Ten years of feminist activism

I haven’t blogged for a long time because I was pregnant and then I had a baby and young babies take up all your time and energy. I keep thinking that I miss blogging as it was, before ‘influencers’ and #content, before feeling like each post had to be perfectly crafted and perfectly nuanced, for the book deal, for the brand, for guarding against the accusations of ‘ranting’ or ‘lacking grace’ or ‘not having researched the subject matter sufficiently’. Blogging as it was, then, when people made the leap from Livejournal et al to setting up public, personal blogs and things weren’t quite so strategic. I guess that’s got something to do with the fact I’ve hesitated once or twice while writing this and asked myself what the point of the post is and what it’s saying. But that’s not the blogging I miss.

It’s ten years since I attended my first feminist march* and first feminist conference. Ten years. I suddenly realised this one night a couple of months ago when I came across this piece by Jess McCabe, published in 2007 and looking at the resurgence of feminist activism around that time that included marches being revived and six new feminist publications launching in the space of 18 months. The same year, The Guardian profiled some of ‘the new feminists’ who were ‘trying to rebrand the f-word’ and feminist writing and journalism was very much on the agenda. It reminded me of my copies of Subtext magazine, still in a cupboard in my bedroom - and how excited I was to find out more about feminist media at FEM 08 in Sheffield, the aforementioned first feminist conference.

FEM 08 was the fourth FEM conference organised by a team including Kat Banyard, which grew from 90 attendees at its first event in 2004 to 500 attendees the year I went. I remember the excitement of being on the train and spotting women I recognised from their newspaper columns, women with banners from organisations I followed online. Catherine Redfern and Kristin Aune were there that day handing out the surveys that would become the research behind Reclaiming the F Word. Three years later I would chat with Kristin over coffee at Watford railway station and discuss the need to bring Christian feminists together, an idea that eventually became the Christian Feminist Network, but in 2008 I don’t think I even really knew any other Christian feminists yet. I was still desperately in search of likeminded churchgoing women who didn’t believe their destiny lay in some heavily gender stereotyped ideal of ‘Biblical womanhood’.

Talks I attended at the conference included 'The Rape Conviction Rate Scandal', 'The Female Face of Poverty' and 'Challenging Destructive Masculinities', although, as my rather breathless Livejournal entry detailing the day explained, the highlight for me was the seminar entitled 'Grassroots Feminist Media' - it was 'so inspiring' to meet the women behind The F Word and Subtext magazine and I was beyond excited about the 'current explosion in feminist media'. Just two years previously I'd been immersed in the world of weekly women's magazines through work, seeing article upon article picking over celebrities' weight, clothes and relationships, 'scary skinny size 0’ celebrities on one page; on the next, shaming other celebrities for having cellulite. The state of my own body image at that time wasn't helped by the media I had consumed and the wounds were raw.

Today's plethora of feminist-flavoured online media outlets and coverage of marches and #MeToo in mainstream magazines means I often forget that the body-shaming, diet-obsessed side of women’s publishing still exists (although some magazines have closed now, as have the 'lad's mags' that were the focus of so much activism back then). Part of that, I guess, is a result of having hung out in the internet feminist bubble for so long. But really, perceptions of feminism in the mid-2000s were very different: we’d all read Female Chauvinist Pigs and its critique of ‘raunch culture’ - some of which now seems to recall almost ancient history in popular culture - Playboy merchandise, trucker hats, Paris Hilton, push up bras and thongs.

In the book, Ariel Levy argues that early noughties ‘raunch culture’ - ‘the emergence of a woman-backed trash culture’ is a ‘rebellion’ against second-wave feminism, the outworking of unresolved conflict between the feminist movement and the sexual revolution, yet also ‘a garbled attempt at continuing the work of the women’s movement’. In her conclusion, she wrote that ‘The proposition that having the most simplistic, plastic stereotypes of female sexuality constantly reiterated throughout our culture somehow proves that we are sexually liberated and personally empowered has been offered to us, and we have accepted it’. Explicitly feminist media, at the time, seemed like a breath of fresh air and for us as young women reacting against the imposition of ‘raunch culture’, crucially important.

It can certainly be argued now that once feminism began to have its cultural 'moment', at some point over the last few years, the movement started to become commercialised and exploited - for content, for developing celebrities' careers, for making money around International Women's Day. And more coverage and more hype sadly doesn’t mean that we’re any closer to getting rid of misogyny. But feminism wasn’t having that ‘moment’ yet and sitting in a student union building talking about subverting mainstream publishing with a more diverse range of articles and body positive messages seemed like revolution when you were 23 years old in 2008 and probably still does for young women, in other corners of the internet and other feminist get-togethers in 2018.

Some of the debates that would later bubble to the surface of the movement and cause pain, splintering groups and communities and friendships were only just developing among everyone involved. Germaine Greer gave the closing speech that day and received a standing ovation - let’s say no more. I also attended a talk on lapdancing clubs by Object. The following year - or maybe the same year - I'm not too sure - I remember the debates following Reclaim the Night London about the way some women had been chanting and booing outside Spearmint Rhino and how the women who worked there might feel about it. I observed the white, middle class profile of most of the attendees at the conference - people like me, it has to be said - who seemed a world apart from my work colleagues back at home. A re-reading of Female Chauvinist Pigs today throws up a host of assertions that would be seen as problematic now and online feminism itself has changed so much, particularly due to fallout caused by what’s often been referred to as call-out culture, where, as noted in this 2011 piece by Flavia Dzodan that always comes to mind when I think about the most toxic elements of call-out culture and ‘trashing’, ‘we all lose’.

In the years following 2008, discussion via Twitter and personal blogs came to define the feminist journey for so many of us, especially those not fortunate enough to live somewhere with feminist networks or groups or for those who met a lot of feminist friends online. I was continually offering to get involved in a magazine or blog that someone wanted to launch and sometimes writing several blog posts every week. Blogs felt like the resistance, the opposition to traditional, sexist media and much was being made of their democratising effect on whose voices had the potential to be heard (doesn't all this seem a bit quaint now?). Some time ago I really wanted to set up a website where women active in the movement at that time could submit pieces about their memories of what some call the beginnings of the Fourth Wave (and what some believe is still the Third Wave). I never got round to it and I worry about so many memories being lost as blogs disappear and websites close and some people take their activism offline and even ‘hashtag feminism’ has evolved.

Ten years since FEM 08, when I think of all the women I’ve met as a result of feminism and the women just starting out in activism at that time, our lives have moved on in so many ways. We’re mostly in our 30s and busy, busy, busy with work, or children, or work and children. Some have moved overseas. We still do activism and write and work with women’s organisations. We don’t always make it to things that happen in London any more because life gets in the way. We share each others’ projects and work and discuss motherhood as a feminist issue on Facebook and even celebrate each other’s books because things have moved onwards and upwards from those first blog posts and discussions on Twitter about sexism in the tabloids.

Things have also become more complicated. We learned that for all the talk of the internet promoting a more diverse range of voices, privileged voices were always favoured and promoted over more marginalised ones. Pushback against this has been vitally important but hard work; change has been slow; listening and addressing assumptions isn’t always easy. Online, people talk of moving on from being a ‘baby feminist’, learning much as they ‘grow up’. Sometimes we forget that everyone starts somewhere. For us, that somewhere was the mid Noughties, when social media was still a thing for ‘internet people’ - and it was life-changing.

*The very first Million Women Rise march. I didn't know anyone else who was going so I volunteered to be a steward. It rained quite a lot and I was posted at the door of the loos in Trafalgar Square during the rally so missed the speeches but the march itself was like nothing I'd ever experienced before.

On being one of the #hiddenhalf

I

"Some professionals just ask are you coping, are you OK? And think that is all they need to ask but this is a very closed question and too easy for a woman just to say yes when she could be crying out for someone to notice her or help her." 

New research from the NCT has found that around half of new mothers' mental health issues don't get picked up by a healthcare professional. Consequently, the organisation has launched a new campaign - Hidden Half - to raise awareness and push for better postnatal care that will identify and treat more cases of postnatal depression (PND) and associated conditions. A key focus of the campaign is making sure the existing checkup that takes place six weeks after giving birth looks at the mental health of mothers - something that doesn't always currently happen. 

I want to talk about my own experiences in the wider context of postnatal mental health issues developing later on, after those first few weeks following the birth. I want to do this because I know from personal experience that it's easy to dismiss symptoms when they're not what you think PND looks like, when you're busy and when very few people take the time to ask. I've never written about this in detail before, but having done a lot of processing of my experiences over the past few years having come to the point of understanding much more about how to practice good self-care, I'm hoping it will be useful, in some way, to at least someone.

Many women surveyed by the NCT said they felt their six-week checkup was rushed, more of a 'box-ticking exercise' than anything else (blood pressure, weight, "Has your bleeding stopped?") and that they didn't feel it was the time to bring up mental health concerns. I remember the appointment, being asked if I'd been 'feeling down' and whether I was coping fine. Of course I was: my physical healing was good, we'd successfully established breastfeeding, I was getting out and about and eating normally and certainly not feeling tearful all the time, or feeling unable to bond with the baby, or anything like that. And besides, don't we always say that, when a complete stranger asks us how we're doing? "Oh yes, fine." "Not too bad."

It took me until I was at least 30 years old to stop pretending to all but a select few people (even myself, once upon a time; some of my teenage diaries are stubbornly upbeat and optimistic when I remember, actually, how miserable I was at the time) that everything was always fine, not too bad, no, I don't need any help, thanks. I had Sebastian when I was 27, so I hadn't got there yet. I always wonder if it's the sort of thing that comes from having been a 'high achiever' when younger, with a fear of not being able to do things and being seen to be incompetent or a failure. 

So yes, I was exhausted, but then it's totally normal for newborn babies to be up half the night feeding, isn't it? It's also totally normal for them to not want to be put down and only feel they can settle when they're on you. They're newborns. I'd read about the 'fourth trimester', frustrating as it sometimes was that other people's babies used to have three hour naps in moses baskets while, unless on the move in the pushchair, on a bus or in a car, mine would hold out, wide awake, until 4pm every day ("newborns can only stay awake for up to two hours at a time" said the books and the websites) when I would gingerly move him, on the breastfeeding pillow, across the bed slightly so I could have about 45 minutes to myself before he woke up again.

That was exactly how I wrote my very first blog post about being a mother - sat on the other side of the bed as he had his one and only little nap of the day, something he did for a good few weeks before I began instigating naptime in the pushchair or on the bus as we travelled somewhere. If you read that very first blog post about being a mother, it's actually pretty positive. And that was really how those early days were. An exhausting, life-changing learning curve, not without struggles, but not that bad. Because when you've got a newborn and you're adjusting to it all, that's how it is and to expect it to be a walk in the park would be ridiculous.

II

"I now always ask “How are you finding being a mum” and am amazed at how that helps them open up."

'Coping' is such a subjective word. When you read lists of symptoms associated with PND they often talk about not sleeping properly; not eating properly; struggling with caring for yourself; struggling with leaving the house or seeing people; having thoughts about harming the baby. I could have looked at a list of such symptoms in those early weeks and told you again and again that no, I was fine, because my life wasn't like that - and that's the truth. The slow creep of postnatal mental health issues came later.

Sleep was probably at the heart of it - mostly his, but by association, mine. As everyone jokingly says when you have a baby, "Well, they do use sleep deprivation as a form of torture". Of course, you get used to it, but then the baby ramps the night wakings up -  in our case with every development phase we experienced, with teething, with colds, with the classic sleep regression periods. And the baby doesn't necessarily sleep in the day either. So you find yourself doing what works, which is let him sleep on you after a feed in the morning. Then after lunch, walk and walk until he falls asleep in the pushchair, which can take up to an hour. Then stay out, walking, because you live in a flat with a flight of stairs directly inside the front door and to go home would involve dismantling the pushchair to take it up the stairs so you can't do that because it would wake the baby.

Eventually, when he was about six months old, I decided enough was enough and attempted putting him down for morning naps in his cot, which resulted in him getting more and more distressed. The health visitor thought that if I went back into the room every minute or so and soothed him, he would get the hang of it and nod off within ten minutes. I reported back that one day, I'd done this for two hours before giving up.

Finally, at seven months old, we did it: morning naps in the cot. The Holy Grail. A whole hour to get things done (or not). Afternoon naps still took place in the pushchair, because there was no way I was staying cooped up in the house all day. And that was the killer. The routine. Every day more or less the same: wake, feed, breakfast, play, feed, sleep, lunch, play, feed, walk and sleep, dinner, feed, bedtime. The occasional baby group or coffee with friends or trip into town, which were always good, but never quite seemed to break up the relentless repetition of everything else. It was winter and it was miserable. I became obsessed with the clock and its ridiculously slow progression, counting out the day in five minute slots and fifteen minute slots and hours until Luke would get home.

When I was pregnant, we used to joke about what on earth we'd do if we managed to produce a really extroverted child. Reader, it happened. And when Sebastian was an older baby, he didn't want to play with his toys or sit in his bouncy chair or sit in his cot and chat to himself. He wanted to interact with people. Everything I did that didn't involve him was an ordeal through which he would usually wail (showering, preparing dinner, catching up with social media). As I was to learn, there's evidence to suggest that mothers are wired to have a particular response to crying infants and if I've had one too many coffees I still find myself getting on edge at the noise of a crying baby in a supermarket. It's really not easy having it as an accompaniment to everything you do.

There was an interesting thread on Mumsnet some time ago, where women shared stories about not really enjoying stay-at-home parenthood. It's such a taboo subject - a lot of people can't comprehend it and a lot more people won't talk about it openly because to do so is so often to be judged. Numerous times, the words 'introvert' and 'perfectionist' popped up on the thread as women sought to describe themselves and explain why those years of having very young children felt so hard. Perhaps that had something to do with it; I could certainly identify.

I've noticed a tendency for more conservative writing on motherhood to lament the way that increasing gender equality and feminist values being more accepted have supposedly led to girls and women not being truly aware of the value and importance of being a stay at home mother. This has, in the eyes of some, led to women feeling unhappy, anxious and resentful about motherhood because they feel that their worth lies in working, in earning money, in being a 'valuable member of society'. It could be argued that capitalism needs just as much critique here and that society does not value caregiving roles, but I always think about how these conservative writers mustn't know many feminist mums because if they did, they'd realise what a straw (wo)man they've created.

For me I could never ascribe that unhappiness and anxiety to simply 'not being at work' or 'not seeing motherhood as valuable'. I saw it as incredibly valuable. At a time when I was finding it all particularly hard because I was used to doing so much that I was no longer doing and I just felt lost and alone, God actually told me as much. There was never any question of it not being valuable; the mental, emotional and physical exhaustion just got so relentless and made it hard to see a way out. It was also so lonely. I wanted to talk to people without having to make small talk about babies and feel like there was a subtle game of one-upmanship about child development being played. I was so immensely grateful if a friend ever 'checked in' to ask how I was or offered to help out in any way. 

Before I had Sebastian I didn't know anyone who had young children - something that's changed as he's grown older and more friends have become parents. I was so thankful to keep in touch with and see the other women from my NCT classes every week when we were on maternity leave. A very few other friends kept in touch and came to see us, but people are busy and they work. It's not their fault. And I know that if you don't say much about how you're really feeling, people won't assume you need support. We knew a lot of people who were particularly involved in church life - and we no longer were. The loneliness and sadness of a shifting relationship with church and church community that year have been very hard to deal with and this continues to be the case, highlighting the value of good support networks. Add a faith shift onto a huge life change and identity shift and you've got a whole load of issues.

III

"...around 30% of women diagnosed with postnatal depression still have depression beyond the first year after childbirth and a significant proportion of women who experience perinatal depression and/or anxiety will develop recurrent long-term mental health problems."

It happened that I went back to work, relieved and happy, after nine months at home. Things sort of got better. I still wouldn't have identified with having any postnatal mental health issues because I'd still never fitted the descriptions of PND that I read. I probably should have twigged, when I spent countless lunch breaks walking and trying to process it all, over and over, a neverending internal monologue about the relentlessness and the loneliness and the feeling of loss of self. I was very much in the midst of attempting to process my shifting relationship with church and had got to the point where I could barely go any more. The last couple of occasions we attended our former church, I had panic attacks after the service.

I started to experience a lot of anxiety about spending time on my own with Sebastian - flashbacks to maternity leave. How were we going to fill the time? Would I cope? When he was two I had a panic attack about the Christmas holiday period because I was going to be on my own with him for four days. In the end it turned out to be better than I had expected. We survived. But it took me a very long time to stop watching the clock, trying not to panic too much, when we were alone together. It seeped into every area of my life and not just the time I spent with Sebastian - time off work, holidays, weekends - anxiety about filling up the day and making the time pass more quickly, panic about free time with no plans, or time to myself, when I couldn't actually relax and my thoughts would race, spiraling downwards.

It's funny, the things you remember about these times in your life. I remember a particular post about motherhood on Facebook. You know, the sort of thing that gets shared thousands of times by all the mums you know because it's so relatable. I think it probably featured a cartoon. It talked about the sleepless nights and the endless repetitive days and wailing babies and feeling rubbish but finished by saying that "and you know you'd do it all again at the drop of a hat". I don't like to use the word 'triggered' lightly, but there was a time where seeing anything like that was deeply upsetting.

I also remember the day I came across information about anxiety and the penny dropped - seeing as it wasn't something I ever would have considered myself to struggle with, even though it immediately became clear I have actually done so since I was a small child. In the same, eye-opening way, coming across information about high-functioning depression. The reality is that postnatal mental health issues don't just look like not sleeping or eating properly and failing to bond with your baby. They can look like a lot of other things as well and they can be evident at six weeks postpartum, six months or three years, which is when I would say that things finally started to turn around for me.

I have a five-year-old now and things are so enormously different. Four was a great age. Five is a brilliant age; it's so much fun. And last year, we made the decision to add to our family, meaning that I'm now expecting another baby later this year. I'm not going to pretend things might not be completely different, but I feel better equipped to deal with it when the time comes. Luke has always been a very involved parent (We shouldn't expect anything else but sadly that's often not the case and I know I'm fortunate) and thanks to the shared parental leave policy that has appeared since Sebastian was born, we hope to share time off together this time around, which should be a huge help.

IV

"60% of mothers who said there was an emotional problem they didn’t feel able to discuss at the six week check cited feeling embarrassed, ashamed or worried that the health professional would think they were not capable of looking after the baby."

This is key. I've seen it in countless online discussions. Women worried that admitting to struggling will mean social services involvement. I don't think I ever felt this way, but a huge barrier to decent mental health that I've worked hard to overcome over the last couple of years has been the fear of what people will think. I've had aspects of my life as a parent that I've always been fairly unapologetic about - the fact that I was happy and relieved to return to work, for example - but others that have caused a lot of stress, like feeling my parenting is judged by some and linked to the fact I work full-time, feeling that people have negative opinions about only children, feeling that it's impossible to relax because you must constantly be seen to be making yourself busy and productive and useful, or feeling that you'll be judged for being open about some of the struggles you've had with church. 

And another important thing to own has been 'feeling my feelings' - sitting with them without responding in a reactive way or indeed falling into a pit of despair or judging myself for having said feelings. I found the 'Sleepy Hedgehog Model' of managing emotions in Emily Nagoski's brilliant book Come As You Are amazingly helpful and remind myself of it on a regular basis. When you've spent years beating yourself up about things you feel, seeing yourself as less than and convincing yourself that your feelings are a problem or invalid, that's not easy - but it's so transformative. 

I do wish in some ways that I'd sought professional help at an earlier point but nothing is ever easy. All you hear is talk of waiting lists and cuts and finding it hard to get help unless things are really bad. And getting help privately isn't an option open to many due to its cost. All that felt discouraging and pointless. And so I've had to do a lot of work on my own, with a small amount of professional help, with friends who have been helpful to talk to, with good resources, learning to be kind to myself and to process events in a helpful way and understanding how my mind works. If the Hidden Half campaign helps more women to access help when they're struggling, it will be amazing and so necessary. And if an increased focus on mental health at the six-week checkup starts to make a difference, I hope that more women will find it easier to access help and to know who to talk to if they find mental health issues develop later on.

There are no prizes for just getting on with it and telling people you're fine. I've finally learned that while I may be tempted to fly under the radar and shut myself off from people when things aren't great, I can reach out to people too. So often, women struggle under the burden of feeling like they must be seen to have it all together, that to admit to anything less will mean being judged and that even to be truly honest with close friends may be taking it too far, opening up too much and becoming that friend who's a needy, irritating burden. We make ourselves smaller and our needs lesser until we become invisible because it's somehow distasteful to have needs and wants and feelings. For the sake of mothers everywhere, this must be resisted. 

Three years of Project 3:28

This week, the Project 3:28 report on the numbers of men and women speaking at Christian conferences and events in 2015 was released - the third annual report produced since a small group of people got together - first in conversations on Twitter, and then over dinner - to talk about the way platforms are dominated by male speakers. All of us were interested in the issue of gender justice in the church; all of us were concerned that Christian organisations were not doing enough to represent a diverse range of speakers, gifting and expertise.

Three years on, I'm really encouraged by the conversations that Project 3:28 has started. I'm particularly encouraged by the organisations that have contacted the working group to let us know that they're being proactive about finding more women to speak at their events. It's clear to see that effort is being made, because these are the organisations appearing in the top half of all those ranked. One of our longterm aims for Project 3:28 is to be able to set up a database of women speakers, listing areas of expertise and experience, so we'll no longer hear that 'we didn't know any women to ask' or 'we couldn't find anyone' - but in the meantime, seeing that certain organisations are committed to a more equal balance of speakers is a really positive step.

Last year, I talked about some of the common objections to the project and why we still believe it's a valuable source of information. The fact remains that it is produced by volunteers, in our free time, completely unfunded. So this year I thought I'd talk about some observations I've had about this year's statistics and questions people have asked on social media.

Yes, the events ranking lowest for gender balance of speakers are the ones that are openly more conservative

It's clear, that despite small increases in the number of women speakers, that they're probably going to continue to rank lowest because of their beliefs about the circumstances in which women are permitted to teach - even as some streams become more proactive about recognising the gifting of women and more open to them preaching and teaching.

But the events ranking not far above them are officially egalitarian - so what gives?

Some organisations have some catching up to do. This was something that particularly stood out for me when analysing the data from the Hillsong, HTB Leadership and Focus conferences. Having a basis of faith that says women can lead and teach doesn't always translate to women actually doing these things. Sometimes that's down to historical patterns of appointing leadership, how people are noticed and given prominence. Sometimes it's because of old boy's networks that rely heavily on in-crowds of people who socialise together, speak at events together, and are all on the same committees together. Sometimes it's because of events looking for the biggest names on the Christian festival circuit to sell their programme to prospective attendees - names that are more likely to be male, because that's how conference culture works. What's clear is that those organisations whose theology is essentially egalitarian, but are low ranking, could do much better.

What about other elements of diversity?

Project 3:28 looks at the balance of men and women speakers. Someone asked us this week whether or not we know anyone specifically doing work on racial diversity at these events. We don't - but we think it's a really important thing to think about. We've explained that because of the way we compile the data, it would be more difficult to look at racial diversity because it's much less easy to make a judgement about someone's race from looking at their name on a programme. Just as the majority of conferences are male-dominated, they are also dominated by white speakers - that's clear. They're dominated by middle class speakers and able bodied speakers. So there is much work to be done in achieving diversity that reflects the church as a whole.

We haven't covered every single event and conference here

That's true. When we looked at the data for 2013, we started with a group of events based on what we could find at the time. We have stuck with this list to enable better comparison year on year. But we know there are numerous events that we have left out. Some people have already made suggestions of others we could look at next year. If you can see any we've obviously missed out, let us know!

What about the balance of men and women on the main stage versus seminars and smaller talks?

We chose not to include this data, again because so far we've stuck with what we can compare year on year. However, my counts differentiated between main stage speakers and other speakers and I can confirm what some people have asked: male speakers dominate 'main stage' sessions at festivals. At many events, women are also more likely to show up as speakers at sessions focused on subjects that have more traditionally been considered a woman's domain - marriage, children's work, family life, mental and emotional wellbeing. It's not problematic in itself to see women speaking about these topics, but just as many women are gifted teachers on other subjects that are more likely to be seen as the preserve of male speakers.

The knotty problem of wives

Something we have looked at informally, and something people have asked us about, is the number of women present at festivals only as a 'husband and wife act'. This varies quite a bit between the events, but we felt it was difficult to represent these numbers with integrity. Some women have a ministry with their husbands, some independent of their husbands. Some speak in their capacity as a 'leader's wife'. It's difficult to make judgements about the data here without seeming critical about the women involved - and that's not what we would want to do, at all, because we know they are gifted teachers and leaders in their own right. Our general feeling is that many events could be more committed to finding single women speakers, women who lead churches on their own and women whose husbands are not in ministry.

Things are improving...but there's still some way to go

Women have the knowledge and the gifts. Organisations need to be more intentional about seeking them out and inviting them to speak.

The nagging wife: symptom or cause?

The 'nagging wife' is a centuries-old stereotype that refuses to die. She's the subject of eye-rolling banter between men, the warning from the pulpit and the marriage guidance book, the defence of countless men who have committed murder. In recent weeks, she has resurfaced as a truly 21st century reminder to women that there's something else they're probably not doing well enough at - in the form of a piece entitled 'I wasn't treating my husband fairly, and it wasn't fair'.

The post, which appears to have gone viral in the grand tradition of 'pseudo-meaningful revelations about my relationship that easily translate into clickbait' (247,000 shares on Facebook), details a wife's realisation that her controlling and obsessive attitude to household matters was belittling her husband and buying into another hard-to-stamp-out stereotype - that of the 'useless' husband who can't be trusted to do a thing around the house.

Thousands upon thousands of women have apparently recognised themselves in this tale and I don't think she's entirely wrong. I've heard her tale in conversations in the office or on nights out with friends. 'Wife always knows best' - 'happy wife, happy life' - I've heard people say it and I've most definitely seen them post it on Facebook (there is a theme here. Facebook has a lot to answer for). And I don't buy into it because, really, what does it say when the only words that come out of your mouth regarding your partner, your husband, the father of your children - are about how 'useless' he is and how you won't 'let' him do things?

This works both ways. It's clear that men and women are called to respect and honour each other and sickly relationship-themed clickbait is, for all its faults, reasonably good at pointing this out. However what's often noticeable is the way this point is made differently, depending on whether the post in question is primarily about, or written by, a man or a woman. A key theme in relationship-focused clickbait from men (particularly of the loosely Christian variety): 'You'll be bawling your eyes out when you read about the amazing thing this guy did for his wife'. Conversely, a key theme in relationship-focused clickbait from women: 'The one thing I realised I needed to do more of/less of as a wife and mother'. As ever, identifying our inadequacies and how we must 'do better' defines us as women.

In writing about her tendency to take control and insist that things are done 'her way' - the purchasing of meat, the sorting of laundry - one woman has identified a key way that power struggles between couples often play out. She mentions that she doesn't believe men act in the same way towards women, referencing the fact her husband is 'just not as concerned with some of the minutiae as I am'. But what she doesn't identify is what is so often the reason for this, and the reason for the way women frequently feel compelled to assert power.

I don't know many women who are comfortable with simply doing nothing. Relaxing, chilling out, whatever you prefer to call it. I'm one of them. I've had countless conversations with friends where we've discussed our discomfort with sitting still. There are, quite simply, always things that must be done, whether that means housework or running errands or getting through our 'to read' list or writing another blog post. Not for nothing do we talk about the 'second shift' or the 'double burden' - the fact that women's increased entry into the workplace has not resulted, in the majority of cases, in an egalitarian set-up when it comes to housework, childcare, and the general organisation of family life. 

Even women who do enjoy a more equal partnership struggle to allow themselves downtime, knowing at the same time that their partners have no such qualms about relaxing - and for many it's learned from childhood in the way they've seen the household roles their parents have played.

The curse of modern womanhood, as we all know too well, is that whatever you do and however you do it, feelings of guilt and inadequacy will snap at your heels like an angry terrier. The majority of society, from politicians to journalists, to people on parenting forums and your own relatives have a wealth of opinions on what constitutes acceptable womanhood and unfortunately, most of us socialised to care a whole lot about what others think about us and out lifestyle choices.

This, of course, happens in different ways. I enjoy a pretty egalitarian marriage and couldn't care less if I haven't dusted my mantelpieces in living memory, but I've certainly considered myself a bit of a let-down for sitting on the sofa watching television when emails have languished in my inbox and projects haven't moved forward as quickly as I would have liked (and those are personal emails and personal projects, not even work-related ones).

Even today, especially today, the running of the home and of family life inevitably falls on the shoulders of women. Even if it doesn't, in theory - for those in equal partnerships for example - we still consider it our responsibility, berating ourselves internally when they let something slip. The minutiae of daily life all too easily becomes a source of anxiety - I know I've had to remind myself that I am, in fact, allowed to relax and that this is not the same thing as laziness. And for many women, the efficiency and performance of the minutiae of daily life is one of the few areas in which they can exert power and control.

Guarding against a hunger for power and control is something all humans must do. A toxic force within relationships and families, it often manifests in differing ways because of the ways men and women are brought up to behave and to gain power, and the ways society considers it acceptable for them to do so. Discouraged from speaking our minds and pursuing confrontation or appearing to 'dominate' a relationship, women are encouraged instead to resort to manipulation and only ever to demonstrate indirectly that they might 'know best', or indeed have feelings about anything at all. It's even a tactic that's encouraged by numerous Christian books on marriage: upholding traditional gender roles means subtly manipulating and influencing your husband rather than asking him or telling him. That would, of course, be 'nagging', or assuming a dominant role.

'Nagging', and the range of emotions and issues it encompasses - the wrong meat purchased, the blue sock accidentally included in the white wash, the fact that somehow, people do things differently to you and that's just not right - must therefore be looked at as part of the wider picture of how women are permitted to exercise control over their own lives and the lives of others. 

The key sphere in which women are permitted by society to exercise authority is the home. In a world of judgement, anxiety and the feeling that whatever you do will somehow be not good enough and that there are countless factors in your life that you can't control, household tasks are one of things that you can. Whereas men are allowed to assert authority in the public sphere and as the 'head of the household', women remain largely responsible for all that lies beneath, and even today, they know that their worth as women is often judged by it.

Men have - usually - not been brought up to notice the minutiae of the home and family life. They haven't had to, because, historically, it's always been women's work. It's something that's been done for them and they've often never really had to think about it - yet many (not all) expect it to somehow get done anyway. Even in relationships where both partners truly don't care about crumbs on the floor and the correct brand of mayonnaise being purchased, women feel compelled to set standards lest they be judged by society, their friends, their mother-in-law - and found wanting in a way that men never will. 

In a world where this burden still inevitably falls to women, in a world where humans want control and power, the woman whose anxiety and anger over things not being done 'her way' can be seen as a symptom, not just a cause, of gender relations that need restoration. Perhaps a more balanced and egalitarian approach to home life - where tasks and responsibilities are not gendered - might alleviate the need to control and 'take charge' over simple household tasks.

2014: A recap on those resolutions

Happy New Year! At the beginning of 2014 I overhauled the look and feel of this blog, and resolved to be a bit 'better' at posting. Last year, I managed a whole 12 posts. I didn't write about nearly as many of the things I would have loved to write about, and I felt as if I missed the boat on many other things due to just having too much on. But I was proud of what I did manage to produce. However, I'd made some other resolutions for 2014 as well, and I wanted to chronicle how I got on with them.

Be hospitable (and a good friend)

If you're a Christian you get to hear a lot about being hospitable. Christians just love people who are good at hospitality. They are everyone's favourite. They are the people at church that everyone just adores. We're told that it's a special gift that some people have, but we're also told how hospitality has been a key aspect of the church since ancient times. So, you know, we've got to do it. When you're an introverted couple with a non-sleeping baby and living in a flat it's not all that easy. Plus I was convinced I hadn't been at the front of the queue when the gift of hospitality was bestowed on God's people.

Everyone knows a woman (or women - and it is always women), who's a pro at sorting out a buffet or doing the refreshments for everyone. She's good at bustling round a kitchen. And when there's some sort of party, several of these women will just get everything done. They just get on in there and bustle. Now there's a very important conversation to be had here about gender and why, exactly, it's women who are the ones that do this, but my point here is that I never got this gene. When everyone with ovaries starts doing that bustling around thing and being hospitality pros, I ask if there's anything I can do. And invariably, there isn't much I can do. So I get a drink, and feel slightly guilty.

In 2014, a few things changed. We became an introverted couple, with a toddler who finally slept at night, living in a decent-sized house. Having been really rubbish at socialising for well over a year, and having moved to the periphery of church (more on this later), I really wanted to get better at hospitality. And you know what? It's still hard, but it's been working. We like cooking, and people appreciate that. We're really trying to open up our home a bit more - subject to everyone else's busy lives as well as our own, so it doesn't happen all the time, but I hope we can build on this in 2015.

Sort out The Church Thing

On 2 January 2014 I gave myself a bit of a talking-to and decided I was going to attempt to move forward on my long-running struggle with church. The year, in this respect, was full of ups and downs. I read things like A Churchless Faith and read a lot of blog posts by post-evangelicals and disaffected people and people seeking authenticity. In the process I think I learnt a lot about myself. When we say we're seeking authenticity, are we merely seeking more people like us? And what happens when you're reminded that creating communities of people like us is, really, pretty exclusionary? If those who ask questions are currently the people of the moment, surely, at some point, some answers would be helpful? Or at least, some ways to move forward. And if we have issues that we need to discuss, it's always better to discuss them rather than simmer over them and expect people to understand why we're upset, when we haven't actually told them in the first place (what do you mean, people aren't mind-readers?).

Through the spring and summer, following the (extremely disheartening) disbanding of the midweek group we were attending, I was dipping in and out of visiting a couple of other churches. But when I thought about it, I just didn't feel led to make the move anywhere else. I was feeling as if I was going to become a 'done'. What ended up happening was that we discussed it and decided we needed a fresh challenge that would help us get more involved and enable us to build community again. This challenge came to us in the form of an opportunity to become the new leaders of a midweek group, and at the moment it's going really well. I still have a long way to go when it comes to Sundays, but at least one thing has changed and one thing has made a difference.

A new resolution for Twitter

I got really disillusioned with Twitter and internet activism in 2013 - more specifically, the way that a community I had once loved seemed to become primarily about performative 'call-outs' as activism, the monstering of women trying to make a difference because they haven't yet managed to focus on or solved all the world's problems, and the readiness of people to brand others  as 'vile' and 'disgusting' over things that may not have happened and may never have been said. In 2014 I pledged to do what I could to support people, signal-boost good things and be encouraging instead. I didn't entirely do away with having a bit of a rant on occasion, however (one friend I met for the first time in 2014 mentioned my 'controlled rants'!). This also meant getting rid of a lot of negative and unhelpful voices from my timeline - and in return a lot of people did away with me, often for something as simple as being seen talking to particular people or sharing their writing, which pretty much proves my point about the way things have gone.

I'll be carrying my 2014 Twitter resolution over into 2015 and keeping up with some of the wonderful people I've been talking to and getting to know over the past year. In 2014 I had the opportunity to meet some longtime Twitter friends for the first time (quite a few of these at Greenbelt).

Get fit again

I used to run half marathons, remember? The guilt of my paid-for and unused gym membership motivated me to get back to working out last year. For a time. It was all going so well - and then a particularly busy period at work happened, and my lunchtime trips to the sports centre tailed off (although I've continued to do plenty of walking). Like nearly everyone else this month, however, I'm hoping to get back into exercise for the new year.

Be kind

I didn't always manage it, particularly in the first few months of the year, but in 2014 I've been working on being a lot kinder to myself. This has involved a few different things:

- Identifying some avoidable causes of feeling anxious and/or miserable, and trying to avoid thought patterns that exacerbate these. This has had mixed success but is really getting better
- Trying to ignore impostor syndrome whenever it rears its ugly head
- Acknowledging that I do need - and deserve - downtime - and not beating myself up for failing to achieve things 24/7
- Do the little things: use the nice skincare every day rather than sporadically!

I've also been working on extending the kindness through reaching out to support friends and family. 2014 was a tough year for my extended family as both my maternal grandparents passed away (in September 2013 and January 2014), so we've been particularly trying to spend quality time with my mum.

Say yes

At the beginning of 2014 I started to become involved in more talks and get-togethers about the gender imbalance of speaker line-ups at Christian conferences, following this bit of research by my good friend and partner in crime Natalie, and the many discussions it prompted. One of the main barriers to women being more visible as speakers, as 'experts', is that we're much more likely than men to say 'no' to opportunities put our way. Sometimes that's down to a lack of confidence or impostor syndrome; sometimes it's due to responsibilities like caring for children. I was so encouraged that some organisations were really willing to talk about all this and discuss how they could make changes, and I'm really excited that out of all these discussions, Project 3:28 - a new initiative for 2015 - was born.

I knew that in 2014 I had to get better at saying 'yes' to opportunities too. And so I did some exciting things:

- I did another talk at Greenbelt (and helped organise a Christian Feminist Network worship session; and exhibited for my day job there too)
- I wrote a feature on Christianity and feminist activism for Christianity magazine
- I wrote for the New Statesman's series on second wave feminism, discussing Susan Brownmiller's In Our Time and the lessons the movement today can learn from it (particularly pertinent to my 'new resolution for Twitter above). The series generated a lot of controversy, but was also well-received by a lot of people
- I presented on 'Hashtag activism' at the Christian New Media Conference
- And I also got approached about writing a book. This was incredibly exciting, and I did a lot of thinking, praying and planning as a result. Over the summer, however, I had to concede that while writing a book would be amazing, it's not something I can commit to right now - my life is really busy already and I just don't have the spare time needed

However, the past year has really underlined for me the importance of keeping the right perspective as I 'say yes' to things, not becoming too invested in profile and self-promotion at the expense of authenticity and relationships. Unfortunately I've seen this happen to people, and I know how much hurt and disillusionment it can cause.

For 2015, I've decided to carry over all of these resolutions and build on last year's efforts, with one new addition: read more. I have a stack of new books following Christmas, and lots of things I want to learn about too.

Before I go, some mentions for the blogs I kept on reading in 2014 despite a distinct lack of free time: Glosswatch;  A Room of Our Own; Sarah Ditum; C. Jane Kendrick; Dianna E. Anderson; Messy Nessy Chic; Littlee and Bean; Lulastic and the Hippyshake; Sian and Crooked Rib; Mummy Says...

The basic bitch: a lifelong struggle with relating to Generic Womanhood

I

In 1999, I smugly recorded in my diary that on non-uniform day at school, I'd been one of only two girls in my form not to wear head to toe sports brands. Aged 14, my favourite outfit consisted of cord flares (Gap; too big as I'd misread the label and looked at the US sizing), a bottle green velvet jacket (Camden Market) and cherry red Dr Marten boots (£30 in the sale. £30). The girls who tended to wear head to toe sports brands and mock my cord flares, were 'trendies': the basics of the late 90s. In 1999, trendies wore Kickers or Fila sweatshirts with bootcut jeans and listened to boy bands and UK garage. I inked Kula Shaker lyrics onto my homework diary in metallic gel pen; they did the same with the lyrics to Sweet Like Chocolate. 

In 2004, I was a student. The trendy, transported into the campus environment, had evolved, and my best friend and I, angsty and awkward, were by now referring to them as 'generics'. Generics wore Miss Sixty jeans and sometimes their boyfriend's sports stash. They had super-straight hair and made a lot of noise in the dining hall. They were your rag reps and your Christmas ball committee and they sniggered behind their hands whenever the Christian Union rep made an announcement about something. They didn't write angry letters to the student magazine when the Union bar ran a Playboy-themed night. They chatted loudly in the corridor about how they were definitely cutting back on carbs. I only had two small potatoes with dinner this evening. Do you think that's ok?

It's 2014 and the trendy who became the generic has now evolved into the 'basic', or the 'basic bitch'. Despite the origins of the term, it's come to to define a particular sort of young white woman. The basic likes Uggs and seasonal beverages and posting dubiously-attributed Marilyn Monroe quotes on Facebook, while watching Sex and the City and scrolling through her 'wedding inspiration' board on Pinterest. Should you wish to find out, Buzzfeed et al can give you examples of what a basic posts on Instagram, the sort of texts she sends, how she treats her boyfriend and what she gets up to on a girls' night out.

The US-centric stereotype doesn't always translate, but the idea of the basic is universal. And as Noreen Malone wrote in this piece for The Cut last month, it's taken off because it 'feels restrained, somehow'.

'You don’t quite have to stoop to calling someone a slut or a halfwit or anything truly cruel. It’s not as implicating as calling someone tacky — the basic woman is so evidently nonthreatening she doesn’t even deserve such a raised pulse. Basic-tagging is coolly lazy. It conveys a graduate seminar’s worth of semiotics in five letters. “So basic,” you think, scrolling through your Facebook feed. “She’s basic,” you offer to a friend, commenting on her ex-boyfriend’s new girlfriend. It was a word we’d been looking for.'

Malone sums it up perfectly when she describes the basic as 'the woman who fails to surprise us'. She buys into what society and capitalism tells us it means to be a woman today. She's unoriginal, and she doesn't care. What's noticeable about the current usage of 'basic' is that it doesn't simply describe unoriginal patterns of consumption; it also describes patterns of thought and modes of expression. Feminists can be 'basic'. Mothers can be 'basic' (witness the rivalry between Mumsnet and Netmums and the stereotypes the former has of the latter). Fashion and lifestyle bloggers who don't necessarily buy in to generic consumerism but actually see themselves as pretty 'alternative' can also be 'basic'.

II

As if you couldn't have guessed it, from my tales of 1999 and 2004, I have to confess to a lifelong struggle with all that is basic. At the age of 14, major aspects of my personality and behaviour were little more than a construction to throw other girls off the scent and give them something to talk about. If they're mocking my clothes and my taste in music, at least they're not mocking the way I look or the fact I don't have a boyfriend. It was only in recent years that it became clear to me exactly what I'd been up to, diverting their mockery at the same time as inwardly marking myself out as better than them. If you grew up being given funny looks by all your popular, incredibly generic peers, if you ever felt like a tortured soul or called yourself 'indie' or wrote in your journal that you were pretty misunderstood, really, you've probably had a lifelong struggle with relating to all that is basic. Sooner than you know it you're 30 years old, and you're still avoiding basics and rolling your eyes when they pop up in your Facebook feed.

Those of us who can't deal with 'basicity' have a tendency to (inwardly) mark ourselves out as 'not like Those Women'; those generic ones over there. In a hangover from our school years, we categorise and separate out. We're more unique, more interesting, more special. Today the tables have turned, and the basic is no longer queen. She may subscribe to all that is on-trend and acceptable for women, but she's no longer cool. What I believe is an uncomfortable truth for many of us as feminists, however, is that decrying basic culture is kind of problematic. We know it, and we do it anyway. Noreen Malone started to explore this and hit the nail on the head when she concluded her piece saying:

'And so the woman who calls another woman basic ends up implicitly endorsing two things she probably wouldn’t sign up for if they were spelled out for her: a male hierarchy of culture, and the belief that the self is an essentially surface-level formation.'

When you're calling another woman basic, you probably haven't got to know her very well. And it's fairly reliant on your perception of what society sees as 'things for women' as inferior. Ouch. I'm not going to pretend I'm the first person to feel conflicted about the popularity of the word. In fact, the thinkpieces about it have been numerous. Anne Helen Petersen, for Buzzfeed, described women being dismissive of all things basic as little more than class anxiety, citing the term's origins as having class connotations and explaining its current usage in the same way:

'Unique taste — and the capacity to avoid the basic — is a privilege. A privilege of location (usually urban), of education (exposure to other cultures and locales), and of parentage (who would introduce and exalt other tastes). To summarize the groundbreaking work of theorist Pierre Bourdieu: We don’t choose our tastes so much as the micro-specifics of our class determine them. To consume and perform online in a basic way is thus to reflect a highly American, capitalist upbringing. Basic girls love the things they do because nearly every part of American commercial media has told them that they should.'

Petersen ends her piece by telling us that mockery of the basic woman is 'troubling' and 'regressive':

'To call someone “basic” is to look into the abyss of continually flattening capitalist dystopia and, instead of articulating and interrogating the fear, transform it into casual misogyny.'

Responding on Thought Catalog, Anna Dorn vehemently disagrees. Calling out basicity, as she sees it, is 'rooted in female empowerment'. She gets the argument that deriding other women as 'basic' for choices they have made in the vacuum of patriarchal society is misogyny, but she doesn't ascribe to it.

'...basic-bashing is not about punishment. It’s about women rising up. It’s about women saying – We can be real people with real thoughts and opinions. We can wear our natural hair. We can be loud and curse and be offensive. We can say fuck heels because they hurt. Basicity is about giving power to the fringes, because basics – the walking embodiment of male subordination – ultimately have all the power.'

She concludes that '...basic-bashers can’t be misogynistic because we don’t stand to benefit from patriarchy.'

III

Both Petersen and Dorn are partially correct. As women, defining ourselves as superior to basics is somewhat rooted in anxieties surrounding consumption and class - even when we write off feminists as 'basic' because their commitment to the cause goes about as far as reading Lena Dunham's autobiography and thinking that a women's magazine running a feature on feminism 'is everything'. But it's not the full story. It's about buying in to expectations that we'll always define ourselves in opposition to some other group of women. Not like those women, thinking this, supporting that and wearing those clothes. Writing off women as friends and sisters because our opinions are superior or because they haven't reached a certain level of consciousness yet, sealing ourselves off and sneering at the Other. Radfems vs libfems vs funfems vs whitefems.

When we differentiate ourselves from all that is basic, we're representing all that is real and diverse and exciting about being a woman on the fringe when it is, indeed, what is generic and safe that has the power. Every woman who's ever felt free to be the person she really is knows that. Generic and safe is the ideal, and when you don't fit the mold you're often made to feel bad about it. Being able to say 'That's not me and I don't care' is liberating. But defining 'basic-bashing' as feminist praxis? 21st century empowerment as declaring that we're not like other girls and effectively writing off those generic specimens of womanhood as people who matter? It's indisputably problematic.

It's here that disagreements over the nature of sisterhood are bound to come in. Feminism doesn't mean liking all other women, or even being able to relate to them, but sneering at other women and calling it empowered shouldn't even come into it. Call it what it is: an extension of the way women have always been socialised to relate to other women, judging them and eyeing them up as competition and fuelling our anxieties about being interesting and clever and real.

Having always written off that which we now call basic, I've felt challenged in recent weeks not to buy into that any longer. Don't like particular women for particular reasons? Fine. Name them. But basic-bashing isn't about women rising up. It's upholding the status quo and shutting women out of potential opportunities to learn, grow, and identify with one another,

Feminist t-shirts, call-outs and commodification

At the beginning of the year I made a resolution of sorts, to distance myself from the sort of feminism that only actually mentions a feminist campaign or organisation when it's tearing it down. There's nothing wrong with critique and highlighting issues within reason, but by the end of last year I'd become thoroughly bored with performative call-outs as a primary form of engagement. This has had its plus points: for one thing I haven't had to spend most of my precious little free time telling everyone how I'm not here for this sort of feminism and not here for her brand of feminism, thanks very much. And one debate I haven't had to wade into recently has been the one surrounding ELLE's next step on its mission to bring a reinvigorated feminism to the readers of glossy magazines. 

It is definitely a good few years since I first wrote about my discomfort with the commodified 'trendy feminism' campaigns that women's magazines have run, with varying degrees of enthusiasm and commitment, in the last five years or so. Here's one disclaimer: I do appreciate ELLE's commitment to focusing on women's issues in recent years; they've managed to do it better than other women's magazines (putting aside that whole thing with the 'rebrand' of feminism. But I get it. I know they can't exactly take a crap on consumerism; I'm just not going to say I'm comfortable with it). But I haven't been able to force myself to care all that much about the magazine's new partnership with Whistles and the Fawcett Society and, it seems, various attractive famous men (another disclaimer: I own an original Fawcett Society 'This is what a feminist looks like' t-shirt, as I've supported its work for the last eight years). 

It's nothing we haven't been through before. Feminist merchandise at £45 a time (£85 if you want a sweatshirt), unavailable any bigger than a size 16. The publicity opportunities for politicians and celebrities and the 'outrage' that David Cameron wouldn't wear one. We know that there are some redeeming factors - well-known public figures at least claiming to support gender equality; exposure to people who might not otherwise think very much about feminism or think it's something they can be a part of. If it changes anyone's life and makes them a feminist or somewhere, somehow, improves a woman's life, then, I will concede, fair enough. In the spirit of the times, online news outlets have shown us image galleries of people wearing these t-shirts and proclaimed that Benedict Cumberbatch being our ally 'is everything'. So far, so predictable.

Things took an interesting turn on Saturday night, when Twitter got wind of the Mail on Sunday's front-page exposé of exploitative conditions in the factory where the t-shirts have been made. One worker is quoted as saying: ‘How can this T-shirt be a symbol of feminism? These politicians say that they support equality for all, but we are not equal.’ The Fawcett Society was absolutely on the ball with crisis management and quick to issue a statement saying it had been assured by Whistles that the factory producing the t-shirts complied with the highest ethical, sustainable and environmental standards possible. I don't doubt that this was a key consideration for Fawcett, and as we've seen, Whistles and ELLE have subsequently issued statements to the same effect. Ensuring standards are met isn't always easy and the garment industry is a minefield in this respect.

Much has been said about the credentials of all involved in the campaign and in the Mail on Sunday's exposé. Politicians taking part in publicity stunts - how much do they know about how their clothes are made? The investigative journalism tearing down a very public feminist campaign, published by a newspaper with absolutely no previous form for supporting gender equality or migrant workers. What I haven't been able to get behind, though, is the smug trashing of Fawcett, ELLE, and anyone who's supported their campaign and bought a t-shirt. It's a sad state of affairs when the first sign of interest in either ethical working conditions or marginalised women from the Mail comes at the expense of feminism, and the glee with which the whole thing has been reported needs nothing but contempt. What it doesn't need is to be held up, alongside the screengrabbed tweets of Fawcett supporters and well-known names, as 'everything that is wrong with feminism', a stick to beat the same old women about the same old things in the same tedious fashion. Nobody wins.

ELLE and Whistles have received a trashing, despite their best intentions. The Fawcett Society has, as far as I've seen, gained some support for its professional handling of the situation - yet has clearly still received a trashing. The Mail on Sunday has jumped at the opportunity to take part in the same tedious progressive/left/feminism-bashing they've been doing for years. And I'm betting it won't devote much time to covering exploitation of women and migrant workers overseas in the future, because clickbait misogyny and xenophobia will always be much higher on its agenda. Women working in factories in Mauritius are still working in the same conditions. The garment industry won't get an overhaul any time soon - and certainly not thanks to the sort of people on Twitter who, as ever, will keep on posting screenshots of Things Well-Known Feminist Campaigners Have Said and devoting hours at a time to sneering at them. Politicians will continue to display a dubious grasp of what 'improving women's lives' means. No-one will ever mistake David Cameron for a feminist.

So: no victories. Feminism got commodified, celebrities got column inches, activists got called out, and the majority of women in the UK remained completely untouched by whatever it was trying to achieve. Good job, everyone. I'm continuing to support the Fawcett Society because I believe it is a real force for good. I genuinely hope that this whole situation is resolved for the best and that all involved are able to make it clear that they did their utmost to ensure ethical production. But if awareness-raising initiatives can't make a break with consumerism and celebrity PR opportunities, then I can't help thinking that we'll see something similar happen again. The co-option of feminist activism into profits for t-shirt manufacturers has been much discussed in the wake of #YesAllWomen and more recently, FCKH8's 'Potty-mouthed princesses' video. Women in the movement can't prevent this sort of thing from happening, but campaigners can be smarter about how they hope to engage women with feminism.

On equality and power: a post about a post

This is a post about a post. It is unfortunate; as combative blogging is somewhat looked down upon by much of the Christian blogosphere these days. But if this post makes people disappointed, or saddened, so be it, because there are things that need to be said.

Alastair Roberts has been writing a lot about gender, power and equality recently. I respect Alastair and what he brings to the table, even though I don't agree with many of his conclusions on these particular subjects. He's absolutely right to point out that a narrow definition of feminism based on a shallow sort of 'equality' that favours the privileged - 'equality', for example, that cares a great deal about getting more women in boardrooms but little for women on the breadline. But in saying that "there is an implicit class opposition within equality feminism that is seldom adequately addressed", he is wrong. While it may be seldom addressed by the mainstream media, the examination of liberal feminism and what it offers (or doesn't offer) to the majority of women is a key topic of discussion within the movement and has been for years.

Movement women are very aware of the fact that the idea of "equality" has not so much advanced the lives of all women so much as the lives of a privileged few. At Greenbelt festival last weekend I spoke on feminist activism and made a point of talking about this very problem, highlighting it not as a reason for feminists to be discouraged and dismiss the idea that the movement could have something to offer all women, but as a reason to work for greater inclusion, giving space to the voices of the marginalised.

Yesterday, some of Alastair's comments on equality and power were reposted by Andrew Wilson at the Think Theology blog. The debate that ensued encouraged me to write this, because of how incredibly disappointing I found it that Alastair's words were posted with very little context in what looks very much like complementarian point-scoring to me. What can be taken from the post is a description of the feminist movement as focused on equality of outcome above all with value on the most the privileged, when society could do with more focus on, as described:

"...robust and accessible universal healthcare, better maternity leave and more provision and flexibility for part time workers, equitable wages, secure jobs for their husbands and partners, a strengthening of marriage culture, the deepening and enriching of local community life and its groups and institutions, a society that is more mother and child friendly, action and stigma against domestic abuse and such things as street harassment..."

I don't think that anyone could argue that society could benefit from increased focus on achieving these goals, which is why feminists have been working towards them for decades. And if these things could be more successfully achieved without the banner of feminism to hold them back, I'd be interested to know where the pushback, where the actual work on these issues is coming from outside the movement at present? Is the example being set by the complementarian gatekeepers? Walk the walk on gender issues if you believe it's important; without succumbing to benevolent sexism; without denying women the place to speak from their own experience.

I realise that might be difficult, if you're generally in agreement with statements such as:

"...the entrance of women into new spheres has often led to a weakening of the social power of those spheres, as women are often more vulnerable and easily exploited..." 

and

"In Scripture, this priestly role is often associated not merely with men, but with ‘alpha’ men. The Church is strengthened as a body when it is led by persons with steel backbones, principles, and nerves, persons that can withstand others in more confrontational situations." 

It helps no-one when men's reactions to the absolutely justified pushback against such statements is described as "emotive", "all the shouting", and "brouhaha". Egalitarian and feminist women and their allies as pawns while the gatekeepers believe they're above such displays of emotion and subjectivity. As I mentioned to someone on Twitter earlier today, I do not wish for the experiences of individuals to be paramount at all times and at all costs, but yesterday's post was a prime example of when the experiences and intepretations of individual women are important - women for whom this is not theoretical; women for whom this is their life, their calling, their gifting. While complementarian gatekeepers discuss their theories about what we're good for and what we're allowed to do in closed circles and echo chambers, women are representing more than half of the church, leading, pioneering, keeping on keeping on. And they're doing it regardless of whether these gatekeepers believe a church with women in leadership is an "increasingly impotent institution".

They're also well aware that the majority of Christian women don't aspire to be bishops. When I helped found the Christian Feminist Network, we agreed that one of our aims would be to take the conversation on Christianity and feminism beyond women in church leadership and women bishops, not because we believe it's not important but because we believe Christian feminism is for the mothers, the grandmothers, the CEOs and the entrepreneurs, the women on the breadline and the women who have been abused and the women who don't want to lead from the front but support from alongside. If people like Andrew Wilson were more willing to dialogue with us then they'd know that. But I'm not sure that the activities of grassroots women's groups figure much inside the echo chamber.

Yesterday's post, with its out-of-context remarks on caring more about the marginalised, "alpha male" leadership and the reasons why women are supposedly unsuited for certain roles was published at an inappropriate time, with the scandal of child abuse in Rotherham making headlines. The scandal of child abuse - an appalling misuse of power carried out on vulnerable young people and ignored by powerful men. An inappropriate time, too, as the saga of noted alpha male Mark Driscoll continues and the sagas of abuse of power by patriarchal church leaders - Bill Gothard, Doug Phillips, pastors involved with Sovereign Grace Ministries - continue to make headlines in the USA. Those who want to uphold the dignity and equality of women without the banner of feminism would do well to walk the walk regarding these incidents. And yet, so often, what we see instead are calls for "grace", or indeed, complete silence, as the echo chamber of privileged and powerful men with little personal interest in those they so enjoy theorising about  - remains immutable.

Talk to us. Listen to us. It's a year now since I made the decision to stop justifying myself to anyone in the name of egalitarianism and feminism, so if that's what you want, look elsewhere. But don't attempt to portray a political movement as irredeemably blinkered to suit your own ends, then act surprised when people aren't happy.

Read more:

Equality is not always about numbers - Jenny Baker

#FaithFeminisms - Where we've come from vs where we must go

Reading so many stories of women coming to find their feminism alongside, or as part of, their faith this week made me realise the details of how it happened for me had become slightly hazy. I've told people the tale so often now: I went to university as a lifelong Anglican who'd never been taught a single thing about gender and religion, but also as one who had also started identifying as evangelical. In the following years, I slowly began to learn that some people didn't believe women could be church leaders, and that they also believed in rigid gender roles. I struggled to feel as if I fit in at church, feeling as if people wanted to cram my personality into a box marked 'Biblical femininity' and do away with all the bits that made me who I was. I'd started to pick up the messages from leafing through books and from coming across blogs aimed at Christian women. Even though I'd grown up far removed from the US evangelical culture of the time, it was starting to affect my life. When I got engaged, more than one person told my husband-to-be that they didn't think I was right for him and advised him to reconsider. I was the young woman who was Too Much, with the wrong sort of upbringing and the wrong sort of ambitions.

What I'd forgotten over the years is how much this hurt. These days I tend to consider myself quite privileged to have come to faith and grown up outside the sort of Christian culture that has caused so much pain to so many. Looking back at my Livejournal (yes, my Livejournal) from the time it's filled with accounts of news stories I found that worried me intensely: The Silver Ring Thing trying to raise its profile in the UK; people I knew starting to talk approvingly about Mark Driscoll; conservative blogs on 'Biblical womanhood' that named as 'selfish', among other things, working outside the home, eating disorders, and 'giving in to PMT'. I worried about what would be expected of me as a married woman, and I didn't know what to do. I knew something wasn't right, but I worried that the problem was me. In 2007 I was writing about asking God to show me where the problem lay. Was I displeasing Him? Was I, as ever, Not Good Enough?

Enter my discovery of egalitarianism, and I know many of you know where that led me. Reading back into my story today has reminded me not to forget the place I came from. Yesterday, I told someone how strongly I feel that as a community of women, as Christians and feminists we must tell our stories, but also move past the incessant going over of those 'moment of realisation' posts, the posts about how yes, indeed, faith and feminism are compatible. They give us warm fuzzy feelings but do they move us forwards? I remember today the women who will be reading through the #FaithFeminisms posts this week with a growing sense of excitement and a sense of sisterhood, the feeling that they're not alone and the problem isn't theirs to 'get over'. I was there once, and then everything changed.

For the rest of us though, when we've been here a while we can be tempted to get tired of it all. At a time when discussions about the feminist movement often seem to be centred on its 'toxic nature', an incessant cycle of call-outs, fall-outs, and the drawing of lines in the sand, it's easy to hold up our hands and step back. Are these our people after all? Aren't they, well, a bit angry? But if we disengage and seek solace in the safety of our own privileges, of evangelical subculture and its respectability, I don't believe we'll be the women we're called to be. It's easy to take the 'I'm all right' route, stay content in our progressive crowd and forget about all those for whom things are very much not all right. Even as more progressive voices make themselves heard, there's still an emphasis on watching our tone, being careful not to be 'divisive' and being careful not to upset conservatives or men. Often, it seems as if the message is: you'll never win them over unless you play it safe and play nice and make sure that men get to take centre stage too. 

I believe what we're called to do instead is bring the very best aspects of our faith to the feminist table. Foster understanding, demonstrate love, and stand against injustice. Demonstrate true sisterhood. Don't be tempted by performative social justice activism that prioritises call-outs, ideological purity, and ejecting people from the fold over recognising people's humanity and discussing problematic behaviour in a productive way. We feel saddened by the performative gatekeeping of Christianity, with its 'farewells' and smackdowns. Let our feminism not fall prey to the same problems. This week I've seen people better known by the mainstream movement and from outside the movement altogether exclaim how open and welcoming they've found #FaithFeminisms. I've always found this to be the case and I hope they're values we hold on to.

I've met some of the very best people I know thanks to being a young woman with an internet connection and a lot of thoughts and feelings about faith and feminism. At the beginning, it seemed that patriarchal Christianity had the monopoly on the popular books and the websites I was seeing and the messages I was getting. Today, women I am proud to call my friends have published books on egalitarianism and feminism. I've been involved in networks of women working together and supporting each other as we navigate what it means to practice faith and feminism. I'm a founder member of one of them. I'm involved in a group that's trying to get another one off the ground. Once we felt silenced, now there is a definite voice that has the power to speak to the church and to the secular feminist movement. And we can build on this by coming alongside each other and doing what, as Christians, we're supposed to work at doing best: creating real and productive community - those that support, those that organise, those that lead - no longer voices in the wilderness but a movement for change.

This post is part of #FaithFeminisms week. Do read the amazing posts that have been written by other women.