Category / Thinking & Musing

by Alexandra Roumbas Goldstein

Maternity leave, misunderstandings and misogyny

And, apparently, alliteration.

Yesterday I came across a Guardian CiF piece about EU maternity laws and the vote on extending minimum maternity leave to 20 weeks on full pay which yesterday got mixed backing. In the article, MEP Mary Honeyball argued that this would hit the poorest hardest, as the current system gives those less well off the chance to get a standard maternity payment and take a year off.

Except that Mary Honeyball is innacurate on at least one point and the commenters on her article are badly misinformed about others. Here are the points about the article – and its attendant comments – that troubled me.

1. There is a simple factual innacuracy – or at least a simplification (leaving out part-time workers, which might include many women who have one child already) – that slightly alters things. Honeyball says:

The maths are simple: for a woman on the minimum wage of £5.93, working for 40 hours a week, weekly pay would be £237.20 per week. If she took the full entitlement for maternity leave, she would receive £213.48 per week for the first six weeks (90% of full pay – £1,280.88) and £124.88 per week for the next 33 weeks (standard rate, regardless of earnings), which amounts to £4,121.04. She would also have the option of 13 further weeks’ maternity leave (unpaid). This is a total of £5,401.92.

However, under the proposals being voted on in the European parliament, which seek to provide 20 weeks maternity leave on full pay, a woman with the same working conditions would receive £237.20 per week for the first 20 weeks, a total of £4,744. This would be around £650 less than under the current system. Of course, part-time workers would stand to lose more.

[my emphasis]

The government’s website says:

If you qualify for SMP, it is paid:

  • for the first six weeks at 90 per cent of your average gross weekly earnings with no upper limit
  • for the remaining 33 weeks at the lower of either the standard rate of £124.88, or 90 per cent of your average gross weekly earnings

[my emphasis]

Now, in Honeyball’s example it makes little difference, as someone working full time getting over £125 a week (as, indeed, on minimum wage they should be) will qualify for the standard payment, but this does not include minimum wage part timers, which she mentions but doesn’t focus on.Yet these are likely to be among the worst off. And by saying that ‘part timers stand to lose more’, this is only the case for part-timers who qualify for the £125 payment. Many won’t, and these people will actually gain, going from 90% of their salary to 100% of their salary (and of course it’s cheaper, childcare-wise, and emotionally easier for them to go back to work earlier). But there’s a more important problem with Honeyball’s argument, which I’m coming to next.

2. ‘The maths’ don’t actually make sense.

If the EU system were put into place, the woman would go back to work at 20 weeks, thus continuing to get 100% of her salary. So instead of recieving £5,000 to see her through a year, she’d be on £12,000+. She’d never get on to that system of £125 a week, because she’d be back at work. This doesn’t mean I agree with the proposal, just that Honeyball’s argument that she’d be materially worse off isn’t true as she works it out. Honeyball doesn’t argue – as she might – that by going back to work at 20 weeks childcare costs might escalate, thus costing the woman more; she just works out the payments without considering how long those payments have to last for and therefore what they mean in real terms.

Now, I understand why Honeyball disagrees with the proposal, and why the UK government is lobbying against this becoming law here, as there are many problems with it. But it is simply false to say that the least well off will lose money. They won’t; in fact, most will gain it. What they’ll lose is something that a mother might argue is far more valuable: they’ll lose time.

Well, that’s the same as it is now. Those of us who depend on the statutory allowances will always be unable to take as much time as those who don’t; I don’t know many women who can afford to take the full year off because of the 13 weeks unpaid at the end, and if – especially in London – you’re on a minimum wage salary it’s really unlikely you’ll be able to take that £100 cut a week to take weeks on end off work. It won’t happen. You’ll either quit work and move to benefits to care for your children, or you’ll go back earlier. Those who have generous company packages from private corporations can take longer, and they likely have higher pay and more savings anyway.

So, I think that due to a combination of slightly suspicious maths and leaving the part timers (likely the least well off) out of the equation, we can see that the article misses the point quite a lot.

But the comments miss the point even more.

Here are some of my favourite pet arguments against maternity laws, generally spouted by the kind of people who, basically, don’t want anyone to have children unless they’re super rich. And who routinely discriminate women because ‘it’s going to cost them’, even though, actually, it probably isn’t very much, if at all; so maybe really because they know that it’ll always be women having to have the babies so they can use that as an excuse to treat them badly.

1. “It’s gonna cost me.”

For big business, it doesn’t cost very much at all. The costs are easy enough to absorb, and they are usually able to offer better childcare so their employees come back earlier and they lose even less.

For small businesses it’s a bit trickier, because it’s harder to do without that member of the workforce (and therefore it becomes more likely someone has to be recruited to replace the missing mother). But it’s not quite as dreadful as it sounds because many employers can actually claim back most or all of the money they pay women on maternity leave from HMRC. If you have an NI bill of less than £45,000 p.a. you get the lot, and if it’s more than that you get 92%. My heart bleeds for that 8%, it really does. Especially in those situations where you’re not required to get in full-time or as highly paid replacements for the person who’s missing.

2. “I shouldn’t have to subsidise your lifestyle choice to have children”

We ALL subsidise the lifestyle choices of others. By funding the NHS, we pay for drug addicts, people who break bits doing dangerous sports, people who smoke themselves into hideous illnesses (although frankly they’re paying more too) and many more. But more to the point, children are actually a necessity. We like to blather on about how the world is overpopulated, but pretend that this is because of people having children when it’s actually more about people living longer (but expecting to retire at the same age). And when those people get old, their contributions aren’t nearly going to cover looking after themselves. Partly because they will never contribute enough but also because the government started spending the money about 10 years before they got it. Your contributions have gone – on health care, wars, helping the least well off, the Olympics – you name it. Kids are going to be paying for you to keep going.

And that’s before you even get to forgetting innovations in health care, technology and so on, because there’ll be no-one left to do it.

Oh, and while we’re on this subject, please stop it with the Natasha Kaplinski argument already. You need to be employed for 26 weeks before the 25th week of your pregnancy to be able to get Statutory Maternity Pay. As a freelancer or a brand new contract, Five didn’t owe her a damn thing they didn’t want to pay.

3. “Don’t have kids if you can’t afford them.”

Right, well, that’s only kids for the upper middle classes and super-rich then. I look forward to David Cameron’s kids being refuse collectors (a job which is extremely important and should be far more appreciated but, let’s face it, is rarely done by people worth millions).

These tend to be the exact same commenters who complain that all kids are semi-feral these days. Which apart from being nonsense means they want parents – sorry, just women, actually – to stay at home and bring them up well, but not to afford their mums (and, crucially, dads) to have some time off to get the job started properly.

The 20 weeks full pay plan is not ideal. It still only includes two weeks for dads, and while mums and dads don’t have the option to equally split leave between them – and, importantly, take that option – women will always be treated poorly in the workplace and employers will continue to discriminate because ‘it’ll cost them’ (apparently). Until we start seeing men as additional primary caregivers, women are in trouble.

The real problem is not the possible financial loss which is practical terms doesn’t actually happen. It is, as usual, the problem of misunderstandings and, at heart, misogyny.

by Alexandra Roumbas Goldstein

Reflections on Ramona, ten weeks in

Right now, Ramona is screaming, and we have no idea why. At the moment her father is changing her; we’ve tried all the other soothing options. Sometimes even if she doesn’t really need a change the ritual seems to calm her. We’re even wondering (thanks to some dribbling, a little reddening of the cheeks and some hand chewing) if despite her very young age she’s teething.

I’m writing this so I don’t go nuts, but in a second I’ll drop the computer and take over. We swap back and forth so we both get a break from the wailing. But to you, it’ll seem like I’ve never gone. Isn’t that magic?

<pause>

Twenty minutes later, she’s sleeping peacefully in her bouncer chair. How did we get here? Well, in this instance, the old swap ‘n’ calm worked – sometimes just moving her from one parent to the other seems to do it (although you can only get away with it once – any more pass the parcel and she rightly objects to constantly being unsettled). I think the change also helped though she didn’t respond immediately because sometimes she’s too far gone with irritation to realise straight away that something good has happened. She’s at an age where she’s awake more but still needs 15-16 hours sleep a day. She’s sleeping 7 hours at night now, to our delight, but at some point between 9am and 12pm she really, really needs a nap.

Sometimes we don’t deal with the crying well. Those sobs are designed to pull on your heartstrings and you find yourself on the verge of tears, feeling like a failure. But then, like magic, she quiets down again – sometimes even cracks one of her heartbreaking smiles – and it’s all forgotten.

Frustration, exhaustion, confusion… you feel them all. But never anger, because there is a part of your mind, no matter how tired, worried or disturbed that knows that she is even more upset and unhappy. Because she can’t speak and crying is her hard-wired defence survival mechanism. And all those negative emotions come from deep inside one overarching, deeply powerful positive emotion.

Love really gives you a serious kicking sometimes.

But oh, every day you find out you can love them even more than yesterday, though yesterday you would have sworn it wasn’t possible. Their personality develops, their smiles are brighter, gummier and ever more focussed. Their eyes follow you around the room, their little tummy time press-ups and their wobbling head as you prop them upright…  you find out very quickly why, for a while, parents can’t talk about anything except their little one’s latest achievement. Ramona’s achievements thus far? Smiling, batting at her toys, once or twice grabbing a toy briefly, pushing her head up to between 45 and 90 degrees on her tummy, babbling. Who knew those simple things could ever turn you upside down with awe?

And then, once in a while, comes the crying, to bring you crashing back down to reality. The bubble isn’t burst, though, just a little deflated. And the good news is, that it quickly fills back up again.

I’ll be writing bi-weekly in BitchBuzz about parenting, pregnancy and babies soon (I believe on a Wednesday). I think surviving a crying fit might be one thing I need to cover.

by Alexandra Roumbas Goldstein

Hypnobirthing: to teach or not to teach?

Temptation has reared its head, and I don’t know whether to give in.

I have the opportunity to train to teach hypnobirthing with the same practitioner who taught me to practice it. Now, it worked very well for me and I’m very enthusiastic about it now, so I’d love to share that with other women. Also, if I’m confidently honest about my own skills, I tend to be pretty good at training and giving advice. So I can really see myself enjoying helping others gain from hypnobirthing.

But it’s not, of course, straightforward; training is quite expensive (as all worthwhile things seem to be) and we’re on one salary at the moment. And I wouldn’t be able to practice more than occasional evenings and weekends because I have a small child I really want to spend lots of time with and a full-time job I’m returning to next year that I enjoy very much indeed and wouldn’t give up.

So the real question is how much time and money is it acceptable to spend to indulge in something that I’d just really like to do for my own personal satisfaction?

The jury’s out.

by Alexandra Roumbas Goldstein

Let the Memories Begin: Disney embraces social media even more, I drool a little

If you read some of the tweets from Disney’s most hardcore (mostly Florida-dwelling) fans yesterday, you’d have thought that the company emptied a big barrel of acid over Cinderella Castle while they were forced to watch, thunderstruck. In fact, what really happened is that expectations were not managed all that well. You can argue til you’re blue in the face over whether Disney should know better than to announce a marketing campaign as if it’s a major upgrade to the parks or whether the fans should know by now that Disney always does it this way but both of those would be missing the point in a major way. In fact it is an exciting announcement for two reasons: firstly, it’s a fun addition to a holiday – something I think it’s much easier to appreciate if, like me, you can afford to go every few years, not weeks – and secondly and more importantly, it’s a major adoption of social media on a massive scale.

The campaign is called Let the Memories Begin, and it’s a two-part strategy. The new holiday element is the inclusion of a nightly slideshow projection onto Cinderella Castle (WDW) or It’s A Small World (DL) of photos of revellers taken around the parks; something that was derided as a ‘screensaver’ by some fans. The even more social element is actually an advertising campaign; users submit video, photo and text content about memories made at the parks, and Disney selects and uses these in its advertising. One TV commercial has already been constructed with submitted videos.

To find out more you can:

Read the full press release and view the video at The Disney Blog (an excellent site for considered commentary).

Visit the dedicated pages for uploading etc at www.DisneyParks.com/memories

Why were fans disappointed then? Well, there had been rumours of a Monsters, Inc. coaster at the Studios (and of all the parks, HS needs the most revamping) or the addition of Spain to the World Showcase in Epcot. But those rumours probably didn’t account for the fact that Disney is massively revamping Star Tours in two parks, building the Art of Animation resort hotel, expanding in China, re-staging much-loved attractions like Captain EO and carrying out a huge, expensive update to Fantasyland in the WDW Magic Kingdom. With wobbly visitor numbers due to the global financial problems, Disney’s already committed huge amounts of money to park updates, so it’s hardly surprising that they’re committing another chunk to tempting more people through the doors as well as keeping the existing fans happy.

I think it really is exciting to think of your picture being projected against Cinderella Castle. I’ve written before about my first Disney trip, complete with charmingly gormless photo, and  you can guarantee that child would have wet herself with delight if it had happened. I would be ridiculously excited now that I have better bladder control. But what’s even more exciting is the thought of, as a dedicated fan, having those memories recognised and having them appear in Disney’s marketing. Because it’s basically taking what we’re already doing with our blogs, forums, tweets, videos etc and applying a megaphone to it. We’re already telling the world how much we love Disney, and now Disney’s realised that helping us do it makes us feel special and potentially benefits them massively (and let’s not forget, Disney making more money means those precious park expansions can continue to happen).

I understand that the annual passholders who go several times a year every year want to see something new, but when that gormless four-year-old was watching a parade in the Magic Kingdom less than 30 years ago there were just two parks there, and one (the then EPCOT Centre) was only two years old. Now, in Florida alone, there are four main parks, two water parks, swathes of shopping areas, new dedicated resorts for Disney Vacation Club members… you name it. Disneylands Anaheim and Paris have expanded massively and there are cruise liners galore.

Disney’s social media team, in particular the Disney Moms Panel (and just to be clear, you don’t have to be a parent, or even female, to apply) has an enormous job to do; it takes some time for me to go through all the messages to Dogs Trust every day and that’s 100,000 people on a Facebook page and under 15,000 on Twitter – huge, important numbers to us, but nothing like what Disney is dealing with. For us it’s absolutely essential that we reply to everyone we can and make sure they get the answers they’re looking for, because these are the people that make our work possible and they deserve the best we can be. Yet because of the scale involved it can be a disappointing experience messaging Disney in the social space unless you’re talking directly to someone like Thomas Smith or Laura Spencer, who are both excellent. Disney’s found another way to interact and reward instead; it’s less conversational – it sort of turns broadcasting on its head by broadcasting back the message to those who produce it – but no less powerful. They’ve taken the most simple route by addressing the fan’s strength in creating material and the organisation’s strength in broadcasting it.

And simplicity in social media – as in every other arena – is so often the best way. I truly look forward to seeing what happens next.

by Alexandra Roumbas Goldstein

Reflections on Ramona, six weeks in

Six weeks. Feels like no time at all and absolutely forever. I suspect anyone with a child will tell you the same, that they so fill up your life from the first second that they appear that it seems as though they’ve always been there. You can’t remember what life was like before them, but at the same time every little milestone seems a long time coming.

It’s been an unexpectedly trying time; we knew the parenthood was going to be hard work, but we weren’t expecting all the other strains laid on us. As Ashley became a victim of the education budget cuts and lost his job a day before I gave birth, the last six weeks has been for us a blur of jobhunting, career considerations (more on this soon – his, not mine), moving in with family to save money for a while and, of course, dealing with sleepless nights, the beginnings of colic (truly indescribably horrendous, and Ramona’s is, by all account, fairly mild) and visits to Miranda Clayton, a lovely cranial osteopath, who has been helping with the latter. And in all of this, we have somehow kept a relatively even keel, something I put down to being treated to daily gurgles and smiles, inquisitive eyes and the cheekiest face I’ve ever seen.

Ramona’s smile is beyond description, a cheek-cracking, gum-showing, eye-squinting wonder. It soothes all the frayed nerves from long minutes of screeching and crying and softens the tension of having had to watch her react with betrayed disbelief at her first injection. The way she pouts, chews her lips, rolls her eyes and bats her eyelids as she’s dropping off into what appears to be a wonderfully vivid dream helps calm my constant worry that there’s something wrong – is she sleeping too long with her head tilted that way? Has she had enough tummy time? When was the last time she fed? How long since her last change?

We know that for her to be quietened, we need to be serene. It’s not always easy, but we’re working on it. If you get the child you deserve, then I’d love to know what wonderful thing I did to deserve this amazing child. I’m in love, and it is changing me. Always for the better.

by Alexandra Roumbas Goldstein

Advertising as information: not always useful (Cow & Gate Growing Up Milk)

Last night I was having a conversation with a family friend about the difference between US and UK advertising. We agreed that there are pros and cons of both, but one thing I always found alarming in the States was advertising for prescription pharmaceuticals.

“Why not?” argued J. “Part of advertising’s focus is to inform.”

“Because it’s unethical.” I countered. “Doctors shouldn’t be motivated by financial gain, nor badgered for drugs by patients who might well have only half-understood the implications of taking the advertised product. Not all of them will have researched it further.”

“But why shouldn’t they know about what’s available?”

Why not indeed? I still think there are huge question marks over bitesize chunks of information about products that can have serious side effects (or, you know, kill you), but I don’t deny that there’s important consumer power in receiving chunks of information about what’s available. Obviously.

However, there’s a line between information and scaremongering. Between becoming aware that a potentially useful product is out there and being convinced that you need something you don’t. The beauty industry has long made a fortune by inventing a problem and then telling you how to fix it. But I find that harmless compared to the absolute claptrap that’s fed to parents.

My personal pet hate at the moment is Cow & Gate Growing Up Milk. You can view the ad here.

Now, let’s get this straight – I don’t care if you breast or bottle feed. And I think there’s probably an argument for topping up some toddlers’ diets with formula; perhaps if they’re particularly fussy or for some reason have problems getting all the nutrients they need. But these ads make me want to spit with rage. Let’s look at what’s bugging me:

1. The comparison with cows’ milk

Aside from almost pretending that formula isn’t cows’ milk (albeit, obviously, fortified), this specifically focuses on iron content. Look! Two beakers of our product can give your child 100% of the iron they need, but 12 LITRES of cows’ milk would only just give them 50%. Now look at the bottom of the screen, where it says, presumably for legal reasons: “Cows’ milk is not a good source of iron”.

So, what you’re saying is, if you only fed your toddler on cows’ milk, they’d have nutrient deficiencies. Is this a good time to say ‘duh’? Toddlers, unlike very small babies, don’t live exclusively on milk. They’ll have been eating solids for several months. Perhaps they’re getting their iron from green leafy veg, grains and other (non-milk) animal products?

2. Check your toddler’s iron intake (here)

Do we really have a national toddler iron deficiency problem? That’s a genuine question, because I’ve never heard any suggestion of such a thing but that doesn’t mean there isn’t some evidence out there. I’d love to see it. This is perhaps the most useful part of the ad, helping a concerned parent reassure themselves that they’re feeding their child properly, but isn’t it amazing how we weren’t (apparently) beset with anaemic toddlers before follow on milk was invented? Talk about creating a problem to fix it.

A sensible concerned parent will, I hope, conclude that rather than topping up their toddler with an expensive powdered milk, they could just introduce more variety to their diet. But of course C&G is counting on the idea that adding the fortified milk will just be easier.

3. “Healthy babies are happy babies”

Subtext: you are making your child ill by not buying this probably totally unnecessary product. And that’s why they don’t sleep perfectly / have tantrums / aren’t completely perfect angel children. Not because they’re toddlers and that’s part of growing up, learning and development. Oh no.

I have no problem with Cow & Gate creating these products, nor wanting to make money from them, you understand. I’m a great believer in consumer choice – switch off if you don’t like the programme, don’t buy if you don’t like the product – but it really does make me grind my teeth when the advertising is woven with the threads of health scares, parental guilt and solving problems that are likely nonexistent.

Parents have, over the years, been convinced that they NEED to do all sorts of things for their children, otherwise they are appalling, abusive failures. Despite, in many cases, having grown up to be reasonable, decent adults without half the things they think of as necessities now. Using that guilt to harness their tremendous spending power is clever advertising, no doubt about it.

But it still makes me feel slightly sick.

by Alexandra Roumbas Goldstein

Child-free, parent or pregnant: you never escape the baby mafia no matter what

There’s an interesting and quite balanced article on the BBC today about people – well, women – who opt not to have children. Said women are feeling victimised by friends, family, colleagues and even complete strangers who feel it’s completely legitimate to question them endless on why they don’t want children, lecture them on being ‘incomplete’ or eye them with pity, assuming they’re unable to have children (because of course, if that were the case, your pity is exactly what they’d want, right?).

The thing is, the child-free may think they’re being pitted against parents, but it isn’t so. As someone who is maybe a week or two away from giving birth, I can tell you child-free folks that we’re on the same side. The real enemy is the same kind of sexist bull that means women always get judged by their appearance.

For some reason, female fertility is a complete free-for-all. I’ve been asked the most incredibly invasive questions about my pregnancy, including “was it planned?”, and even had one friend of my husband’s go so far as to write to him (not me) telling him not to “let his wife” choose a particular option for where to give birth. The friend was female, by the way; sexism isn’t the exclusive preserve of men, you know. Now, to some extent I expect it, as I have written about and talked about my pregnancy; you could say I’ve invited some comment, although much of it came from people I hadn’t really shared much with. But plenty of women don’t say a word, and are just marked out as a target by their bulging bellies.

Now, those people who ask the inappropriate questions, assume a paternalistic stance about your medical care and think they can come up and fondle your belly without asking are the exact same people who ask you when you’re having your first / “next one”, question you about how you know you don’t want a baby if you don’t have one (it’s not ice cream – you can’t bin it if you change your mind) and insist that you’ll only feel like a ‘real’ woman when you have one of your own.

This isn’t about the child-free versus the child-added. This is about social skills, common decency and the status of women as the bearers of children. No healthy adult gets treated with more condescension than a pregnant woman; yes, we’re emotional and vulnerable, but that doesn’t mean we’re suddenly irrational and incapable. The same people who feel free to use that vulnerability to bully a pregnant woman are those that feel that any woman without a child can’t be so out of choice, so they can’t resist poking at the perceived soft spot.

And it is women who get the brunt of this. Men don’t get off scot-free; they simply get ignored, patronised or occasionally used as a conduit to criticise the woman. How marvellous that you’ve worked out the incredible complexity of a nappy! How extra-specially lovely and thoughtful of you to look after the baby for a couple of hours so your partner can get some sleep! You’re not completely useless! But I can’t help feeling that while this is hugely annoying, it’s nothing compared to what their female partners have to deal with.

But you know what? As long as we all – parents and those with no interest in ever being parents – stick together and politely, with all the social graces our interrogators seem to lack, tell people when something is their business and when it isn’t, eventually these people will have to back off and go voice their opinions to their invisible friends.

The sooner the better.

by Alexandra Roumbas Goldstein

‘Fat’ is a journalist issue…

Thanks to a bit of shoddy journalism and a lot of intelligent friends, I’ve been having a very interesting discussion about body shape, ideals and weight with some fantastic women on Twitter (you should follow them all: @foreveramber, @evarley, @Keris, @dianeshipley, @GemmaCartwright). Although the subject started with UK Equalities Minister Lynne Featherstone apparently – but not, on closer examination, actually – endorsing the lovely Christina Hendricks as an ‘ideal’ role model for women, it’s taken a bit of a tangential line for me.

I’ll let you catch up with it all if you’ve not been following by pointing you to Amber’s summary of the issue on  The Fashion Police. I’ll wait here.

Okay, now, all reasonable people will now be agreed that:

  • There is no ideal shape / weight / size. You can only eat well and do adequate / ample exercise.
  • A mixture of physical role models is lovely an’ all, but role models based on achievement, rather than appearance, would be even better.

If you’re not reasonable, then good luck to you. I might publish your comments anyway.

Now for the tangential bit. Ms Featherstone went on to clarify that she did not mean what the Daily Mail said she meant, which I have no trouble believing. But she also used the term ‘stick insect’ to describe thin women, which is a bit off, from where I’m sitting. I’m happy to use the word ‘skinny’ – my husband is skinny, and looks great, thanks very much – because in my head it’s a description, not an insult. But there’s no way to read ‘stick insect’ kindly.

Yet, for the bigger woman, Featherstone used the accepted euphemism of the day: ‘curvy’. I understand that the word ‘fat’ is upsetting to many because it’s been used as an insult for so long that people have forgotten that it’s just a fact. Of course, not every person wearing a size 14 plus IS fat. Some of them are genuinely just big. Or muscular. Or so tall they wear a bigger size but are still perfectly toned. But, equally, not everyone wearing a size 14 plus is curvy. Some are straight up and down. Or, like me, they’re just a bit overweight.

Actually I’m curvy AND fat, and a UK size 14 (US10-ish). I have weight to lose, and muscles to tone. As soon as I’ve recovered from the imminent birth of my first child, I plan to start building up to doing more regular exercise cos I’m unfit and that makes me tired and fed up and there’s heart disease in my family. But when I use the word ‘fat’, people wince and look uncomfortable. They think I’m fishing for compliments, or being unnecessarily self-hating.

So, in many ways, bloggers and journalists are caught between a rock and a hard place. They feel they can be blithely rude about thin women, but even if they’re sensitive enough not to be insulting are safe using ‘thin’ or ‘slim’ or ‘slender’ because these are factual. But ‘fat’ is equally factual – in some cases – and yet it’s completely unthinkable to use it. I hesitate to use it about anyone but myself because I know how hurtful it can be; it’s taken me years to accept it because I know with what vitriol it’s usually delivered.

My compromise is to stick to ‘bigger’ as it’s still factual yet not as mealy-mouthed as ‘curvy’ ‘plus size’ / ‘out size’ (out of WHOSE size?) or ‘voluptuous’ (‘voluptuous’ is to ‘fat’ what ‘flamboyant’ used to be to ‘gay’), although there are probably times when both curvy and voluptuous are appropriate as well – just not as a description of SIZE. They could apply to very small women too. No one could realistically call Salma Hayek fat, but my Lord is she curvy.

We’ve been working so hard to reclaim one F-word (feminism, in case you were wondering), that we’ve lost another one. It’s no longer safe to describe someone as fat, even when they are. Yet it’s okay to demonise thin women and liken them to pretty unpleasant things – I kept stick insects as a child and I can assure you there’s nothing alluring about their appearance. They’re also very boring.

So what is a writer who cares about women feeling happy, confident and healthy and wants to write about these issues to do? Fly the fat banner with pride, or prevaricate around the point? I genuinely don’t know the answer.

by Alexandra Roumbas Goldstein

That Old Chestnut: The Internet and unsolicited advice

Disclaimers don’t really cut it on the web, do they?

I’m not talking about the professional kind, which are good, proper and helpful. The “by the way, these are my words not my employer’s” sort and “oh, this is my client” type are super duper. It’s the personal kind that are awkward. I suppose they’re not really disclaimers at all, but I think of them in the same category of “by the way, here’s something you should know”.

I’ve learned the hard way that if you just say something publicly* – on a Facebook status, for example – you get a barrage of advice, solicited or not. I’m not a fan of locking comments, even though that’s exactly what it avoids, because that also prevents the nice, private, supportive types from being able to comment. So I add in a point, sometimes at length, on the lines of: “this is a statement, not a question. No advice needed, ta.”

This, as I am often reminded when people go ahead and unleash their ‘helpful’ honesty anyway, is pointless.

So I have to examine my motivations. Why do I want to say it publicly in the first place? I guess it’s so that I can share something I’m excited about with my community of friends, but I suppose part of me also wants to share it as a broadcast, not a conversation. I’m happy to absorb the support and goodwill, but when someone challenges me (even if I’m completely 100% sure I’m right), it’s annoying and I just don’t want it.

Obviously that’s only the case in a very small number of posts. Most of them are open to challenge every which way. And maybe it’s an English thing; you just expect people to know which areas they should refrain from pelting you with advice about (like, say, childbirth). Though the Greek part of me laughs with unbridled scorn at the idea that people you’re close to would, you know, keep their opinions to themselves. After all, if your close friends and family can’t give it to you straight…

I always roll my eyes a bit when people don’t realise that what they say online is in the public domain, and yet here I am hypocritically expecting to be the exception to the rule just because I asked nicely.

Yep. Alex, you’re just going to have to suck it up. If you broadcast it, replies will come. Remember that.

*I only have friends and close colleagues on my Facebook profile. It is otherwise locked down for a reason, which is that it’s nice to have a closed community sometimes. Twitter and this blog are public; knock yourselves out.

by Alexandra Roumbas Goldstein

This is why I love my husband… Part II

Over the Bank Holiday weekend, the BBC rolled out old faithful Mary Poppins, a Disney film I was obsessed with in my youth; that, The Aristocats and, uh, The Great Escape were all that would keep me quiet when I was a tot. My mother finally couldn’t take any more renditions of Let’s Go Fly a Kite and refused to have the video on for quite some time.

So duly I sit down with my cuppa and biccies to listen to one of the worst Cock-er-nee accents ever committed to film, but before we even get to the jolly holiday scene, Mr. G. glances at the Spoonful of Sugar scene and comments:

“Those are American robins, you know.”

They’re also mechanical, I point out. Big, creaky, 1960s mechanical birds.

“But I can prove it! They’re American robins!”

I gently point out I’m not really bothered. [Read: I kicked my legs up and down on the sofa squealing “I don’t care! I don’t care!”]

He waves the laptop at me triumphantly, displaying a picture of American robins which are, indeed, rather sizeable compared to their teeny British cousins.

Then he goes a stage further:

“Look! All these film error sites point it out as well!”

I quietly point out that he has thus far been able to accept a woman sailing up the bannisters, pulling ridiculously large objects out of a carpet bag and cleaning up a nursery just by clicking her fingers, and yet a pair of non-British robins that are CLEARLY MECHANICAL bothers him.

“True.”

The room briefly falls quiet.

Then he pipes up just one last time.

“Also, they’re both male.”

He doesn’t just talk about mice, ears, the Luftwaffe and cheese, you know.