I have been having a bit of a rant to anyone who would listen to this week and I thought it only fitting that I should my views to you lovely lot as well.

Last week I read an article that really grabbed me. I am one of the few teachers that actually read the Times Educational Supplement magazine and last week there was an article about how children address men and women differently. I found the article so engaging and clever and pertinent to my feminist tendencies that I ripped it out of the magazine as a keeper. Nobody would have noticed except for the fact that by the next day the story had been picked up by the BBC and (heaven forfend) the Daily Fail.

It basically spoke about the imbalance of the titles ‘Sir’ and ‘Miss’ which are given to teachers at school. Sir coming from sire or being equated with knighthood and Miss being, well, anybody really. It went on to comment that in further education, you get a bachelor of arts degree or a Masters and anybody with any academic seniority is a fellow, all terms which have masculine connotations.

I had never noticed this before and, whilst it has not shaped who I am, it does stress the underlying sexism that is in our society. Something that, if you are not on the receiving end, goes unseen but when you feel the effects of it, it is a deep and stabbing undercurrent in the world that we live in.

It stems to racism too. Again, something I had never thought of but brought to my attention in the book Noughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman (children’s Laureate). Plasters. By and large all ‘pink’, all ‘skin colour’. But, whose skin?

These little subtleties may go unnoticed and be ‘liveable’ but when it is you they are grazing each day, you they are itching like that label that won’t sit straight, it gets to you. It irritates and it scratches.

Perhaps we need to cut out the label?

I have invented a new label for myself: I am to become a Social Pescatarian.

Let me fill you in thus far:

I have been a vegetarian since my animal ethics course at university. Never much of a carnivore to begin with, it was an easy decision to give up meat altogether and at the time there was little opportunity and even less money to be considering buying organic or free-range meat which would appease my conscience. So I happily gave it up (read more about it here if you like).

So, after 21 years, minus 6 months in Germany (I defy ANYONE to be a successful veggie in a country that sells raw meat in a bun) and about a year after the birth of my third child (more info here if you must) I am being driven into eating fish, albeit socially.

So what heinous thing is driving me to this?  What could possibly make me quash my hardened principles?

Bloody risotto, that’s what.

Let me give you an example of most menus in gastro-pubs up and down the country and most high street kiddie-friendly joints
to boot:

Yep, there you have it. If you are vegetarian, most likely the only option you have is risotto (or salad – purleeease! I’m out for dinner!). Now, I like risotto, but not all the bloody time. I only have to think of carbs and my stomach begins to swell in some peculiar Dahl-like manner. I am the Violet Beauregard of white carbs. And the risotto trend is for spring vegetables (see above) or fancy mushrooms and with risotto, that’s it. No option for triple-cooked chips on the side or champ mash with a masterchef jus, oh no, a large bowl of rice is yours and that is it.

So fed up am I with this being the only option I have recently found myself ordering the fish instead. Fish comes with nice side dishes and fancy sauces (OK, except the menu above where it is still carbtastic) but just look at all the meat dishes! They sound SO much nicer. I had fish today, herb crusted with green vegetables. It felt healthy, it tasted of something, it didn’t leave me feeling like I had filled my stomach with ever-expanding balls of bleached wheat. And, while I’m at it, why is there never a veggie option on the Sunday roasts? Is it so hard to rustle up a bit of nut roast? Stick a bit of quorn in the oven? Not cook the roast potatoes in goose fat?

So, weighing this all up, I have decided to become a social pescatarian. If I go out and it’s risotto I will, without guilt or self-flagellation, allow myself to peruse the fish option and not think about Finding Nemo.

So there. *descends from orange box and leaves Hyde Park*

As today is International Women’s Day, I thought it appropriate to mention a story I found on twitter this week that got my juices flowing, and not in a good way.

Apparently there is now a MILF diet.  Yes, a MILF diet, FFS.  For those of you (and there can’t be many) who don’t know what a MILF is, it is an acronym for Mothers I’d Like to F**k.  Yes, I kid you not.  And someone has actually released a book about how to diet yourself into a woman who needs to change her looks and body in order to attract men who want to shag her.  Not get to know her, find her interesting, attractive, witty…no, no.  F**k her.  Charming isn’t it?  Just the Neanderthal terminology makes me want to scream, let alone the connotation that women are to be judged by their shagability, thus making them sex-objects and nothing else. It’s a bit sinister really.

For me, the MILF is one step on from the ‘Yummy Mummy’ (bleugh) – a term applied to women who after giving birth are, apparently, magically  no longer attractive unless they spend all their time on hair and nails and working out in the gym.  I assume a MILF is all the above but they have a vajazzle while they’re at it? And women strive to be like this, they are media-indoctrinated to believe that having one of the terms applied to them is a compliment.  Don’t get me wrong, we all like to be told we look good or are attractive, of course we do.  And many people use the YM term in a well-meaning way and it should probably be taken as such. But is that really all there is to say?  Is the external so much more important than the internal?  What about what we do, what we say, how we think?

The article also spoke about how women should simply strive to be the best that they can be, in all areas of life.  Easier said than done, by God I know that.  I would be a hypocrite if I said I hadn’t fallen foul to all the crap we are fed about how we should look, what size we should be.  But it makes a whole lot of sense.  We set our children targets and always stress they must be do-able, attainable otherwise you set yourself up for a fall.  I tell the kids I teach the same – don’t aim to the be in the A team for football if you are just scraping the C team squad.  Aim for the B team, the captain maybe and be content with that.  If only, as women, we could apply the same philosophy to how we look and BELIEVE it.  Truly, deep down in our hearts, actually believe it. By all means wear what you like, be what size you like, wear make-up, don’t wear make-up, wax, vajazzle and have a boob job.  But, for God’s sake, do it for yourself, not for anyone else or for how you think you are supposed to look.

You can read the original article here, I thought it was very good and makes some pertinent observations about modern feminism.  I am also going to point you to another blog post in a similar vein  here.

What are your thoughts?  I’d be interested to hear.

I am a redhead, a ginger, a carrot-top, a duracell….I’ve heard ‘em all and serenely smiled.  I didn’t when I was a child.  When I was a child, I went from staring at the playground until they went away, crying, cutting all my hair off (bad idea – then I just looked like a boy; but ginger) and finally I told them to bugger off.

I tell you, it’s bloody hard growing up with red hair.  No matter how much my mother told me it was my crowning glory, all I wanted to be was brunette.  And not have glasses.  Or sticky out teeth.  Oh, yes.  God was on a sabbatical the day they made me….but I was lucky.  I had a ginger mother who bought me contact lenses at the young age of thirteen and braces sorted my teeth out.  However, it was the fluorescent 80s and I wept at all the vibrant colours I couldn’t wear.  Once, I thought sod it and bought an orange top and a yellow skirt to wear to my grandparents’ golden wedding party.  People thought it was fancy dress.  That I’d made myself ‘gold’ to celebrate.  My sister just laughed.  But then, she was tall, olive-skinned with long dark hair and an uncanny resemblance to Sade.  I never stood a chance.

In my twenties I just put up with it.  The comments had dried up and my wardrobe was a safe rail of neutrals.  No prints, no patterns, nothing brighter than beige.  Just in case, the feistiness that comes hand-in-hand with my titian tresses had manifested itself and anyone daring to proffer comment would have been shot down in flames.

Then, during my early thirties the ginger jokes seemed to make a comeback.  And who have I got to thank for it?  Yes, another flippin’ redhead! Bloody Catherine Tate came on tele* and satirised society’s ostracising of the ‘gingas’.  Funny, but society, being what it is, took this as an opportunity to resurrect the schoolboy jokes and once more I was subjected to a few ‘hilarious’ one-liners.  I’m a grown woman FFS!  SHUT. UP.

Ironically, these days people keep referring to me as ‘blonde’ and I find myself protesting loudly – I am NOT blonde, I’m a redhead! It’s true, my hair has got much lighter as I’ve got older, but I am definitely not blonde.  And especially not strawberry blonde thank you very much.  My irritation peaked when my third child was born with bright red hair and everyone asked:

‘Where does she get her hair colour from?’

‘ME! ME!  She gets it from ME!’

‘Really? But you’re blonde’

‘ARGHHHH!’

Everyone was at it; the postman, work colleagues, old ladies in the vegetable aisle at Waitrose…only my oldest friends and family seemed to know I was a redhead.  It was a peculiar predicament to be in – suddenly, for the first time in my life, I wanted to be a ginger.  I needed to reclaim my genes.  And I found myself admiring my daughter’s beautiful copper curls.  I would sit and stare with pride, actively liking her red hair and thinking how lucky she was.  And seemingly so does everyone else!  No word of a lie; I have never taken her out without someone commenting favourably about her hair.  ‘Oh, it’s gorgeous!’ ‘You’re so lucky – she’s so beautiful!’ ‘Her hair is stunning’

Perhaps mine was too…….

*I let her off because, in the words of Tim Minchin, “Only a ginger, can call another ginger, ginger.”