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

Thoughts on Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy

This isn’t a review. Lots has been written about these books already. But there’s one element that persistently bugs me about the trilogy, and it’s to do with the treatment of women. If you haven’t read the books, you might want to skip this unless you’re not planning to. I haven’t gone all-out with the spoilers, but you will probably prefer to start with a blank slate.

Larsson doesn’t hide the fact that The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is about sexual and physical abuse of women*. The stats quoted at the beginning of each section, the horrific scene of brutal sexual violence against one character, the twisted tale of sadistic murder; it’s pretty clear (and sometimes, I think, a little more graphic than it really needs to make the point). But then the trilogy starts to be about the abuse of a specific character, and her history and that’s where I think the point loses its way.

It comes to the point where every single unpleasant character – and they’re ALL men, the bad guys; the women are all either laughably perfect or appallingly damaged – is a violent misogynist. It’s not enough for them to be a bit of a turd; no, if you’re a man and a bad guy, you must also want to rape women, sexually abuse small children or think every woman who isn’t interested in you is a twisted lesbian Satanist (seriously, read it, you’ll see). Oh, or you’re a pimp.

The main male character, however, Mikael Blomkvist, is none of these things. No, he’s the perfect embodiment of journalistic integrity, and he’s disgusted by the pimps and abusers, murderers and rapists. As well anyone decent might be. But at the same time, he treats the women he actually cares about pretty shabbily, bouncing from bed to bed and refusing to renounce his lover for the sake of his marriage or subsequent relationships. He trundles from one sexual encounter to the other, assuming that no-one could possibly be any more emotionally invested than he is. This is not to say that women can’t be dispassionate about casual encounters at all; it’s just that Blomkvist never troubles himself to find out either way.

So on the one hand we have a bunch of cartoon bad guys who all want to destroy womankind, and yet womankind’s defender is at best a rather self-obsessed bedhopper. Oh yay; just what we need to save us. Of course, even the most independent and powerful of all the female characters – the dragon-tattooed girl herself, Lisbeth Salander – can’t free herself without his help. And even his lover, the irrepressible Erika Berger, is stalked by a man (of course) whose favourite epithet for her is ‘whore’.

I’m really not sure where Larsson was going with all this. They’re well-written and gripping books – the murder mystery, the family saga and the post-Cold War spy thriller – but this relentless casting of women as victims is frustrating.

That, and the fact that no-one seems to be able to do a damn thing without hourly infusions of coffee and sandwiches.

*Update: I now know a little more about Larsson’s history and why violence against women was such a preoccupation of his (look it up); the casting of Lisbeth as a victim that is saved by Blomkvist makes a certain kind of cathartic sense (I wish I’d known the book’s Swedish title was Men Who Hate Women. However, the whole trilogy wasn’t called that, much though it felt like it). And I’m afraid it doesn’t stop the relentless one-sidedness – man = bad, sexually violent – being annoying; it would have been even better had Lisbeth had the strength to save herself.

by Alexandra Roumbas Goldstein

Maternity leave has turned me into a zombie…

No, really. Well, okay, it might be the pregnancy and the bizarrely persistent unusually hot British Summer (note to God: this is not a complaint. Keep it comin’…).

There are so many things I want to be doing, but my head can’t seem to get it together. I want to write some posts for BitchBuzz because it is an awesome site that Cate Sevilla has worked her arse off to make a success. I want to get back to writing the damn novel I’m 20,000 words into, but somehow when I try it all comes out sounding wrong and then I get dispirited. I know that is exactly the point at which I should continue to write, not give up, but I’m scared I’ll end up so irritated that I’ll scrap the whole lot. Although I think my husband might go mad if I did that; he actually enjoyed reading it. I want to plough on and finish before I go back and edit because otherwise edit is all I’ll do, but I can’t take my mind off a continuity slip I know is festering in one of the earlier chapters.

I want to review the mighty Keris Stainton’s excellent book, Della Says: OMG! but the words are Just. Not. Coming.

On the flipside, I have filled up the freezer with meals and baking to be enjoyed after Octobaby makes her appearance, and I have got almost everything ready for her room, etc. I have an appointment with the consultant next week to ensure I’m still low risk and can keep planning for the birth I’d prefer (on the understanding that ultimately it’s Octobaby that decides). I do need to step up the hypnobirthing practice a bit but I haven’t let it slide completely either. Octobaby is currently forcing us all into a guessing game by refusing to reveal to the midwife which end is up (or down) – perhaps she’s re-enacting the tale of the Grand Old Duke of York – which is making me slightly nervous. Yes, I’d rather have a planned Caesarean than an unplanned breech birth, but I will be a little bit gutted if it comes to that, because surgery was the one thing I wanted to avoid, and I have had back surgery that makes me worry about the effects of an epidural.

I now feel huge but am apparently still not carrying that prominently considering that on Saturday I’ll be a full eight months gone. But then, it’s a novelty having clothing clinging to my stomach and not feeling self-conscious about it!

Mr. G. is taking a couple of days off – tomorrow and Monday – to help get the final bits and bobs ready to welcome our little wriggler into the world, so I’m hopeful this will fill me with renewed purpose, so that I’m not wandering around the house reading baking books and wittering to the cats. Because I have my retirement for that. (Joke! I have very active parents and in-laws; I am not being ageist. Promise.)

by Alexandra Roumbas Goldstein

Octobaby and the Courgette and Camomile Cupcakes of DOOM

Actually, there’s nothing particularly doom-ridden about them at all. They were a fraction dry, because I had to make a last minute substitution of brown rice flour for white (storecupboard fail) and didn’t trust my instincts to add some milk, but there you go.

It was the first time I’ve made anything using the powder from the insides of teabags before. The recipe, which I made in order to have some readily available homemade cake in the freezer once Octobaby is here, came from a late birthday present, Harry Eastwood’s Red Velvet and Chocolate Heartache. All the cakes in this book are made without butter / oil / margarine, and using a base of a finely grated vegetable, such as carrot, courgette, potato, sweet potato, swede or even beetroot.

This unnerves some people; even those who have happily snaffled down carrot cake without a thought. But vegetables are a great source of moisture and natural sugars. So not only are the cakes (added) fat-free, they’re generally lower in sugar as well. And though you can use plain flour in the same amounts, Eastwood prefers white rice flour as you might as well make the cake gluten-free as well while you’re at it.

Anyway, I forgot to take photos and they’re packaged up and frozen now, but dry edge notwithstanding, they’re very tasty, and will undoubtedly be better once iced. The camomile tea ingredient makes them taste strongly of cinnamon and nutmeg, neither of which are actually in the recipe; the courgette base makes for quite a plain and (if made correctly) moist sponge, so all in all it’s a simple, spice-edged, satisfying cake.

As for Octobaby (so-called since I’m convinced she has several tentacles given all the directions she can squirm at once), she is growing well and her heart is thrumming away like a baby bird’s. The only slight fly in the ointment is that even the midwife can’t work out which way up she is at the moment. She has two weeks to turn decidedly head down before the worry starts. I might email the hypnobirthing practitioner for a good visualisation to help encourage her. I certainly need to do more exercise, too – walk, trying not to waddle, more, sit on on the birthing ball at home, etc (she says from the sofa).

So, yes. I live. I bake. I get impatient to meet my daughter. How have you been?

by Alexandra Roumbas Goldstein

Red velvet cupcakes with white chocolate star mold topping

I don’t have as many funky baking gadgets and gizmos are you might expect, mostly for the following three reasons:

  • I’m not rich enough
  • I don’t have enough time to get really good
  • I don’t have enough natural / scary / innate talent to miss out the practice

But from time to time I feel I need to give in and get something a bit pointless that I won’t use very much but that will let me get creative in the baking department. Especially if it’s not too expensive. This lead to me splashing out a whopping £6 on Miniamo star-shaped mini molds, that can be used for baking or setting a liquid in the fridge. It was a spur of the moment decision made in a baking shop; you can undoubtedly find them cheaper online.

My first thought was to make mini star shaped cakes in a contrasting colour-  perhaps vanilla-based cupcakes with red velvet star shaped cakes on top. Then I thought about how to embed a star shape in the top of a cake, and the experimentation began…

I switched from Rachel Allen’s red velvet recipe to Hummingbird Bakery‘s, mainly because the latter had already been adapted (cooking time and temperature) for cupcakes. I’m glad I did; lovely as Rachel’s is, the Hummingbird cupcakes were undeniably fluffier and, as the recipe calls for more colour, a richer and more tempting red.

The experiment was, taste-wise, a success. However it wasn’t perfect, and I’ll explain what I’d do differently next time as I go through…

Unbaked cakes with molds

Once I’d made the mixture, I pushed in the molds delicately in the centre. I had thought that delicacy was wise, since I didn’t want the mold to a) sink to the bottom or b) get so deeply stuck in it ripped the cake apart when I removed it. However, I was a fraction too hesitant, as you’ll see from the next picture… Next time, I would push the mold in a little further and possibly weight it with a couple of baking beans or similar.

Cakes with tipsy molds

The more hesitantly applied molds – and possibly less evenly poured in batter – resulted in some cakes with rather random angles at the top, and also one or two whose indentation was too shallow. Contrary to this dreadful photo, however, some did come out rather well, as you’ll see below!

Unfinished cake awaiting chocolate

This was one of the best ones. Please note that you have to wait until the cakes are at least 90% cool before removing the molds. If you don’t, it will just get really shredded around the edges. I suspected this, so I tested on which became the ‘sample’ cake (don’t pretend you’ve never done that). And it was genuinely in the spirit of experimentation rather than impatience, for once! The good news is, between baking and cooling you’ve got masses of time to melt some white chocolate and half-fill some molds with it. I bought 24 so I could bake 12 and prepare 12 toppings at the same time, but you could wait, wash the molds and start from there.

Oh, and a tip about cooling chocolate; it will get far less gloopy if you cool it at room temperature before finishing off in the fridge.

Chocolate molds

Then, when set, pop them out and, handling as little as possible, press them into the indentation left in the cake!

Red velvet cupcakes with white chocolate stars

Again, I would have liked the chocolate to be a little deeper into the cake – possibly even flush with the top for a quite dramatic look – but given the cocoa base for red velvet cake the two went together very nicely and the stars added an element of creaminess without the sickly edge that a huge hunk of buttercream or cream cheese icing can give (and it says something when white chocolate is less sickly than pretty much anything else. I guess it’s the amount!).

Maybe I’ll find time during maternity leave to do more baking. Then again, a first time mother with a newborn? Maybe not.

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

Attention social media professionals…

1. “Media” is a plural term.

2. The singular is “medium”.

3. “Mediums” should only be used as a term if you’re talking or writing about more than one psychic.

4. “Social media” is a plural term. Think of it in the same bracket as “social tools”, “social platforms” or “social channels” if it helps.

I know we don’t speak Latin anymore. I know that there comes a time when the language inexorably changes and you just have to go with the tide (check out the double possessive rule; if it’s been in operation for centuries, it’s time to give up the fight).

I just can’t help being driven slightly insane by the huge number of articles I read every week entitled “social media is [insert insightful comment / occasional platitude here]”.

I will now go back to being sweetness and light. I’m even planning some baking blogging* for you soon.

*While we’re on the subject of unbelievable pedantry… When you mean “I want to write a post about this”, try not to say “I want to write a blog about this”. You’re probably not writing an entire blog about that subject, just one post. I reckon we have probably embraced “to blog” as a verb, though, so you could try “I want to blog about this” as well.
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.

by Alexandra Roumbas Goldstein

Pregnancy by questions

No, I haven’t abandoned you. I’ve been blogging a bit about babies elsewhere, and drafting and redrafting a book review that I will publish soon, honest gov.

Of course, it’s babies on the brain around here, as I practice my relaxation and breathing, argue with doctors over prescribing me antibiotics that clearly state they’re not to be taken during pregnancy and battle to make sure all my ducks are in a row before I leave work in four weeks (gulp).

It’s going to be so strange not working, but I have good intentions to keep up with everything religiously so I’m well-informed and ready to bounce back when I return. Good intentions that might fall by the wayside with my sleeping patterns, but at least the determination is there! I enjoy my job, and want to make sure a long break won’t affect it.

In the meantime, I’m now fielding more and more of The Questions, since I’m showing quite prominently now. There’s also The Comments (“you don’t look big enough for nearly seven months!” – er, thanks), but The Questions are a lot more unsettling. They seem to fall into rough trimester categories too:

First trimester / just post-announcement:

“Was it planned? / Were your trying?” Two questions so personal that if anyone stopped to think what they meant they’d never, ever ask them again.

“Do you want a boy or a girl?” I dunno. I’m kinda hoping for a kitten.

Second trimester / starting to show:

“How do you feel? / Do you feel sick?” Not. Everyone. Gets. Morning. Sickness. Also, I’m now paranoid I look as tired as I feel…

“Do you know what it is yet?” A baby?

“Are you going to find out what it is?” You mean, am I going to tell you. Maybe.

“I suppose it’s easier to buy for them once you know what they are, isn’t it?” Only if you live for stereotypes…

Third trimester:

“How long do you have left?” In life? Who knows?

“Aren’t first babies always late?” *sigh* No. Also, ‘late’ and ‘early’ are faintly ridiculous terms when you consider that anything from 38 weeks to 42 weeks is a normal, full term pregnancy.

“Are you nervous?” Nah, not at all. Facing up to pushing a 7-10lb butterball out of myself for the first time, knowing that it’s a perfectly natural process but beset with negative impressions of childbirth from ridiculously inaccurate media portrayals doesn’t get to me in the slightest. *stare*

“Have you thought of a name?” Yes. No, I’m not going to tell you what it is.

In all seriousness, I sound much crankier than I actually feel, and I don’t really mind people asking me things; it’s nice that they care, or at least make a show of caring! Just once in a while it would be nice if the pattern varied, but hey, I’m sure I’ve done it myself in the past.

And once she’s out, I’ll probably default back to The Questions towards other people, too. Oops.