Good Stuff: Links & Likes

I was really excited to be asked to be part of Suzy & Beth's new project. The Olive Fox is an awesome one-stop shop for style, discussion, culture and more. My first piece for them was on a topic very close to my heart: why #Shoutyourabortion is so important.

I'll definitely be borrowing some of Bee's 100 Book Blog Post Ideas.

Blogging has changed enormously in the past couple of years and it's easy to feel disenchanted with how mainstream and commercialised a lot of it has become, so I enjoyed Elizabeth's piece asking, Is There Any Point Blogging Anymore?

I loved Sarah's response to snobbish literary critics: Why You Should Read What You Want.

There was a great piece on the Suffragettes in the Guardian Review recently, ahead of the film's release. Well worth a read.

I took part in Alex's Blogging Good Read for September (and chose a stinker of a book - sorry about that Alex and Gemma!)

More book-related stuff: I loved this easy craft to make a jewellry holder out of a damaged book (plus I love Stevie's expletive-laden writing, it always makes me smile).

Good stuff: Links & likes

Storage pot DIY: image source & © Make Do & Spend

There's been some pretty great stuff around the internet these past couple of weeks. Sometimes, when I'm putting together a links post, I struggle for material. Not so this time.

First up, Buzzfeed's piece imagining Hermione was the main character of the Harry Potter series -  renamed Hermione Granger and the Goddamm Patriarchy - is nothing short of genius. "Not all wizards, right?"

I loved E's post on getting organised, especially her super easy DIY storage pots. How great does her spare room look now?

The Militant Baker's article, about why people hate happy fat people, is just brilliant. I loved her notion of 'body currency' and the ways in which people feel ripped off, cheated, when someone doesn't participate in the expected battles with their body; when they don't strive for a media-created idea of perfection. Anyway, instead of listening to me summing it up, go read it.

Louisa's Tunnock's teacakes coasters look amazing, and simple to make too.

This piece - How Should An Abortion Be? - from Gawker is a much more nuanced and detailed look at some of the issues I raised in my post a couple of weeks ago. Essential reading.

Sarah wrote a superb take-down of the argument that feminists shouldn't care about the #NoMorePage3 campaign because 'there are bigger issues to worry about'.

Elise's series on her favourite blogs is a great source of new reading (and no, I'm not just mentioning it because she name-checked me. Although that was nice).

I know I definitely fall into a blog rut - not so much with regard to writing here (although that happens too!), but in terms of the other blogs I'll comment on or the bloggers I interact with on the regular. This post about blogging acts of kindness was therefore a welcome reminder of the nice things I can do as a blog reader (via Becky).

A MASSIVE thank you to all of you who've posted and tweeted about the Big Blog Clothes Swap. Don't forget that sign-up is open until 9th February, and we're especially in need of size 14+ swappers.

Finally, I've been having a tough time at work lately. I think all educators go through phases of wondering why we bother; feeling like the battle to get kids learning might not be worth the cost it inflicts on us. And then Humans Of New York began a series about a middle school in Brooklyn and every night I get home from school, look at his latest pictures and read the captions, and cry. It's an incredibly powerful series, one that really reminds me just why I do the job. If you haven't been following, scroll back to 20th January and look at the first photo of Vidal speaking about his principal, Ms Lopez. Then work your way forwards, through each incredible story, and the fundraising that's gone on, and I defy you to stay dry-eyed.

Why talking about our abortions is important

"I have yet to meet a woman who was 'pro-abortion,' the same is true for 'pro-mastectomy' or 'pro-hysterectomy.' Unfortunately, these procedures are sometimes what a woman needs."
                                From Every Third Woman In America by Dr. David Grimes

When Nicki Minaj shared the story of her abortion in a Rolling Stone interview recently, I wanted to cheer. Why? It's not like an abortion is a happy time in a woman's life, so why would I be so glad Minaj was discussing hers?

Here's why: it's estimated that in the US and UK, one woman in three will have an abortion at some point in her life. And yet it's a topic almost totally shrouded in secrecy, our personal decisions made shameful by silence.

Abortion happens for all sorts of reasons: the stereotype of the feckless teenager who didn't use contraception is far from the truth. In fact, the 'typical' abortion patient is a woman in her mid-twenties who has experienced contraception failure*. There is also a significant number of women in their 30s and 40s who seek abortions, and in 2013 in England & Wales, 1% of abortions were carried out due to fetal abnormalities**. Although abortion rates are falling in both the US and UK - due largely to improved access to free contraception - that statistic of one in three women has held true for the last twenty years. It is therefore extremely likely that a woman close to you either has already had, or will have, an abortion.

When I was 21 I had two abortions, very close together. The first because we'd been careless with contraception (yep, I was that feckless stereotype I'm afraid, albeit not quite a teenager); the second because the contraceptive pill - taken religiously since the first abortion - failed. For very many reasons I was not capable of becoming a parent at that point in my life. Safe, legal, free abortion provision meant that I was able to move on from a bad relationship, get help with my mental health problems, graduate university and become a happy, fully functioning member of society.

There is currently a cultural dialogue - especially prevalant on 'mommy blogs' - around miscarriage that suggests it's important to talk about it when you experience it, so people can understand how widespread pregnancy loss is. Sarah wrote a brilliant post in which she interrogates that idea and persuasively argues that it's all down to personal choice: you get to decide who you tell and when you tell them, not some internet strangers insisting it's important. And I wholeheartedly agree with this in relation to abortion too. Some women will never feel comfortable discussing their abortions, and that's fine. When we talk about being pro-choice, that must include women having the choice of what they divulge. However, for those of us with big mouths (like me), or who don't mind talking about their abortions (like Minaj), it's important to recognise that by doing so we can help further the pro-choice movement while perhaps making things easier for other women to talk about their own experiences.

I've always talked about my experience with abortion. At first, when they were a recent memory, I worked through my feelings by talking - often relentlessly - about what had happened. Now I try and be more circumspect, mostly because so many women I know are facing fertility problems and/or pregnancy loss. Even so, I will happily refer to my abortions in general conversation: on a recent blogger meet-up, for example, we were chatting about tattoos and I casually referred to the ones I'd had done as a sort of memorial, post-abortion. Only once the words were out did I stop to consider whether it was appropriate (at which I mentally shrugged my shoulders and decided I didn't care).

As anti-choice*** legislation (almost overwhelmingly put forward by male legislators) becomes an ever-more pressing a problem in the USA, Europe and even the UK, it's important that women start to talk about their experience of abortion. Studies have shown that one of the single biggest factors in making a man pro-choice is when they learn that women close to them have in the past accessed abortion services. By silencing ourselves we reinforce the idea that abortion is something shameful and secret, and we lose the chance to demonstrate just how essential having agency over our own bodies is.

* Source: Every Third Woman In America by Dr. David Grimes
** Source: Department of Health Abortion Statistics, England & Wales 2013
*** I use 'anti-choice' because I believe the term 'pro-life' to be a misnomer for a movement that prioritises the survival of a cluster of cells over a grown woman's life (see, for example, the tragic case in Ireland of Savita Halappanava, who died in hospital after doctors - fearful of the country's stringent laws that ban abortion - denied her request for a life-saving termination)

Good stuff: Links & likes

The deadline for sign-up to my Thrifty Christmas Gift Swap is fast approaching - email me by next Sunday to take part.

I was initially skeptical about this article on fictional characters who should have had abortions but actually I can't disagree with any of them. Lane Kim did deserve more than she got on Gilmore Girls. And a hearty "Hells yeah," to the inclusion of every Thomas Hardy heroine, ever.

And while we're on the subject, I agree with everything in this powerfully argued piece.

Here's Sarah being characteristically brilliant in her post: Ten blogging rules you can break

Nova alerted me to this, about misophonia (or, hatred of the sound of people eating). I have this pretty badly so it was an interesting read.

Lindy West being brilliant in The Guardian : "being fat and happy and in love in public is still a radical act".

Also on the topic of larger bodies, I enjoyed this piece about how hourglass figures have become an 'acceptable' form of fat. This actually goes a long way to explaining to me why I have no problems with being body confident despite being a size 16: I'm lucky enough to have a pretty classic hourglass figure.

And on the flip side of body policing, Keira Knightley recently said some pretty cool stuff about Photoshop, small boobs and body ideals.  

Good stuff

I loved this honest and true piece about what we don't talk about when we don't talk about abortion.  I went through a phase of not really shutting up about mine, which was probably tedious for those around me but at least it was better than contributing to the silence around abortion.

A powerful piece on Rana Plaza and #ClothesToDieFor

I have a secret to tell you: I don't understand Tumblr.  It makes me feel like An Old, but I just don't get it.  However, this Tumblr on how to fat-hack your wardrobe is pretty awesome and full of fashion inspiration.

I really really (really) want one of these dresses. Gorgeous or what?

An interesting and thought-provoking piece (from the FT, of all places) on the new wave of feminism.

After reading a piece in Bust and then this, I totally want to go to Antwerp.

Finally, Lost In A Spotless Mind is my new favourite blog for fashion and body image stuff.

Some thoughts about not wanting children

I am 35 years old and childless, and I've just started my period.

Accepted social discourse would have me weeping and bereft; yet another woman who has left having children too late. There isn't an understanding that someone in my situation might feel relief - euphoria would actually be closer to the mark - at dodging the bullet of pregnancy for another month*.

Because whilst my peers busily organise their lives around child-bearing and child-rearing, I am going out of my way to avoid it. And this can lead to a nagging feeling of guilt. How dare I celebrate every period, while close friends battle to conceive?  When I know that, for some, starting a period is not a cause for relief but for grief?  By not wanting children, I'm definitely the odd one out amongst my friends.

I didn't always feel this way. Despite never being terribly keen on babies or children, I always assumed that one day I'd have kids. It's what you do, isn't it, if you're a woman with a working womb? But the time for having children was always far ahead of me. When I got pregnant at 21, I didn't hesitate about having an abortion. My life was chaotic and I was in no fit state to parent a child. "I can have children when I'm 30ish," I thought to myself. As that milestone approached, 34 suddenly seemed a more sensible age at which to breed, and as that birthday came nearer, back those goalposts went again. And now I'm 35 - the same age at which my mum had her last baby - I am becoming increasingly convinced that the ever-moving goalposts are a sign that perhaps I just don't want children at all.

In my twenties, and even my early thirties, having a baby was entirely hypothetical and could therefore be, rather like Schrodinger's cat, both a possibility and an impossibilty. It wasn't something I needed to examine too closely, I could just let the idea stay in its box. But when you hit 35 and having children becomes a question of now or never, you have to really consider... is this what I want? And my answer, I think, is no.

This is the bit where I should say, "I love babies, I adore spending time with children. I just don't want any of my own." But it's a lie. Babies both bore and scare me. I'm quite taken by their squidgy cheeks for all of, ooh, 2 minutes, but then I'm totally over them. And children... well, I love my nieces and nephew dearly but my gosh, an hour with them and I'm wanting to gouge my eye out with a spoon just to enliven proceedings. I prefer to enjoy them from a distance. Preferably one of some miles. There is nothing - literally, nothing - in the world that I enjoy more than returning to my silent, empty, blissfully childfree house after an afternoon with kids. 

"It'll be different when you have your own," people say. But the question remains, what if it isn't? It seems like rather a large risk to take. The notion that women (never men, have you noticed?) who choose to remain childfree are somehow 'selfish' is perplexing to me; I can't think of anything more selfish than for me to have a baby just to find out if it is different when it's your own.

I have the utmost respect for my friends and family members who have chosen to become parents, and I think they do an amazing job.  I'm also grateful to them for giving me an opportunity to buy cute baby clothes from Cath Kidston and hunt down cool children's books to share with their offspring.  But breeding is just not for me.

The fact is, I love my life exactly how it is. I enjoy my job (ironically, I love teaching children. I just like leaving them at work); I like to go out at the weekend and drink a bit too much and giggle with my friends; I love spending time with The Boy, whether it's quiet nights on the sofa or packing our bags and jetting off to a new city for the weekend; I love to read for hours on end, to experiment in the kitchen, to sit and write quietly. All of these things are so precious to me and when I think of having children, all I can think of is how it would stop me from doing all of them. Is that selfish, to prioritise my own well-being and happiness over that of a child who doesn't exist? I really don't think it is. If I did have a baby and I spent hours to myself, then that would be selfish. But I can't see how choosing not to have children in the first place is a selfish act.  How does choosing to be a good teacher, daughter, aunt, girlfriend, sister and friend rather than a most likely poor parent make me selfish? 

* I should perhaps explain that I do use contraception, I'm just extremely neurotic about its efficiacy and am ever-convinced that I will be in the 1% for whom it doesn't work.

Day 20: What makes me angry

The prompt today was 'Talk about something that's in the news today', which was a bit of a red rag to a bull.  At the moment, I am struggling to keep up with the news because it is so relentlessly, soul-destroyingly terrible that it makes me so furious and sad, and I can't bring myself to spend my time feeling that way.

It's so easy, isn't it - in this lifestyle blogger-land - to pretend that everything is cakes and flowers and pretty shoes and happy times.  I like to keep my blog as a (mostly) positive space.  Although I will ocassionally admit to less-than-cheery feelings, I prefer to focus on the nice things I see, do and experience.  But there are times when it becomes hard to continue the pretence that everything is peachy.  When, instead of making my usual 'ooh, look at these lovely things that make me happy' lists, I want to rage because I am so fucking angry.

I am angry because recent figures show that, by the end of the Coalition's term of governemt, 1 in 3 children in the UK will be living in poverty.

I am angry that despite austerity measures having been proven to not be effective in easing recession, the Conservatives are using it as an excuse to pursue ideological policies which do real damage to people's lives.

I am angry because we live in a world where teenage rape victims, instead of being counselled and cared for, are bullied until they commit suicide.

I am angry that our government is determined to make benefits impossible to live on, while doing nothing to improve wages or job security.  Hey politicians!  It doesn't take a genius to work out that - while zero hours contracts proliferate and wages stagnate - people will continue to choose a life on benefits.  It also doesn't take a genius to work out that maybe the solution isn't to slash benefits, but to improve working conditions.

I am angry that my fellow teachers and I are continually attacked and belittled by Gove, Wilshaw and their ilk (people who have never spent a day in a classroom and, by the sound of some of their ideas, can't accept that they are in the 21st century rather than 1950).

I am angry that rape continues to be used as a weapon in conflict zones; that seemingly every other report from Egypt or Syria mentions violence against women.

I am angry that our children and teenagers are amongst the most-tested in the world.  That they are maligned by the government and the media while their lives are made ever-more difficult by the stress of an  education system which does not best serve their interests, but the interests of big businesses.

I am angry every time I open up a newspaper and read about yet another homophobic attack, and then turn on my television to see the same homophobia being espoused by MPs in Parliament in the name of 'family values'.

I am angry that there has been an increase in the picketing of abortion clinics in the UK by 'pro-lifers'... and that in countries close by, women are dying for want of legal abortion.

I am angry because there are still so many things I could add to this list.  I am angry that my anger is driving me into inarticularcy.  I am angry.

Good stuff: Pro-choice comic

Found via Bad Reputation, this amazing comic from Matteo Farinella's Comic Journal blog (which in itself is well worth a look) about the sneaky tactics used by the anti-abortion movement when providing 'pregnancy counselling'.

Comic © Matteo



Music Monday: Ben Folds Five

There are worrying things afoot in the UK at the moment in relation to abortion rights.  This article from Saturday's Guardian outlines some of the attacks being made on a woman's right to have agency over her own body.  Therefore this Music Monday could be subtitled, 'Why having an abortion isn't the worst thing that's happened to me'. 

When the news broke that someone had hacked the British Pregnancy Advice Service, purportedly to 'expose' the names of women who have used their services, I was enraged.  Angry because, once again, here was a man supposing he has the right to sit in judgement over adult women and the choices they make about their bodies.  Angry because the coalition government - with their inclusion of pro-life organisations on advisory boards, and motions put forward by resolutely anti-abortion Tory MP Nadine Dorries that threatened abortion rights - have created a climate in this country which edges ever closer to that of America.  Mostly angry, though, because his actions presuppose that the worst possible thing to happen to a woman would be to have the fact of her abortion made public; that it is something to be ashamed of.

Well, I refuse to be ashamed of one of the smartest and most sensible decisions I made in my early twenties.  I was not - emotionally, mentally or financially - in any position to become a parent.  Having an abortion at 9 weeks is far from the worst thing that has happened to me and I don't ever, for a minute, regret my decision.  Was it painful?  Yes.  Do I still think about it sometimes?  Yes.  But I don't ever wish I'd made a different decision.  Most women keep abortion quiet and it becomes our dirty little secret (despite the fact that an estimated one in three women in this country have had or will have an abortion).  This in turn gives power to the anti-abortion argument that it is inherently mentally damaging and therefore we poor delicate women shouldn't be put through it: remove the choice and remove the 'damage'.  And make no mistake, the voices of people who would like to remove our choice are becoming ever-louder in the face of government and media tolerance, even encouragement.

To return to the music (after all, it is Music Monday): with lines like "she broke down, and I broke down," Brick is not a song that pretends abortion is all flowers and smiles, but it also doesn't express regret.  I've always liked it for that reason.