Category: Uncategorized

Space Invaders

Recently, I’ve noticed a phenomenon when I’m out running on the streets of London, or just walking to work. I’ll be on a pavement or a path that is over two meters wide and I’m walking along with virtually no one else around me. I’ll spot a man ahead of me, usually middle-aged or older, and as we pass each other, with acres of room to spare, he’ll suddenly wave me through, as though he is creating space for me next to him. It’s usually a kind of Walter Raleigh gesture, involving an imaginary cape, and accompanied with a slight bow. What is this strange behaviour?

The first time it happened, I found myself auto-smiling in return, as though I was grateful for the gesture. Then I thought about it. Why am I saying thank you for taking up space I’m already in? Since then, I’ve always anticipated the move and powered on past, leaving the hand flourish behind me.

The Walter Raleigh move has variations – one of my *favourites* is the Comedy Jump. I can be running along, minding my own business, when I come up to a couple or a guy walking on his own. He’ll hear me coming up behind them/him and suddenly perform a clownish leap onto an adjoining path, accompanied with a loud, mock-afraid exclamation of some sort. Like I’m some sort of unexpected oncoming train. The last one actually jumped into someone’s garden. I am a normal-sized woman.

I’ve thought long and hard about why all of this happens and I’ve concluded two things. The first is about guys who are desperately trying to get a woman’s attention. Men who do a Walter Raleigh on me are invariably over fifty, and seem to love using ‘gentlemanly’ gestures to initiate a smile and maybe a conversation. They are the men who adopt that half-smile, ‘humble’ face that is designed to get women to smile back at them. It does actually take a lot of effort not to smile back, but once you’ve realised their faces are set that way ALL DAY it gets easier. They are usually the guys who love to say, ‘Give me a smile, love!’ and tell you that you look prettier when you do so. My stock response is that I’m a person, not a Christmas decoration.

These guys are cousins of the men who play little games with you to extract the same smile/conversation combo. I was at an airport recently where no fewer than three officials tried to withhold items that I owned or had just bought, just ‘for fun’. And why wouldn’t I smile? Because you’re withholding my passport and expecting me to keep putting my hand out only for you to pull the passport away in a comedy routine. When you did it again with my boarding pass and a cheese and ham baguette the joke had seriously worn off.

My second conclusion is that men do actually think I’m taking up more space than I really am. The Geena Davis Institute conducted some research which showed that if there was 17% of women in a group, the men in the group thought it was 50%. And if it was 33%, the men thought there were more women in the room than men. I wonder if, when they see me running or walking towards them, these guys see my 50% of the pavement as 75% and feel they have to leap out of the way? There has to be some sort of explanation for it.

It’s funny how, when you’re in a pub or club, the whole space-allowance thing goes out the window and *some* men use a packed venue as an excuse to touch you up. Suddenly you find the man you’re with has his arm around your waist, presumably because there’s no room for it at his side. This happened to me a couple of weeks ago. I thought about just casually removing his arm as I cringed under his grip but didn’t. He was the kind of guy who ushers women through doorways with a ‘helping’ hand on the waist or small of the back. Next time I’ll be ready and insist he goes first. Maybe I’ll give him a little encouraging pat on the bum. I often wonder if straight men touch each other as they make their way through a crowded bar – a quick pec fondle or buttock tweak might go unnoticed as they squeeze past each other. At least they’d be able to check out the competition.

An ex of mine sometimes complained about women who felt him up on the train. He did have a tight, muscled body and he reported being ‘accidentally’ fondled on his busy commuter train. He really didn’t enjoy it (who would?!) but I did think, ‘you have no idea, baby’. For most women, that sort of thing comes with a normal working day.

Perception is Everything

A few years ago, a very, very wise friend and former colleague said three important little words to me: “Perception is everything.”

I’d got a big promotion at work and wasn’t planning to move offices from my current one, but she said that people would forever associate me with my former job if I stayed where I was. At the time I didn’t buy into the idea – I thought people would simply ‘know’ what my new role was and treat me accordingly. I stayed where I was, and lo and behold, I spent around six months saying, “yes but I don’t do that job any more” to everyone from the receptionist to the senior management. The person who was doing my former job suffered from the same treatment. Frustration all round.

I learned that once you get typecast into a role, you are to some extent there forever in people’s minds and you will spend a good deal of time having to re-educate them. And in some cases, you never will. I’d moved from being the director of a children’s non-fiction list to the Publishing Director of a list that included fiction, picture books and non fiction. Even though I represented the company on numerous occasions speaking about their fiction titles (mainly The Hunger Games, Captain Underpants or The Brilliant World of Tom Gates), people would associate me with non fiction. When I appeared at The Bookseller Children’s Conference about three years ago to talk about middle-grade illustrated fiction, The Bookseller journalist used my one mention of the non-fiction series Horrible Histories in her report for the magazine. Although that is a great brand to be associated with, I nearly screamed with frustration.

When I left that role two years ago, it was partly to cut the ties of that typecasting. Even though I was managing a hugely varied children’s list, people were forever associating me with Horrible Histories so I needed to go. I got the chance to move into publishing for adults – an opportunity afforded to nearly no one in the industry – so I grabbed it. What better way to change people’s perception than to move into a totally different sector?

I spent two years in that role and recently came to the conclusion that I needed to be back in the world of children’s books. I’ve just attended Bologna Children’s Book Fair in order to re-establish connections there and it felt like a homecoming. It is a wonderful world to belong to and it is the right one for me. Though it’s a rare thing now, there were a few people still assuming that I was looking for a role in non fiction. Thankfully I was only too ready to update them on my ‘actual’ experience.

I’ve found that, in life and work, my role is to point out the reality of a situation, to counter any misconceptions. In many ways, it’s the substance of this blog: if I feel that people are labouring under an illusion about something, I have to tell the truth about it. They are often surprised by my truths, and I enjoy the process of enlightenment. That sounds intensely arrogant, but I believe in getting to the truth of a situation and acknowledging it. (I’m happy to have my truths contested by other truths, if I’m seen to be labouring under any illusions).

I’ve found that people are very adept at creating an idea about someone and purveying it to others, largely to deflect the same idea about themselves. I first noticed this with my ex-husband’s best friend who used to love telling the rest of his friends that my ex was a hypochondriac. Oh how they used to ‘banter’ about it until I realised that the actual hypochondriac was the best friend. He didn’t like it when I pointed it out – I spoiled his ‘fun’.

It’s happened to me in recent years: friends who enjoy a drink or two label me as someone who enjoys a drink or two. It takes me a few minutes to cry, “hang on a minute!” before the die is cast. We’re both standing there holding huge glasses of wine and suddenly I’m the drinker. Likewise, I was once told that I was ‘sloppy’ in my work by the biggest purveyor of professional sloppiness I’ve ever encountered. The sheer, naked brazenness of that comment took my breath away. The last thing I will ever be in this world is sloppy and they knew it. (Thankfully everyone around them knew it too.)

I’m getting much better at spotting the signs of this ‘transference’ and am much quicker to counteract it these days. Perception IS everything and I want people to perceive the real me, not the one they’ve just decided to create in their heads to make themselves feel better.

Spoilt Rotten

It’s my birthday today, and like every year, I brace myself for the inevitable, “hope someone is spoiling you rotten” comment. Every time I see it on other people’s Facebook messages I think of them sitting on a throne wearing a towelling robe, attended by manservants who are bringing champagne, cakes and all manner of gifts while they gorge on everything in sight.

This has never happened to me in my whole history of birthdays (except maybe the time I turned eight and my parents had bought me a garden swing’). Even while I was married it was never a Spoilt Rotten situation. More often than not, i was frogmarched round a shopping mall in Reading in search of something he could buy me.

Exhausting.

Anyway, now I’m free and single, this is even less likely to happen and I’m largely ok with that. But last year, the comment came and I got really upset about it and railed on social media. “Just exactly do you think is going to spoil me rotten, eh? Who?” There is no secret Spoiling Rotten Fella who pops out of the woodwork on the day to make me breakfast in bed and whisk me off to Paris, people. There are no ‘loved ones’ to bring me a handmade card and make me blow out candles on a badly iced cake.

I promptly took myself out shopping and splurged.

Last year, I did allow myself to wallow a little bit in the unfairness of it all. Until the day of my party, that is, which of course had been arranged by me. As friends turned up, laden with smiles, flowers, gifts and hugs, one friend whispered in my ear, “spoilt rotten, I think.”

And that’s when I decided I had been.

This year, I remembered the phrase again. It came up on a radio show I was listening to, where a guest described being “spoilt rotten by her loved ones.” The old familiar feeling washed over me as I realised I was entering the Birthday Zone again, and someone might inadvertently say it again.

“I’m ready for you,” I thought.

Then something happened. Last week I had a difficult situation to deal with and I’ve been overwhelmed by the show of support and love from all the good people in my life. Neighbours have rallied round me, friends have texted and called regularly to check I’m ok and people have taken time out of their busy lives to talk things through with me and offer advice.

Yes, I’ve been spoilt rotten yet again. And by real loved ones who never cease to amaze me with their heartfelt support for me.

So happy birthday to me.

But really, guys, today is definitely all about you.

x

Whiplash

What exactly is charisma? People use the word all the time to describe film stars, musicians, political leaders and revolutionaries. It’s a ‘compelling attractiveness or charm that can inspire devotion in others.’ It can be someone who holds your attention with a smile or a few carefully chosen words. I once had the good fortune to meet Irish author Roddy Doyle, the perfect exponent of it. He speaks to you like you are the only person in the room, eyes sparkling, quiet humour bouncing off his tongue. Just for you. That’s the best of it.

But what of the other side of charisma? When charm is part of a sociopathic character set that allows someone to reel devotees in, unwittingly, into their web of abuse and keep them coming back for more? What of those charismatic dictators in history who’ve managed to convince entire countries to carry out evil deeds in their name?

I thought a lot about this subject after going to see the movie Whiplash at the cinema, and having a profound response to the bullying in the movie. Quite rightly, JK Simmons won an Oscar for brilliantly playing a charismatic music teacher whose idea of nurturing his students is to take them to breaking point. ‘Good job’ are the worst two words you can say to anyone, he says in the movie. But for me, they are the best.

What really struck me about this movie was the divide in audience reaction to it. It took me a while to process what I’d just experienced: that the astonishing levels of bullying in the movie were entertaining to the audience I was sitting with, who laughed when the sociopathic teacher began yet another hideous round of cruelty with his student. When the treatment forces the young drummer, played by Miles Teller, to raise his game, I was surprised that people found it empowering and cheered him on. I simply saw someone who was falling under the spell of so-called ‘charisma’, who was so desperate for validation that he kept going back for more. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Stockholm Syndrome.

When I came out of the movie I felt angry that I had appeared to watch a glorification of bullying that had audiences laughing and feeling inspired at the end. I railed against it on social media and found reviews that had it billed as a ‘dark comedy’. I couldn’t, and still don’t, see the funny side. Then I found a review that billed it as “Stockholm Syndrome set to a killer beat.” Yes – that’s it, I thought. The movie is about that very dynamic – the way that a person, especially a young, impressionable one, can be captivated by the charisma of an older, allegedly wiser one. Once I saw it through that lens, I felt much more able to appreciate the brilliance of the movie and the acting in it.

But what of those who disagreed with me? Largely these were men, used to a culture based on levels of abuse. It didn’t surprise me that some of them were public schoolboys, whose entire lives had been built on structures of abusive relationships. To some, that lives on in the form of ‘banter’ – I used to try and defend my ex-husband against the taunts of his friends until he took me to one side and told me it’s just how things are between them. They had horrible nicknames for each other, and took the piss out of each other relentlessly. I felt aggrieved on his behalf, but it was all part of the nature of straight male relationships, apparently. Lads and bantz.

After Whiplash, a number of guys asked me if it was really bullying if the music student wanted the abuse in order to make him a better drummer? Of course it bloody is, guys. Open your eyes. The student was going back for more because he was under the thrall of his abuser, not objectively seeking out a teacher who would take him to the very edge of existence.

It really does disturb me, the fact that a number of my acquaintances found the movie inspiring and empowering. It inspired nothing but loathing for the abuser in my mind, and pity for the victim, however great he became at drumming. Surely this isn’t the only way to achieve creative greatness – are we saying we can only achieve it if someone else is pushing us beyond our boundaries? I’d rather achieve it on my own, thanks.

I know that in this situation that I would just get my things and walk away. I wouldn’t try and go back to impress my abuser, I’d simply never look in his ‘charismatic’ eyes ever again. Why would you want to impress someone like that? These are simply deeply insecure people who have mastered a way of exacting revenge for that on others. I see it for what it is and I’m very glad I do.

I’ve watched people look into the eyes of would-be dictators and crave their attention and it makes me very sad. What’s inspiring and empowering is watching someone extract themselves from that situation, if they can. So I didn’t cheer at the end of Whiplash, I simply felt loathing and pity. I am genuinely interested in other people’s reactions to it, so do comment away.

 

 

The Female Gaze

I’ve been thinking a lot this week about the female gaze and why it is so unarticulated in our society. I’ve been thinking about how our lives, as women, are so dominated by the male gaze that it is almost beyond articulation. It is so pervasive that we almost forget that we have the ability to gaze right back.

It is starting to edge its way into our consciousness, as the Fifty Shades of Grey movie is framed with a woman’s gaze in mind. Allegedly, it is made for her viewing pleasure, and the conversation is extending into female-friendly porn, in which the focus of attention is not only on the pleasure the woman is receiving, but on the beauty of the man who is delivering it.

But from the onset of puberty – and let’s face it, some time before that, if we’re honest – women are raised to be aware of the eyes of men upon them. It starts with a gentle commentary on your appearance from both women and men in the family and their friends, and becomes a way of life. We must look a certain way to please men, we are told, and we find ourselves actively pursuing it, even if we are just on the way to the gym. We run marathons in makeup, we wear heels to go to Homebase and we stop ourselves from having a nice dessert in case our thighs make us into undesirable objects.

No one appears to be actively setting these rules. They’re just there. And everyone buys into them and passes them on. Women and men, boys and girls. The fashion designer Oscar de la Renta once gave this advice to women: “walk like you have three men walking behind you.” When I first heard it I smiled, and thought, “yeah, I’d sashay away.” Recently, though, I’ve thought, “what happens if I’m the one walking behind three men?” And I’ve discovered an unusual thing.

Men get really freaked out when you turn the tables on them and gaze back. Try it. Walk directly behind a guy (not too stalkerishly close), or stand behind him quietly on an escalator or in a lift. He’ll slow down to let you pass, he’ll turn round to check who’s there, he’ll manoeuvre round so his back isn’t to you any more. I see it happen almost every day. If I sense a guy is running too close behind me in the park, gazing at my behind, I slow down to let him pass. He sprints away or stops, unable to have my eyes on him. Because, you know, I might be critiquing him in the way that he’s just done to me. Unthinkable.

This week, on one single trip up and down the street I live on, I saw two men empty the contents of their nostrils onto the pavement and one who spat in front of me and then again just behind me. This followed an extraordinary scene where I’d witnessed a neighbour of mine picking his nose in full view of everyone on the tube. I’ve always been fascinated by these acts of public indecency – especially men who pick their noses in cars, oblivious to who may be watching. Then it occurred to me. They do it because they think no one is watching. They’re not used to being watched so they assume it’s not happening.

Believe me, there is always someone watching, and it is usually a woman. Just because we’re not loudly commenting on what men are doing, it doesn’t mean we haven’t noticed. Theirs is a shouty spectator sport, ours is a quietly watchful game of chess.

As I’ve got older, I’ve had to adjust to the ‘cloak of invisibility’ slowly descending around me, as the male gaze opts for a younger, fresher target. At first, I felt really sad about it, but as the months have gone on, I’ve realised that it is one of the most liberating things that has ever happened to me. I’ve realised that I don’t need that approval and I don’t need to seek out the validation, as I used to do. What has happened is that my own gaze has been fully activated and I’m suddenly seeing the world outside myself differently. And it’s good.

Far from being invisible, I am achieving another level of eye contact with all sorts of people. I make a choice about the objects of my own gaze and often find a woman of the same age with whom I’ll exchange a smile, or a younger man, having a sneaky peek. There are people out there who see you in different ways, and not just as a sexual object. I find myself looking beyond the hot guys on the tube (if there are any not picking their noses) to the full range of people sitting around me. It’s almost as if not being gazed at as much has allowed me to look outside myself more confidently and find connections that I may well have missed before.

Of course I’m well aware that this could all be just a huge coping mechanism that my brain is initiating to allow me to experience ageing without knifing myself. And do you know what? It might be. My brain never fails to astound me with its ability to take each supposedly devastatingly awful birthday milestone and turn it into something unexpected and rather wonderful. I don’t have to make eye contact with the guy who is trying to attract my attention by shouting as I run round the park, or smile when he says, ‘cheer up, love.’ I can choose to look ahead, and smile at a young woman who is running the other way, or watch a dog fetching a ball.

My gaze is the one that matters, and my eyes have never been so focused on the road ahead.

Flying Solo – a further comment

Today I was asked to provide comments for a Huffington Post article on solo female travel, in response to this scaremongering one on the Mail Online. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-2960567/Most-dangerous-holiday-destinations-women.html

They didn’t print everything I said, so here’s the full thing:

The only times I’ve particularly felt unsafe while travelling were when I had let my preconceptions about a country fuel my fears. I have been holidaying alone for nearly five years and taking those first steps into a Thai town, a Turkish city or an Egyptian village are incredibly scary. I once allowed myself to believe I’d been drugged in a shop in Dahab by a shopkeeper, when in fact it was probably a panic attack brought on by fear. Similarly in Kenya, a scary group of men on motorbikes I kept seeing when out running on my own turned out to be a taxi rank. Of course, women are viewed differently in these countries, and it would be stupid to not be on your guard, but as someone who is fully aware of the potential hazards, I walk in confidently and try to see things as they really are.

I always watch men on holiday with a sense of envy. They are completely free to roam wherever they like, without much fear for their safety. There is a reason why some of the best travel books are written by men and not by women, and I long to be as free as those guys riding round Thailand on motorbikes without a care in the world. But I know my situation isn’t the same as theirs and have to adapt my experiences to fit.

My advice to any solo woman traveller would be, be aware of the potential hazards by reading up before you go. Beware of scaremongering features like this one in the Mail, and opt for sensibly written guides from Lonely Planet or Rough Guides. Yes, it’s wrong to have to restrict your behaviour or clothing options in certain settings, but it does make sense. I do agree with this article in terms of trusting your gut instinct when it comes to certain situations. If something or someone is making you feel uncomfortable, get out of there, even if you discover later that your fears were unfounded.

I think it’s a shame that many women will read an article like this, which is typical Mail scaremongering, and be put off from travelling alone and discovering the world. Many people would prefer women to stay in a domestic setting and not discover the joy of solo travel. Yes, you should know the hazards and look at other intelligent travellers’ tips on staying safe, but never let it stop you from taking those steps into the wider world.

(Edited comments appear here: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/02/23/women-solo-travel-saftey_n_6734512.html?1424697457)

 

Against All Odds

This week I read the tragic news about food blogger Wilkes McDermid, who threw himself off the roof terrace of a London restaurant in a planned suicide. In his ‘goodbye’ blog post, he stated that he was simply ‘accelerating Darwinism’, as a 39-year-old Asian man, doomed to be alone forever. He’d conducted some informal research over a number of years that indicated women prefer Caucasian or black men over Asians, and if not, then they would almost certainly be tall and/or wealthy Asians. His blog is insistent in its reasoning and maintains that while McDermid couldn’t control his romantic life, he could control the length of it. He could, and he did, put an end to his suffering.

What an unbelievably tragic state of being. To take oneself out of the running, off the face of the earth because you believe you will never find love. At this time of year, as we approach Valentine’s Day, I’m sure there are so many people thinking similar thoughts, but of those who say they’ve given up on love, most don’t actually believe it in their heart of hearts. There is always a glimmer of hope, right?

What has struck me about this story is the science behind it. When I left my marriage four years ago, I had no idea that science had anything to do with partner-finding. Call me a romantic, but I’ve always laboured under the idea of being so struck by another person that any consideration of current life situation, age, job, looks – whatever –would go by the wayside. I’ve scoffed when people said, ‘maybe the time wasn’t right’ about a particular guy I’ve dated, and I’ve thought, ‘if the connection is right, who gives a fuck about the timing?!’

Isn’t that what’s glorious about love? The inconvenience of it? That it pushes every other consideration out of the way?

What I discovered was that suddenly, everything was all about the timing. Well-meaning friends told me I had to be ‘on the same page’ as someone, at the right life stage, to make a go of it. After my marriage, I’d had a ridiculously inconvenient year-long passionate love affair with someone ten years younger than me, but in the end, he’d thrown ‘timing’ back at me: a ten-year age gap is fine in your thirties and forties, he’d said, but not so good in your sixties and seventies. WTF? I thought we didn’t give a shit about that. Apparently ‘we’ did.

Since then, I have learned to accept certain unexpected facts about dating in my forties. Firstly, that men my age aren’t relieved to finally find a single, independent woman of their own age who doesn’t want children. They are frequently at the stage where they want the option of creating a Mini Me, if they haven’t already got one. They are even less relieved to find a woman who has a successful career and a brain, it seems – it is a challenge to their manhood. Woe betide me when they find out I’m a feminist – they smile and say, “I have a problem with feminists.” I say, “I have a problem with men who don’t believe a woman should have equal rights to men,” and we leave it there. Smiling.

No, men my age are still searching in the twenty-five to thirty-five age bracket, and I can’t really blame them, if they still want children. I’m always honest about my age online – forty-seven – and my profile only really attracts much older or younger men. And let me reassure you now, that in no way am I complaining about the latter.

Online, people are cast aside for simply not fitting a desired profile – not being the right age, height, weight, race, religion or not having the right job, location or marital status (eharmony wouldn’t let me join until I was properly divorced, not separated). This makes me think that online dating isn’t for me. Why would I want a partner who was judging me on a set of statistics? I want someone who will catch my eye on a train, a beach, in a bank or a checkout queue and want to get to know me. Just me, standing there, no statistics hanging on a board around my neck with a mugshot.

I don’t want the science of it, I want the randomness of it and I will always believe that is out there for me. And if he is shorter than I thought he would be, hasn’t got the ‘right’ job, is age- or religion-inappropriate I won’t give a shit about it. There will be a connection between both of us that no one else can see – they won’t be able to work out the science behind it because it will be beyond analysis and data. I feel so saddened by Wilkes McDermid’s death because he believed that this wasn’t out there for him.

I believe that if you are only looking for a socially approved relationship then you are working within a very narrow dating channel. You will only properly ‘see’ age-appropriate people with the right height/weight/job/hair colour ratio. If you look beyond a tick-box life, as I do, you will find that like-minded people see you. There are fewer of them, but the recognition of another soul with the same outlook is a moment to treasure. I’d rather wait for one single moment like that than tick any boxes, even if the odds are seemingly stacked against us.

 

—————-

RIP Wilkes McDermid – his final blog post and message:

Final Message… thank you everyone…

REASONS: My final blog entry… love you all…

What I Talk About When I Talk About Reading

I’ve been thinking a lot about reading recently, after a reading fest on holiday over Christmas in which I chewed my way through four novels and finished off a fifth. You could say I’m a voracious reader, but I’m not. I used to be.

A phenomenon of recent years for me has been the loss of my reading ‘mojo’ – in times of stress I’ve found I lose my ability to concentrate on anything longer than a magazine article, or even a tweet. Novels are completely out of the question. The first time it happened to me I was really scared. All my life I’ve chain-read books – probably from the moment I discovered Enid Blyton’s Mallory Towers I’ve had a book on the go, and my heaving bookshelves are testament to it. My heaving bookshelves are also a testament to how much reading I did through the nineties and noughties – there is a definite tail-off in the tenties and I blame the recurring loss of my Reading Mojo.

When, after that first episode, my RM returned I whooped for joy. Oh thank goodness. It was on holiday and I’d taken a few novels with me, just in case. Discovering Japanese author Haruki Murakami was the greatest joy – you could never experience the surreal world he creates with words in a movie or a TV show, which is what I’d turned to in a book-less world. I’d also taken Fifty Shades of Grey, which I have to say, with its terrible, laughable writing and implausible plotting, made me race through a novel in record time. So much so I wished I’d taken books two and three on holiday with me to feed the reawakening beast of my RM. At that time, E L James’s trilogy wasn’t a global phenomenon so I sat reading it in the hotel and on the beach in Turkey, the only one unashamedly brandishing the grey cover in public.

Straight after that holiday, the RM disappeared again but I realised what was causing it. The twin troubles of work/life stress and the distraction of social media. I knew that as soon as I prepared to read a novel in bed, I’d be checking my phone instead. I switched to reading an online newspaper which gave me the short bursts of reading material I could handle. I started to enjoy the writing of great journalists, especially female ones, and got into intelligent TV series like Breaking Bad, House of Cards or The Bridge. I could consume no end of ‘content’ but the desire for it stopped short of novels or narrative non fiction because they took too long to consume. I wanted my content fast and immediate.

Having once been an advocate of e-reading – I set up a digital list in my former job and believed that the whole world would go ‘e’ in a matter of years – reading e-books just didn’t do it for my mojo. Something was lost from the experience of reading Richard Burton’s diaries that I knew would come from having the book in my hands, continually turning to the cover image, the plate-section images or the back-cover copy, to supplement the world I was entering. I read about half before leaving it alone. It’s still unfinished.

I know lots of people who only read on Kindles and they tend to be the really voracious ones, who always have to be reading something. For me, it’s not just the act of taking in words from a page or a screen, it’s an immersive thing where exactly the right book has to be chosen, the physical setting around me has to be perfect and I have to be extremely comfortable. I can’t just sit on the sofa at home reading anything – I get bored and it’s not the most comfortable thing for me (my neck hurts). Rarely does a book capture me so much that I would sit on the sofa reading. Even now, writing this, I’ve left my current book, The Post Office Girl by Stefan Zweig, on my bedside table, preferring to sit with my laptop on the sofa while I contemplate what I’ve just done – lain in my warm bed with coffee for a couple of hours reading. Quietly. No distractions.

It’s such a rare thing that the RM keeps going after a holiday that I almost want to run around shouting for joy. I have to be careful about what I read next so I don’t scare it away again. Zweig is a master of storytelling and it is this that propels me on, as well as the joy of discovering his post-World War One Austrian world. I’ve always found foreign locations a really big reading-mojo turn-on.

I rarely read a novel that is based in the UK –  I mainly gravitate towards exotic locations and ‘other’ experiences and UK-based ones are too familiar. I credit Gabriel Garcia Marquez with this gravitation, as he was the start of my lifelong love of Latin American writing and magical realism. His death is the only author’s I’ve ever actually cried over. I credit him with changing the way my brain works in my late teens, with Love in the Time of Cholera. Since then, I’ve chewed through them all: Allende, Esquivel, Llosa, the more recent Junot Diaz, and Irish author Niall Williams who writes in the same tradition. My current passion for the surreal realism of Murakami fits with this trend of loving stories of ordinary life in exotic locations that are tinged with magic and the unexpected. I want my life to reflect all of those things.

And then there’s my passion for travel writing. I love joining an author – my favourite is Paul Theroux (Louis’ dad) – as he sets out on a journey into the unknown. I travel in my mind with them, every step of the way, and I’m overcome with post-holiday blues when the books end. Because men are more easily able to travel alone, most of the writers I read are single and male and I long for their unfettered freedom. I think that’s why I find them really enticing, and why I loved Cheryl Strayed’s Wild so much. She entered that realm and as a woman, she is a rare thing.

Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts is probably my favourite cross-breed of writing – a true story ‘enhanced’ by the author with unexpected and extraordinary events. I don’t care that he’s embellished the story of his time in India – it’s still one of the best books I’ve ever read, and at one thousand pages long, I was surprised when I still didn’t want it to end.

With the recent return of my reading mojo, I was reminded how lucky I am to be able to access the world of writing when I learned that former model Alicia Douvall has only just learned the alphabet. In her mid-thirties. She appeared on Celebrity Big Brother (I watch crap TV when I’m not reading) and admitted that letters and shapes were new to her world. I can’t imagine a scenario where I wasn’t able to become immersed in the world that an author has created and I realised that it is a privilege. Whether it’s a journey, a magically enhanced world or a brilliant bit of social history, all of these things change the way my brain works and make me see the world in subtly different ways. Reading someone like Zweig, you realise you’re accessing the brain of someone who lives 100 years ago in post-Archduke Ferdinand Austria. How else could you do that? No amount of movies or TV is going to give you that unique insight into another human.

So for now, the Reading Mojo is back and I am grateful. Long live the Reading Mojo.

The Enlightenment

Yesterday was a day that featured both the demise of Page Three in The Sun (unconfirmed) and a celebrity reality TV show featuring at least two former glamour models. Four of the female houseguests have had cosmetic surgery (five if you count the one that left earlier in the week) and one of them has had eighteen boob jobs and umpteen attempts to make herself look like Barbie with cosmetic surgery.

Call me a genius, but it doesn’t take much to see that there’s a connecting story here. I watched with horror as Alicia Douvall – she of the eighteen boob jobs – recounted that she’d only just learned ‘letters and shapes’ with her three-year-old daughter and that all that mattered to her was having great ‘tits’ and to be ‘fuckable’ to men. Oh dear god.

A male Twitter follower seemed surprised when he observed that Alicia’s self-esteem was clearly tied to being desirable to men. Well, yeah. Don’t men know that most straight women tie their self-esteem to being desirable to men from an early age and that we are encouraged to do so for the rest of our lives? It seems they don’t, and I am surrounded by well-meaning men of all ages who tell me that this sort of thing doesn’t exist. They genuinely don’t see it. They’re not in a world where it matters how fuckable they are but they constantly rate women on how desirable they are. It’s the Way Things Are.

I grew up in a household where The Sun and Titbits were the main sources of reading material. A typical ’70s upbringing involved watching Miss World with your dad, and all voting on the ones you thought were the prettiest ladies, commenting on their hips, their boobs, their hair. I loved it. I thought about which one of dance troupe Legs & Co I’d like to be when I grew up (Cherry Gillespie) and I looked at the Page 3 girls and hoped I’d look like Linda Lusardi when I was older. I blushed when various family members and friends would comment on my body – no part of it was left unscrutinised by the people that surrounded me, male and female. I’d say that started around the age of eight.

Even before her death in her 70s, my mum would still comment on my clothes, body, hair or face whenever I saw her. It was like a default setting and it is still a really common first point of conversation between women. You often get ‘nice hair’ or ‘did you lose weight?’ before you’re asked about your Actual Life. I now make a point of only saying stuff like that once all the important things are out of the way, but I still say it, mainly because I know it will boost the confidence of the woman hearing it.

In my twenties and thirties, once my crippling body-image problems had left me (go figure) I just got used to the running commentary on my appearance and I enjoyed the ‘game’ of being attractive to men. Like many young women, I looked for constant affirmation and got it from friends and passing strangers. I got a kick out of looking good and being sexually attractive. It was fun. It is fun. Losing a significant amount of weight in my late thirties gave me another confidence boost and the attention I got rocketed. I thrived on it for years.

It’s only recently, having done all the man-pleasing sexy dresses, heels and lingerie things, that I’ve realised what I was doing. And why I so don’t need to do it now. I don’t need male attention, approval or commentary to exist. Much of the commentary is designed to objectify you and confirm a sense of entitlement to your body, and it’s no longer something I would seek out.

I wonder if this sort of enlightenment only happens when you hit a certain age, and this is the reason why there is often a tension between younger and older women on the subject. Hearing Katie Hopkins and Michelle Visage suggest to Alicia Douvall in the Big Brother house that she could try just being herself, without the tits, seemed to demonstrate that nicely.

Often, young women (and men) hit back and accuse older women of being ugly, undesirable and just plain jealous of them. What if we can see what you’re doing and just want you to make you aware of what’s happening to you? In their desire to become sexually desirable both Alicia and Katie Price wrecked perfectly beautiful young faces and bodies. That, in my view, is a damn shame.

I think young women aspire to be Page Three models because it empowers them in a world where their primary currency is sexual desirability. I really am all for women owning their sexuality – god knows I do – and having the right to take an active part in the free expression of it, but I’d just like them to know the context in which they are doing it. Their bodies are the primary expression of womanhood in a national newspaper that is being viewed by eight-year-old Lisas who aspire to be them, and learn that their only currency is youth, beauty (in a narrowly defined sense) and sex. They should know that in the same newspaper, women are vilified for being as sexually active as men. The only acceptable face of womanhood is a meek, static, exposed one on Page Three.

By all means, be part of a world where female sexuality is celebrated in all its diversity – be part of the tribe of women who make money from their bodies in webcam accounts, table dancing, erotic imagery and female-friendly porn. Just know that this is a world where we are objectified and forced to fit a stereotype from an early age. Ask yourself if what you are doing is a free expression of your sexuality and the body you were born with.

Just ask the question.

 

 

Wild Women

This week, I wanted to write something in response to seeing Cheryl Strayed’s memoir Wild on the big screen, brought to life by Reese Witherspoon. More than any other book I’ve read, this story has resonated so much with me that I can’t believe someone has lived it and told it. I first heard the author reading it out loud on the radio and I was transfixed by it. Who was this woman singing my life with her words?

In her twenties, Cheryl set off on a journey of self-destruction, sleeping around and taking heroin, until she didn’t recognise herself. She cheated on her loving husband. When her mother died suddenly at 45 of cancer, she divorced her husband and decided to become the woman she told her mother she would be. She began with a baptismal trek through the wilderness – a 1,1000-mile hike along the US’s Pacific Crest Trail.

Now I’ve never done heroin (or any other hard drug for that matter) but I know what it is to walk out on a husband who is a nice guy, a safe pair of hands, and step out into the unknown. Something compels you to go and much of that has to do with living a life that your mother hoped you would live, or the one you think she wanted for you. For women in particular, it is a baton that gets passed on from generation to generation, even if they never vocalise it during a lifetime. There is an understanding that somehow you will improve on the life of the woman that created you, and that it is your duty to do so.

There is a point in the movie when Cheryl snarkily tells her mother,“I’m just so much more sophisticated than you were at my age.” Her mother retorts that that was always the plan. We constantly see ourselves reflected back and forth between generations of women, and although I’ve never had the privilege of having a daughter of my own, I feel the same way about my friends’ daughters, or young women among my group of friends.

It is always the plan. I know my mother wanted more for me than she had had herself, professionally, romantically, economically and everything-ally. And I have spent my life trying to make that happen, especially since she died sixteen years ago.

For me, the grieving for her mother in the movie was the note that struck home. In a series of flashbacks, we see Cheryl’s vibrant, playful mother, played by Laura Dern, making a life for herself and her children away from an abusive husband. She is a woman who decides to go to college at the same time as her daughter (the college runs a special mother-daughter scheme), and who sees herself as a mother first and foremost, an independent woman second. She passes the baton to Cheryl, who puts herself through an independence right-of-passage, on the infamous PCT.

My mother was an exceptionally bright woman who couldn’t go to college because the Second World War got in the way. She entered into a very happy marriage with a man she loved, but I could always tell she wanted to see me get more out of life than just being a housewife with kids. When I finally tore myself away from the family home at twenty-two to go to college, she vicariously shared in my academic and subsequent professional success every step of the way. I always felt as though every A* grade or job offer was a gift for her and in many ways, I’m still offering her my personal achievements. I think she’d have liked this blog.

The grief for her passing hit me like a steam train. I’ll never forget how physical it was – I felt as though a boulder had been strapped to my chest. I suddenly realised the real meaning behind getting things ‘off your chest.’ It sat there, pressing down on me, unwilling to move. For days I found I didn’t cry – I just moved around in a fug, unable to really grasp what had happened. My sister and I threw ourselves into the paperwork and logistics of sorting out a funeral – I still think all that stuff is put there deliberately just to keep you busy.

I remember going into her local supermarket in Wales a few days later, just to pick up a few things. I suddenly had a flashback of her standing there, holding a basket with a few strange things in it. A tin of salmon, a carton of yoghurt. That’s when the grief got me.

Cheryl Strayed had her moment on top of a mountain, as she watched her walking boots bouncing away down the side of it during a rest stop. She was left to construct some shoes to walk to the next town in, out of duct tape and a pair of sandals. But she carried on.

And this will sound like a cliché, but someone once told me clichés are there because they’re true. We are all wearing our mother’s shoes but at some point we have to construct a new pair of our own to walk in.