Closed. The boat sank, the sharks won.

Apparently, according to Sir Stuart Rose, chairman of M&S.

"Women can get to the top of any single job that they want to in the UK," he told the Observer newspaper.

Sir Stuart also rejected the suggestion that having children can damage the careers of working mothers, saying he knows many who are successful.

He said: "Apart from the fact that you’ve got more equality than you ever can deal with, the fact of the matter is that you’ve got real democracy and there are really no glass ceilings, despite the fact that some of you moan about it all the time.

"Women can get to the top of any single job that they want to in the UK. You’ve got a woman fighter pilot who went in to join the Red Arrows yesterday."

He told the newspaper: "I mean, what else do you want to do, for God’s sake? Women astronauts. Women miners. Women dentists. Women doctors. Women managing directors. What is it you haven’t got?"

I’d like a life where I’m not afraid of male violence, a life where I have genuine equality not something a man hands to me on a plate and tells me is equal.  This man is so entrenched in his white male privilege he has no idea what he is really saying. "Hey uppity women, I’ve given you jobs and something that looks like equality, will you quit threatening my precious patriarchy now?"

No. Not going to happen. Yes, some individual women can achieve those positions within the male world and I celebrate that they are able to do so. But those choices are not open to most of us still and those that pursue them can only do so by becoming more male than the men in many cases. You still make us play by your rules and with your tools and strategies.

Honest, it’s not…

I’m not well. 

I spent my teens passing out every time I menstruated, pouring blood, throwing up etc and no-one would listen apart from "Oh you just need to go on the pill." Which is
so damned bad for you long term. So I was on the pill for years until I decided to have kids. Oh and as for "It’s normal, you’re female you just have to live with it." 

So I took birth control pills for years until I decided to have kids and that was when I stopped taking them and my periods were actually fine, all settled down and no-one had thought to suggest that they might do that and that I could stop filling my body with unnecessary and potentially harmful synthetic hormones.

Then 2 years ago I had a catastrophic period which wouldn’t stop and I had to have a blood transfusion and lots of medication to get it under control. I ended up back on the pill again for a few months but now I was armed with so much more information and was determined to get off it as soon as possible. 

I saw a (male) gynae doc and was again told that, I could be offered a hysterectomy, and a microwave ablation of the uterus - I refused both. If we can’t understand it, whip it out, it’s probably not worth having…. Besides, it’s not a penis…. Oh and those nasty female hormones? I can take as many man made ones as I like, they’re perfectly safe and do not ever cause reproductive tumours or other problems….Sheesh, well why is it that I get crippling uterine cramps while taking the pill and never, not ever when I’m not?

So, what’s wrong with me? We don’t know.  I suspect it’s menopause, but we’re not even sure this IS my menopause…. Because there’s no bloody test for it that sodding works and because the NHS doesn’t take any sort of baseline for each woman’s hormone levels so has no idea when they’re out of kilter. I’m sure that in the past women wouldn’t have survived this.

That friend of mine Witchy Woo said to me, "You know that "it’s normal, you’re female you just have to live with it" comes from the patriarchal model of medicine, don’t you… "they’re only female - we needn’t even try to understand those things". Same goes for reliable individual tests for menopause."

And she’s so right… As always..  Do they really hate us so much?

My kids love the film Horton Hears a Who. For them it’s a simple film about an elephant in the jungle trying to save the tiny people of Whoville, while being chased by other jungle creatures.

But there is a deeper message. 

Horton is the only creature with the imagination and vision to believe the microscopic (invisible) people of Whoville actually exist and he is convinced that "A person’s a person, no matter how small." He rescues them and tries to take them to a place of safety despite the ridicule of his fellow jungle creatures and he is persecuted and hounded into admitting that Whoville doesn’t exist, after all that is the only way he can return to jungle society. 

But he won’t. He stands firm, alone but firm and he is caged, imprisoned and isolated until he admits he is wrong - which we know he isn’t. 

When faced with annihilation the people of Whoville finally believe their Mayor that they are in danger and unite, raising their voices to scream into the wind, "WE ARE HERE!" Together they are just loud enough that the jungle children can hear them and they are saved in the end. 

Last week I was here, with Witchy and several thousand other women and we shouted many things but regardless of the words we used we screamed "WE ARE HERE!"

WE ARE HERE!

We are human.

WE ARE HERE!

We will be heard.

WE ARE HERE!

We are women, we exist, we are strong and we are LOUD!

WE ARE HERE! WE ARE HERE! WE ARE HERE! WE ARE HERE!

WE ARE HERE! WE ARE HERE! WE ARE HERE! WE ARE HERE!

I’d like to try something. Yesterday this blog had around 200 hits/visitors. I know some of those will be repeat visits and some will be bots, and some will be trolls. But to the rest of you I issue a challenge. We need to shout together and be heard. 

Go to your own blog and post up the words "WE ARE HERE!" and then comment here to say where it is, or link back. Then get your readers and friends to do the same. Just how far and how loud can we make this go? 

WE ARE HERE!

WE ARE HERE!

WE ARE HERE!

WE ARE HERE!

WE ARE HERE!

I found this and it made me feel sick.

We all know that the male suicide bomber is promised 72 virgins in the gardens of paradise. What, then, does a female ‘martyr’ get in return for her suicide?

From the Mail Online. 

Women are controlled by men  -  their fathers and brothers initially, and then their husband and his brothers, who monitor and supervise every aspect of their lives. A woman is the possession of the men in her family.

Rape is the deadliest assault on this honour code. But few sympathise with the victim herself.

Whatever the circumstances, rape victims are almost always blamed for bringing shame to their family by somehow provoking her attackers.

Or simply by being somewhere away from the protection of the male members of the family.

In a marriage culture that prizes virginity, a rape victim will never find a husband and never recover from the sexual shame, it is a living death.

I’m speechless. But does this mean that a woman wearing her Abaya is to be feared? Should this incite us all to hate all Muslim people?

Not at all. 

The truth is suicide bombing is a cult. It twists parts of the Koran, parts of Arab culture and genuine political grievance into an easy but deadly myth.

It’s important to remember that this is a product of a mysoginistic society, a rape culture and that certain factions within that are manipulating the extreme line to produce this. It’s twisted and hateful.

Is up at Witchy’s place, and I’m in there. Three times if you count the Blogless blog towards the bottom.

Wow. Thanks Witchy, V and Laurelin for including me. 

Now, does that mean I’m a Radical Feminist?

I’ve never chosen to hang that label on myself although I know that much of my feminist thinking does line up in that direction. But I’ve self identified as more of an Eco-Feminist.

It is a philosophy and movement born from the union of feminist and ecological thinking, and the belief that the social mentality that leads to the domination and oppression of women is directly connected to the social mentality that leads to the abuse of the environment.

It’s all about who has the power and control. 

ecofeminism states that male ownership of land has led to a dominator culture (patriarchy)

Can I be a Radical Eco Feminist? They seem to go well together….  

Egypt voices: Sexual harassment

"My mother says I shouldn’t answer back but I think this is wrong"

"I wear loose clothes, I don’t wear make up, I spend more than an hour in front of the mirror everyday thinking of ways to hide my body."

I think men are doing this because they are jobless and have no manners.