I applied for a job recently, in short, they had search me online and found my YouTube channel and replied to my email application by accident by saying my ‘Mrs looks worth a go’ with a link to my YouTube page for the intended to be able to presumably also gawp at my girlfriend. Here’s a link to the post I made on Facebook with all the emails and contact described on it. https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10156156778395348&set=a.10154185582925348.1073741831.744875347&type=3
I’ve just seen something in our local paper, & I’m rather pissed about it, so excuse any bad language. There is a picture of Nicola Sturgeon & Teresa May sitting in chairs (the one that prompted the ‘Legs It’ article in the Daily Fail- where else?!) in the letters section, & there is a question underneath it which says, “what do you think? Is it humorous or demeaning to comment on top politicians’ legs? To join in the debate [email the local paper]”. WTF?! Are they for real? I can’t believe they’re turning this into a debate! I think it’s appalling, & I’m in the camp of thinking it’s demeaning, & not at all funny! I bet that if it had been Alex Salmond & one of the male MPs who was in the running for PM (had he gotten the job) having that discussion, the Mail wouldn’t have run that article. To add insult to injury, a guy who is a regular contributor to the letters section opined that “too much fuss is being made about the Legs It article”. I quote (apologies- I tried to go to the paper’s site to find a link to the letter, but searched in vain, so I’ve had to write it out in longhand, my blood simmering as I’m doing so): “A light-hearted piece by Daily Mail columnist Sarah Vine pinpointing the legs & knees of PM Teresa May & Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon when they met to discuss the vexed questions of Brexit & a Scottish second referendum has brought an outburst of abuse from some female MPs who consider the item deliberately demeaning & moronic sexism. A picture of both women showed an expanse of leg & a (sic) 4 curvaceous knees, prompting Sarah Vine to ask, “Who won legs-it”. I can’t see why the anger, both Teresa May & Nicola Sturgeon have fine legs & excellent knees. So why not dress to show them to the wider public? Just because both women are well turned out & reveal visible legs does not for a minute stop them from arguing their cases in favour of Brexit & a second Scottish referendum, they are both tough politicians [how nice of you to say so!]. But that doesn’t have to stop them from being feminine [because toughness isn’t feminine at all, right?!]. Those who decry the piece by Sarah Vine want to lighten up [a phrase I loathe- I’ve been told to do it several times by my mother when I’ve openly disapproved of sexist behaviour either on TV or by people in ‘real life’, & it only served to make me angrier] & realise that not all top female politicians, like Angela Merkel, have to dress in sombre fashion to prove they are doing their job in what is mostly a man’s world, like politics.” Alright then. So women are meant to put up with being objectified on the grounds that it’s a bit of banter (the ‘humourless feminist’ meme being trotted out again, I see- I’ve heard that one before!), shut up & take it as a compliment when people comment on their legs or whatever, & anyone who dares to stick up for them has also had a sense of humour failure. OK. Whatever, dude. This man is SERIOUSLY missing the point- women in the public eye should be able to dress how they want to without being picked apart for it (note that he couldn’t resist having a pop at Angela Merkel for the way she dresses, as if it’s any business of his!)! The fact that Ms Sturgeon & Ms May allegedly have good legs & look feminine (whatever the fuck that means) is irrelevant, & I couldn’t give a shit whether they do or not! It’s their policies & what they met to talk about that matters, not their clothes or their bodies! Even if they DO have good legs, that doesn’t give dirty old gits like this letter-writer the right to comment & ogle! I’ve never read any articles about male politicians’ bodies or clothes! Alas, it doesn’t surprise me that this man holds these views, as he has form when it comes to sexism. In the past, he’s written various misogynistic, chauvinistic & anti-feminist letters to the paper. One was after the Labour Party Conference a few years ago, when he launched into a tirade against Harriet Harman over the speech she made there. I can’t remember what exactly he said, but the words ‘feminist firebrand’ featured in the heading of said letter, so presumably he criticised her for talking about domestic abuse. When a woman wrote to the paper rebutting what he’d said & pointing out that domestic abuse is a more serious problem than he might think & that there are women who live in fear of the men in their lives, he responded by saying that it’s not just women who are victims of domestic abuse. How predictable that he’s someone who holds the view that there is no gender imbalance when it comes to domestic abuse. Another instance was when he wrote that it was all very well the powers that be cracking down on rape, they should be cracking down on punishing women who lie about it (because OF COURSE LOADS of women do that, don’t they?!). I was tempted to write a letter calling him out on this, but decided against it. He’s also criticised the fact that women are allowed to box, has criticised women who behave in what he perceives as an ‘unladylike’ fashion & has very ‘traditional’ ideas about gender roles. I suspect that these views may stem from the fact that he’s from a different generation, but that’s no excuse.
Thought I’d share because it may seem minor to some, but things like this, no matter how “little” they seem, are important to shed light on. Where: in geography class. Our school is a bit nonsensical and sexist when it comes to seating and has a “boy, girl, boy, girl” policy. So I sit next to a boy who won’t be named for obvious reasons. I’m used to the usual “lad” bullshit, and so are the other girls. But anyway, on Monday last week, the boy who sits next to me begins talking to a boy on the row behind us, someone I’ve actually known for years. They begin to discuss one of the trips they went on the year before, a totally normal conversation. Suddenly, the focus strays onto a female teacher, who happens to be one of the physics teachers. They begin to talk about how she was “flirting” with one or two of the male teachers on the trip, and then began calling her dress “slutty,” asking one another how “slutty” the dress was, and then proceeding to rate this woman out of 10 on her appearance. All while I, someone these people are otherwise perfectly okay with, sit there right next to them along with 3 other girls. They speak like that in front of another female freely, knowing there are no repercussions for their sexist behaviour and language. Fast forward to today, and they start it again. We were all moved into our new science sets in the morning, so we were all asking each other how we did and whether or not we were doing separate sciences. I asked the boy behind us (same boy as last week) what new science teachers he had. He told me, and then began to talk to the boy next to me again, the conversation then turning to a teacher they wanted for chemistry. Why? Because they thought she was eye candy. “I’d just spend the whole lesson looking at her tits and arse,” and then, “let’s be honest, we’d never get any work done in her lesson.” Direct quotes. Sitting there, speaking like this, right in front of me. Just to put this in perspective with some context – in a school in the UK, in the year 2017, these two boys are 14 and 15. Misogyny begins early. Please, if you have children, it’s vital you teach them respect and act as a role model from an early age.
I was in my maths class today and the boy in front of me suddenly turned around to ask the boy next to me, “Who would you rather f**k, her or her?” This inappropriate, sexualised and irrelevant question came out of blue, when we were doing algebraic substitution, and has left a bitter taste in my mouth for the rest of the day.
A colleague drunk texted me two weeks ago while he was at a festival, telling me he missed me “and your tatties, I mean titties.” When I confronted him on it later, he just shrugged it off and said “I thought you could take it”. No apology, or acknowledgement of what a creepy, inappropriate thing that is to do. Yesterday, a different colleague asked me out on a date, despite the fact that he knows I am in a happy, long-term relationship and, oh yeah, he himself got married a mere two weeks ago. We are all part of a larger group of people who go for coffee together every morning. I previously considered these guys my friends. Now I feel so uncomfortable and creeped out and angry that I can’t face being near them. Thanks to their stupid horny impulses, I’ve lost the one social interaction at work that I used to really look forward to every day.
Yesterday I went to hospital (St Mary’s in Roehampton, London) for a checkup and was leered at by a guy in the waiting room when he overheard me saying I had a gynaecology appointment (like… seriously?!). After having a checkup by a fantastic doctor, which I still found humiliating due to lifelong conditioning to hate my body, I left the hospital. Just outside I was catcalled by a man inside a van. I gave him the finger and he swore at me. A few minutes later I was walking following maps on my phone home (having decided an hour walk in the sun was better than forty minutes on the bus since I felt like shit after my day so far), and my phone told me to go down an alleyway between Barnes and Mortlake, as you turn right off the main road and go towards some corner shops. I walked towards the alley in the brightly lit afternoon, in a residential area, and then noticed two young men walking towards me (both white, one with dark hair in a black tracksuit, one with red hair and jeans. I’m putting these description in in the hope that one day someone who knows these two might point them to this and they realise the effect their actions had on someone). One asked “do you smoke?” and I said no and walked away quickly, aware of how they were looking at me. It was a hot day and I was wearing a crop top, knee length skirt and a cap. They walked past the alley and I stepped inside. After a couple of metres I realised they’d backtracked and had sat at the entrance of the alleyway. I stood there, paralysed, staring at the map, assessing how much further through I’d have to go and whether I’d be able to get through before they caught up to me. I decided it wasn’t worth it, especially since I was looking at maps on my work phone and really didn’t want to get mugged. I walked back to the entrance of the narrow alley, which they were sat on either side of, and they stood up. “Where are you going”, the dark haired one barked at me. I stared at him in utter disgust and just said “home” with as much disdain as I could muster. Then I turned the corner and started crying for not making clearer how unacceptable their intimidation of me was. I couldn’t talk to my boyfriend at all for the rest of the day because my whole day felt like an attack on my womanhood. Hyperbolic, I know, and I have stopping being such an arse since then. It can just be really exhausting, living this life.
My friend — a married mom — gave my daughter a pretty dress. It was a little too suggestive for our preferences, and isn’t something she would normally wear. “Go ahead!” said my friend, “it’s just pretty, and so are you!” So, since it was a special gift from them, and since there was a special occasion, then I told my daughter it was okay to wear the dress to their house. My daughter wore that dress on one occasion only — my friend’s son’s birthday party. Later, my friend said to me that my daughter should make sure to tell all the boys her age so that they won’t make a mistake. What? Why? What sort of mistake would they make? Are they planning to rape her if she’s old enough? Why is this my daughter’s responsibility? I said that my daughter would be responsible for herself, and she is not responsible for their behavior. The boys are responsible for their behavior. Or, is she insinuating something else about my daughter? When I asked her about this, she back pedaled and said, well, maybe not your daughter, but you know, girls should let boys know their age so they won’t get in trouble. … What? Also, why did she give my daughter this dress and then suggest that she’s “too” attractive in it? My daughter is very modest, but why is that her responsibility, anyway?