1. A teen’s take on feminism and why we need it RIGHT NOW

   March 8, 2013 by @NotRollergirl

   Sophia Valentine is a talented 17 year old writer. She has recently discovered the power of feminism after realising that female sexuality is often expressed and discussed in a highly sexist way. Here are her views on what it’s like to grow up in an overly sexualised society.

   

   Image from www.thecollegefix.com

   As a teenage girl growing up in Britain in 2013, it can be nearly impossible to negotiate the issue of sex. Under constant pressure from the media, society and your peers, the mixed messages you receive can seem overwhelming.

   Recently, my mother announced that sexting was “shocking. [It’s] so detrimental, and children are being sexualised so young” And yet, to many teenagers, there is no line between texting and sexting. It’s simply becoming the norm. Most of my friends have experienced sexting in some form or another, and I’ve seen the persistence of teenage boys who want a “photo” – many of them are willing to nag incessantly until they get what they want, or try to guilt trip my friends. They don’t understand the meaning of the word “no.” Our parents are the generation who grew up with Playboy at the extreme end of the scale – now any child with a smartphone can watch pornography with relative ease. And what is the effect of this? Too often, porn is seen as creating over-expectant adolescent boys, who expect all women to be as willing for sex as the porn stars they see.

   John Bishop has joked about using porn to instruct his son, claiming he told him: “Actually son, they’re not usually that up for it.” But what about the effect of porn on women? Teenage girls see porn stars behaving in a certain way and feel they must mimic it. We are not objects, to be used and discarded. For me, the idea that a partner’s expectations of me are determined by pornography is ridiculous – real women have feelings and needs, they are not here simply to satisfy but also expect to BE satisfied. And what about when a woman doesn’t meet a man’s sexual expectations?

   Rape. The idea that someone will not respect my wishes is terrifying. The idea that someone would deliberately ignore my request to stop, especially in a situation as intimate as sex, is frightening. When I say no, I mean no: it is not a request, it is a command. It means stop. Being aware that almost 80 per cent of rape victims knew their attacker makes me fearful about future relationships. And where are these rapists and prospective rapists learning to behave this way? It can only be because they see women as objects, and they have been taught to prioritise their sexual urges over anything else.

   Which situation is “better”, in the eyes of society: sexual assault by an unknown attacker, or by a partner? Is either “better” at all? When I put the question to my friends, they agreed that often, sexual assault by a partner could be perceived as “worse”: each day you must face the person who hurt you, and something previously intimate is now threatening and negative. For me, while I recognise that rape by an unknown attacker may lead to mistrust of strangers, rape by a partner causes something far more severe – mistrust of the ones you love. You cannot recover without the support of those you trust – and yet you cannot trust them either. 85% of rapes go unreported, and often sexual assault by a partner is dismissed by the victim, who may begin to blame themselves. Anyone on the outside of an abusive relationship might wonder why the abused doesn’t leave – but more often than not, the abuse itself has left them without the strength, space and spirit to be able to walk away.

   The term “rape” has become an almost empty threat. Often, it is made to seem like an unavoidable destination: “if you dress like a slut, you’ll get raped.” To me, this use of a serious criminal act with severe repercussions as an inevitable concept is shocking. Whilst teenager drivers are often warned not to drink and drive, they are not told “if you drive under the influence, you WILL die.” With all other crimes, there is a degree of possibility indicated in the warning. You might be attacked. It may have serious consequences. With rape, there is no indication of doubt indicated in the language surrounding it – women are taught it will happen.

   For my generation, what hope is there? Adults condemn our actions, yet they are the result of a society that is constantly finding new ways to exploit young people. Too often, teenagers feel suffocated by societal pressures. For many teenage girls, feminism is an unknown concept, a “dirty word.” As a friend stated, feminism is often drummed out of us by society or overexposure, until it becomes part of the background, hidden at the back of the social consciousness.

   Teenagers, especially young women, need to know that sexism and sexual violence is never OK – and that if they speak out against it, they will be encouraged and supported. We look to so many different sources of information in order to find out how to behave. Will women’s magazines tell us how to get a boyfriend? Will porn tell us how to make him happy? But feminism needs to infiltrate and frame every fact we get given, otherwise it’s irrelevant and dangerous. Finding feminism has filled me with hope for the future. It needs to infiltrate the mainstream so that other teens use it as a source of ideas, answers and comfort.

   

   Category Feminism, News, Rants, Sexism, Sexuality | Tags: anger,feminism,rape,sexism,sexuality,teen,teenage girl | 1 Comment

   ---

2. Sexual Harassment on the Tube

   March 6, 2013 by Hannah

   

   Image from guardian.co.uk

   Sexual harassment has been front and centre in the media – apart from, of course, the Queen’s digestive system – in recent days. It’s happening on our doorsteps, in the workplace, on the public transport we all take every day to get between those two places. It’s not restricted to meek women, or bolshy women, or women who seem to flirt with the very way they put their coat on. The whistles, the gropes, the shouts have been highlighted. It’s not a matter that’s restricted to women at all – some male columnists have also stepped forward to say it’s time that their half of the species sorts it out.

   By some horrible coincidence, the week all these women I admire were speaking out about the leers, the shouts, and the touches they’re forced to endure on a daily basis was the same week I learnt the true meaning of objectification, and with it felt a little bit of my innocence drop away.

   Of course, it’s behaviour that I’d heard about before, online or in the news. I was familiar with how disgusted the subjects of catcalls from idle builders would be when they’re just trying to nip to the shops for a pint of milk. But it hadn’t happened to me, either in the small city I grew up in or the larger city I went to university in. And I didn’t think it would.

   Although not a justification in any way, I could see some sort of sense in men who don’t exercise self-control verbally lusting over my friends, like an extension of the nightclub leers of well-liquored young men, but in daylight, and arguably more creepily.

   I, on the other hand – and I say this not in self-deprecation but as a matter of fact – am decidedly plain, and a few stone overweight. I dress, most days – including the day concerned – in black tights with flat shoes and a work-appropriate skirt, topped with a high-neckline jumper or shirt, covered by a fairly long, woollen coat. I am not alluring, deliberately or otherwise. I believed – naively, ridiculously – that, as if some kind of silver lining to my appearance, it’d save me from having those experiences. I thought objectification was something that only happened to conventionally attractive people.

   Until, in the jostling to squeeze onto an already-full tube carriage last week, I felt a hand on my buttock. Not a dulled touch through the layers provided by coat and skirt, but so close to my skin, through only tights and underwear. I swiftly swept my hand down behind me, knocking the hand of a short, tubby, old man away, and giving the skirt and coat he’d pulled up a firm yank downwards.

   As the train pulled out of the station, he stood firm behind me, pressed hard against my back as if he was trying to make our body shapes fit together like jigsaw pieces. As I tried to wriggle away, using every half inch of space I could find around me, nothing changed. He was still there, unapologetically pressed against me.

   I’d recognised the man at the platform, as someone who had previously been uncomfortably close to me, an incident I brushed off as one of the pitfalls of commuting. This time, again, I wondered if it was an accident. But no matter how awkward the morning commute can be, I can’t help but feel like if you’d somehow accidentally lifted someone’s skirt and coat and touched them inappropriately, you’d say sorry. Emphatically and many times.  The man behind me said nothing, and for 3 stops continued push up against me, as nausea rose inside me and I scanned the carriage for an escape route every second of the journey.

   Like so many people, I said nothing. My instinct wasn’t to speak out, it was merely to get away. It’s an act which is easier said than done, on a train where you can barely breathe, let alone move to the other end of a carriage.

   Although in comparison to some others’ experiences, mine was very, very minor, I was surprised by how I thought about it afterwards. It wasn’t flirting. It wasn’t a compliment. It didn’t feel like a matter of lust, as I’d assumed. It didn’t feel like, I, my appearance, had anything to do with it. It was an objectification that didn’t feel related to the kind you see in magazines filled with women wearing skimpy bikinis, or less. The assumption that my appearance would “save” me was naïve and ridiculous because what had just occurred had nothing to do with my appearance. It didn’t even have anything to do with any part of me. I was reduced to less than my composite parts, barely even a woman, just a thing. I couldn’t shrug it off any more, and it made me sick to my stomach.

   But what’s truly, horrifyingly shocking is the backlash from anonymous online commenters on every single article calling out people who commit sexual harassment, so many of which seem to be men who don’t see anything wrong this behaviour. Reading the comments on an article, written by a man, which appeared in the Telegraph and speaks out about the harassment women experience on a daily basis is the intellectual equivalent of rubbing your face across the business end of a rusty rake – you pick up all sorts of shit that just makes you feel ill.

   And what it makes clear is that this isn’t really a matter of a few dodgy builders. Expecting dirty old men to refrain from putting their hands up my skirt doesn’t make me a “princess”, and doesn’t mean I’m a prude who can’t handle a bit of flirting. It’s not a matter of “well, it’s evolution, it’s human nature, we can’t help it”, because the vast majority of the men I stand close to on the tube manage to rein it in. Speaking to friends, it became clear that London is a hotspot for sexual harassment, but if it was an unavoidable part of being male, there wouldn’t be hotspots. It is not the natural order of things.

   A part of my loss of innocence was when I realised what objectification meant in the real world.

   But what’s just as tragic is this. As a nation, we’re so quick to criticise other cultures in which women aren’t deemed to be entitled to an education or allowed to drive. We’re better than that, we think. Liberated. But it’s 2013 and women are still scared to walk home alone at night. We can’t go to work without being treated as a plaything. We still feel the need to deliberately wear our scruffiest clothes in an effort to avoid being shouted at by strangers. We are made less than human every day.

   And we will not stay silent any longer.

   

   Hannah writes a most wonderful food blog called The Littlest Bakehouse, which I recommend checking out immediately. You can also find her on Twitter.

   Category Body, Feminism, Sexuality, Street harassment | Tags: feminism,harassment,sexism,tube | 1 Comment

   ---

3. Suffragette Shitty

   February 21, 2013 by The Kraken

   

   Left, Nadine Dorries. Image from Rex. Right, a poster about the hunger strikes of suffragettes in prison, from http://brontehoroine.wordpress.com. Spliced together by AWOT.

   Tell you what, you’ve just gotta love Nadine Dorries. She’s the gift that keeps on giving because just when I think she has run out of surprises she leaps out at me from any given nook with even more reason to take to this blog. Yesterday, though, she was particularly generous because she used a blog post to wail about how her being investigated by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority over alleged expenses irregularities is the same as the plight of the Suffragettes. OK. And breathe…

   What in the fuck is going on with Dorries? Has she been shooting up bong water? Well, she must have been because these suffragette-based comments are so despairing that they make me want to steal a horse and fucking well gallop over her myself. See, Dorries believes that the investigation into her expenses is a smear campaign because she appeared on I’m a Celebrity…Feed Me Koala Nads! And, get this, because she is a woman and a single mother.

   In fact, she bleated: “Because a woman died under the hooves of a horse in the quest of female emancipation and because IPSA impact upon every single parent who is or wants to be an MP and because I refuse to allow a money hungry quango to compromise my right to work, be a mother and a pet owner, I am not allowing IPSA to get away with this.”

   No, Dorries. Just no. Whatever the fuck else you do, comparing your skirmish with that of the Suffragette movement is like comparing a stubbed toe with the trials of a double leg amputee. Seriously, until the IPSA starts dragging you down the street by your ankles, tearing at your underskirts, locking you in a rat-infested cell and force feeding you by shoving a fat rubber tube down your throat you are about as far from the Suffragette movement as John McCririck on a stag night.

   Worse, Dorries is playing the gender card, like a true squirming MP. But if she’s being fingered by the IPSA it’s because there’s possible financial fuck-uppery, not because her body houses a uterus. And if she is being harassed after appearing on I’m a Sleb… it’s because she pissed off to the jungle for a month rather than doing what she is paid to do in her constituency, not because she’s familiar with the business end of a tampon.

   See, the unfair treatment she claims she is receiving is exactly what I’d expect her to receive, not as a woman but as an MP who abandoned her constituents and as a professional who may have cadged tax-payers’ money for personal expenses. And if she was a he I have no doubt that he’d get the same amount of suspicion and derision chucked at him too. If Dorries thinks she can run off with Ant n Dec to scoff bulging grubs on company time but then bark about equal rights when she gets called-out she can, quite frankly, go screw herself.

   When Dorries squawks about her rights as a woman she’s actually taking a mahoosive dump on every other woman in the country. Instantly she makes women who shout about genuine inequality look like shrieking harpees who will holler misogyny at any given opportunity. Yeah, yeah, I know the Commons and Lords are hotbeds of sexism but Dorries turning that to her advantage just because her own behaviour is biting her on the arse is offensive, not just to the women’s movement generally but to those women who fight sexism every bloody day.

   So until Dorries can prove that her gender lies at the heart of this kerfuffle, my mind will translate every word she says as utter bollocks. This isn’t about not listening to a woman who is genuinely struggling with misogyny. It’s about not listening to a woman who uses the struggles of others to cover her own arse. If Dorries thinks the Suffragettes fought for her to do that then the jungle is exactly where she belongs.

   
    The Kraken is a ‘furious and ranty ex-freelance journalist’. She has a wonderfully rage-filled blog, with the excellent title, ‘The Kraken Wakes’ and you can find her on Twitter right here. 

   Category Feminism, News, Rants | Tags: equality,nadine dorries,suffragettes | No Comments

   ---

4. It was a bad week for women

   February 20, 2013 by Ashley

   This post is taken from @Blonde_M‘s fabulous blog, Against Her Better Judgement.

   Gods above, but that was a bad, bad week for women. In amongst the other enormous breaking news stories (resigning Popes; covert ground-up horse in apparently everything; meteors hitting the Earth), a woman was shot dead in the middle of the night, allegedly by her boyfriend.

   

   Image from Jezebel

   The story has garnered far more media attention than any other case of domestic violence might because the man who’s been charged with her murder is a world-famous Paralympian athlete. This, understandably, has meant that the focus of the story has been Oscar Pistorius, rather than the victim, Reeva Steenkamp. The faint irk that she seemed to be referred to for the first 24 hours of reporting as “his girlfriend” rather than by her name was nothing in comparison to the anger felt the following day when tabloid newspapers around the world saw fit to illustrate the story with pictures of law graduate and model, who spoke out about empowering women, in the skimpiest bikinis and underwear they could find.

   Then, on Friday morning, between a tweet about a band’s new single and Bruce Willis flogging his latest film, Daybreak tweeted the following:

   

   Image from Twitter

   I’m well aware that Daybreak isn’t the epitome of high culture and sophisticated discussion. That’s fine: there’s space for both it and BBC4. But it’s a programme with an enormous audience, and one staffed by people who should know better than to put out such idiocy. ONS stats might be a deeply worrying portrayal of Britain’s attitudes towards women and sexual violence, but the responsible journalistic approach isn’t to start a “debate” where there isn’t one. It’s to educate viewers that there aren’t two sides to the argument. This might be an individual incident, but it’s individual incidents that combine to add up to a culture in which blaming victims is acceptable, when actually the only people who are responsible for crimes are those who have committed them.

   Because these two incidents came in a week when the 1 Billion Rising campaign was launched, highlighting and campaigning against the fact that one in three women will be raped or beaten in her lifetime. They came in a week when the BBC ran a deeply saddening but entirely unsurprising piece about women’s attitudes to their own safety when walking home after a night out. The verdict was unanimous: from Ramala to Kampala, Melbourne to Rio to Ottowa, women don’t feel safe. They make sure they have something they can lay hands on as a weapon should they need to. A quick, unscientific Twitter poll of followers elicited the same information. Check with your female friends: I guarantee the majority of them will have done it, at least once, if not regularly.

   Is it any wonder, really, given that – globally – there’s a culture of violence against women. It’s a systemic problem; that if we don’t speak up against it where we see it, nothing will change, and one billion more women will suffer.

   

   Blonde writes a fantastic blog which I recommend you bookmark immediately. You can also find her on Twitter.

   Category Abuse, Feminism, News | Tags: 1 Billion Rising,domestic violence,harassment,rape | No Comments

   ---

5. Feminism: A Subject I Approach With Trepidation

   January 16, 2013 by Jenni

   

   Copyright Paula Wright 2012 – image from dispatchesfromtheclaphamomnibus.blogspot.co.uk

   I am a feminist. Or at least I think I am, and therein lies the problem. I’m fairly new to the whole feminism thing, or at least new to calling the things I already thought anyway ‘feminist things’, and I’m still feeling my way through the whole thing. Here’s the thing though… it seems that there’s apparently a right way and a wrong way to be a feminist – to believe in the simple notion of equality for everyone because it appears there’s a lot of dissention amongst the ranks.

   I’ve got lots of feminist friends, I follow a lot of feminists on Twitter and they follow me, but I don’t really get into discussions about it with them, I’ve never blogged about it before and to be honest I try to avoid the subject. Why? Because there can be a lot of backlash if you’re the wrong type of feminist, it seems. There are certain names that are associated with feminism that a lot of people seem to hate for various reasons. There’s a lot of angry people in the world of Twitter who don’t like them and make it abundantly clear- “X calls herself a feminist? Well she can’t be because of these reasons…” sort of thing. And that’s fine, everyone’s entitled to an opinion on the matter.

   The thing is though, it makes it really hard for us baby feminists to find our feet because we don’t want to make a mistake, or worse, be the subject of Twitter hate ourselves because we said we liked the wrong person. “Oh… X is the subject of a lot of angry tweets saying she can’t be a feminist. Does that mean I’m not one because I quite liked that thing she wrote and her views made me think differently about feminism in the first place? Better not mention it.”

   That’s not how it should be. People shouldn’t be made to feel like they’re “doing feminism wrong” or worried that if they agree with a certain someone then they can’t be a real proper feminist. Everyone who identifies as a feminist should be encouraged to speak out, to make joyful noises on the subject of equality and get angry at people who want to pretend that it can’t/won’t/shouldn’t happen, not get angry at each other for saying the wrong thing and then being a bit of a nob about it. Yes people say stupid things sometimes and yes sometimes they make it worse by saying more stupid things and being a prick about the whole thing but at the end of the day that’s an opinion. Not everyone has the same one as everyone else on certain subjects.

   But please, let’s stop vilifying each other because we disagree slightly. At the end of the day if you’re a person who thinks that all other people regardless of any factors should be equal and recognised as such in society, then you’re a feminist in some way or another. Let’s stop trying to make people feel passionately about every subject, let’s stop making it feel awkward to like certain feminist figureheads, let’s stop scaring away people from using ‘the F-word’ and force them into hiding because they don’t want to do it wrong. We need to encourage each other to speak out, to talk to everyone we know about feminism/equality and why it’s important and to stop making it matter what sort of feminist you are, when all that really matters is that you are one.

   NB: Even after I wrote this and was submitting it to AWOT, I was feeling incredibly nervous as to how it would be received. I can only hope it goes better than I expect it to. *cowers*

   

   Jenni (@circlethinker) is a science geek, a theatre aficionado (both on and off the stage), and a big fan of socks. She’s in her early twenties and recently finished up a Biomedical Science degree at Sheffield. Jenni has a lovely blog over here and you can find her on Twitter right here. 

    

   Category Feminism, Self | Tags: equality,feminism,women,worries | 2 Comments

   ---

6. Why pink should be banned

   January 3, 2013 by Hayley Cross

   Before we get started, I should be clear about something. I am not talking about Pink the artist. I rather like Pink the artist, and have done since I was about 15 (in fact, I quoted her in my GCSE English Language exam). And I really like her in that relatively new video where she’s all buff and hangs about upside down a lot. This one:

    

    

   No, my beef is with pink the colour. Not that pink the colour is to blame, of course.

   This has been an issue on my mind for a little while, but it really came to light upon the birth of my niece in September. When visiting her for the first time, I was physically shocked (as in, I made a strange gasping noise involving a small amount of mucus that I think I successfully managed to disguise as a cough) at the sheer number of pink cards she had received congratulating her on her arrival on earth.

   ‘What’s wrong with this?’ you might cry.

   Everything is wrong with this.

   You see, poor little Lucy is being conditioned right from birth to be a poor little girl who likes pink. My own mother failed to see the significance of this. Her first retort was that, when Lucy is old enough, she will be able to make her own choices whether she wants to own / wear pink items. But a choice is exactly what she won’t have. She is going to spend the next few years being showered with pink presents, and before she even knows what a choice is, she’s going to believe she likes pink.

   

   Image from werewolvesandshotglasses.com

   Mother clearly didn’t have an argument against this, so she quickly changed tack and said that the reason it was important for Lucy to have / wear pink was so that when she is out and about people will know that she’s a girl. Why is it important, that, aged two weeks, random members of the public know that she is a girl? Mother’s claim was that people need to know what pronoun to use: i.e. to be able to say “Isn’t she lovely?”. I swiftly responded that the pronoun “they” could easily carry the same message (“Aren’t they lovely?”) or, perhaps revealing my own opinions on babies, “it” could suffice.

   Children aren’t born with a gender (a sociological term), they are born as a member of a sex (a biological term) – this is an important distinction. And there’s something in the eagerness to call Lucy “she” that is akin to dressing her in pink – it’s transforming her into a girl rather than merely a set of female chromosomes. I’m not suggesting that we only use gender neutral pronouns from now own, but what I am saying is that we need to think again about carelessly turning girls into girly girls.

   Not that I am saying there is anything wrong with being a girly girl. Provided you have had a choice in becoming one. A friend of mine offered a snippet of information to me recently: apparently blue used to be associated with femininity (reminiscent of the Virgin Mary), whilst red was the colour of masculinity (war, aggression etc.). I’m not quite sure why we need colours for boys and girls, but somewhere along the line, pink has become associated with femininity, and not in a powerful way. Pink is the colour of the Disney Princess range, those girls who famously need their Prince to come and rescue them. Pink is the colour of delicate flowers, that need tending and protecting from the weather. Pink is the colour of pigs, domesticated beasts only used for their body and tortured for their meat… OK, I’m getting carried away now. But ultimately, pink is watered down red; something weak, lacking power and blatantly pathetic.

   Normally, I wouldn’t suggest that jumping straight into banning something was a good idea: choice is clearly one of the benefits of a democratic society. But choice is exactly what young girls don’t have at the moment. Pink needs to be banned because, no matter how many more female CEO’s battle their way to the top of the business world (still a measly and insignificant number), the concept of feminine weakness is too ingrained in your average Briton’s mindset. As my Mother quite clearly illustrates, the older generation don’t understand this, and continue to exacerbate the problem by surrounding my niece with thousands of pink cards, so that when she gets old enough to make a choice, she’s already been brainwashed.

   Even as an adult woman, I find it tremendously difficult to avoid pink. I am currently sat typing this in a pair of pink fluffy slippers (which, incidentally, I think were a present from one of the aforementioned pink baby-card senders) and suffer regular angst at trying to find gym wear that doesn’t contain even a dash of pink. The only female razor available in the Tooting Sainsbury’s the other day was pink, and I received a pack of pink earplugs ‘for feminine ears’ this Christmas. Similarly, the ‘Bic for Her’ range of pink pens was suitably humiliated by reviewers earlier in the year (worth a read, if you haven’t seen it before: http://tinyurl.com/dxdh3d8), and yet they are still on sale. The problem is that most of us don’t see the humiliation and the restriction in the constant everyday alignment of pink with femininity.

   But the scary thing is, it’s not just the ‘oldies’ that are fuelling the issue. Having tested my theories on a trusted friend, I thought I was ready to start gently pushing my ideas on some pregnant women. It didn’t go well.

   A month or so ago, I had a conversation with a seemingly strong woman in relatively senior position at school. She is probably only 6-7 years older than me, and is currently pregnant with a baby girl. When I floated the idea that she could think about not dressing her future daughter in pink, she looked at me as if I had suggested we abort her baby from her womb, right there and then in the lunch hall. If successful women aren’t even prepared to consider rejecting pink for their daughters, then how are we ever going to escape our pink prison?

   So I guess what I’m saying is that, seeing as my words have very little sway with the government, and I’m not sure of the practicalities of banning a colour, we should all attempt to be a little more like Pink the artist and “Try” (yes, pun!) to give young girls a chance to be something, anything, more than a Disney princess.

   You can start by not sending any more pink greetings cards.

   

   You can find Hayley’s blog here, or her Twitter here. 

   Category Feminism, Rants | Tags: colour,gender,pink | 4 Comments

   ---

7. Abortion: Don’t be afraid to say it

   November 22, 2012 by SarahH

   PRO-CHOICE. Potential trigger warning,

   

   Image credit: BPAS

   For those who do not follow the pro-choice movement, the events of last week proved to be a bit of a shocker. And, rightly so. For those of us who do follow the pro-choice movement, Savita’s story is not such an anomaly. The biggest, most distinguishing factor about this tragedy is that this happened in Ireland, in a ‘developed country’, our neighbours, incredibly close to home. As one of my closest friends (who is Irish) said to me in an email earlier this week ‘I’m in shock and utter rage about what’s happened in Ireland. This is my country, it’s the first world and this happens?’

   Abortion is a subject which warrants a dialogue and engagement not avoidance. Abortion is a social issue and abortion is a feminist issue. Acknowledgment, understanding, and awareness of abortion is vital if we are to break down the negative labeling associated with it. When it comes to personal experiences of abortion, why is it that women only disclose this information to their nearest and dearest and most trusted? Why is it that, in 2012, women do not feel confident enough to stand up and admit to being a woman who has had an abortion? My answer to this would be because of an unwarranted, widespread, and insidious judgment powered by silence, by shaming, by avoidance, and ignorance. Contrary to what the heavy regulations and controversy surrounding abortion suggest, it is a not scarcely performed medical procedure: in 2009, 21% of UK conceptions ended in abortion, yet women still feel the need to be silent about their experiences for fear of being judged or tarnished with a label which is not, and should never be, applicable to them. There are so many myths and negative connotations surrounding abortion that, for many women, speaking out about it is a daunting and frightening prospect.

   So, here’s a bit of myth busting:

   1. Abortion is faced by married women, by single women, by mothers with children, by women in long-term relationships. Statistics show that approximately one in three women in the UK will have an abortion in her lifetime. ONE IN THREE.

   2. Abortions occur at all reproduction life stages: 9% of abortions are for girls under 18; 41% ages 18-24; 36% ages 25-34; and 14% age 35+.

   4. Abortion is very safe in Britain. It is one of the most commonly performed gynaecological procedures.

   4. Internationally, each year, 20 million abortions take place in unsafe, unhygienic, and downright grotty conditions. Because of this an estimated 80,000 women die.

   (stats taken from www.dh.gov.uk and www.statistics.gov.uk)

   Why is this still a taboo subject? Why is this still something which society teaches us to be ashamed of or be made guilty for doing? Why is this still an issue which is subject to restrictive, and down right shaming, legislation which makes women jumps through hoops, stand on their heads, and do a tap-dance?

   At present, British abortion legislation is based on the Abortion Act (1967) and the Section 37 of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act (1990). In Britain, abortion is not legally available at the request of the woman. The ultimate decision resides with not one but two GPs. This gets even more scary when you take into account that 10% of British GPs consider themselves to be actively anti- abortion and have or would refuse to grant a woman an abortion because of this. The situation for our sisters in Northern Ireland is positively medieval: British abortion laws are not applicable in Northern Ireland, therefore women do not have access to safe legal abortion.

   So, what are the repercussions of this? What does this really mean? In Britain, it means that women are side-lined and marginalized. It means women have little choice and no voice. It means that women are subjects not citizens. Furthermore, for women in Northern Ireland, it means trauma and emotional distress brought about by having to surreptitiously seek an illegal abortion.  It means serious complications and health repercussions caused by back street abortion methods.  It means death. How can we expect abortion to break free from social stigma if the people who seek it are treated as though they are criminals, offered up to and bound by the decisions of others.

   Where is the autonomy in this? As far as I can see, there is none. It is a humiliating and paternalistic attitude, perpetuated by a government who so cleverly appointed an anti-abortion health minister (a man, no less!) who wants to reduce the upper limit to 12 weeks. A bizarre move given that only 8% of abortions are carried out over the 12 week period anyway. Who exactly is being protected here? Not the women facing abortion, that’s for sure. These attitudes need to stop.

   Abortion is not a dirty word.
   Abortion is not a crime.
   Abortion is not something to be ashamed of.
   Abortion should not be an ‘issue’ which is pushed under the proverbial carpet and only discussed/ acknowledged at time of crisis (i.e. now)
   Abortion is a real and tangible factor of everyday life.

   Abortion. Don’t be afraid to say it.

   One in three women in the UK will have an abortion in her lifetime. One in three. Look around you….
   For honest, reliable, and unbiased information or advice see:

   Education for Choice: http://www.efc.org.uk/
   British Pregnancy advice http://www.bpas.org/bpaswoman
   Abortion Rights http://www.abortionrights.org.uk
   Abortion Help (Marie Stopes) http://www.abortion-help.co.uk/

   (Please Note: “LIFE” and “Crisis” centres are religiously motivated abortion advice centres. Please be aware that the information they offer may not be unbiased.)

   

   Sarah (@sazbottle) is a grass roots feminist campaigner and is involved with groups including @femactioncam and @armpits4august. Sarah writes for various online magazines/blogs and is partial to a bit of blogging in her own right (obviously all her posts are her own views, and not necessarily the views of organisations she works for, or anything like that, for all you legal eagles out there). By day, Sarah works for an NGO  which targets corporate malpractice and illegal marketing strategies. Sarah likes history, yoga, raspberry leaf tea, and loud music.

   Category Advice, Body, Feminism, News | Tags: abortion,advice,being a woman,BPAS,Ireland,legislation,mythbusting,pro choice,prochoice,Savita Halappanavar,statistics,women | No Comments

   ---

8. Can Men Write Women?

   November 6, 2012 by The Drinking Thinker

   

   Image from skittlebugblog.blogspot.com

   One reason I prefer to read women authors is that they generally don’t feel the need to ‘explore’ the genitalia of their characters in order to fully inhabit them.

   I’m not saying all male authors do this – but when I come across a female character coyly prospecting her bits for the benefit of the reader, I am usually confident the writer is male. Here’s a passage from ‘Before I Go To Sleep’ by S.J. Watson:

   ‘Can I enjoy sex? I realize I don’t even know that. I flush the toilet and step out of my trousers, my tights, my knickers. I sit on the edge of the bath. How alien my body is. How unknown to me. How can I be happy giving it to someone else, when I don’t recognize it myself?

   ‘I lock the bathroom door, then part my legs. Slightly at first, then more. I lift my blouse and look down. I see the stretch marks I saw the day I remembered Adam, the wiry shock of my pubic hair. I wonder if I ever shave it, whether I choose not to based on my preference or my husband’s. Perhaps those things don’t matter any more. Not now.

   ‘I cup my hand and place it over my pubic mound. My fingers rest on my labia, parting them slightly. I brush the tip of what must be my clitoris…’

   All right, I’m sure you get the gist. I actually can’t bear to type any more of it, it’s just so, well – NO, EWWW, STOP IT. Book hurled aside in derision, author Googled – yes, what a surprise, S.J. Watson is a bloke. Knew it. Because this just reads like – well, some might call it writing one-handed, but let’s say prurient titillation. Though I think S.J. must have had a male reader in mind, if he had one in mind at all, because my feeling is that most women would just think, Huh? All right, she has amnesia, but she forgot where her CLITORIS is? Did she also forget about her bellybutton? Her breasts?  ‘Good Lord, these must be my breasts. Crikey, that’s going to take some getting used to.’

   Here is Will Self, talking about how he gets into character for a female protag:

   “I always start with physicality when I’m writing as a woman. So I always have a vagina and think about having periods. I always start with an embodiment. And I think when I read men writing about women, they never seem to have thought about that. They’ve never thought: actually, you’ve got a cycle, you’re different. So if I do succeed at all, that’s what it’s down to.”

   Most of this statement terrifies me. Will Self thinks the key to women is their vaginas! Not only that, he thinks this insight gives him the edge over other male writers! (Who presumably ignore the vaginas of their less-successfully-realised female characters.) Arrrrgh!

   I have a theory – bear with me – that the reason men think this way is because they are OBSESSED WITH THEIR BLOODY COCKS. It could well be that this is, in fact, the key to understanding men – that for a woman to write a male character successfully she must first fully imagine and engage with externalised genitalia and all that goes with it (chafing? More complicated grooming? I’m a little hazy on the details). Anyway, fellas, I am here to tell you that Women Don’t Think Like That. With our sexual parts, I mean.

   But Will does approach something of what I personally believe to be the deeper truth about the differences between men and women. He rather loftily cites the cycle (i.e. periods), and is no doubt thinking of the attendant mood swings and occasional monstrousness that afflict some of us in the run-up to Aunt Mary’s Visit.

   And yes, the cycle IS a huge difference between men and women. But it’s easy to point at mood swings and monstrousness and forget the crucial point – it’s the HORMONES, innit. Women’s hormones fluctuate, sometimes wildly; men’s, generally, don’t. Men are kept topped up with a more or less steady supply of testosterone for much of their lives,  and can therefore maintain the levels of aggression, competitiveness and focus that they have made requirements for success in ‘their’ world. Women are often at the mercy of moods and emotions that can be completely overwhelming – but can also be transformative, enriching experiences. At least two days every month, for example, I find myself in a state I can only describe as emotionally flayed: empathic connection is instantaneous and unmediated by thought, grief and joy so close to the surface that I will careen from one to the other and back during the course of a single ad break.

   How can this NOT affect who I am? It’s like that first ecstasy blissout (as I understand it), the discovery of a fundamental, beautiful connection to your fellow man – the effect wears off, but the experience stays with you. You’ll always remember what it was like to love EVERYONE.

   So this is my second theory. Again, bear with me – this one is about why the stereotype of woman as being the more caring, compassionate sex exists. Erm, it’s sort of because we ARE more caring and compassionate, at least some of the time, and that is because we have these incredibly intense emotional experiences where we empathise with all of humanity EVERY MONTH. Well, I’d hate to be accused of generalising. Maybe it’s just me. I do drink quite a lot of rum.

   Anyhoo, all I wanted to say was this: what makes us men, or women, is much more interesting than whether we have an innie or an outie between our legs. There’s a whole complicated stew of biological, psychological and environmental factors, some of which are connected to physicality, many not. Guys, there’s more to us than our sex organs. Is there more to you than yours?

   

   Jo is on Twitter as @drinkingthinker. You can find her blog at www.thedrinkingthinker.com.

   Category Body, Feminism, Rants, Sexism | Tags: cycle,emotions,genitalia,hormones,men writing women,menstruation,periods,testosterone | 18 Comments

   ---

9. Daisy Buchanan’s Wickedly Unofficial Guide to Made In Chelsea

   October 23, 2012 by J9London

   

   You can find Daisy as @NotRollergirl on Twitter (image from Twitter)

   It is a rainy Friday afternoon and I get to hunker down in my lounge with a cup of tea and my fave feminist about town, Daisy Buchanan. What a babe. Daisy writes for a million awesome publications but is most known for her epic Made In Chelsea reviews for Sabotage Times. Such is her popularity as unofficial commentator on all things Chelsea, Daisy’s written a book on the subject. The Wickedly Unofficial Guide to Made In Chelsea has been available on Amazon for one week, and it’s hilarious. As a non-watcher I’ve been instantly captivated by Daisy’s effortless and energetic account of the show.

   How has the first week gone by?

   It’s been very disappointing in a lot of ways. I thought that when you were an author you didn’t have to get the tube anymore, thought someone came round and did your hair for you in the morning, but no! Shit!

   In all seriousness it’s been a lovely week. I’ve really liked how sweet everyone’s been. I’ve not quite grasped it; in a weird way it doesn’t feel like a part of me. It was so accidental and I think very lucky that I, just by chance, started writing about something I loved and struck a cord.

   They seem like today’s Jane Austen characters: people who have nothing to do except have scandalous affairs.

   It’s got a real old fashioned moral core. You know your heroes and villains. If you cheat, if you lie, if you try and make yourself appear any better than you are then, it may be the next episode, it may be in a whole series time but you’ll get caught out.

   Obviously in terms of wealth and opportunity they’re representing the tiniest minority. But the show is so loved, I think because there are so many great stories. Also because you can quite comfortably laugh at and with the wealthy. And I want a bit of glitter aspiration in my life and I think lots of people feel the same.

   What’s been your favourite Chelsea moment?

   When Ollie’s going out with Chloe they all go fishing and Chloe eats a worm. And everyone’s hysterical, and they’re holding wine glasses, and everything’s flailing about but the wine’s perfectly still. And amongst all the general disastery and running around-ness, the maggots get overturned and Ollie goes “My WORMS.”

   Are there any characters that you’re more invested in than others?

   Definitely. Millie, who had a big love story with Hugo. At the time I had a terrible boyfriend, and I saw parallels in our situation. You don’t sensibly think I need to leave, he’s making me miserable, you think, if I just analyse everything I can fix this. I just need to work out how.

   And Rosie: I think she’s definitely meant to be the villain. I think that’s editing and scripting.

   So you don’t think in real life she’s a horrible person?

   No. Oh my god, I hope not. I’m insuring myself; I’m very positive about the show in my writing, but I’m not kind about all of the characters. I wouldn’t want to be that unkind about a real person, I’m talking about her as a character.

   That’s an interesting thing about the show is how much of it is real and how much is scripted.

   The casting is brilliant in that they don’t make anyone do anything that’s unnatural to them. But they can interpret what people do to follow the arc they want. Scripted reality is such an odd and interesting genre, but I think they’re maybe 75% real – they’re playing themselves but it’s heightened.

   In your writing it seems like you’re their parent and they’re a group of unruly toddlers. Do you have a sense of ownership?

   I do a bit. I think generally when it comes to talking about the show I feel quite proprietorial of it. If people want to talk about Made in Chelsea, you want to come to me.

   If the cast read the book, what would you hope they react with?

   I hope they really, really laugh. I think most of them have enough of a sense of humour about themselves to be able to enjoy it.

   What are your predictions?

   People are saying that Richard and Cheska are finally going to get together. I don’t know if that’s what I want. I’d like her to meet someone who blows her mind. I’d like to see Louise with someone who adores her.

   I hope they all find people they fancy. Although I don’t, because I want there to be crazy drama to write about.

   Daisy didn’t leap into our lives through Made in Chelsea alone, of course; she’s a hugely experience pen-lady, having worked full time for a magazine for four years before going solo.

   You started out at Bliss and you’ve recently thrown yourself out into freelance. How is that?

   I had a brilliant time at Bliss I had so many adventures. Now I do treat every job like it might be my last, but so far it’s been very busy. I’ve had this book, which is ace. I’m working on another; it’s a middle class dilemmas handbook, a Sloane Ranger Handbook redux but less pie collars, more pesto. That’s all very up in the air at the moment. I’m mainly talking about that so my mum thinks I’m all right.

   I’ve just done my first pieces for Grazia and Marie Clair. I feel like on paper it’s going brilliantly.

   I love earning chunks of money. It reminds me of my first Saturday job: when I was fifteen I was waitressing at a pub, on three fifty and hour, and my first pay packet was twenty one pounds in an envelope. I still remember the feel of the pound coin in the brown paper; I thought I’d made it. I’d never had twenty one pounds before. And then quite quickly I discovered that it doesn’t go very far. So that’s what freelancing reminds me of.

   And I love working from home. My boyfriend works from home at the moment as well, so that has many advantages. Being able to have sex at four o’clock in the afternoon, you know.

   What’s the plan for the next year?

   My dream would be if someone could give me a bloody column. This is going to sound arrogant, but I’ve done a lot of writing for free and I’m at that point now where I think people should be fucking paying me because I know I’m good. It’s a terrible thing, you should never go around saying “I’m good” but if you don’t back yourself, no one else is going to.

   You do write a lot of different styles for a lot of different places, The Vagenda and AWOT and Work In Prowess, who can’t yet pay their contributors.

   I’m a cuckoo. Laying my eggs in other people’s nests. The amount of talent that amasses there dazzles me and I’m really honoured to be part of those things. But I was recently asked by a big name to do some free work and I was like “Dudes! If you don’t have money, who does?” And if I had a decent column I would have more time to do stuff for Work In Prowess and Vagenda and AWOT and that would feel like a good use of my time.

   If you don’t follow Daisy on twitter already, you’re a fool. She’s @notrollergirl over there, and is relentlessly entertaining. Naturally this gives her an ideal platform for marketing her book.

   Recently Rick Edwards started following me and I sent him a message saying “Hey there, you can tell me to bugger off, this is really unclassy and not how I operate, but if you could draw people’s attention to this, that would make a real difference to me and be incredible,” and he was just charming and lovely and gentlemanly and did it and I’m going to make him a pie. It means a huge amount when people who are in a position to do so do endorse what I do. I really don’t like asking for it.

   I think twitter is such a brilliant thing for new writers. What the hell would we have done before twitter? I would not be here now, I wouldn’t be talking to you. I wouldn’t know my boyfriend if it wasn’t for twitter. I wouldn’t have got laid in the last year if it wasn’t for twitter. It’s like a chat-room that’s ok. You get the odd dick, but people are nice.

   Daisy wears her feminism like an exceptionally well chosen perfume. The kind that mixes with you so well that wearing it makes you smell more like yourself than not. It’s not about placards all the time, she says, sometimes it’s about sitting in your pyjamas with your laptop.

   Women like us, we’re, you know, we’re just so normal. We don’t do anything special about feminism. But it seems so important to talk about that when you talk about anything else.

   Campaigning as starting discussions?

   Yeah. I think that starting discussions is a really important idea. It’s not enough now to just say, “well I think this,” you have to be receptive to what people are going to say. And sometimes just being open to people who are being total cunts is enough to make the cunt’s argument fall apart.

   What do you feel about the term feminism?

   I like the idea of sexy feminism. I want to smack down the idea that feminism is misandry and misery. My sister’s boyfriend once said, “Are you a feminist? But you wear make up.” Like, are you fucking kidding me? And anyone who says “why do we call it feminism, why don’t we call it equalism?” I just want to smack them really hard. It’s so often guys say it, guys who are all liberaller than thou. Where do you begin to explain that everything from FGM and forced marriage and not being able to vote or drive to the fact that I got hollered and beeped at nine times walking through Walthamstow to get to Londis yesterday. How the fuck is that fair?

   There are other things that are important to me and other battles that need fighting but I wouldn’t be playing to my strengths.

   But for Daisy (and thank the heavens there are more of us that fell this way) it’s not about a denial of femininity.

   When it comes to desire, I mean I objectify myself every day. I’m going to a party tonight, I’ve got a tight, shiny dress, I want to look hot. I started my own blog, sprayedbydaisy.tumblr.com, and it’s a perfume thing. My first post is a piece on what perfume to wear to make people want to have sex with you. But are you allowed to want people to want to have sex with you? And how do you fight that? I want everyone to want to have sex with me.

   But you don’t want them to feel entitled to have sex with you.

   Exactly. That is exactly it. Feminism is about making patriarchal and entitlement culture fuck off.

   Being a writer, who is also a woman, can sometimes make you feel like you’re supposed to lead the charge into territory that’s been traditionally male. But then who will write about periods and cupcakes?

   People say “women should be hired to write about all the things” and I feel like I’m betraying someone somewhere somehow because I do write about girl shit. But then again, I do just want to be funny and make people laugh; I’d make a terrible war correspondent. I can hammer out anything anyone asks me to, I feel confident in that, but if I’m going to be dazzling, it needs to be shit about sex, abortions, periods, perfume, tele, boyfriends.

   And with that, we’re done:

   I think that’s it, I’m knackered, are you knackered, shall we have some wine?

   

   Janina (the interviewer) is addicted to dark chocolate and peppermint tea. She once made a burger so good she has a picture of the occasion on her bedroom wall. You can find out more about her at myrednotebook.com and follow her on twitter at @J9London.

   @NotRollergirl (the interviewee) is a freelance funnywoman and writerlady. She’s the women’s editor over on Sabotage Times, she writes books, and she knows all the words to ABBA’s entire collection. Follow her on Twitter (recommended for daily giggles).

   Category Feminism, Happy, News | Tags: interview,Made in Chelsea,new book | No Comments

   ---

10. A personal account of abortion

    October 18, 2012 by Anon

    This is an anonymous post detailing a personal account of an abortion at 21 weeks. It is a bit longer than our usual posts, I am sure you can understand why I wanted it to remain as written. Many thanks to our anonymous author for sharing her story – it’s so important to hear from people who have actual experience of the stuff that gets bandied about in politics. This piece offers a very personal perspective, which may offer some food for thought in the context of Jeremy Hunt’s desire to reduce the termination limit to 12 weeks. 

    ~

    Test

    I looked in my purse – I couldn’t really afford it. I sighed because pregnancy tests are horrifically expensive. I gave my brother and sister everything I had, and they sauntered into Tesco (I was too embarrassed to go myself). It wasn’t a big moment. It was a joke, almost – something different to do that Saturday afternoon. None of us thought it would end up coming to anything, least of all me. I was more annoyed about the money that anything else.

    I’d finally been pushed to do it after I’d had a shower that morning. I’d felt bloated for weeks, but because I’d done a pregnancy test a few months before – about two months after my last period – and it was negative, I thought it must be a food allergy or something. Fruit squash, was my bright idea. Apparently the sweeteners in the sugar-free ones can cause digestive reactions in some people.

    Anyway, whilst looking at my bloated stomach for the twentieth time in as many days that morning, I noticed that my belly button was sticking out more that it used to. It was the first time I’d noticed it; it wasn’t a complete ‘outie’ but it was definitely more visible than usual. So when I started moaning again about what on earth was going on with my body, my siblings persuaded me to get a test so that I could rule that theory out (again) and then go to the doctor to figure out what it really was.

    I’d had other symptoms of course which, when I look back, all blatantly pointed to the first trimester of a pregnancy. I’d suddenly had really oily skin, but I thought this and my periods stopping was to do with the stress regarding my break-up with a boyfriend and residual angst from my parents’ separation. I had felt some unusual nausea when I was on a holiday in India two months previously, but I’d reasoned this was because of the local food and water, and the antihistamines I was taking. It’s easy for people to say ‘You must have known’, but it’s not that simple. One negative test was all it took to become blind to (and make excuses for) a million other signs. That and the fact that the only instance of unprotected sex I’d had in the last six months (a horrific event I was barely aware of) was hastily followed by the morning after pill.

    As we pulled back in our driveway after buying a twin pack for £14 (all they had, which annoyed me even more) we encountered my dad packing up the car to go off for the weekend. ‘Don’t leave yet,’ I joked, ‘I could be pregnant, in which case you won’t be able to go!’ He rolled his eyes at me.

    I practically skipped to the toilet, so unassuming was I. I read the instructions and carried them out. Because I was so sure it would be negative, it had turned into a kind of game. It was quite exciting really.

    I put the lid on and wiped it with a tissue. I threw a cursory glance at the stick.

    The word ‘Pregnant’ stared back at me. Barely twenty seconds had passed. I frowned, looked at it again (thank god I hadn’t got one of the one line/two line/crossed line ones, it really had to be spelled out to me). I didn’t understand, that was way too fast – the instructions said wait two and half minutes?

    I walked quickly out of the bathroom and into the kitchen where my sister sat swinging her legs, sitting on the Aga. She looked at my face. I thrust the stick into her hands. She continued to look at my face and dismissed my expression, shaking her head. ‘Very funny’, she said. She looked down. I waited for her to read it.

    ‘It said that after seconds,’ I stressed. ‘That can’t be right, can it?? It’s supposed to be two and a half minutes. It was seconds!!!’ I was beginning to panic now.

    My sister finally looked up. Whatever she felt personally was overruled by her maternal soothing instinct (which we’d all developed on overdrive since my mum’s departure). ‘Don’t worry, it’s probably just wrong,’ she said tentatively. ‘It shouldn’t have given you an answer so quickly, should it? It’s wrong. Just do the other one.’

    ‘I can’t be pregnant, this is crazy…’ I felt a little sick.

    ‘You’re not! You’re definitely not. Just do the other test; that’ll be negative.’

    Shaking, I walked back to the toilet. She advised me to do it the alternative way the instructions described (by peeing into a cup and dipping the stick in, if you must know). I did as I was told. I put the cap on and walked, still in a daze, back to the kitchen.

    My sister had gone outside to speak to Dad who had been about to leave. Together they walked in the front door. He clearly didn’t believe what he’d been told. Yeah, sure, his face said. Either they’re having me on or they’re incapable of reading the instructions on one of these things. She showed him the original stick. His face became drained of colour.

    ‘Oh, shit,’ he said.

    ‘Don’t worry,’ my sister interrupted, ‘she’s doing the other one and that will be negative. This one gave her the result way too quickly.’ She sounded confident now.

    The remaining test burnt my hand as it clenched around it. I was afraid to look at it. About a minute, maybe a minute and a half, had passed.

    I looked at it.

    ‘Oh god.’ I started crying. ‘I can’t be pregnant, I can’t be pregnant, I can’t be pregnant…’ I said over and over again. My sister took the test from my hand. I sank to the floor, staring at nothing. ‘I did a pregnancy test. I did a pregnancy test!! Months ago. It was negative! I can’t be pregnant. I ALWAYS use condoms!’ Now I was shouting.

    It was true.

    My mind went into hyper-drive, scanning a history of my recent sexual episodes in intimate flash-backs. There had been the incident in December, but I’d got the morning after pill in plenty of time. Yes I’d had the odd occasion here and there since where there had been brief penetration before a condom was resentfully but dutifully sourced – doesn’t everyone?? But while we’ve all heard the scare-stories about ‘pre-come’, but who actually thought it was a real threat? I have friends who have used the pull-out method for years, with no scares at all. Could that really be what got me pregnant?!

    If I was pregnant, there was one thing that I immediately knew – I’d been pregnant a while. The symptoms, which I’d tried to blame on everything under the sun, had started before Christmas. It was March. I had to be damn close to the legal abortion limit, I thought. Oh god, was it too late?

    And there was also one thing I definitely did not know – whose baby it was. Since there was no notable occasion to pinpoint, and since my ex-boyfriend and recent sexual partner had overlapped, it was a toss-up. I didn’t know whether this was a good or a bad thing.

    Scan

    At some point there was a phone conversation with Marie Stopes abortion clinic. I don’t really remember it, except that I knew I had to make the call to go private, and quickly, because of how far along I knew I must be. I told them this, which meant that I was booked in for a scan in days, rather than weeks. I found out on Saturday; the scan was booked for Tuesday.

    I went to London for it, with my sister and my dad. I’d booked the whole week off work by this point. I don’t even remember what excuse was made. It’s the one time my dad’s helped me pull a sickie; he rang them for me. I didn’t trust myself to speak to them.

    The whole day was pretty surreal – I felt like we were playing parts in a play. A warning play to others. I told Dad he shouldn’t come to the clinic, thinking it might make other women and girls in the there uncomfortable. So he waited for us in a nearby café. He was really nervous but trying not to show it. He didn’t know what to hope for aloud I don’t think. None of us did I guess. It’s a difficult thing to say ‘Good luck, hope you’re within the legal limit to get an abortion!’ So he just hugged me hard.

    We headed over early as I was partly afraid I wouldn’t find it and partly afraid we’d have to fight our way through protesters. I really didn’t know what to think. When we arrived we were directed into a little room. It was exactly as I imagined – everyone was very hush hush; everything was white; there were quite a few young girls there with their mothers. I felt bad being there when I was at an age where I was clearly able to care for a child. We sat down; my sister held my hand. I tried to look anywhere but at the other girls. We all sat there for a while, trying to pretend we didn’t know what everyone else was all doing there.

    Then suddenly a new pair came in – a very young oriental girl and her tiny but much older mother. The mother had a number of bulging Sainsbury’s plastic bags. She bustled in quite loudly whilst the girl followed quietly behind and sat down. The mother continued to bustle for a while, until she ripped off a big piece off a baguette sticking out of one of the bags, and proceeded to eat it noisily.

    I thought this was rather insensitive since some of the girls there would have most likely been nil by mouth for the morning, but she surpassed herself the next minute by pulling out a steaming bag of hot chicken. The smell filled the room! She took out a wing and started gnawing at it. Her daughter looked at her reproachfully, and she sharply defended herself by shouting: ‘What? I hungry!’

    (Why she spoke in broken English to her daughter who presumably spoke Chinese I don’t know.)

    This made my sister and I burst out laughing, and we spent the next few minutes until I was called sitting there with barely controlled grins on our faces, which was quite unexpected but split the tension in two. So I really need to thank that woman.

    When we got upstairs, however, nothing seemed funny any more. The only thing I could hear was the question ‘Less than 24 weeks or more than 24 weeks?’ going round and round my head like a broken record. In a few minutes I was going to find out whether my world was about to seriously change forever. I’m ashamed to say that at this point I was only worried about myself: my life. Not the one that I was praying I would be able to end.

    We went into a little room. They asked if I wanted my sister to come in with me; I was adamant that she must. I was starting to shake. It was too overwhelming. The nurse asked me some questions, I don’t remember what. She did a prick test on my finger to test my blood type. She was a nice gentle lady – quite old and small. She knew I thought I was close to the legal limit for termination. It was probably in the file, but I also must have mentioned it eight times in 10 minutes. She explained that if the scan implied I was close she would need to call a second physician in, as legally two of them need to agree and sign off that it was within 24 weeks in such circumstances.

    She asked me to lie down on the bed. Gurney, whatever. She asked me to pull my trousers and underwear down – I was surprised on how far down she needed them to be. Kind of like when you’re surprised by how low down a woman’s caesarean scar is. She squeezed some clear gel onto my stomach. I started crying – I had seen this happen a million times in films and TV this was not the scenario I imagined it happening to me for the first time.

    She started moving the wand from side to side, looking intently at the screen – which was luckily was by my head, so I couldn’t see it. My sister could, though. She was sitting at the foot of the bed, and I was watching her. She was looking at the screen; she clearly couldn’t help it. She squeezed my foot, hard – for her benefit as much as mine I suspect. I was really crying now; I couldn’t look at her face any more, sickened by trying to read what it was she could see whilst at the same time not wanting to know. I had an overwhelming urge to ask the nurse if she could tell if it was a boy or a girl. I don’t think I said it out loud.

    I lay back and put my hands over my eyes. I was shaking so much now the nurse had to ask me to calm down, Calm down dear, I can’t get a good reading.

    Finally she stopped. She said ‘I’m just going to get my colleague to have a look’. I knew that wasn’t good. She left the room. ‘Please’ I whispered aloud through tears. ‘Please, please, please, please.’ I’m not ready for this baby. Five days ago I hadn’t even been pregnant – now I might be past the legal limit for abortion? It can’t be, it can’t be. I had the self-awareness to feel guilty about my pleas but I meant them as much as I’ve ever meant anything.

    The nurse came back in with another more senior looking physician. They both looked at the screen. The nurse looked at her colleague. I looked at both of them. ‘Yes, you’re about 21 weeks,’ the new guy said. ‘Maybe a little over.’

    ‘So I can have it?’ I said, I didn’t want to say the word. ‘I can have an abortion?’

    ‘Yes.’

    I burst out crying again, out of guilt and relief. 

    Night before

    Because I was so close they booked me in to have the ‘procedure’ in the next few days. I had to be there early. So early, in fact, that I decided to go to my friend’s the night before, as she lived relatively close to the clinic. Also, if I’m honest, I hadn’t seen any friends since I found out I was pregnant and I kind of wanted to.

    That sounds weird; let me explain. After the test said positive I suddenly felt and, I thought, looked very pregnant. I was convinced people were wondering whether to offer me a seat on the tube, or scorning me for having a cigarette in the street. Or maybe I just wanted to look as pregnant as I suddenly felt? The feelings were quite overpowering. My centre of gravity seemed to change all of a sudden and I felt I needed to get out of chairs hips first. As I walked I held my arms around my belly, protectively. But mostly I felt fiercely maternal for the first time, a time when I was about to do the least maternal thing imaginable.

    These were possibly reasonable thoughts and feelings considering my hormones– I was five months gone after all, more than halfway through a full term – but because I had gone until the week before not having a clue, and because of what I was about to do, I felt like a fraud feeling physically and mentally pregnant all of a sudden. I certainly didn’t think I deserved to have these feelings which seemed so precious and private.

    All I knew was that they were feelings I wasn’t ready to lose as quickly as the baby I knew I couldn’t have. I hadn’t fully processed what was going on yet, but I thought that if I saw a friend before I had the abortion, someone other than family who could later say ‘Yes, she was definitely pregnant’, then it would be a way of helping me process them later. I sensed that in the future I’d need to have proof it was real, as it was sure to seem like a dream after the reality of it would only last 4 days and nights. I wanted to make sure I had some tangible connection to it later. I find it difficult to explain why.

    My sister and I got the tube to my friends’ the night before. Poor thing hadn’t a clue what to do or say, or what food to get, or whether it was an occasion for booze or not. I had wanted to go the 24 hours before ‘clean’ – to somehow give something good to this piece of me that I was betraying so badly – but I couldn’t even manage that. I smoked and drank, just as I had done for the past five months, selfishly and desperately.

    It was only a matter of time before polite questions of how I was feeling turned into a morbid curiosity. I would have been exactly the same. My friend and sister, who hadn’t dared be so personal thus far, watched as I pulled up my top to reveal my swollen stomach, half scared, half – dare I say it – proud. They placed their hands on it. They were incredulous. ‘I can’t believe none of us noticed,’ they said. It seemed huge.

    ‘Procedure’

    They wanted the money as soon as we got there. Incredibly, we hadn’t thought about this part. I had nothing, so my sister paid, which added to the surrealism. She paid with her student fees money which wasn’t due to be paid for another few days. My dad would pay her back, it was arranged. That made me feel quite sick. I couldn’t even pay for this awful thing I was doing. It was £1,600.

    Another waiting room, another group of young girls. We weren’t allowed to eat anything, so I thought the smell of toast wafting through the window from the staff kitchen was quite insensitive. There was some rubbish morning television show on. I prayed some tacky coverage of abortion hadn’t been scheduled.

    Eventually I got called through. Considering we were told to get there about 7am, I was physically and emotionally exhausted by the time I was called in after 10am. It turned out it was because they’d lost my blood work. After being shown upstairs (and given a sheet to wrap round myself – I hadn’t been told I should bring my own nightie in) I waited another hour while they did some more and had it read.

    After spending no small amount of time trying to figure out how to lie in my kind of hammock chair daintily, trying not to disturb the other girls who were lying down staring at the walls, I was eventually led through to what looked exactly like a hospital room. That’s when I realised where the money goes – there were about six nurses led by a doctor. I don’t need all these people, I thought. The doctor wasn’t very friendly; gentle but firm I guess you might say. Not sure what I expected. He told me to lie down and put my legs in the stirrups. He told me that he was going to insert a pessary, and that when he did that I would experience ‘some discomfort’. He said that I would then go back to my hammock chair where I would wait for a few hours until the pessary had done it’s work and my womb had contracted, and then I’d come back in for the ‘procedure’ where the ‘contents’ would be disposed of. I felt sick at his use of words, and then guilty for being such a hypocrite.

    ‘Some discomfort’ turned out to be the closest thing I hope I ever come to what I imagine being sexually assaulted feels like. He unceremoniously stuffed a plastic speculum inside me, followed by what felt like his entire fist, and jammed around until he seemed satisfied. I choked back tears – I refused to allow myself the luxury of crying. He left the room. One of the nurses was obviously aware of my reaction. She soothingly placed her hand on my arm and said ‘That’s the worst of it, later you won’t be conscious. We’ll just take you in to sit down and relax now.’ She put me in a wheelchair – my legs didn’t seem to work very well – but I pulled myself together enough to insist quite strongly that I not be taken in to the other room before I composed myself. I didn’t want to scare the other girls by letting them see me so upset.

    I lay down on my strange chair, much less concerned now about how I might manage it with grace. The nurse told me I’d be there for between three and five hours, depending on how long it took for me to become contracted enough for them to finish. Contracted, I thought? I’m going to have contractions?? I hadn’t been prepared for that. She gave me a heat pad and told me that I would be given some ibuprofen if I needed it. I didn’t really understand what she might mean.

    It’s hard to explain the next few hours – they passed in a blur. At times, the pain became so unbearable I didn’t know what to do with myself. It came and went in waves, as I presume contractions do. At one point one of my closest friends rang. I didn’t know if I was allowed to but I answered. Unfortunately at that moment I was suffering particularly badly, and I didn’t seem to be able to get any words out. My friend immediately went into panic mode – I don’t think she expected me to be consciously going through so much pain, either – and within the next 10 minutes I received phone calls from the three other girls. Each had had a worried phone call from the last. I felt incredibly touched at their concern, but was physically quite incapable of reassuring them in any way.

    Eventually – after what seemed like days – I was wheelchaired back into the hospital room. They gave me a general anaesthetic. They asked me if I had any questions – I asked where they put the baby after they’d taken it out. They looked at me like I’d just emitted a bad smell. It was a distasteful question, I realise, but I had to know. The ‘contents’ were disposed of safely, they said. Then everything started to fade out, and the last thing I can remember saying is ‘Please don’t hurt her…’

    When I came to, I felt almost euphoric. General anaesthetic has that affect on me, I now know. I felt like I was floating on a cloud. When I got back into the room, they gave me a biscuit and a cup of tea. I was told I could collect myself for 30 minutes. I looked around the room, wistfully. It was quite late in the day by that point, and there were only a few girls left. ‘I think we’ve all done really well,’ I said in my fuzzy, disconnected state. They smiled weakly at me. I have no idea what I expected.

    When the time came I slowly made my way outside to where my sisters and mum were waiting in a car. Mum had insisted on picking me up, saying I wouldn’t be able to get the tube. I had had no idea what she meant, but now it was only too clear. I could barely walk, and certainly couldn’t bend in any way. The pain is hard to explain. It was like my whole body was centred around this very potent but dulled ache in the centre of my body. I was also still druggy from the anaesthetic.

    I was also, of course, incredibly grateful to see their faces. I hadn’t realised quite how lonely and distressing the last six or seven hours had been until I was in their bosom.

    They had clearly spent a long few hours pottering around, not sure how to prepare to see me, or what, if anything, to get me. In the end they gave me a pulse and lavender filled bear, which you warm in the microwave and then hold against ‘aches and pains’. Even now the smell reminds me.

    Today

    I don’t regret what I did – I wasn’t ready, I had no idea who the father was, and I had so abused my body with drink and drugs during those five months due to emotional distresses of the time that I can’t imagine the child would have been healthy. It would not have been the best start in life. When I compare how I looked after myself then with the rare glasses of red wine, multiple pregnancy vitamins, and soft cheese bans that wilfully pregnant women around me endure today, I feel physically sick.

    But can’t quite let it go either. I can’t count the number of times since that I’ve Googled ‘foetus at 21 weeks’. It’s kind of like when you unwittingly find evidence of betrayal, and you find yourself looking at it over and over again. You purposefully put yourself through the pain as you develop something of an unhealthy fascination. These periods comes in ebbs and flows, perhaps triggered by some mention of abortion by friends or the news, perhaps not.

    Maybe it’s because I was so far along that my body has experienced how strong the hormones can get – maybe it’s because I had to make the decision so quickly – maybe it’s because I’m self-indulgent – but every pregnancy of those close to me since has been that much more interesting to me. I find myself looking at those who are at a similar term and yelling to myself, ‘How could you not have noticed??’ But that, along with exactly how and when I became pregnant, why that first pregnancy test failed, and who the father was, will remain things I will never know the answer to. Sometimes I imagine the afterlife as being sat in a room while someone gives you the answer to every one of those mysteries that have built up in your life. I guess that’s something I’ll find out.

    

    If you have a story you would like to share anonymously, please email anonawot@gmail.com or DM me on Twitter for the anon account log in details. Thank you.

     

    Category Advice, Anonymous posts, Body, Feminism, Motherhood, News, Self | Tags: abortion,abortion limit,anonymous posts,Jeremy Hunt,personal stories,pregnancy,termination | 3 Comments

    ---

11. Five Myths about Feminists

    October 16, 2012 by Ashley

    Let me preface this by acknowledging that I am not an authority on the subject of feminism – but I am feminist, and these are my views on some of the big misconceptions that stand in the way of people’s understanding of feminism.

    

    Image from blogs.siuc.edu

    Is the F word a dirty word? When I asked my now boyfriend on our first date if he was a feminist, he said no, he was an ‘equalist’. But shouldn’t that be the same thing? Isn’t feminism, at its heart, about equality? I am still surprised when people, especially women, tell me that they don’t identify as feminists. So I’ve written down some thoughts on why that might be… Feel free to add your own in the comments, or feel free to disagree!

    1) Men and women are equal now – we don’t need feminists anymore

    Despite the fact that we have come along way since the fight for women’s suffrage, there is still a lot to do in order to realise full equality between men and women. For one thing, the pay gap in the UK has been around 25% since 2000 – that’s 12 years with no improvement. And at the moment, women make up just over 15% of board members.

    Looking at the disturbing idiocy of sites like unilad.com (this link goes to our posts related to unilad, not to the site itself), shows there is a lot to be done to get rid of misogyny and sexism. It is incredibly ignorant to assume that just because we have the vote and can drive in the western world, women and men are treated as equals. We still need feminism.

    If you have a spare 15 minutes, DO check out this amazing video of Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard delivering the mother of all smackdowns to the leader of the opposition concerning his misogynistic and sexist hypocrisy.

    2) Feminists hate men

    This might be one of the biggest (and most disturbing?) misconceptions about feminists. Feminism at its most basic is about equality - not supremacy. Hating men would have absolutely no positive impact, as the only way we can achieve equality is through men and women working together. We need men to be on board with us if we are ever going to change things – so hating them will achieve absolutely nothing.

    Besides, I like men. They can be really fun and sometimes they make you eggy crumpets when you’re hungover. And my dad makes the best pavlova in the world.

    3) Feminists are militant fun sponges  

    “Feminists do not know how to have fun. Every conversation is an angry rant from an uptight woman who’s probably just in need of a good shag.” Yes – that is actually an argument someone used in front of me during a discussion about feminism. I almost had to laugh. In the same conversation he used the word ‘feminazi’ and ‘man hating’. Au contraire, mon frere. Most of my female friends are feminists and they are some of the funniest, coolest, kinkiest people you will ever meet. And boy, do they get laid. I’m absolutely, passionately, and resolutely feminist in my views, but I don’t bring it up in every single conversation and I don’t shout down people who don’t agree with me.

    Yes, some feminists are militant, but that’s a good thing. We need some of us to be the passionate ones, that march and scream and shout about it. But it’s also ok if you’re not that way inclined. No one wants to spend seven days a week angry. I like talking about feminism because I like to understand why people don’t identify as such (for me it is the default position – I am usually amazed that people don’t realise that it’s essentially about equal rights for women AND men). But I have never once yelled at someone for not agreeing with me.

    4) You cannot be a feminist and a housewife

    This is another popular myth – even among people who identify as feminists. Feminism is about equality, and part of equality is having the right to choose what you want to do. I believe as a modern woman that you have just as much right to choose to be a stay at home mum as you do to be a rocket scientist. Being a housewife used to be the default – it used to be the very symbol of female oppression. Well, I don’t think it is anymore. You should be able to choose what you do. See the movie Mona Lisa Smile for more on this.

    It annoys me when people suggest that baking cupcakes or wearing aprons or going to sewing classes is a step backwards for women. It’s not. It’s not symptomatic of a mass regression into the days where women were expected to be at home all day – if anything I think reclaiming such hobbies is a positive thing. If no one is standing over you demanding that you darn socks and put dinner on the table by six, I say sew on. The current fashion for twee is harmless – it is not the first sign of the apocalypse, and it is not damaging to the feminist cause. You can absolutely enjoy knitting and baking while simultaneously campaigning for equality. To suggest cupcakes and feminism are mutually exclusive is to make women one dimensional. Equality should encompass the freedom to choose your hobbies.

    5) Feminists are all hairy-legged bra-burners

    Bra-burning has to be one of the most ridiculous myths. Bras are designed for support, not restriction. If you’re small-breasted, let your boobs fly free – but if you have rather larger breasts, bras are fairly essential for comfort. Besides, a quality bra is expensive – so bra-burning really isn’t a sustainable activity in this economy.

    And the phrase ‘hairy-legged feminists’ is one that just seems to roll off the tongue, like ‘chocolate chip cookie’. Shaving and waxing are 100% personal choices that generally do not have a much of a bearing on your views on equality. Some women don’t shave in order to make a point about beauty standards, others just prefer to be au naturale – but the thing to remember is that women that do shave/wax and women who wear make up etc are just as likely to be feminists than those who don’t. Shaving your legs, waxing your bikini line, and having a minor addiction to Lancome does not make you a bad feminist – it’s a personal choice. The bullshit argument that says women wear make up and shave to please men is nonsense. I do not get up in the morning and think, ‘I reckon the patriarchy will be pleased by my freshly waxed eyebrows today’. (Though if you are thinking that at 7am then you might want to have a word with yourself.) It’s none of your damn business if someone, feminist or not, decides to let nature keep them cosy or not. It’s about the freedom to do what you want and not prevent others from doing their own thing.

    ~

    So, what are your top myths about feminism?
    

    Ashley is the editor of teamawot.com. As well as working as a press officer, she runs a little food blog, called Peach Trees and Bumblebees. She’s also on Twitter. Oh, and her boyfriend now identifies as a feminist. Score.

    
    

    Category Feminism, Self | Tags: being a women,equality,feminism,myths about feminism | 15 Comments

    ---

12. Slutwalk: thoughts from the founder

    September 24, 2012 by mhd_bass

    

    Heather

    “I think we’re beating around the bush here. I’ve been told I shouldn’t say this, but if women don’t want to be victimised, they should stop dressing like sluts.”

    When he spoke these words at a student safety workshop, Constable Michael Sanguinetti of the Toronto Police had no idea what he had started. Outraged at the police force’s attitude toward rape victims, Heather Jarvis organised Toronto SlutWalk, a protest that would go on to inspire a global anti-rape movement.

    On the day of London’s second annual SlutWalk, Heather, a 26 year old PhD student at the University of Guelph, looks back on last year’s protest.

    I read the story in a student newspaper article online and I wanted to march down to Toronto police headquarters right away. When my friends started telling me that, actually, that was a good idea, I thought – why shouldn’t I?

    I mentioned the idea of a march to a colleague and he said: “What are you going to call it? A slut walk?”

    Perfect. That police officer was not the first to throw this degrading word at rape survivors, and I wanted to throw it right back.

    We gave ourselves just six weeks to organise some kind of rally before people lost interest.

     I remember watching the numbers climb on the Facebook event. I couldn’t believe it when it we reached 200 attendees, then 500 and then past 1,000. “Wouldn’t it be amazing if a hundred people attended?” I said to Sonia, my co-founder. I had no idea more than 4,000 would turn up.

    When the day came, the weather was on our side. It was early April but I still got sunburnt. About a dozen of us gathered in a public square in Toronto and watched as streams and streams of people started arriving.

    There were all kinds of groups carrying different banners – some serious, some playful. One woman dressed as a cop carried a sign saying: “To uniform fetishists, cops look like sluts.”

    I shuddered as I watched women in odd, outdated outfits carrying signs saying: “This is what I was wearing when I was raped. Tell me I asked for it.”

    Other women had decided: “I’m going to wear my highest heels and my fishnets and my underwear and I’m going to show my bra, because it doesn’t matter what I wear. When I was assaulted by my partner I was wearing pyjamas.”

    There were so many people we shut down an entire street in front of the police headquarters. I got up onto a raised sidewalk to give my speech and I was looking out onto thousands of crying, cheering faces. Not for the first time that day, I found myself on the verge of tears.

    I was assaulted several times when I was younger and I never dealt with it. I didn’t tell anyone; I just closed myself off and tried to forget. I had lots of serious blame and shame problems which were hard to get away from. I don’t even think I’m done yet. I still need to keep telling myself: “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

    I never intended it but through SlutWalk I was able to start dealing with my own assault history. Now anyone anywhere in the world can Google my name and find out that I was sexually assaulted, which is weird but a huge step for me. Even though I know better, I sometimes still blame myself for my assault but SlutWalk has helped me to start healing.

    As told to Maria Hannah Bass

    

    Hannah is the online intern for @pulsetoday and co-editor of @wannabehacks. She writes about health, relationships, culture and feminism. You can find her on Twitter at @mhd_bass or on you can find more about her on her website. 

    Category Abuse, Body, Events, Feminism, News | Tags: interview,rape,slutwalk,victim blaming | No Comments

    ---

• Next #AWOT
  Thursday 30th May, followed by a bake sale on 20th July.
• 
• Subscribe to our mailing list
• Topics
  Abuse Advice Anonymous posts Body Events Feminism Happy Motherhood News Rants Self Sexism Sexuality Street harassment
• Previously…
  • AWOT gatherings announced!
  • Be Still My Bleeding Uterus
  • What women want
  • A teen’s take on feminism and why we need it RIGHT NOW
  • Sexual Harassment on the Tube
  • We’ve Moved Out Already, Church, Let It Go
  • Suffragette Shitty
  • It was a bad week for women
  • Smear tests – what to expect
  • Feminism: A Subject I Approach With Trepidation
• Search for:
• Blogs we love:

  The Vagenda

  -

  Any Other Woman

  -

  Irregularly Irregular

  -

  Against her better judgement

  -

  red nails and tea cups

  -

  Rachel. In London.

  -

  Awkward Situations for Girls

  -

  D for Dalrymple

  -

  Lauren Bravo

  -

  London Feminist

  -

  The London Luxe

  -

  Stop Whistling, Start Listening

  -

  a storm in a teacup

  -

  Artists in Munich

  -

  The Young Creatives

  -

  Goodbye Ruby Tuesday

  -

  Parlez-vous moo?

  -

  The London Lad

  -

  Please don't eat with your mouth open

  -

  Oh, hello narcissism!

  -

  marriage is not a sentence

  -

  Not so lonely Londoners

  -

  Digital Bungalow

  -

  Bibliomouse

  -

  Ashley Fryer

  -

  Jo and the Novelist 

  -

  And our favourite foodie blogs:

  -

  Nelly's Cupcakes

  -

  beesteas

  -

  Rubelle's Moon

  -

  Kitchen Bitching

  -

  Peach Trees and Bumblebees

  -

  Aga Girls

  -

  She Cooks, She Eats

  -

  Always so hungry

Copyright © 2013 Awesome Women of Twitter is proudly powered by WordPress.org