For as long as we’ve been enjoying sex and porn, we’ve also had to listen to people telling us that there’s a ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ way to enjoy it. These two posts highlight the problems with this.

Get stuck in.

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You should listen to this. It’s a podcast of a show by Dave Pickering (@goosefat101 on Twitter). He guest-blogged for me a while ago, after conducting a survey on what men think of patriarchy. His show is about the results of that survey, but more than that it’s about the way that structural inequality has hurt him – directly and indirectly. He tells a really gripping story, that includes a lot of things I think and say, and it touches me a lot purely because it comes from the mouth of a man. One day I’ll explain exactly why that’s important to me.

It’s an hour long, and it contains some quite disturbing material – there are more specific content notes at the beginning of the recording.

Go and visit Dave’s website here – Mansplaining Masculinity. And please share this. Each time you share this, you save one woman from having to explain yet again, with a weary exhaustion, that when we rail against inequality we’re not fighting against men. We’re hoping men will join us in making things better for everyone.

Sometimes Twitter’s hashtag games are total genius, and sometimes they fuck me off. Today’s was a combination of the two, so here are two things from the game – one annoying and one delightful.

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Guys guys guys guys guys you’ll never guess what, right? Real women have curves.

They do, you know. They have curves and faces and they are three-dimensional.

According to some magazines, they also have a ‘pre-sex ritual.’ 

Real women. REAL women. It is very important that you know this, for some reason. VERY IMPORTANT INDEED. For you must be able to identify the Real Women from the Women Who We Have Decided For Some Reason Are Not Real.

Real women shave their bikini lines, and simultaneously do not shave their bikini lines, like Schroedinger’s muff.

Real women eat brownies and are also ‘gluten-free’ and they shop in the sales and they laugh at crap telly.

Reel women like fish.

Real women have lipstick smears on their teeth and are half-cut on Christmas brandy that they found in the back of their Mum’s cupboard when they were visiting home for Christmas.

Real women don’t care if they have boyfriends.

Real women are married and will have children because that is the law.

Real women are composed entirely of dust, electrified into motion in a vaguely corporeal shape.

Real women hide their tentacles from strangers, for modesty.

Réal women like football.

Real women fly, but only at heights below 1000 feet, and only if they feel like it and they aren’t busy watching Bargain Hunt.

Real women prefer Cadbury’s Roses to crappy Nestle Quality Street and we will fight you for the caramel barrels.

Real women are solid at room temperature, but liquefy at 38 degrees centigrade, which is why we have separate saunas at the gym.

Real women – the ones who have curves – can tell you the exact equation of any given curve should you wish to reproduce it on a graph.

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Yesterday I read an article by a ‘broody feminist‘ I wasn’t, initially, sure what one of these was, so I clicked through wondering if it might be a new faction of feminism about which I could have an opinion (I think I probably fall into the category of ‘Opinionated feminists‘, or somewhere on the venn diagram where they cross over with ‘Drunk feminists’ and ‘Feminists who like crisps’). It turns out that a ‘broody feminist’ is just a feminist who wants children. The author, Charlotte Gill, explains that:

“as feminism has progressed, saying you want babies has become deeply unfashionable – synonymous with “I have no career ambition.” On the other hand, a child-free existence has been painted as progressive and exciting, sold successfully by celebrities like Jennifer Aniston and Kylie Minogue.”

Which is interesting, because it’s not really true. Sure, it is very slowly becoming more acceptable for women to say ‘I don’t want kids’, and we’re no longer treated like we’re the gruesome offspring of the Childcatcher and Cruella DeVille. But I think calling it ‘fashionable’ is quite a leap – given Daily Mail headlines that screech at us about our biological clocks, and misguided advice by people like Kirstie Allsopp about how we should all have a baby or two before we try and get a degree. I won’t spend too long on the truth or otherwise of the argument, because I’m sure you know that while many people are fighting to emphasise that you don’t have to choose to procreate, there’s still an assumption that you will. There’s definitely not, as Charlotte seems to be arguing, a dominant feminist view that parenthood is a Bad Choice for everyone.

If I could wave a magic wand that changed our narrative around children, I wouldn’t be arguing that fewer women should choose to have them, or that we should all have them at certain times or what have you, I’d change it to this:

• Having kids is one of many options when it comes to making life choices.
• It shouldn’t be assumed that anyone either will or won’t have kids: no matter what their gender, relationship status, etc.

In short, having kids is a bit like training for a marathon – it can be incredibly rewarding, it’s definitely admirable, but it’s also a lot of effort so not everyone wants to do it. Anyway, I’m not here to talk about kids – have ’em, don’t have ’em, whatever makes you happy. Here I want to talk about silence…

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