If you see this Man lock your “Door” © (Do the Slut Walk 11th June)

“Slut Walk” is coming up on Saturday and everyone has an opinion.

An article by Deborah Orr in the Guardian yesterday talked about the signals we give out by our choice of “costume”.
She suggests that wee vests and short skirts make people think, sex worker?
An orange fleece may point out the Sainsbury’s assistant, and when one wears overalls the guess is usually…. Plumber?
Apparently wearing “sex-signalling” clothing is to a rapist what leaving your door open is to a burglar. If he happens to pass by he might like to have a little poke around.

Deborah Orr goes on to say that “Men, generally, are not the problem. Considering the flood of fantastical sexual messages they are fed by the media, they show themselves to be notably resilient and sensitive. But that unlocked door? Hundreds of thousands will walk right past. But some bastard might come along who won’t. Door locked, door unlocked, burglary is burglary. And only burglars by definition commit it.”

So ladies lock your “door” and you’ll be fine. I like to lock my “door” with a Chanel two-piece suit. No one dares approach me.
And if they do, I clutch my pearls with fury and proclaim: “How dare you beast? This is Chanel.”
The “burglar” then knows my “door” is locked and scampers off into the darkness. It’s that simple. And now to find my smelling salts…

I don’t think Slut Walk is an effort to cure depraved individuals. For me it’s primarily about how we view female sexuality.
As a society we are offended by women who signal their appetite for sex or worse their promiscuity.
Why? Men want sex. Women want sex.

When in “heat” both sexes parade themselves in front of each other wearing whatever they hope might bring about the symptoms of lust.
As I write this I think of the volleyball-playing boys of  “Top Gun” in their little tight jeans and their shiny oiled torsos, frolicking in the sand. (I need a moment)
They wore very little, bless them and yes they were just after for one thing but I never judged those boys. I never called them sluts.
No, I just thought. …That’s gorgeous, I gotta get me some of that and clutched my pearls (once a lady always a lady - Link attached below for your viewing pleasure*)

So can we put all this Slut – Non Slut rubbish behind? I know we can’t but I must keep asking the question.

It’s a thousand year old urge. If you feel like dressing up cause you want to get busy…go ahead.

No one should judge you and you shouldn’t have to keep your “door” locked with fear.

Enjoy!!!!!!

 

*http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdAVH-ZeUHc

(It's dubbed in Italian ...as it should be)

Feminism and the Beast (Do the Slut Walk - 11th June)

We’re Animals. Humans are animals. Why do we constantly forget this? 

We have intellect of course and we delight in creating rules and laws in an effort to civilise and elevate the society we live in.
Nevertheless we are animals and we do not always control our base instincts.

Men are in charge of the world because they are physically stronger. It has nothing to do with brainpower, it’s just good old fashioned law of the jungle.

In Europe over the last few centuries we have tried to master the art of taming our inner Beast. (This of course does not apply to Italy)
We haven’t succeeded, but there are rules we have to live by.

Yet if a female is unlucky enough to be born in a less socially structured geographical area, life could get heavy very early on. In Afghanistan (where rape is legal within marriage) if a sixty-year-old man can afford to buy a thirteen-year-old bride for £20.000, well then he can have her.

Don’t get me started on Thailand ….It feels a bit like the Beast is taming society as opposed to the other way around.
Humbert Humbert could run for president and be in with a good chance of winning.

Discrimination against women is not based on race or creed or social background, it sees no colour, it’s a global phenomenon that’s in the news every single day of the week.
If we think the way women are treated in another part of the world will not affect us, our daughters or our granddaughters in years to come we are sadly mistaken.
It’s a tiny globe we live on and it’s getting smaller.
Have you heard of consciousness of the collective? Scary stuff…. it could go either way.

So what are we western women doing about all this?

Over the last twenty years it seems we lost our urge to conquer new ground on the road towards equality. And, yes I’m going to bring it up again …Feminism has become a four letter word. Why?

There are still places in the world that as women it doesn’t make sense to go to.
You can’t get a job or be treated as an equal.
Women are being trafficked and sold into slavery.
Women are responsible for 2/3 of the work done world wide yet earn 10% of the total income and own 1% of the property.
Women are also still making up their minds whether to go on “Slut Walk” on the 4th June because of the S word and what it evokes.

I say have a look at some of the week’s headlines below and let’s meet up on the 4th June.
I say if you don’t like it let’s come up with a better word, one that speaks for us all.
But at least let’s meet up and take it from there.
I think there might be a need for it.

The Week in Headlines

• In this Harsh Afghan desert community women are hidden away and child brides sold for £20.000 – Evening Standard – Thursday 19th May

• Bristol rape victim’s husband wants Ken Clarke to resign – BBC News – Thursday 19th May

• Kenneth Clarke denies “rape is rape” - Telegraph - Wednesday 18th May

• One in five female employees in China have suffered harassment in the workplace – Stylist – Wednesday 18th May.

• Lured to Britain, locked up and raped at £30 a time. – Observer - Sunday 15th May

• IMF chief on rape charges: From vroom to bust – Guardian – Sunday 15th May



I'm not Bad, I'm just drawn that way? (Do the Slut Walk - 11th June)

I’m regularly told that I belong to a generation of women who aren’t feminists. Whenever it comes up in conversation with another woman I witness her need to defend herself against being called a man-hater.

So, before we go on and for the purposes of clarification here is the definition:

Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing and defending equal political, economic, social rights and opportunities for women.
It’s concepts overlap with those of women’s rights. Feminism is mainly focused on women’s issues but because feminism seeks gender equality; some feminists argue that men’s liberation is therefore a necessary part of feminism and that men are also harmed by sexism and gender roles.
Feminists – that is, persons practising feminism – may be persons of either sex.

And now…. on with the story…………

When I was five I developed a dislike for garages. Every once in a while I’d have to go to the one in our neighbourhood with Mum or Dad in order to pick up their car. A truly dull place, vacant of anything that might interest a little girl.
The real reasons for my aversion however were the pictures of naked women in the centre of the garage. Tiny waists, big bosoms and benign smiles. They looked like things and made my flat chested, barely there feminity feel extremely awkward.

I’d go bright red and feel a need to hide. I didn’t really know why, it just felt embarrassing. I wondered why it was ok to photograph women like that and this was before I knew anything about semiotics, semantics or feminism.

The woman I’ve become has encountered plenty of things that make her recoil in a similar way and other things she should mind but has become immune to.

Slut Walk. How’s that for a phrase? (When a Toronto policeman told a group of students they should avoid dressing like sluts in order to not be victimised it caused a wave of protests, which will come to the U.K. next month – Observer 15.05.2011)
It conjures up all sorts of uncomfortable images and makes me cringe a little every time I say it. However in today’s society do women really have to dress up in an overtly provocative way in order to be victimised?

The inappropriate coverage of certain women in the media would suggest otherwise. Once you become the object of desire you could, depending on your admirer’s gaze, be a Madonna or a Whore.

Most of time it’s not really up to you or is it?

(To be continued.....)


http://thisaffectedyouth.com/2011/05/04/slut-walk-june-4th-trafalgar-square-london/
http://www.cosmopolitan.co.uk/community/forums/thread/1498929

For £5 You Can Watch Me Dream (The Public Therapy Sessions) ©

Everyday at 6 in the evening they begin to stir. At a time when most others leave their desks to go home and rest, they prepare to entertain. They may have already put in a full day of work. Don’t mind that. They were in deep slumber the whole way through.

Earn by day and dream by night.

You will find them in clubs playing music, doing stand up, performing plays, reading poetry, exhibiting photographs or screening short films.They gather their creativity and display it to any audience who will pay for the right to be silent or applaud. All the privileges a five-pound entry fee affords.

Later, on the way home, if all goes well the artist will post a status update on Facebook to describe the moment she shared with the audience. What she’s expressing is an instant of connection. A moment in which others recognise that which she values in herself.

A fragment of time through which she escaped from her daytime persona and saw people finally acknowledge who she is or at least who she thinks she is. I say think because I’m not sure if we can ever really know the extent of our full potential. Maybe some of us can see it clearly but most of us are probably walking through time selling ourselves short.

Why is she doing it? What does she want? 

She wishes the moment will expand and take up her whole life. She’s hoping that one day the recognition will carry through into the morning and that her life will no longer be divided into that which she can tolerate and that which she loves.

She tells me all this of an evening and I hug her and say:
"At least you know what you love, keep dreaming.
And if you really want it to work, add structure.”

Born Perfect Vs the Great Hall of “THEY” (The Public Therapy Sessions)©

We sat in a café in Oxford reminiscing whilst baby Emma, my friend’s daughter, rolled serenely around the floor. Emma didn’t seem the least bit interested in what anyone thought of her behaviour; she didn’t cast her eye around the café even once to check for people’s reactions. Contentment and calmness seemed to be the only two things on the menu for her.

I remember being like that. I used to know what all the objects in our house looked like from the floor’s point of view. I’d stare at the imperfect patches under the dining room table and the little bits of dust that grab hold of the legs of chairs.The world underneath the furniture was my domain. There was tranquillity to be found in those little places.

“She’s Perfect”, I said to my friend about her daughter.
“I know”, replied the two year old’s proud mother.
“Please keep telling her that, will you?”, I said trying to imagine the possibilities.

What if we could safely deliver one human that is totally accepting of herself, realises her innate perfection and is able to remind others of theirs. It’s the state we all come from. Why do we forget?

Over the course of a lifetime most of us accumulate a multitude of whispers and looks that have scrutinised our actions and recorded our “imperfections” (As society perceives them. It’s an illusion there is no such thing) only to play them back to us.

We store them in the Great Hall of “They”. A place we start decorating from a very early age with portraits of the disapproving moments we meet on our journey.

Who are “They” and  why do we care so much about “Them”?

According to the film Black Swan, “They” are in our head. We put them there because we think “They” are pushing us to achieve our goals but in reality “They” are just driving us crazy…sometimes literally!

So who would we be if we completely accepted and. …Mmmm…sorry to bring it up but I feel I must…. LOVED ourselves?

There you go, I said it and now it’s out there. Deal with it!

Are any of you still there?

I know that most of us, just like baby Emma, used to roll around the floor, content in our own perfection. I think it’s time we reminded ourselves that we were BORN PERFECT and still are.

Right, that’s it; I’m going into the Hall to smash some portraits. You can come but you need to bring your own bat. I will be smashing things and it will get loud!!!

No, there is no way of doing this quietly.

I don’t want to go to “work” if the Universe is expanding!!!! ©

The New Year is a symbol of rebirth and new beginnings.

People the world over make lists to catalogue what can realistically be achieved until the clock strikes twelve again in 12 months time.

So why are Facebook and Twitter saturated with Back to Work Blues-status updates? Is the pursuit of Achievement at odds with the pursuit of Happiness?

What is Happiness? Most of us look forward to accumulating enough wealth to buy it.Hopefully it will be in a box we open or behind the lock that corresponds to a key we’ll come to hold in our hands.

According to Matthieu Ricard (ex molecular biologist with the Pasteur Institute,** turned Buddhist Monk) French Intellectual circles (and most of us in the Western World) are not concerned with Happiness.

Their reaction to a paper he published on the subject of Happiness was that they don’t need it. Apparently they need to live with passion, they like the ups and downs of life, they like the suffering because it’s so good when it ceases for a while.

Last night I went searching for encouraging stories told by people who don’t dread their first day back to work. I listened to talks by Elizabeth Gilbert, Stephen Hawking, Amy Tan, Matthieu Ricard and Woody Allen.

As Stephen Hawking lectured on the hypothesis that the Universe can spontaneously create itself out of nothing and then slowly expand into infinity again, I wondered if maybe…………….just maybe …………this miracle of creation we call home is here to facilitate something other than the accumulation of Wealth, Power and the general hoarding of “Stuff” we don’t need.

Maybe its time to consider that this cycle we’re on has been tested many times and quite frankly it’s just boosting the sales of alcohol, antidepressants and self help books.

So, what if this year we follow our hearts a bit more? Pursue goals we truly yearn for a bit more? Fill our lives with little particles of happiness a bit more frequently?

I don’t want to do something called “work” every day if the Universe is expanding.*


*http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Pa34orcwwA

** http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pasteur_Institute