MY Fat Story

I used to be fat. I used to weigh over thirteen stone and squeeze myself into size 18 clothes that were too small for me because I couldn't bear to buy a size 20. I'm only 5 ft 3.5 in tall so not only was this not a good look, it was also rather bad for my health. It's possible that it caused my kidney disorder, although it probably wasn't the only factor. It's possible my genes decided to fuck up my kidneys the moment I was conceived and there's fuck all I can do about that!

I was not always fat, although I'd perhaps say I had 'fat tendencies'. As a kid I had skinny arms and legs and a huge pot belly. This remained the case throughout my teens and early twenties until I started to be less self-conscious of it and bagged a fella that didn't mind it (1). An incident from my younger years stick in my mind:

A non-uniform day at school. I was standing with my 'friends' on the bus lane, near the end of the path which ran between the science building and the tennis courts. A girl we all knew was sitting on the bench that was there. She was wearing jeans and a crop-top. She was leaning forward slightly. My 'friends' commented that she was 'blobbing out' over the top of her jeans. This girl was at least two dress sizes smaller than me and with a stomach like a washboard. My 'friends' were always friendly towards this girl... to her face. Out of earshot they were complete bitches. I wondered what they must day about me when I wasn't within earshot. We weren't friends for much longer after that - for completely unrelated reasons, I must add.

I mentioned this incident to my mother who, instead of offering support, told me I 'could stand to lose a little weight'. Whilst this was perhaps, in essence, true, it wasn't what I needed to hear. I wore size 12 clothes at the time - not exactly enormous. I did want to be a little thinner, but I needed support and encouragement, not criticism that served only to reinforce the validity of the bitchiness of my then friends....


My weight and dress size remained pretty static throughout my later school life and the time I was at university. When I moved back home after graduating it crept up a little and I was wearing size 14s with a weight of roughly 10 st when I met the man who would later become my husband. I was a regular gym-goer at the time, and went swimming most days before work. That soon stopped, and I became a regular pub-goer and gorged myself on the chocolates I was bought and the sumptuous dinners he cooked for me. My weight and dress size crept slowly up. Not long after we moved in together, I decided to do something about it. I joined Slimming World (online - I was far too shy to walk into a group full of strangers) and it worked - I weighed 10 st 2 lb and could fit back into size 12 clothes the day we got married. I wasn't at my 'goal weight', however, and I had hit a massive hurdle in my weight loss journey: I was pregnant.

I found it impossible to process eating so healthily with the numbers on the scale going up. So I gave up. I ate what I wanted throughout my pregnancy and I put two stone back on. PTSD and PPD meant I wasn't able to climb back on the bandwagon straight away. Slowly, my weight started creeping up again. The size 12s stopped fitting, then the 14s, then the 16s, then the 18s started getting tight. I remember buying a pair of linen trousers in size 18 specifically to wear for summer because I was so damn hot all the time. They were a little tight, but I figured I'd be able to 'slim down' by the time I needed to wear them.

I don't recall exactly what it was that kick-started my second weight-loss journey. It probably wasn't one specific thing, just the culmination of months of hating looking at myself in the mirror, hating seeing pictures of myself, hating that I couldn't fit into the kind of clothes I wanted to wear, hating that I looked awful in the ones that did, hating being hot and tired all the fucking time... just hating myself. Despite the previous success I'd had with Slimming World, I didn't want to go back to it. It had always felt like 'a diet' to me, not a way of eating I could have continued for life, which it necessarily has to be to work in the long term (2). I decided to just try and eat more healthily and get back into exercising regularly. So I did. On my 'diet', no food was banned. I just ate less of it. Some 'dieters' dislike weighing and measuring and counting calories but I found that's what worked for me. I used an app on my phone to keep track of what I ate and I tried to view it in a positive way - instead of trying to stay under my calorie 'limit' I tried to look for better ways of using the food I liked to reach my calorie 'goal'. If I fucked up, and ended up buying dinner from KFC, I simply started afresh the next day. I started walking more, getting off the bus a few stops earlier. Last summer I even took up running - something I said I'd never ever do (unless something was chasing me), but I loved it. Gradually, the weight came off, the clothes got smaller, and I'm typing this weighing less than 9 st and wearing size 8 jeans. I still eat whatever I want, just in moderation. I walk practically everywhere but I've stopped running - at least until it stops being so cold and dark in the mornings. Fuck. That.

Losing that much weight wasn't as easy as it sounds. The premise is simple: consume fewer calories than your body expends in energy. It's the principle all diets are based on. The two ways of achieving this essentially amount to eating less and/ or exercising more; now AKA the Hopkins Diet.

The difficulty I have with this is that people don't become fat simply because they eat too much and move too little. People don't sit there, just stuffing their faces without a care in the world and watch themselves fill out. Even if there are no underlying issues, the weight creeps on, barely noticed, over a long period of time and it can be several years before they really see the change. People don't overeat or under-exercise just because they are lazy or ignorant, either. In my case, my relationship with food and exercise are all influenced by the following:

• Throughout my entire childhood I was taught to clear my plate. Not doing so was 'bad'. So I would eat past the point of satiety in order to be a 'good' girl.
• Food was a comforter. If I was upset, I was given chocolate or sweets to make me feel better. The association of food with comfort continued into adulthood until I recognised that it didn't need to be there - that doesn't mean I'm not still tempted to grab the chocolate if I've had a particularly shitty day.
• The practicalities of working, travelling a long distance between work and home and my husband rarely finishing before 7:00 or even 8:00PM meant that planning meals was a nightmare - one we usually solved by eating out or ordering in. Yes, I know we could have gone about this better but we went for the quick and easy option. Knackered, stressed people tend to. Sue us.
• PTSD/ PPD meant the prospect of getting out of bed some days was difficult enough, let alone the thought of cooking a fucking meal.
• When I was diagnosed with a kidney condition, I was placed on high-dosage steroids, which increase your appetite, making weight loss more difficult.
• When your childcare fees sap the majority of your disposable income, you can't afford to join a gym or slimming group or anything else that might give you access to some form of motivational support - when I investigated what was available through my GP I found out I wasn't fat enough to qualify. Finding the motivation to do it by yourself is fucking hard.

These aren't 'excuses' as such, but I did have to overcome these things in order to successfully lose weight. It wasn't easy to recognise some of these issues in the first place, and figuring out a way to deal with them on my own was even harder. A lot of people will need support from others to do this. They certainly don't need some sanctimonious bitch telling them it's easy. There's even been some new research that suggests it might not actually work for people who are chronically obese (3), because their body chemistry has completely changed making them 'a fat person' rather than a thin person who has become fat.

Anyway, I did it. I'm 'thin'. Am I happy? Well... yes, because I can wear the sort of clothes I feel comfortable in. I can look in the mirror and I'm pleased with what I see... most of the time. When I was a teenager I wanted a stomach like Cindy Crawford and now it seems I have one (4). I do find it frustrating that clothing sizes aren't consistent, so I can be a size 8 in one shop, a size 12 in another and a size 6 in yet another and that, according to some clothing brands sizing charts, my actual measurements make me a size 14 or larger when those sizes are far too big... I could write a whole, ranty, post about that.

A few weeks ago, I was standing in the queue for the fitting room at Primarni, clutching a size 8 t-shirt, a size 10 dress and a size 12 skirt (5). The woman in front of me had a pile of clothes draped over her arm - all size 14 or 16. She was thinner than me. Yesterday, as I was browsing the racks of clothing in a local charity shop, I saw a woman much thinner than me going through the size 12 trousers - clearly for herself as she kept holding them against her. Another woman was looking at size 14 dresses. She was also thinner than me. Now I know all about the 'vanity sizing' shit, but my visual impression of these women was that they were all thinner than me. And I can fit into size 8 or 10 from most places now. I refuse to believe that they were deliberately looking for loose fitting clothing - nobody wants a loose strapless dress or skirt with no belt loops! So either these women have poor body image (which tight jeans and t-shirts would suggest is not the case) or I do.

I find it quite terrifying that I might be looking in the mirror and seeing fat bits where there aren't any, that nobody else sees, but my husband still found me attractive when I weighed nearly four stone more than I do now so I don't fully trust other people's opinions on this! It wasn't that long ago that there was a furore over Primark using a dummy with 'protruding ribs' (6). It wasn't that long ago that I would have joined in. But my ribs started to look like that when I was over a stone heavier than I am now, when I was still overweight....

I know that someone is bound to be thinking 'stop comparing yourself to other women'. But that's a really difficult thing when you've been doing it for most of your life. Every day we are bombarded with images of women that are deemed attractive or healthy looking - you can't ignore it, it's everywhere. When I was younger, the guys I found attractive never felt the same - they usually preferred one of my thinner, prettier friends or (in one case) turned out to be gay. One I did go out with would spend our time watching music videos together telling me which female singers were 'too fat' - women far thinner than I was at the time. Unsurprisingly, it wasn't a very long relationship. My husband pledged to love me as I am, no matter how I am, but he recognised I wasn't happy when I was bigger and he's been as supportive as he can. I didn't lose weight to become more attractive to him, but to myself. Good job really, because I've been called a 'fat bitch' twice since my weight dipped below the 9 st mark - on both occasions it was by other women and not in jest....

I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel some pressure to look a certain way, to conform with what society expects of me, but I'd like society to know it's all an illusion. My clothing choices hide all of the ways my body has been changed by pregnancy so, despite being a titchy dress size now, I'll never wear hipster jeans or a crop-top. I do have a bit of muscle definition in my arms though - it comes from having to carry heavy bags (and toddler) back from the shops on a regular basis - so I'm happy to wear sleeveless or strapless things I never would have done before, although I'd never go without scaffolding (7)....

I remember a few years ago when Anne Widdecombe did 'Celebrity Fit Club' - a 'reality' TV show featuring overweight celebrities that was essentially a televised slimming club/ boot camp. I believe the celebs were discussing others who had written diet books and she commented that hers would just be two pages long: page one would read 'eat less' and page two 'exercise more'. Obviously, for a hell of a lot of people it's not going to be that simple. But it is a legitimate 'diet plan'. And it worked for me. It works for me. Eating too much food in general over several years stretched my stomach. When I first started reducing my calorie intake I found it terrifically hard because my stomach just wasn't full. It has slowly shrunk. It used to astound me that my housemate could eat a McDonald's meal for lunch (around 1000-1200 calories worth of food) and then eat nothing for the rest of the day and not feel hungry. Now I understand it. If I eat a 'big' meal I don't eat much - if at all - the rest of the day. I simply don't feel hungry and I can't physically fit any more food in my stomach. I frequently have to leave uneaten food on my plate - although I find it difficult and feel extremely guilty to do so sometimes, so ingrained it is upon me that this is inherently wrong. It's so hard trying to raise a child and teach them only to eat until they are full when you weren't raised that way yourself, but I guess I could be grateful he's just asked for and eaten three whole apples in succession rather than three packets of crisps or chocolate buttons. I must be doing something right!

And that's all I have to say about that. I have no recipes for 'guilt-free' versions of your favourite culinary indulgences, I have no sparkling words of wisdom, no secret to share. I just stayed focused and determined to lose the weight and I found a way of doing it that worked for me. And now I'm focused and determined to keep it off for the rest of my life... anyone know how many calories you burn typing? I seem to have typed rather a lot.... I have more to say but I drink loads of water these days (instead of heading straight to the biscuit tin every time I feel peckish) so now I really have to pee....

(1) To quote Charlotte Bronte, "Reader, I married him."

(2) Slimming World works for a lot of people. I'm not trying to slag it off. If that's what works for you - do it. If not, choose something that does. Studies have shown that no 'diet' plan is any more effective than any other, it's all about which method works best for the individual.

(3) http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/theres-no-point-telling-obese-people-to-exercise-more-doctors-claim-10039641.html

(4) http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/cindy-crawford-praised-for-keeping-it-real-by-posing-in-underwear-without-the-aid-of-photoshop-10044763.html - my stretchmarks are way more impressive though... ;)

(5) You have to admire Primark for their ability to make a woman three (or more) different sizes within the same shop according to the item of clothing she's buying.

(6) http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/fashion/news/primark-forced-to-remove-skinnylooking-mannequin-with-protruding-ribs-after-customer-complaint-9629784.html

(7) I first went to Bravissimo when I was still breastfeeding (and quite fat) because I wanted a prettier bra than those I'd found available elsewhere. I've not bought a bra anywhere else since - and now I'd struggle to anyway due to having a back size only marginally bigger than I had when I got my first training bra....

Ickle Fings

When I was a little girl, my absolute favourite toy was my doll's house. It was a fabulous Lundby one, exactly like this:

I was extremely lucky, because I also had three additional floors for it, including this garage extension:

And this one with the most fantastic 'forest' wallpaper:

I won't show you the third one. I didn't much like the wallpaper in that one and, besides, I can't find a picture of it on Google images....

Anyway, this fabulous house was filled with c. 1980s Lundby and Barton/ Caroline's Home furniture and accessories. If you're curious to see the sort of things I had, you can check out my Pinterest. The house and much of its contents were bought for me by my mother and grandmother, whose house it always lived it. I spent countless hours rearranging the furniture, accidentally kneeling or standing on some bits having put them on the floor beside or behind me as I did so... oops. The house remained at my grandmother's long after I'd grown up and stopped playing with it because my young cousins would do so when they visited her.

After my grandmother died in 2010, I decided to take the house and restore it - it didn't matter that I was pregnant with a son, rather than a daughter, at the time. Sadly, I discovered that my grandmother had, albeit well-meaning, covered the floors with scraps of velvet and carpet and the walls with wallpaper offcuts - badly. And used superglue to stick everything down. The prospect of restoring it from the state it was in was way beyond my capabilities, and the thought of renovating it into something more modern never crossed my mind at the time, so I decided to sell it. I spent many happy hours identifying the approximate age and origin of the furniture, which had also included some old Dol-Toi and Mattel 'The Littles' items, as well as a number of others that weren't quite the right scale for a 1:16 doll's house but had lived in mine quite happily anyway. I listed everything on eBay and made a decent amount of money from it. I was happy.

A couple of years later as I was wandering round my local charity shops I came across this:

A near-perfect condition Caroline's Home in its original box. They only wanted £5 for it. I figured I'd stick it on eBay and maybe make a bit of profit... until I went into another shop and found this:

That's a Caroline's Home wardrobe - I'd had one in my Lundby doll's house. It was 50p. That clinched it. I was going to restore this thing and fill it with the furniture I'd had in my house as a child. It would be my new hobby.

Initially, that's exactly what I did. Charity shops, car boot sales and good old eBay were how I tracked down most of the items. Whilst I primarily focused on the things I'd once had, I also acquired things like this pink bathroom suite, hoping to furnish the house solely with Caroline's Home items - my Lundby House had had a Lundby bathroom suite.

However, this particular piece would require some renovation - the bathroom taps are broken. I started researching restoration techniques figuring that a custom renovation might be easier than tracking down replacement parts. Whilst doing so I came across some beautifully renovated Lundby houses - and I decided I wanted to do the same. When I'd wanted to restore my own house it had been with the intention of getting it back to its original condition. Now I could see that didn't have to be the case - I could repaint it, repaper it, do it up in my own style, make things for it and still incorporate the furniture and decorations I'd loved as a child. I trawled eBay and placed the winning bid on this:

Whilst it isn't quite the same as the one I'd had as a child, being a slightly more recent model, I didn't mind since my original intention was to completely redecorate it. However, once I'd got it home and had a little play with the furniture that had come with it, I decided I wanted to keep some of the original wallpaper to have as 'feature walls'. I found a way of making a removable template so I can cover it up and change it according to the style of room I'm creating, just in case I get the urge to start rearranging things as I did as a child, which I almost inevitably will....

It's a work in progress and, aside from acquiring a lot more furniture and miniature items to put in it, not much progress has been made in terms of redecorating the house itself. It's been a while since I did anything with it at all, but I've always got my eye out for 'ickle fings' to put in it. These pictures show off some of my favourite acquisitions so far and the sort of style I'm ultimately going for:

This last one is of my 'crazy cat lady' bedroom - it's not the most up-to-date version of this room, which now boasts several more cats and 'ladies' items including a whole load of 'Bratz' bits that were the perfect scale. This room's theme was inspired by my finding that sign (a fridge magnet) and being reminded of Jenny Joseph's poem 'Warning' and that scene in 'Friends' where Chandler predicted he'd become 'Crazy Snake Man' (1). My son does not mind that I have 'borrowed' bits of his Playmobil in order to complete this look....

There is more doll's house stuff on my Pinterest, including a board showing the things that have inspired me to get creative. And when I get around to it, I'll share the results.

(1) When I was single I'd said the same thing, except I'd have cats, hence the kids would've called me 'Crazy Cat Lady', and there you have it....

Feminist Frustrations: "Sexism vs Chivalry vs Manners" and "Why 'Compliments' - (Consent + Context) = Harassment"

A couple of things on Twitter sparked my interest in the past week or so. The first was this excerpt from a conversation Glamour magazine had with Gillian Anderson:

Glamour: What do you get riled up about in a feminist context? 

Gillian: A lot. I have feminist bones and when I hear things or see people react to women in certain ways I have very little tolerance. 

Glamour: But don't you feel sorry for modern men? Not knowing whether they should help us with our bags and open doors for us or whether we'll see it as an affront? 

Gillian: No. I don't feel sorry for men.

I don't feel sorry for them either. Helping someone who is clearly struggling is merely being nice, holding a door open for someone is just basic manners. I could rant at great length about how fucked off I get with people who don't bother to hold the door when someone is coming through immediately behind them, or who don't acknowledge someone who has. It's got nothing to do with gender. And I'll give you a tip: a lot of people are too shy, or sometimes too proud, to ask for help when they need it. It's okay - it's actually quite nice - to offer them help. If a man sees a woman struggling, it's not sexist to offer her help. It is sexist to see a woman not struggling with her bags and take them from her with the assumption that she might and you're actually doing her a favour. Things like this aren't that difficult to work out, surely?

It strikes me as odd that men might be struggling to know whether or not they should hold a door open for women for fear of being considered sexist when they seem very willing to yell sexual comments towards women in the street. This is sexual harassment, not 'freedom of speech' as some have tried to claim. When I wrote about this issue, I stressed the importance of context - essentially, if a man yells 'nice tits!' at me when I'm walking down the street wearing a polo neck, that's harassment; if he tells me 'nice tits!' when we're stood at a bar when I'm wearing a low cut dress and a push-up bra, that's a compliment I'm actually glad to receive. You can read the full post here.

Another way to look at this is to consider the comment in terms of consent. It could certainly be argued that my choice to wear a revealing outfit gives consent for people to comment on the part of my body it enhances and/ or exposes. When I've deliberately chosen an outfit that aims to disguise or hide them though, and I'm just trying to go about my daily business, I struggle to see how the same consent could be inferred by anyone.

Abi Wilkinson wrote an interesting examination of the consent issue, referencing the feelings of a rape survivor who experiences traumatic flashbacks when she receives unwanted attention and those of Paris Lees, who revels in it. Her point is that the man making the unsolicited comment towards a woman in the street doesn't know which one she is, whether she will feel flattered by it or fearful. The rape survivor told Wilkinson that she used to enjoy "burlesque pin-up style" but now worries she might be perceived as "having 'asked for it'" if she wears certain clothes. There's an implication here that rape completely destroys a woman's sexual confidence but I don't think that's what Wilkinson is trying to say - she's merely illustrating that it's possible to experience both angles. She describes her own position:

"I've received uninvited sexual attention that I've found incredibly upsetting and intimidating. Other times - I'm slightly ashamed to admit - crude, sexualised comments from strangers have given me a bit of an ego boost. Often, it's a weird combination of the two."

If you read my first post, you'll know that's pretty much my position on it too.

Wilkinson isn't critical of Lees' enjoyment of receiving such attention - she is critical of those who have told Lees that she isn't "a 'real' feminist" and is "betraying other women" by doing so. What she does criticise is the stance that, because some women do enjoy this attention, those who do not "should 'loosen up' and stop complaining." What? Like a rape survivor who is too afraid to leave her home because such attention causes her to have flashbacks? This is where the 'freedom of speech' issue comes into play - is the right for everyone to make uninvited sexual comments more important than the right of some people who are affected by them to be protected from them? The first thought that entered my head when Wilkinson posed this question was 'the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few' (1) - sometimes I am unconscionably nerdy - but I cannot possibly argue that there's a need for people to be able to make sexual comments towards anyone, whereas there is certainly a need for people to feel able to go out in public without jeopardising their mental stability. So I agree with Wilkinson's conclusions. Spock's claim is illogical anyway. And he contradicts himself later on (2).

Naturally I then went on to read Paris Lees' original article, where she asks "I Love Wolf Whistles and Catcalls; Am I a Bad Feminist?" As Wilkinson pointed out, the answer is no, and it's wrong for anyone to suggest so. Lees' article is an interesting read and I found myself agreeing with the vast majority of it because she too recognises that it's the context a sexual comment is made in that distinguishes an ego-boosting compliment from harassment. She quotes The Independent's social media editor Felicity Morse:

"If I'm dressed up in a sexy little something... sashaying down the street... I find a catcall rather appreciative. But if I'm out jogging or running to the bus stop, huddling past a building site in the rain, I find it intrusive."

Lees describes how she loves "catcalls... car toots... random men shouting 'Hello, beautiful!'" but makes a clear statement to men to stop doing things like saying "'I'd like to fuck you up the ass' as you drive past her in the street," because the latter is clearly harassment. Whilst some women - not necessarily only rape survivors - might sometimes feel that what Lees considers "harmless fun" is frightening, I wouldn't call to ban catcalling. Lees poses the question:

"If I smile next time a man wolf-whistles at me, does that make me a bad person? What if the next person he wolf-whistles at is a woman who's been raped? What if he ruins her day?"

Lees spoke to Ellie Mae O'Hagen of The Guardian about where catcalling fits in to the broader picture of sexual violence against women in a patriarchal society. Lees struggles with the idea that there's a connection between catcalling and rape and although I'd agree it's a terrible misnomer to postulate that 'street hecklers' or the 'readers of lads' mags' I do acknowledge it as a piece of that bigger picture that we shouldn't ignore.

Lees' conclusion is that catcalling and harassment are different things but says "I don't want to make other women feel pathetic if they don't enjoy street attention." She states she is a feminist because she doesn't like "men telling me how to think or behave or experience the world, and I don't like women doing it, either." There's a suggestion in her article - from another person, I must add - that how women feel when they are catcalled is a choice. It's a suggestion I have difficulty with. Whilst I'm all for owning your feelings and not seeking to blame others when you've fucked up and feel bad about it, the line between being controversial - which might be seen as offensive by some - and being downright deliberately offensive is often a very fine one indeed.

My own conclusion is this: some women - like Paris Lees - consistently revel in this sort of attention. Others - like Abi Wilkinson, Felicity Morse and me - like it sometimes and not others. Some detest it. Even that which the rest of us might consider relatively harmless might ruin their day. Ruin their life. I think it's important to remember that that's OK. However you feel about - I like Lees' term - "street attention", that's OK. As long as you remember that not everyone feels the same. I think that men who like to catcall need to look at the women they target more closely (yes, I am actually suggesting this). They'd soon see the difference between a woman who is "sashaying", who will probably not mind and might even enjoy such attention and one who is "huddling" and will not.

That said, there is a limit. Whilst a woman might choose to wear a revealing outfit with the purpose of (or not minding) inviting attention. It doesn't give people permission to do anything more than pay her a compliment, even if that comes in the form of a catcall she enjoys. You can look, but you may not touch without permission, not without consent. Women who dress provocatively might be asking for attention but they are not asking for 'it' - that's sexual assault at best, at worst it's rape.


One thing that pisses me off whenever women start talking about things like this is those men (and women) who bring up the 'not all men' issue (3). Yes, WE KNOW. It's often difficult to tell whether those who #notallmen are men who really just mean 'not me' and support feminism or whether they're men who think you're one of 'those feminists' and are the cause of the problem. It's like when anyone brings up domestic abuse - the victims of which are overwhelmingly women - and reminds us that it happens to men too. Yes it does, but the focus on female victims doesn't mean those of us who campaign on the issue are ignorant or dismissive of its male victims... fuck. I'm about to quote Spock again and then remind you that it's not actually a logical argument and comes entirely down to fucking context again....

I have a great deal of respect for the men who do 'get it'. Those who are aware of their male privilege and support feminism. I remember the emotional response I had when I first saw Daniel Craig - who then represented the ultimate symbol of male privilege and misogyny: James Bond - appear in drag in a video created to mark International Women's Day as Judi Dench's voice over reminded us that, even after decades of feminism, women are still very much second-class citizens. That two of them die every every week at the hands of a current or former partner. That's why Domestic Abuse campaigns focus on women; because two women die every week. It is still a very powerful piece:

I like to think that Daniel Craig's participated in this because he's one of those men, as I like to think the men who tweeted the link to that catcalling video are too. In the above film, Judi Dench says to Bond "I wonder if you've ever considered what it might be like to be [a woman]?" Here's another video that shows a man being given the same (albeit uninvited) opportunity and, given that the latter part of this post is about sexual harassment, it seems particularly appropriate to share it here:

I came across this quite by accident when I was doing background research for another post and I find it quite uncomfortable to watch. I mean, I love those arms too but shit, ladies - you ask first (4)! If this were a man grabbing a woman there'd be an outcry, but this sort of thing goes unchallenged. There might well be a twelve-foot high picture of the arms the women admire so in the background but this guy has turned up wearing a long-sleeved shirt. He's not inviting that attention. Arguably, the circumstances of this being an interview which will inevitably raise the subject (although... would it, if they hadn't put that picture in the background?) means I feel it's OK to ask the question. Hell, I'd even accept one of the women seeking permission to dispute his claim that that muscle definition is the result of "a lot of make-up" but they don't. Instead, two of them decide to cut him off mid-sentence and pounce on him like a couple of rabid dogs. Women who behave like this make it really difficult for women like me to speak out against street harassment. There are men who perpetrate it who use this sort of behaviour as justification for what they do - frequently under the #notallmen banner.

At this point, it sort of feels like I'm derailing my own argument by bringing this up, but the point I'm trying to make is that it's not just women who need to speak out about such things. Men do too - and not just to point out that they aren't all perpetrators of harassment or are also victims of it. Those men with good old-fashioned manners - those kind, generous men who are willing to offer help to an evidently needy stranger who might be too shy or too proud to ask for it when they want it - need to remind other men not to worry about how they're going to be perceived. Just as Paris Lees has never come across a woman who appreciated a man describing what sexual acts he'd like to do to her from his moving car, I've never come across anyone who appreciated someone leaving a door to swing back and smack them in the face. Those Men who recognise the difference between a sexually confident woman who actively chooses to display her ample bosom to all and might like you to tell her that you appreciate it, and a woman who dresses and moves in such a way as to draw as little attention as possible to hers, who spends every moment she's out in public praying that you won't say anything. Even - or perhaps especially - if she's the same woman. Those men need to remind other men that they do need to think about how a woman might perceive those actions. It's all about context. I appreciate perhaps this isn't that straightforward, given women's differing attitudes towards and experiences of street attention, or the outdated concept of chivalry becoming confused with what amount to basic manners, but many men do seem to understand this and many of the other issues important to feminism. Does that mean I feel sorry for the men who struggle with it? Hell no!




Footnotes:

(1) Is there seriously anyone reading this who doesn't know that's from Star Trek??

(2) https://www.theobjectivestandard.com/2013/09/spocks-illogic-the-needs-of-the-many-outweigh-the-needs-of-the-few/

(3) Here is an excellent explanation of 'not all men' and what it actually means which explains why it's appearance in online dialogue is often confusing for feminists: http://time.com/79357/not-all-men-a-brief-history-of-every-dudes-favorite-argument/

(4) What happens here reminds me a bit of the uninvited bump-touching that pregnant women face. Their growing bump is the equivalent of that twelve-foot high picture, it's presence means it will be noticed, commented on, but touching a woman's bump without permission is also assault. You can buy maternity t-shirts bearing the slogan 'hands off the bump' as a means of preventing this unwanted touching. Maybe someone should start making 'hands off the biceps' t-shirts....

Review: 'Hello Herman' (2012)

When I take a liking to an actor who already has an established body of work, I like to go back and watch it. This used to be extremely difficult - not only were you reliant on magazines to find an actor's filmography, the local video shop probably wouldn't have anything older than a couple of years and you would either have to shell out and buy a copy, not knowing whether the film was any good or not, or trawl the Radio Times each week as I did, hoping one of the four (later five) main terrestrial channels would be showing it. These days, you can have an actor's entire filmography in front of you in a matter of seconds and be watching something from it moments later, thanks to "on demand" and streaming services like Netflix. Or you can ask your mate "Nigel (1)". In addition, there's YouTube and other video sharing sites. Sometimes you have to put up with appalling quality, or sound, or watch a film in ten or so separate instalments. Occasionally you come across a good quality one - in full... and have to put up with Spanish subtitles. It was in this latter capacity that I watched 'Hello Herman'.

'Hello Herman' stars The Walking Dead's Norman Reedus. And, I confess, that was my primary motivation for watching it. There's a few things of his I would like to watch, but the vast majority of his back catalogue isn't available through any of the legitimate streaming services I subscribe to. Perhaps due to the fact they are mainly independent films which had a limited enough release when they were new. His appearances in the more mainstream films which are available through those services tend to be brief - sometimes limited to one scene - although I haven't regretted watching any of those films because of that (2).

In 'Hello Herman' he takes a leading role. He plays a journalist, Lax, who is invited by the titular Herman to tell his side of the story: in which he burst into his high school and shot a number of his fellow students. As Lax interviews Herman through his video camera, we are shown a series of flashbacks depicting the events in Herman's life that led up to the shooting and the lengths that it appears Lax is willing to go to for a good story. These little insights raise a lot of questions... and we are given very few answers.

'Hello Herman' garnered some terrible reviews. It's a rotten tomato (3). Most of the bad reviews seem to focus on the fact the film doesn't offer answers to the difficult questions it poses, although even these tend to praise both Reedus' performance and that of Garrett Backstrom, who plays Herman. This is not a negative review. I loved it.

Vanity Fair's Sam Kashner called it "a powerful and important work, a darkly brilliant tone poem about America's tango with violence and fame." Danny Miller of MSN movies described it as "a powerful film that should be required viewing for adolescents everywhere". 'Hello Herman' reminded me of two other equally controversial films - albeit ones with significantly better ratings on the tomato-ometer - which addressed similar subject matters, namely 'We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011) and American History X (1998). I've spent a little time trawling through the reviews for all three and it has struck me that much of the criticism levied at 'Hello Herman' was hurled at these two films as well - that they're just controversial, that they don't really explain the characters' motivations, that they fail to reach any sort of satisfactory conclusion. I think the reviewers who say this have missed the point. The point of films like this, isn't to offer answers - fuck, if a film could offer us the answers to problems like this we'd be laughing! That's not the role of films like this, their job is merely to get us to think about the problem, to ask the questions that we don't dare to, not to provide the answers.

The director of 'Hello Herman', Michelle Danner, responded to its critics on the film's official website, explaining that her motivation for making the film was "to start the conversation". She noted that, after each school shooting that America endures, "nothing changes."

Another film 'Hello Herman' reminded me of was 'Bowling for Columbine' (2002), Michael Moore's compelling documentary about the Columbine High School massacre in 1999. The thing which has stuck with me the most about that film is simple numbers: America has the highest level of gun violence in the world, but likes to blame anything but the prevalence of guns for this. Some recent stories that have resulted in me agreeing with Piers Morgan (4) include:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/threeyearold-boy-accidentally-shoots-dead-his-mother-as-she-changes-her-younger-daughters-nappy-9884682.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/toddler-accidentally-shoots-woman-in-idaho-walmart-9950847.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/florida-toddler-dies-after-shooting-himself-with-fathers-handgun-9996659.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/man-shoots-six-and-kills-four-including-children-before-turning-gun-on-himself-at-atlanta-house-10031669.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/teenager-posed-for-snapchat-selfie-with-classmates-dead-body-after-shooting-him-in-face-10033120.html

And in the midst of all this, Donald Trump suggested that the victims of the Charlie Hebdo shootings in France - which has strict gun control - might "have had a fighting chance" if they'd had guns... twat (5).

'Hello Herman' doesn't take an anti-gun stance. It doesn't seek to blame bullying, video games, the Internet or any of the other things that seem to have led up to Herman's violent, fatal outburst. It presents them as pieces of the bigger picture that so many who have seen it and spoken so negatively about it seem to have missed. But, as I said, even they recognised that incredible performance by Norman Reedus.

'Hello Herman' was shot in 2011 whilst Reedus was on a break from filming The Walking Dead. He said that the film's subject matter "struck a chord" with him as the father of a then ten-year-old son. His performance is beautifully understated and naturalistic. Now, I've read an interview in which Reedus implies he took acting lessons before starting work on this film - Michelle Danner is also an acting coach (6). If I hadn't already watched his debut. 'Floating' (1997) earlier in the day, I might have just believed that he did perhaps need them given that, prior to seeing these two films, the only film I'd watched where he'd had anything like that substantial a role was the lamentable 'Messengers 2' (2009) (7). I did have to laugh at one review though. It said "he's given many opportunities to squint and look troubled," which reminded me of something Reedus said himself: "when I first started acting, I was really insecure. I glared at a lot of people... somehow that scowl has turned into an acting career." Start as you mean to go on, they say. If it ain't broke don't fix it, they say. His performance - debut performance - in 'Floating' is similarly understated. It's a lovely little film and, whilst it doesn't have anything new to say about teenage angst that wasn't said in every film about teenage angst that preceded it, it handles the (unsurprising) revelation of one character's homosexuality particularly deftly, with a subtlety that very few of those other films did.

I digress. 'Hello Herman' struck a chord with me. One review I read said it's the sort of film that stays with you and I have been thinking about it pretty much constantly since I saw it. It's not just the subject matter, it's not Norman Reedus' performance - Garrett Backstrom as Herman is simply mesmerising and Michelle Danner's turn as his mother is also very good. The film is set "in the not too distant future" and the interview footage and flashbacks are interspersed with satirical news footage, which reminded me of 'Starship Troopers' (1997), which is also severely misunderstood and lambasted as a result (8). The soundtrack is also rather fabulous, with Olivia Faye's 'You Didn't See Me' and Adam Whittington's 'Make the World Love Again' catchy exit music earworms both conveying the film's anti-bullying message in a sweet, positive way that - perhaps surprisingly - doesn't feel at odds with the otherwise dark tone of the film they close out.

In doing the little bit of background research that I did for this post, I discovered the film was a total box office bomb. That's a shame. I hope it develops a cult following. It might take years for people to properly 'get' it, like it did 'Starship Troopers', but it deserves to. Despite the lack of answers, the anti-bullying message is clear. It's the sort of film that should be shown in schools to make kids think about the potential impact of their behaviour on their peers, but I have a sneaking suspicion the people in charge of deciding such things will decide that it's too violent, too controversial, that our children aren't capable of seeing it as a thinkpiece and will just go out and copy it. Those are probably the same people who blamed Marilyn Manson for Columbine. Manson was asked by Michael Moore what he would say to the Columbine shooters if he had the chance. He said "I wouldn't... I would listen to what they have to say, and that's what no-one did." There's a wonderful sequence in 'Hello Herman' where Herman is describing his favourite film, 'Kids' (1995), to Lax. It was an equally controversial film featuring a group of young people doing the sort of thing parents don't want (or, as Herman points out, don't want to know) their kids do, like have unprotected sex and do drugs. He comments that that's "really what it's like". Lax reminds him the film was set in the 1990s and Herman says that "kids are like that all over... we always do what you think we're incapable of doing until you notice us" - the film's other obvious message is that parent's need to connect with their children. For me, that's not about telling kids what to do, or what not to do. It's about listening to what they have to say. 'Hello Herman' is a film that has something to say and it's definitely worth listening to.

Note:

I don't do star ratings or marks out of ten. I have tried to rate films in this way in the past. I found myself having to go back and change them all the fucking time as I watched ones that eclipsed all those I'd seen previously either in terms of brilliance or sheer fucking awfulness. It now feels wrong to me to compare things that are completely different in terms of tone and content on the same arbitrary sliding scale. Whilst I may draw comparisons to other films I have seen it's solely to point out similarities, not to judge quality.

Footnotes:

(1) Unless you are Nigel... naughty Nigel....

(2) With the exception of Pandorum. It's fucking shit.

(3) http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/hello_herman_2012/

(4) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2809793/PIERS-MORGAN-math-question-media-s-going-kill-American-kids-year-Ebola-guns.html

(5) http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/donald-trump-labelled-a-moron-for-blaming-charlie-hebdo-attacks-on-frances-lack-of-guns-9964839.html

(6) http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0200403/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm

(7) I don't mean to be overly critical of Norman Reedus' performance in this film - I'd slap anyone who tried suggest he must've used Cuprinol instead of aftershave - but it's nevertheless an utter turd of a film and his best efforts in its better moments can't stop him being dragged back into the shitty abyss by the next ridiculous scene. It somehow feels horribly disloyal to say that but the other four films I've seen since (including the two I've mentioned above) have proved to me that this was an inexplicable blip on an otherwise impressive CV, which includes his brief turn in '8MM' (1999) where he owns the screen whilst Nicolas Cage just stands there like part of the scenery.

(8) http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/11/-em-starship-troopers-em-one-of-the-most-misunderstood-movies-ever/281236/

Pontificating Papal Pronouncements

You might well wonder why an atheist like me gives any fucks what the head of the Catholic Church has to say about anything but I actually rather like Pope Francis. Considering he's more-or-less duty bound to adhere to the Churches stance on abortion and gay marriage, he has said that gay people shouldn't be marginalised, that we need to respect the environment, that slavery still exists and needs to be eliminated, he's baptised babies born to unwed mothers and he's supportive of breastfeeding. Most of what he's said or done that I disagree with is in line with the teachings of the Catholic Church and, as much as I do disagree with them (1), I can't really criticise the head of it for following them. However, it really got to me when the news broke that Pope Francis had advocated smacking children - as long as it is done in a "dignified" way.

The story goes that the Pope had heard a father say he "sometimes had to smack [his] children a bit, but never in the face so as not to humiliate them". Reading that, my blood started to boil.

I can't sit here and write that I've never hit my kid. I have. But when I did it was always in anger, unthinking, and immediately regretted. It's the most UNdignified thing I've ever done - and I had at least three complete strangers stick their hands in my vagina when I was giving birth to that kid! Hitting kids is never dignified. It is humiliation.

It's here I turn to those who have helped me learn ways of dealing with my son's "challenging" behaviour without resorting to such methods. Rather than try to re-hash their words, I urge you to read these articles, to read the wealth of research that shows that not only does smacking not work, but that it leads to a whole host of problems further down the line:

Dr. Laura Markham of AHA Parenting - this link takes you to the page that answers the question 'Should I Spank My Child?' (clue: the answer is 'no') but also links you to pages upon on pages of information offering alternatives.

Attachment Parenting International - this page is all about 'Positive' discipline, which is one of the eight principles of 'Attachment' parenting. I try to follow these principles. It isn't always easy, particularly given it's not how either I or my husband were raised, but it works. The "traditional" methods might appear to but, speaking as a very damaged adult who was subjected to them, one who works with other very damaged adults, I can tell you the long-term effects aren't worth it.

Dr William Sears coined the term 'Attachment Parenting', which is based on a theory in developmental psychology which states that the emotional bonds a child forms with its caregivers have long-lasting effects. This link has many articles offering advice on how to deal with children's behaviour and parental anger.

I'll quite happily stand on my soapbox and shower my critics with studies that repeatedly show I, and every proponent of this type of parenting/ discipline is right. Or you can Google it for yourself if you're not a lazy fuckwit.

Many people who advocate for physical punishment as discipline like to quote the Bible - maybe that's why the Pontiff decided to. I hope not. People who use Bible quotes to back up this argument have completely misunderstood what they've read. Crystal Lutton has written an excellent article explaining why the passage they love to cite doesn't mean what they think it means. This is another good article, which reminds us that the English-language Bible has been translated from Hebrew and probably not very well....

The Pope has rightly faced much criticism for his comments. Much of it has come from Catholics - including the Vatican (2). I'll leave you with the words of Peter Saunders, taken from that article. He was abused by a Catholic priest as a teenager. They answer every possible argument for smacking:

"It might start as a light tap, but actually the whole idea about hitting children is about inflicting pain. That's what it's about and there is no place in this day and age for having physical punishment, for inflicting pain, in terms of how you discipline your children."

Amen.




Footnotes:

(1) My feelings on abortion, for example, could form a post on their own. Although it's not something I think I could ever do unless my unborn child proved to be completely non-viable, I believe in bodily autonomy for women and that they are not mere vessels to carry and birth children. Yeah... I might do a post about this.

(2) http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/vaticans-new-abuse-group-says-pope-francis-is-wrong-to-condone-smacking-10031356.html