Writing rut

I’m desperate to get back into blogging. Or at least getting to the point where I can type a few sentences into my word processor that make some of vague point, without vehemently hitting the backspace button until there is nothing but a blank page staring back at me. It’s very odd, if I’m honest. I presumed that having a clear mind would leave more room for ideas, an open space for creativity and for my mind to run wild. I’m unusually happy, ecstatically so, on a daily basis. After having a turbulent start to the year, everything seems to have settled into place, and almost sickeningly so. I feel like I’m living in a Disney fairyland of sparkles and rainbows. Only this is the North London version; which is filled with very British pubs, hipster coffee shops and farmers’ markets that feature ten different types of aubergine. My kind of dreamland. Strangely, when I have had a lot more on my mind I have been more interested in patching together some sort of opinion piece; or a smattering of sentences that summed up my life, however tragic, at the time. Is it because writing is a kind of escapism? Probably. So, for the time being I’m going to fill my head with nonsense from Cosmopolitan and hope I get inspired. If you stick around, I might be able to tell you all about the generation of ketamine-obsessed millennials. Actually, that’s one of the better articles. I’ll pick a more ridiculous page.

Superglue

It’s been almost two years since I graduated. Two whole years. Twenty four months. I could go on in this fashion, counting the days, hours, seconds… But that would be pointless and kind of boring. And for one, it’s time I will never get back.

They say that you shouldn’t regret the decisions you made, the chances you took, the path you chose to follow. But it’s very difficult to remember this when you’re feeling like you’ve hit rock bottom. (For the third time this week, whilst you eat an entire packet of Oreos and roll around in your bed that your landlord is refusing to replace).

Being a twenty-something year old in London is possibly one of the hardest things I think I will ever do in my life – and I know I haven’t lived my whole life yet, but I’m  pretty certain on this one. Sometimes it’s one of my biggest regrets, and sometimes I feel like it was the best life decision I’ve ever made.

But that’s the thing. It’s dealing with those two extremes, and learning to cope with yourself, with your feelings, and also with the world around you. Actually letting yourself have those moments in bed with your Oreos (and that secret supply of Lucozade you have stashed in your pants drawer). But then having those days when you smash it at work and you realise you are killing it – you can achieve your goals. You are something. You’re bloody amazing and no one else is going to realise it if you don’t yourself.

No one else is going to realise it if you don’t yourself.

There’s a lot to be said about self-worth. You may have an amazing group of friends around you, a supportive family, a brilliant partner, whatever support network you have. They may all think you’re fantastic, and tell you so on a regular basis. But you’ve got to start believing it yourself. So what, you’re not exactly where you wanted to be in life by now? So are most people. They just don’t admit it. So you don’t have flawless skin and are a size 4? First off, both of those things are unrealistic for majority of us. And about ninety eight percent of the time it’s down to Instagram filters and extreme Photoshop. So what if you’re not going to the gym a million zillion times a week and have a bum like Beyoncé? It’s because you’re working your bum off all week, and allowing yourself a bit of down time, and maybe, just maybe, actually having a life.

It’s easy-peasy to say all these things, I know. I am kind of a hypocrite because I am guilty of routinely having these thoughts. But it’s important to keep yourself in check. Tell people if you’re feeling a bit rubbish today – a good sympathy hug can go a long way. Stick positive quotes on your walls, on your phone, your fridge, on your desk at work and wind your boss up to high hell. Write a cute message to go with your alarm to make yourself feel like a princess when you wake up (even if you do feel like there’s a strong chance that you may be Gollum’s long lost twin as you crawl out of your bedsheets). Give yourself more credit than you think you’re worth.

So guess what? You didn’t take the wrong path. Those decisions you made, those chances you took, they were right at the time. You might have messed up a serious amount and ruined a few things at the time – but hey, if something is damaged, you can always fix it. And if it’s so far beyond that point that you can’t fix it? Maybe it wasn’t meant to be salvaged to begin with.

So go and find some superglue. Pick up the pieces and carry on.

It’s a Women’s Game Too

Politics isn’t just for men. It’s time to take part.

Although I’m aware I may sound like a broken record, ladies, trust me when I say your vote is incredibly important. So stepping away from my comments on the female leaders, it’s time to focus on the everyday woman.

She can come in any shape and size; she can be the career-driven businesswoman, she can be the married mother of three, she can be the single mother successfully juggling a job and childcare, the student who now has her first chance to vote… I could go on. We don’t settle directly into those few categories – we’re just as diverse as men. This is why all of us have our own political preference – some parties match our needs better than others.

However, it is perfectly fine to recognise that each party has a different offering for each person, each member of the electorate, each woman. But what is not fine is that although each party has an agenda for women, they still lack an offer for female equality in politics.

I’d really love if this election could change that.

Let’s focus on the facts and figures. Nine million women didn’t vote in the last election – a higher proportion than our male counterparts. And fewer women are voting now than they were in the ‘80s. Why are less women voting than men? And why the sudden drop? Then turning to representation. Under a quarter of our MPs are female. We have a parliament that is dominated by white males. Where is the diversity?

We’ve come a long way since the first female vote in 1918. But in that time, less female MPs have entered parliament than the total number of males elected in 2010. Change is afoot, and yes, this year has been particularly ground-breaking.

But how can we speed this up? How can we turn this around? What can you personally do to change this?

First off, make sure you visit your local polling station on the 7^th May (and I do hope you’ve registered to vote).

Secondly, get involved where you can. There are petitions online; sign to get the party leaders to address the gender imbalance in parliament here. The tampon tax campaign is still in full swing – share it on social media. Help stop women being shamed for their appearance in the media (I’m sure you’re aware of the splash Protein World’s ‘Are You Beach Body Ready?’ campaign caused). Make a stand against violence against women.

These are all issues that affect us as women, and yes, they all do have a political agenda. Start getting us noticed. Let’s prove we’re interested, that politics isn’t a man’s game, that there isn’t some mythical barrier that stops us from taking part.

Make equality a reality not a theory.

Brains before Beauty

Only a week to go until the Big Day. Sounds terribly like a wedding, but I personally can see a few similarities. The excessive preparation, the inevitable disasters here and there, and of course the actual ceremony; the creation of a union (hint, hint, I feel that there is going to be another coalition). And of course, Boris Johnson can play the role of the crazy relative – there is always one.

So with such little time until the ballots open, it is unsurprising that all elements of our politicians’ lives have been covered, and back to the marital theme, it is unsurprising that there has been a focus on the leaders’ other halves. I suppose this is all counted as part of a wider campaign, an attempt to cover all ground. And I don’t see why not. We have the likes of Nick Clegg’s wife, Miriam, a high-flying commercial lawyer; Ed Miliband’s other half, Justine, who takes her own role in political campaigning; and of course the big name, Samantha Cameron, our current Prime Minister’s wife who successfully maintains the role of creative director at Smythson. I shouldn’t fail to mention the UKIP leader’s partner, Kirsten Farage, previously a government bond broker, who is a little less fond of the limelight.

I was particularly disgruntled by an opinion piece I read online recently from The Telegraph

But is this really for the right reasons, as part of a wider political campaign? Or is it just an opportunity to comment on the dress sense of these women (the ‘Downing Street Catwalk’ fiasco) – or their merits to home life?

I was particularly disgruntled by an opinion piece I read online recently from The Telegraph, which did everything to confirm the general media opinion about the ‘other side’ of our male leaders. Although it was refreshing to read an article which placed the leaders’ wives as preferential political candidates rather than the leaders themselves; the reasons as to why were unsettling. The author of this piece, Melanie McDonagh, believes ‘[A]ll three of the [main] political wives seem more attractive than their husbands.’ Regardless whether anyone thinks this is true, I was stunned by the article’s focus on appearance. Whilst she does comment briefly on the achievements of these women, there is a significant emphasis on physical appearance and public behaviour. At one point, it is said that Sam Cam ‘never oversteps the mark’ – oversteps what mark? Who said she was confined to a particular role?

It amazes me that we still haven’t risen above the foundations set for the political elite’s wives, all those years ago. I thought we’d surpassed the idea of ‘trophy wives’ in politics, women clasping to the side of their husband, their purpose being something pretty to look at. By pushing women back into a corner, giving them a vision of how they are meant to be, and how they are meant to behave in politics, seems rather archaic to me. Have we all forgotten the blood, sweat and tears that went into the campaign for the vote for women? More importantly, why is there a focus on our party leaders’ wives – why is there so little about the husband of, for example, Nicola Sturgeon? Or maybe Leanne Woods’ partner?

There is so much talk about gaining the female vote. Not just on a party basis, but looking at the whole electorate. We keep pointing to the gender turnout gap in elections, with men outnumbering women in the male-female ratio. But is it any surprise when we talk about women in this way?

The Triad

The latter half of last week we saw the TV debate take two, minus two of the main players, Cameron and Clegg. The Conservative and Liberal Democrat leaders’ decision to miss a vital part of television coverage left the debate to the rest of the line-up, which for once was marginally more female.

This year has seemingly been a ‘milestone’ for the representation of women in not only the election campaign but also in government. We’ve seen an almost equal division of the male-female leader ratio between the seven major parties. But in all the hype churned out from the major parties we are being dragged away from the reality of it all – there is still an ongoing battle for equality.

We can see that Labour’s pink bus is still trawling the school gates and shopping centres of the country with its female-friendly message. David Cameron has stated he is committed to “lead the charge on women’s equality.” UKIP has even had a go at attracting women with its stance on tampon tax. But when we dip into the real world of politics, what do we see?

Since Tony Blair hit the scene with his ‘Blair Babes’ back in 1997, the rate of increase in the number of female MPs has slowed greatly. More than half the Labour candidates are women – but only a small proportion of those are in winnable seats – and it’s a similar situation for the Conservatives. This has been the case in previous elections too, where there is a trend of female party candidates that only exist in constituencies that are harder to win, according to research from LSE. So almost a century on from the first year of the women’s vote in 1918, we are still subject to the ‘glass ceiling’ that exists in politics.

Then we are faced with the smaller parties. The SNP, the Green Party and Plaid Cymru are the only parties with female leaders that are participating in the General Election. But is this a representation of equality?

Whilst I’m aware that banding these three parties together doesn’t make entire sense in terms of policy, it does make entire sense in terms of gender representation.

I believe that the triad of Nicola Sturgeon, Leanne Wood and Natalie Bennett are the fighting force for women in this election campaign. And not just because of what they’re wearing, or who they’re currently linked with, or even because of their new hairdo. They represent a lot more than your daily scroll of that dreaded right hand sidebar of the Daily Mail online. These are women who are committed to the real issues at hand.

I’m a particular fan of Nicola Sturgeon. Her sharp and studied approach offers her as the ideal role model for an aspiring female politician – and it seems that the general public may agree with me here. On the evening of the first TV debate, Sturgeon’s name was the most popular Google search term in the UK. And unsurprisingly, the sixth most popular was the question, ‘Can I vote for the SNP?’

This was followed by last week’s TV debate. What I would count as a real milestone in politics. It was refreshing to see a line-up in which women outnumbered men. It was also refreshing to see a line-up that wasn’t dominated by ex-public-schoolboys and Oxbridge alumni. A step in the right direction for diversity.

And the message that captured the whole night? The embrace between Sturgeon, Wood and Bennett. Is this a new era of politics; a message of solidarity?

We are taking another step in the right direction. The glass ceiling may still be lingering but the cracks are getting bigger.

Keep pushing, ladies.

The Countdown Is On!

As the 7th May looms over our politicians much like the big grey clouds we’re all too familiar with here in the UK, the best bits of each party’s manifesto are being rolled out in order to grab our attention. Only, I feel like those grey clouds are going to have a bit more of a predictable outcome than the general election.

We have precisely four weeks until the day when we’re required to trundle down to our local polling station in order to play our part in deciding how our country is run for the next few years. The big question is, have you decided who you are going to vote for?

I’ll tell you the truth – I haven’t.

As the campaign unfolds it only seems to become more and confusing. Last week we saw the live TV debate unfold between seven of the party leaders, which didn’t really unveil anything more than what we already knew – but it did give us an idea of the new political era we may be entering. Not all that long ago we were complaining about how we were limited by the two-party politics that dominated Parliament. But after the Cameron-Clegg stint, we seem to have made a breakthrough and are now almost spoilt for choice.

So what do we have so far?

Labour and the Conservatives are almost levelling in terms of support – Labour leading slightly according to the most recent opinion polls – and with every policy one side brings out, the other immediately counters it.

Farage was of course his controversial self. Personally, I’m not the biggest fan of UKIP. But I am a big fan of Nigel’s bluntness. Of course, this is why he is so popular. Brutal, blunt, brash. No wrapping his policies in a layer of carefully thought out political waffle. Despite the TV debate offering very little in the way of defining moments (there were no gaffes, no surprises), Nige kept true to his manner of making risky statements. This time it was about foreign nationals with HIV draining the system for their care, and in typical UKIP fashion, stating “We have to look after our own people first.” His comments have traction – but they tend to come across with more than a hint of nationalism, and dare I say, racism.

Clegg is desperately trying to fight a losing battle. But the debate showed that the Lib Dems are realising they need a little bit more bite; some of the strongest remarks were exchanged between Nick Clegg and David Cameron, and later with Ed Miliband, pulling Labour up on “crashing the economy.”

As much as I wish I didn’t have to band the women together into one group, the general message from Plaid Cymru, the SNP and the Greens was one of anti-austerity, each offering a different approach to dealing with our economy.

In all honesty, it’s not surprising that I’m one of the many undecided voters here. But with four weeks to go, someone has the opportunity to really clinch the deal. I can only hope that we see a little more fight from our party leaders. Someone make a scene. I’m excited to see where we end up – could this be the year of the ‘patchwork quilt coalition’?

More importantly, who are YOU voting for?

Listen Up Ladies: UKIP might be on our side

I’m an avid follower of the progression of the campaign against tampon tax. Tampon tax, you say? They tax our periods? Well, let’s give you a little lowdown on the current situation.

So, for a while, there has been a movement against the governments across the world for taxing what we require for our lady functions. Currently, for all sanitary products, there is a tax of 5% in the UK. This is because they are considered ‘non-essential, luxury’ items. Most recently, a petition was put together and presented to George Osborne, prior to the release of this year’s budget. Unfortunately, it was dismissed. Due to EU regulations, the UK does not have the power to eliminate this tax by itself, it does have to be an EU-wide decision. But the aim of the ‘Stop taxing periods. Period.’ campaign is not only to stop this tax, but to raise awareness through support. There are various channels throughout Europe that are being used to target politicians, and the more support the campaign garners, the more likely it will be that the EU will review the tax.

It was inevitable that this would become mixed up in the run-up to the election. The latest news is from UKIP, who, in an appeal to win some female support, has announced its commitment to scrap the tampon tax. The party’s Head of Policy, Suzanne Evans, is keen to remove the “invidious tax” – but there’s a catch. Of course, the only way in which we’d be able to possibly do this is to leave the EU. Ms. Evans makes a valuable point in highlighting how ridiculous the EU legislation is – but I’m not entirely certain that there’s a little bit more to their sudden support.

UKIP isn’t generally recognised as a party that appeals to women. The latest YouGov poll has placed the party’s support at 15 points from the male voters, but the women lag behind at only 10. So of course it’s been a brilliant idea to jump on the bandwagon with the campaign against tampon tax. And it all helps their anti-EU stance too, so it’s a bit of a win-win situation. But maybe that’s me being quite sceptical.

Personally, I’m not entirely sure that leaving the EU is the best way to go about ending the tax. But it’s another way that the party is trying engage to add you to the list of supporters.

Ta, Nigel.

The Television Debates: Ladies, Step Forward

Turn on your televisions – it’s time to watch the hilarity unfold.

The latest news to hit our headlines with regards to the May elections is David Cameron’s announcement that he does not want to partake in a televised debate, similar to the last head-to-head we saw during the 2010 elections.

Three live debates feature as part of the planned schedule, put together by the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Sky. Parliament dissolves at the end of March, so the broadcasters are aiming to follow this with two live multi-party debates, featuring the leaders of the largest parties. This would then culminate in a head-to-head between Ed Miliband and David Cameron.

But on this occasion Cameron’s decision to be controversial has caused the right kind of stir. The broadcasting agencies, in the typical blanket approach to politics, had originally only thought of pitting the leaders of the big three, Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats, plus UKIP – so maybe I need to rename that the big four – against each other in a live debate.

The amount of participants in the debate has been reconsidered since Dave has put his foot down. Let’s welcome the SNP, the Green Party and Plaid Cymru to the mix, and say hello to our female party leaders Nicola Sturgeon, Natalie Bennett and Leanne Wood.

I know it’s not necessarily all about ratio here; for example, if you take one look at Labour you’ll see they’re on track to break a record for the largest cohort of female MPs in UK, ever. No, it’s not about that at all. But it’s good to see some balance.

Plus it’s good to see some sense, away from the Labour-Conservative/Conservative-Labour criticisms. During the latest prime minister’s questions, Cameron and Miliband participated in some playground politics – Ed chose to focus entirely on the TV debates and nothing else, chicken noises were made from a few Labour hecklers, and the Conservative leader opted for a quick subject change.

Diverting back to that ‘sense’ I just mentioned. Comments from the minor parties have been brief and direct: Plaid’s Leanne Wood said: “I’m delighted that the broadcasters are holding firm. It would have been wrong for one individual to dictate and change the terms of these debates.” And the SNP’s Nicola Sturgeon stated that “A Tory prime minister simply cannot be allowed to dictate terms to everyone else taking part.” Good to see some people are thinking straight here.

Come on boys, let’s get it together.

Malibu Barbie’s Bus

We are less than three months away from the May elections, and the news is fully abuzz with the actions of the political world and its new campaigns. However it seems the most ludicrous the method, the better.

The thing that has captured my attention the most is the Barbie bus put together by Labour. It will tour 70 constituencies around the UK prior to the elections, with the task of informing women about the upcoming elections. It has been marketed as a way of connecting with women “around the kitchen table”, reaching out to them in their everyday lives. It is set to tour supermarkets, schools and shopping centres, to name a few.

It’s somewhat insulting to think these are our typical spots of choice. It also smacks of being rather patronising.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m the ‘girliest girl’ you’ll meet. I have an unhealthy obsession with the colour pink, and an even unhealthier obsession with all things glittery. The colour of the bus isn’t a problem here. It’s what it represents. As females, we have all been banded together in one category, a simple ‘to do’ list to cross off. But we are not all the same.

The bus, which has been labelled as the lovechild of Sheila’s Wheels and Malibu Barbie’s campervan, may not have the right ideas on the surface. It has caused a stir about gender; the stereotypical argument of whether women can be banded together as one little group. But I do agree with the intentions of Harriet Harman and her pals. Yes, some women do have different patterns in their lives. Yes, some may need to be given that advice in their local haunts. And yes, some women may want have that chat around the kitchen table. But that isn’t the case for every one of us. Women act and think differently, and they vote differently too.

Less than a month ago, Emma Watson, amongst other influential female spokespeople, addressed the Gender Equality forum at the World Economic Forum in Davos, reiterating the growing success of the HeforShe campaign, and how on an international level, many countries had pledged for women to receive the same opportunities as men politically, socially and economically.

We need to turn our attention back to these issues. Like the fact that a huge chunk of us didn’t participate in the last election (there were over 9.1 million women who didn’t vote in 2010), or the fact that so many of us are still undecided on where our vote is going. Radio 4 published a poll that showed a noticeable gap between the amount of women and men left undecided on their political choice – 25% of men, but jumping to 35% of women. And whilst we’re throwing around facts and figures, why not mention the disproportionate level of senior female executives? There is even disparity in childcare laws – the fact that mothers have prioritised time off over fathers – should that not be an equal right?

Labour, you may have attracted the attention of the nation. But is it really for the right reasons?

Now let’s get back to the real issues at hand, not Malibu Barbie’s bus.