Tag Archives: feminism
Shared parental leave – a victory for men’s rights!
Something really awesome happened in the men’s rights arena recently. A change that will benefit millions of prospective fathers in the UK: the parental leave rules changed.
Let’s take a minute to celebrate what this means. In the past, it was always assumed that the person who gave birth to a baby would be the person who’d be the primary carer in its first year. So mothers usually got maternity pay, and it’d be assumed that – beyond the statutory two weeks of paternity leave taken shortly after birth – dads would be the ones working in their child’s first year, while mums took on the lion’s share of childcare.
Obviously this explanation is pretty basic, and doesn’t take into account a whole bunch of stuff – same-sex couples or non binary people who give birth but wouldn’t identify as a mother, for instance – but those were the general rules, and they had a huge effect on UK workplaces. Now, though, thanks to rules on Shared Parental Leave (which came in at the beginning of April), apart from a compulsory statutory two weeks, which must be taken by the person who gave birth, parental leave can be split.
So: Dads are no longer assumed to be the ones working through the first year, missing out on things like their child’s first steps, or the chance to join baby yoga classes or hand-wash tiny babygros that are covered in weird yellow vomit – both parents get to decide how the work/childcare split happens. This is pretty fucking awesome.
Is 50 Shades of Grey abuse?
Every now and then I get cc:d into a discussion with a Twitter account called @50shadesabuse, a campaign to “raise awareness that the 50 Shades of Grey series romanticises domestic abuse.” I wouldn’t write about it if it weren’t for the fact that they’re now planning to picket the film premiere, and I keep getting asked what I think. So here goes…
Rebranding feminism: the planning meeting
Hi everyone: welcome to this, the meeting in which we aim to rebrand feminism, an exercise that countless people have insisted is vital. As a feminist, I’m often told that the word needs to be changed, or that feminism’s image must be improved, and because I’ve heard the phrase ‘rebranding feminism’ at least seven hundred times over the course of 2014, I thought 2015 should be the year we roll up our sleeves and get on with it.
Please take a seat, help yourself to coffee, and try not to fight over the chocolate biscuits.
The tragedy of older women
I suspect this might be a first time this warning’s been put on a sex blog, but the following post contains spoilers for this year’s Doctor Who Christmas Special. I promise you it’s relevant.
My Mum finds it hard to get served at the bar.
I’ve seen it happen: she’ll be there for twice as long as most other people. She waits, purse in hand, trying to catch the eye of the bar staff, and making sure that she’s standing assertively. She’s not shy or nervous, hanging back or offering her place in line to other people – she’s just there, prominent yet invisible. Unnoticed. And people around her – younger people, and older men, nip ahead and throw their orders in.
And she waits.
Where are all the pervy women?
One of the most common questions I am asked (and I say this not to boast but to point out just how much disappointment I could unleash if people found out who I am) is “where can I meet a girl like you?”
This question is usually asked by straight men, who are keen to go to a bar, hook up with someone, fuck her face, then drink a few pints with her before getting ready for round two. Sadly when people ask ‘where can I meet a girl like you?’ I inevitably have to reply: you can’t.
Sorry. I’m not a figment of your imagination as such, but I’m certainly a figment of my own selective storytelling. You can meet me in a bar if you stumble into the right Wetherspoons at the dirty back end of a Friday night, but I won’t look just like this, or talk like this, or engage in this kind of pervy behaviour while you’re sipping your pint.
I’ll be wearing jeans and a jumper with holes in. I might drink and swear and shoot daggers at people who make sexist jokes, but I’ll also be a bit shy and awkward. I might forget your name, or flirt with you in a manner so clumsy it’s a gigantic turn-off. If you’re lucky, I might even sneak off to the toilet to be sick, before ducking out the side-door to avoid awkward goodbyes before I stumble onto the night bus.
So, the short answer is: you will never ever meet a woman who is exactly like a sex blogger, because sex bloggers are – as everyone is online to a certain extent – curated versions of our incompetent, real-life selves. But that’s OK, because that’s not really the question these guys are asking. What they’re usually asking is this: