christianity as 'anything but abnormal'? What would they say if Baroness Knight suggested that children were too young to be exposed to the adult world of religion? (After all, while one is born gay or straight, a child is taught religion - no child is born a Christian) Is it not, to paraphrase the Baroness, hard enough for children to understand the world around them without having religion foisted upon them....?

And so we have the overprotective mother...

Hokay so it’s my turn to write a blog post, bit late I know. And while the issue about France’s recent ban on burkas has got me thinking about the imposing of clothes on women by state and/or religion, I found that writing as a white, atheistic-secularist male I wouldn’t really be able to comment much beyond that of wtf. So instead this post is about three articles by Penny Marshall, Middle-England’s defender from sex and pornography.

Anyway, there are three articles in the Daily Fail archives to choose from. The most recent is about lipstick lesbianism and how it is an evil and corrupting force that destroys young girls, the next is about the TV and how it is an evil and corrupting force that destroys young girls, and finally an article about teenagers making their own porn (which actually is disturbing, but the scapegoat of TV returns as the evil and corrupting force that destroys young girls). And from these three articles I got the picture that Penny Marshall is conservative and over-protective and elitist. Three properties of an individual I consider diabolical and unnerving.

The first article, that is the one about lipstick lesbians, I got the feeling that the writer was not only homophobic but also shocked at the type of culture her conservative upbringing never allowed. However in trying to defend her way of thinking, that sexuality should be like a binary labelled object such as a consumer product might have, and pointing to the problems of peer pressure that occurs in youth culture, she comes off as sounding a wee bit homophobic and sounding more like Mary Whitehouse. Pointing at famous lady liplockers (horrible phrase I know), whose lip-shtick whatever shenanigans are more likely to appeal to lonely male divorcees than teenage females; it hawks more of Edward Woodward’s Sergeant Howie screaming at the Wicker man than a serious article about the connotations of association from the media-infused culture delegating the practices of young women.

But then the problem, that they are doing it for the sake to appeal more attractive to potential mate, is surely a problem about the current media obsessed necessity in coupling, pregnancies, marriage and the alienation of people being single for the sake of being single. Shoot if two girls are kissing to appeal more attractive to males then surely the problem is not the kissing but the apparent necessity to be non-single. But we can’t be blaming the press can we?

As to article two, the TV viewing, this is just hilarious. ‘PARENTS YOUR CHILDREN ARE WATCHING FILTH’ to paraphrase the humour. I’m not sure whether I’m a prime candidate to criticise, having watched the likes of Monkey Dust, Neco Z Alenky, the Godfather, the Shining, Alien, South Park: the Movie and series and Trainspotting before the age of fifteen, I’ve supposed to be a mass-murdering, cynical junkie with a deeply dark sense of humour. Well the last bit is true but as of twenty I haven’t murdered anyone yet and in being a very moderate drinker I don’t think diving into the filthiest toilet in Scotland for a hit is going to happen anytime soon. But it is funny the angst the author has about what the teenage girls are watching. It is like seeing a nervous breakdown in typographical form. See as TV shows are lined up and criticised for being corrupting and wrongly influential (as opposed to say the popular press pushing criticisms of any famous women who are not married, with children, without a strong voice, within a certain body image, and are not Kelly Brooks).

But then that worried mother screaming “Won’t somebody please think of the children!?” (as Helen Lovejoy would cry) is just what suites the Daily Fail. That is, cheap criticism on modern culture (that doesn’t feature ITV) and the degradation of youths, and the collapse of morals. This brings me onto the third article, the actually mildly disturbing article.

This article’s content is mildly alarming. Not because what is happening, that teenagers are making their own porn and distributing it among their peers (this is more disturbing than alarming and has a whole range of problems not least that the Daily Fail is probably the culprit), but the way that this article insists that this thing is a problem because it has ‘infected’ middle class girls. For the sake of Pete I cannot abide by this elitist bullshit any more than I can abide the Daily Mail itself. Because what it is saying is that it is okay for teenagers to make porn of themselves so long as they are of what was once called the working class. Hence because some prissy private (dick-)eds and grammar girls are doing it it is now a moral decadence that must be stopped for “Won’t somebody please think of the children?”.

In closing I look forward to more Penny Marshall articles, as she strives to defend teenage girls from reality, as they’re nothing short of stereotypical wailing that can never be taken seriously.